Lessons

Lesson Info

Interview Examination & Negotiations

Let's go ahead and play it through to the end. I don't know, like tap into a really great part of myself. I feel like I work best when those things are brought out. So I look for organizations that allow me to be the best. It sounds like you have a very unique experience. Tell me about a hiccup or an obstacle in the road in which things didn't quite go exactly as you expected, or something didn't happen that should have. Tell me about that process and how you overcame it or how ultimately you learned from that setback. Sure, a lot of things about moving to another country and moving to such a small company was a huge challenge and learning experience for me. One specific example was that at a small company you kind of take on all roles. Nothing is off limits. You're required to be in every project at all times. The one that kind of stumped me to be honest was business development. I'm gonna pause it here. I feel like she's learned the main lessons from it. Can we do the intervi...

ew once again with perhaps two of the questions? Then see how we can do-- I'll try my very best. You have a little birdie on your shoulder this time. (laughing) So you pick, I like the, well you choose, you choose. Let's go with the all nebula, so tell me about yourself? (laughing) That's the hardest one. (laughing) Alright. Well as you can see in my resume. As you can see in my resume I come from a really diverse background. I've got both corporate experience and entrepreneurial global experience. Now I'm looking for an organization kind of like yours, where I can leverage-- Like yours, not kind of like yours. Yeah, like yours where I can leverage things I've learned from both those environments. Being in a corporate environment instilled me with processes, methodologies, and really allowed me to carry projects through to the end. Being in a start-up environment brought out my sense of creativity. Allowed me to own things in full from beginning to end, and really instilled-- And that's why I'm interested in you guys because. And that's why I'm interested in you guys because I look forward to owning projects and taking responsibility off of your shoulders, but doing it in a way, (laughing) but doing it in a way where I can help your organization grow because I know what a more stable, structured work environment and business looks like. I hope I can bring my creativity to kind of lead you guys into kind of a more stable, mature path. Something like that. It's alright, we're getting there, we're getting there. While you're trying to gather your thoughts, you hit on the same point a few different times about corporate, start-up, corporate, start-up. Yeah, too much. Once we highlighted corporate and then we went into start-up, and then we just need to go straight for start-up because that's what he is. Assuming that he's in a start-up, I'm gonna say he doesn't have a great view of corporate culture or else he'd probably be in it, right? So start-up is probably gonna be higher valued in it. We want to focus on him. That's why I'm so interested in you guys and what you're bringing to the world and how you're making those connections. In fact, I was most interested in something and try to get something from him to talk about. Could you tell me more about? I really love the article you did about the infant incubator by Embrace. They're an organization that I've talked to in India. I've had a lot of interactions with them and I loved your profile on it. Can you tell me a little bit more about that process, how you chose them, and other organizations that you're looking to highlight? Genius! (laughing) Alright, Clifton tell us about this company you know nothing about? (laughing) So much better, right? Absolutely, you can see I'm smiling because yes, yes, yes. Okay, now it's time to talk, awesome. Forget these questions. (laughing) And that's what we're going for. Forget these questions. When your interviewer stops looking at the notepad and starts just talking with you, honey you're in a good spot. That's the whole power of trying to hook things back towards them and get the conversation going. Do we want to do one more question from Clifton and give her another shot? Sure, alright what do we got, Clifton? With your unique background and experience how do you see yourself filling your role here? What kind of resources and networks do you think that you can tap into to help us make this mission come faster? I'm sure you know that within your few years of starting this business up that the development community is close-knit. Most organizations and leaders know each other and everyone supports everyone else's work. I'm going to pause. The first thing that came to my mind and I wanted to share it with you is flipping the question back on him because he's asking you how can you help us and you don't know what they need help in yet. You can say absolutely, more than happy to share that. Before I answer that, can you tell me some of the main initiatives that you have within let's say the next six months? What's your main focus? And then we can tailor that to it. Because maybe the development world isn't, I mean I don't know, whatever your hitting on might not hit the mark. So can we flip it back on him? Sure. What sort of resources