Lesson 4 Targeting Success With Labels

Lesson 4:

Law of the Universe #4: Labeling positives reinforces them; labeling negatives diffuses them. Contextual intelligence You learned in the last lesson that labeling positive thoughts and dynamics reinforces them. Labeling negative thoughts and dynamics diffuses them (or in some cases the word “defuse” is appropriate as it avoids an explosion). We don’t know why this is... we just know it is.  Grasping this is powerful. It gives you the opportunity to look over what is being expressed by your counterpart and choose what direction you want to guide them towards. What they express and how they express it gives you a virtual buffet of choices. “It sounds like it’s important to you to find just the right program match.” This was the label that sealed the deal for a $5,000 donation. That label, enhanced by the several that came before, created the tipping point that established a bond of trust. A donor signed a check without even knowing where the money was actually going, a first for this professional fundraiser. “It sounds like you’re not a big fan of sub-letters.” This was the label that played a key role in opening up the conversation where a landlord (who was famous not allowing sub-letters and not renegotiating leases) renegotiated the lease and allowed a sub-letter. Positive and negative: choose a side Any thought or idea expressed by someone carries a preference of like or dislike intertwined within it. This like is what we refer to as a positive. Dislike, lack of appreciation, disdain for something, is what we mean by a negative. The positive or negative emotion intertwined in someone’s reaction is a clue to how they value it. Smart exchanges of value are the essence of negotiation. You can even label indifference! Your counterpart’s reaction to that label will reveal more information about what they value or why the are indifferent. Any passion, feeling, or expressed thought has both a presenting and an underlying emotional tone to it, both a yin and a yang, so to speak. The thought will be presented overtly either as positive or negative. You have a choice of which side you want to label. People who hate cheaters love fair play. People who are passionate about their business and its mission are somewhat indifferent or even disdainful of people who are apathetic to their company’s mission. “It sounds like you hate sub-letters” could become “It seems like you like stability”. Listening to what is expressed by your counterpart and breaking down the components in this fashion is what begins to slow time down for you without actually slowing the process down. What is happening is your ear and mind are working together it pick apart the components of what you counterpart is expressing to “read between the lines” and gather insights. As part of your preparation process, consider and write down a summary of the situation as you know it. Then consider the predictable positives and negatives your counterpart is likely to bring to the table. Whether these predictables are reasonable or not, isn’t relevant. Prepare 3-5 labels in advance to deal with them. Inoculate at the start You can choose to use some of these labels preemptively, to effectively inoculate your counterpart from having a negative feeling. “This is going to sound harsh” is a great label to lead off with when you know your counterpart is going to have a negative reaction to what you are getting ready to say. You pause for a moment (a 3 second effective pause) and follow it with what you believe will be poorly received. For whatever reason, people’s imaginations get so carried away they think of something really, crazy bad! Then whatever you follow up with actually turns out to be a bit of a relief! Every single time this label has been used, the response has been the counterpart thinks it over, shrugs their shoulders, and shrugs it off saying “That wasn’t that bad.” Use this power preemptively and wisely. Maximize your contextual intelligence

Lesson 3: Labels

Labels - The Stealth Stratagem

You should already be seeing improvements in all your interactions. Changes in your psychological “balance” and the artistic use of your tone of voice should already be paying dividends for you. Skill 1: Labels What is a label? The first negotiation skill in this program is labels. A label is an intentionally designed verbal observation. It's a sentence that most always begins with these words: "It seems like…"  “It sounds like…"  “It looks like…” This phrase is then followed by your observation of the dynamic you wish to affect. It’s one of the reasons these skills in other formats have been called the stealth weapons of effective negotiations. Use your powers for good and not evil. This is a crafted and targeted skill. It’s seemingly innocuous. It will have an impact on what you’ve selected. It’s used to reinforce a selected positive dynamic or diffuse a selected negative dynamic. It’s a skill that allows you to surface objections and diffuse them or conversely surface dynamics, which are to your advantage and reinforce them. You can label an action, an implication, an intuition, an affect; literally almost any part of the communication process that has, or is occurring. This process will be invisible to your counterpart. An example of a label used in an actual negotiation between a landlord (who was known for not allowing sub-letters) and tenant (who wanted to sub-lease his apartment) was: "It seems like you don't like sub-letters."  This is an elegantly simple, yet versatile skill. You will feel awkward when first implementing this skill.   We can promise you in advance the first time you use a label your imagination is going to conjure up an image of your counterpart jumping up and shouting "Don't you dare use labels on me!" It's not going to happen. But the only way you're going to find out how undetectable labels are is by using them. How to use labels Labels are used for confirmation of understanding, for digging in deeper, and even as a way to ask a question. A label can be constructed as a statement by using a downward voice inflection at the end of the sentence or as a question by using an upward voice inflection at the end of the sentence just as you would when you ask a question. Labels encourage your counterpart to be more responsive. They will usually give you a longer response than just a “yes” or a “no”. With someone who won't answer at all it will usually get them to give you at least a “yes” or “no”. The use of several labels in a conversation will accumulate to achieve breakthroughs. At the end of the landlord/tenant negotiation mentioned earlier, when the tenant thought he’d reached an impasse and was getting ready to gracefully withdraw, he said: “It sounds like there’s nothing I can say to get you to change your mind.” The landlord then responded with “Yes there is” and proceeded to outline the exact terms he wanted. They made the deal. Start labeling right away. The sooner you get the feel for this skill, the sooner you will be generating breakthroughs.