do I have to leverage, right? Great, I would love to tell you more about how my experience in India and globally could bring more to your business. But could you bring a little bit more clarity. Sorry, let me start over. Could you give me a little bit more insight into what's important to your business and what are the initiatives that you're going after in the near future? Absolutely. (laughing) He's got the easy part. (laughing) Question. There seems like there's a fine line between maybe the interviewer thinking that she should know what those initiatives are, and asking. Right, so how she could beef up that question is from what I've done so far in my research it seems that you guys are focused on X, Y, and Z. Of those three, where is the biggest challenge? Or where is your heart at right now? That also falls into the limited choices part that we've talked about before. Then it would let him know that she's not flying completely blind about this company, but she definitely wants to know before delving into the question. If he then comes back with the one thing that they're struggling with and then all the sudden if the interviewer said that and then I thought my alarm bells went off. Uh-oh, I don't really have an answer right to that, what is a way of giving yourself time to process or going around it if you don't have a direct answer to that? In this particular scenario because it's start-up and we've highlighted about how she loves learning new things, she could say that's great because that is fairly exciting for me because I don't know much around that. However, one of the things that I've learned from my previous start-up position is I love taking on challenges like that. In fact, and then you could even fall back on the question that he had before of a time when something didn't quite work out and the hiccups. You could say in fact, I was told that all the sudden I had to be the head of sales and I had never done sales. Part of what I love about start-ups is that we get to collaborate on these challenges and come at it from different angles to find solutions. It's not a specific response to it, but it's solid, solid. We had a question come up that I'd like to get your take on. (voice is muffled) Wants to know how does the interviewee close in a very powerful way? Right, I would say once, as he mentioned before, one last question before I've gotta get going. I would, when the handshake happens, in the middle of the handshake say thank you so much it was great to meet you and what's the best way to follow up with you? So I've even got him right freakin' here! (laughing) You ain't going nowhere. (laughing) So then they can say oh well get in touch with you and depending on your style and cultures and sending a thank you note, thank you email if you like, things along those lines. But letting him know that I actively want to follow up with you. And how she did before making those connections with those companies, like I think you could do an article on. Then when she says and I'll be sure to send you an email about that company and make sure you get that. Thank you so much. It's that next follow up step. That's even more of a reason to provide value 'cause it's an even better reason to reach out. Yes. How do you respond when the interview has been very conversational and you ask them about the follow up. You sent the thank you email and they never reply ever? So you send another follow up email being like what's going on? Then they email back and make it very clear that they had never intended to ever respond and follow up with you in any way ever? (laughing) Then we apply for more jobs. I mean there's only so much that we have within our window of influence. If you've done the things that you can do then you just ultimately get a no, or they aren't going to be polite enough to let you know if it's a yes or a no, then that's their human decisions. That's what free will is for. There's not much we can do beyond that. But if you sent the follow ups and did all the steps that's the win because that's all you can do. It's frustrating but unfortunately it's what we have to deal with sometimes. And Chris. I think this applies and correct me if I'm off. One thing you talked about earlier is putting yourself into the belief system and the box of the other person, right? You're talking about pulling things out of them. Seems to me that I think there might be some universal things here also. If you're going into the interview, you're trying to fill a position, right? As a start-up I'd imagine you've got better things to do than interview people. So the faster you can solve that problem for him it's not just the problem's immediate but there's also the universal problem of now I have to interview people and I'm trying to find the right person. You can provide that early on and help them make that decision faster. You solve the problem within a problem, I guess. If you think about the world from his perspective and think about those problems, not just within the company but about I'm sitting here today and I'm gonna spend the next eight hours interviewing people. I really wish I only had to do this for 15 minutes. That might help you provide insight to help him as well. Absolutely, I think that's a very strong paradigm shift to walk in the interview with. It's not