Lesson 2: Voice - Gently Reach Into Their Brain

Lesson 2

Law of the Universe #1: Your voice will introduce emotional reactions in your counterpart. You smile. They smile. Without realizing it, you’ve just reached into their brain and turned a dial. It’s called mirror neurons and it’s involuntary. They can’t help it or stop you. Even if they don’t smile, they are fighting it because a portion of their brain is telling them to smile.   Your simplest, yet effective tool in negotiation, and actually in any verbal communication, is your voice. Your tone of voice can turn this dial.  Its stealth nature may actually make it one of your most effective tools. This process begins before you’ve even spoken enough words to complete a thought. This is one of the simplest, yet most sophisticated emotional intelligence (EQ) skills in your arsenal. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly. There’s data out that indicates people’s brains may function up to 31% more effectively in a positive frame of mind. They are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve with you, as opposed to struggling against you, if they are in a positive frame of mind. The reverse of this is true as well. Keeping a smile on your own face and in your voice will increase your own mental agility. Law of the Universe #2: You are 6x more likely to make a deal with someone you like. There are essentially three tones of voice available to negotiators. The first two are the only ones you should ever use and they are: the "late-night FM DJ" voice and the smiling positive/playful voice. The third tone of voice, which will always have a negative effect on your counterpart in negotiations, is the direct/assertive voice. Using the assertive voice is like slapping yourself in the face while you're trying to make progress. Your counterpart will always be looking for the opportunity to push back. The late-night FM DJ voice Use this voice when it's extremely important to make your point. It should be used in place of the direct/assertive voice. This may be in regards to a term in a negotiation that there is no “give” on. Follow this with silence (an effective pause). Do not be the one to break that silence. The key to the late-night FM DJ voice is for your voice to inflict downward at the end, very much like a late-night FM DJ. This gives your voice simultaneously a calming effect and elements of both authority and trustworthiness. It's very close to the voice used by the best TV news anchors. They need you to believe in them and trust what they say. It's powerful and it works. Be cautious of overuse of this voice. With overuse it will make you seem distant or even condescending. A licensed hypnotherapist once told us the late-night FM DJ voice was the first thing he'd been taught in hypnotherapist training. That's how powerful it is. “How am I supposed to do that?” Use the late-night FM DJ voice to say this in a deferential, graceful manner and as though you are actually asking for their help (in essence – you are). There is great power in deference and you will find the ability to say nearly anything that might provoke a negative reaction if you say it with deference. The smiling positive/playful voice This voice is actually the voice to you should use most of the time. It’s the voice of an easy-going, good-natured person. The key to this is to smile while you're talking and be somewhat relaxed. It's about conveying a positive attitude and encouragement.  When you smile while you're talking people can hear and feel the smile (the mirror neurons are reacting). People are drawn to this voice. Recognize and use the power of your voice. It gives you the ability to literally reach into a counterpart’s brain and flip an emotional switch the moment you begin speaking. Example: Voices in Action One of our Black Swan Group instructors was bargaining in the spice markets in Istanbul. A female friend bargaining at the same time was consistently getting better deals, and she was bargaining quite assertively. The culture in the spice markets in Istanbul is a merchant culture and they are used to spirited bargaining. They use hospitality and friendliness themselves in a powerful way to draw you in and create reciprocity. Our instructor had been using mostly the late-night FM DJ voice. The friend pointed out that she was making it a point to be as "playful" as possible and that was the key to her success. Learn to hear your own voice as you speak and watch its effect on your counterpart. You’ll simultaneously find your own state of mind is balanced.