just help me, help me, help me. It's like I'm helping you, I'm filling a position and I'm gonna do a damn good job about it, right, exactly. I think that's the biggest learning for me is that I definitely operate within my own reality. I tend to validate myself and repeat the way I see the world and the way I communicate which tend to be very emotional, story-based, etc., is the way that everyone connects to. But I realized through this, I mean it is kind of obvious when you say it. But going through it helps you realize some people just don't talk that way. It's like they're listening to a different language sometimes, depending on the words you use. That's very enlightening. That's sort of the cornerstone of what we've been talking about this entire workshop, right? Is finding those right words to make those connections and communicate in their paradigm. Fantastic way to put a button on this part of the workshop. Thank you so much you guys. Have a great one. (applause) This next section is another area in which I started to see a lot of questions in the chatroom, and on Twitter and Facebook. This is sort of a bonus section of CreativeLive. This is Influential Negotiations. Negotiations, I kind of struggle sometimes in teaching this because I find that many people teach negotiations as a win and a loss situation, a me versus them type of situation. While that may work in a lot of industries it really doesn't speak to the core of why I teach influential communications and the methodology that I teach influential communications. I think many of the people who have been drawn to watch this course with CreativeLive probably struggle with negotiations because they, too have seen so many of the other battle-type version of negotiations rather than the more collaborative version. I wanted to share some of my favorite negotiation techniques. If and when I decide to run certain gambits, gambits are basically the strategies that you use. You use that term both in negotiations and in chess. Remember at the very beginning of the course we talked about using the full influential chessboard. This is just simply another piece on your influential chessboard that you can choose to use, or not. But having them ready and available for you is what's going to make you ultimately more influential in a wide variety of situations. The first influential technique is ask for more than you expect. All of these, by the way, I am going to assume that you are doing the selling rather than the purchasing. Their are other gambits that you can run if you are the buyer. But for our purposes today I am going to assume that you are the seller. Ask for more than you expect. We already kind of touched on this in our section of pricing when we have the three different options and we want them to choose number two. Then we have option number three as a possibility. In negotiations, if you're not going to do the three option version then my recommendation is you come in at price number three, at the higher price. There's a few reasons why you want to do this. It's because you can still participate in the negotiations and both parties still feel like they won. Ultimately that's my goal in any type of negotiation situation is I want both parties to feel like they achieved something today. If anybody walks away feeling like they've lost, then I view that as a loss because that means that I have broken rapport with somebody. I never want somebody to leave feeling worse after they've met me than they did when they met me. That's one reason why you want to start at the top is because then both people can feel like they won. Also when you come in high it increases your perceived value. It's very difficult to negotiate up, almost impossible. But you certainly can negotiate down. If you start off with a $5,000 quote when they were expecting $1,000 then there's room to grow or room to negotiate within that bracket. Also I find this to be a little bit of an empowering technique, especially for starting entrepreneurs because you never know that if you start in high that you might actually get that. I think sometimes we undervalue ourselves and undercut ourselves in price. We already start negotiating before they initiate the negotiations. I think that this is a little bit more of an empowering technique as well that you can center your value and quote this. The next one is if you have an outrageous open, you can imply flexibility and still get away with it. This isn't just going higher than your desired amount. This is really coming in at the top. There may be a few reasons why you may want to do this. First of all you want to come in with an outrageous quote when you know very little about this situation, about your mark, about what their desired project might be. How you can come in with an outrageous quote is still imply, well with my lack of knowledge about specifically what you're looking for, typically my engagements range from $25,000 to $45,000. I am more than happy to learn more about what you're needs are and your timelines are. Then we'll see what comes from that because there might be some flexibility. Already some people might say oh but you're negotiating your fee right away. We're doing it strategically because we don't know, we don't wanna quote somebody, quote them $5, and they say oh man, I