Lesson 1

Lesson 1: Balance is the Key to Elegant Negotiation Power

Negotiation Rule #1: "No-deal" is better than a bad deal.  The #1 Component of Power is Balance There was an article written in the early 1980's called "The Seven Components of Power".  It was about physical power in hand-to-hand combat.  In many ways this article correlates directly to negotiation.   In this article, the #1 component of power was not strength (strength was actually 6th on the list).  The #1 component was "balance".  There is an old saying in negotiation, "He (or she) who cares least wins".  The minute you get it firmly fixed in your mind that no one can make you say "yes", you begin to get control over your balance.   If you're in a deal or some kind of negotiation that you feel you have to have, that you can’t say “no”, you've just taken yourself hostage and you’ve lost your balance.  This instruction is here to help keep you from taking you hostage.   Once you've taken yourself hostage via anxiety, your performance abilities actually decrease.  If it’s not a good deal, say “Thanks, but no-thanks” and move on. You’ll spend less time finding a better deal that works then you’ll spend trying and hoping to make a bad deal good. What is most likely to make a deal bad will be a single term. In many cases, it won’t be price. Price is only one term. (We’re going to take a deeper dive into price in Lesson 10). Truly dangerous cutthroat negotiators know that you will be seduced by price, or you will think the negotiation is over because you’ve reached a price, and then they will kill you with another term. Some Chinese manufacturers are famous for this. Ever hear of Chinese dry wall? They certainly have in Florida where there are thousands of uninhabitable houses because of it. The deal that taught us this rule was a highly lucrative deal early in our history, with one killer term. Our reports had to be “satisfactory”. They later changed what they thought was “satisfactory”, which meant they weren’t going to pay us. 2 years and 5 law firms later, we finally found the right law firm to help us and got every dime. No word resembling “satisfactory” has appeared in any of our contracts since. Hope is not a strategy. Because of that – here is your 2nd rule. Negotiation Rule #2: “Yes” is the last thing you want to hear. “Yes” Seduces It has been contended that the word "yes" is the most beautiful word in any language. It's the word we are seduced by. The desire to hear it may blind you to what is really being said. Some negotiation advice tells you to come up with a "yes-able" proposition. There is also the ridiculous idea of building a "yes" momentum. This is someone getting you to say “yes” three times in a row to a succession of different closed-ended questions. The theory is that momentum has built to the point that when they ask you to buy you will automatically say “yes”! This is so over used in sales and argument construction that the moment anyone starts trying to get you to say “yes” your guard likely goes up immediately. What goes through your mind when you pick up the phone and hear – “Have you got a few minutes to talk?”   We can promise you it's at least this: “How long is a few minutes?” and "If I say ‘yes’, I may not like what I gotten myself into." Most closed-ended questions that you encounter are designed like this. The questioner is quite clearly pushing for a "yes". It's likely that this sort of thinking comes from a lawyer based argument approach – "never ask a question that you don't know the answer to in advance".   While this may be a good strategy for a lawyer interrogating a witness, it's not a good negotiation strategy. It diminishes rapport, which is the opposite of what you want in a negotiation. 3 Kinds of “Yes” You will find that there are three kinds of "yes". 1 – Commitment; 2 – Confirmation and 3 – Counterfeit.   Some people are so used to others trying to drive them into commitment “yeses” they fling the counterfeit “yeses” around quite freely. Have you ever heard a "yes" and found out later it wasn't a "yes"? This is the counterfeit “yes” and is often used to gather information from you before they tell you "no". (You may have been guilty of trying to corner them with the “yes” momentum.) The minute you stop the practice of pushing others for “yeses” via closed-ended questions is the minute you stop a self-defeating behavior and you begin to increase your sophistication in your approach to negotiation. Negotiation Rule #3: “Yes” is nothing without “how”. “How am I supposed to do that?” The 1st way to say “no” with elegance to a bad term is “How am I supposed to do that?” You have to say it with the right tone of voice and Lesson #2 goes into that. Lesson 21 goes into saying “no” in much more depth, so for now, this should be your go-to “no”. Test-drive it. You’re going to end up loving it. Is their “yes” counterfeit? If you’ve gotten a “yes”, but they can’t answer “how”, the “yes” they gave you is an illusion. It’s counterfeit. Think about how we get fixed on “Yes” in the first place.

"Humility and hard work with customers is key- We're not entitled to anybody's business, we have to earn it"

"Humility and hard work with customers is key- We're not entitled to anybody's business, we have to earn it"

David Mark Decherd

David Mark Decherd Top Aflac Account Opener 4th quarter 2016

David Mark Decherd Top Aflac Account Opener 4th quarter 2016

Help Your Clients Prepare for 2016 Tax Season

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