thought it was gonna be $50,000, awesome. It's like dang it, shoot. When you have lack of knowledge about the project you can go ahead and really shoot high. But then own up to it by saying now as a I learn more there might be some flexibility on this particular project. Our next opportunity is know your walk away point. Just as you know your ceiling, you need to know what you're not willing to put up with. As you get more experienced in business that line becomes much more clear. You know that you're not willing to put in 30 minutes of work for $2.50. That's a clear mark. For others it's going to be higher and higher than that. The problem is, is that most people don't know their walk away point and they get in negotiations out of the hope to be amicable and build that relationship. Then when they walk away and look at the project they just agreed to they go, I'm losing money on this because I'm going to be spending more time on this. You need to be very clear on what you're willing to put up with and what you're not. The next one is negotiations bracketing. I mentioned bracketing a little bit earlier when we talked about pricing. I talked about how to bracket or create a range of your fees so that way they are anchored within that range. In negotiations, bracketing is a little bit different. If you know that you want to do the project for $3, and they say that they were expecting around $1,000. Or you know that they've mentioned a budget of some sort at $1,000 then you need to go equidistant above your initial quote. They are $2,000 less than what you desire so you need to go $2,000 above in your initial quote. Because what happens typically in negotiations we tend to go halfies in the negotiation process. So what they'll do is they'll probably go up to 2,000. And then great, you're going to 4,000. Then they go up to 3,000, then you go sold 'cause that's what you wanted in the first place. We tend to incrementally split all the way down. So knowing that this is our tendency you can position yourself to where you are still reaching your initial goal to begin with. One thing to be aware of though is you don't want to be predictable in your splitting pace of those negotiations. So perhaps once you hit 4,000 or 4,500 you may not go to 4,000. You may go well okay if we're going to be splitting hairs I can do it for 4,250. You're not going to give them the full next split that they were expecting. Once you start going less and less, conceding less and less, then they know that they have reached, they're getting closer to that ceiling point where you've reached your walk away point. They will pick up on that. The next technique is don't say yes too quickly to their first offer. Even if their first offer is amazing and you are doing the happy dance on the inside, still take a moment to pause and consider it. Sometimes people will even recommend that you flinch at it and go. (laughing) Alright, I'm thinking this through and, yeah okay we can make that work. Yeah, alright that will work. The reason why we add the critical non-verbal communication part of that is it makes them feel as if they won, that they got a good deal. That this is a little bit of a stretch for you but you are so kind to still make it work. If you are not comfortable with the flinch, if that feels just a little bit too affected for you totally fine, I understand. In which case you don't have to flinch, but still pause to consider the offer. Now remember, you're doing the happy dance inside, but you just need to if they say I'll give you one million dollars. You know, I'm seeing it, yeah okay. (laughing) I'm seeing it in my bank account. (laughing) We can do that. So don't say yes too quickly. It's a little counterintuitive because you think the reason being if you say yeah, baby then instantly they think okay, I'm getting screwed here. If you say yes too quickly then they think oh, I probably could have negotiated her down. There's been many times when I've given somebody a quote and I've even stretched it a little bit in my mind. It's a little bit more than I normally quote and they go okay, check will be in the mail today. It's a very conflicting feeling because first of all I'm going whoo-hoo. Second of all I'm going I could have gotten more. That's why we give a little bit of pause to avoid that instant buyer/seller's remorse. That's why we have that technique, yes. If you are the, no, yes you give the scenario when you are asking and you get what you wanted, right? And you make a pause before you say yes, I'm agreeing to this million dollars. But what would be the proper reaction if you're on the other side of that negotiation? I'm offering you a million dollars hoping that you would be okay with that. And you with your pause you agree with that. And again I'm in conflict, the situation. Should I make my happy dance and how do I get out of this situation gracefully? You write the check. (laughing) Okay, do I react like yes? No I think you just simply end on professional, cordial terms. Like fantastic, I am so happy that we reached an agreement. Great job, I'm looking forward to working with you on this, and you set up your follow up because typically on the buyer's side of this negotiation world if you offer the million dollars then theoretically speaking you're undercutting me. If I'm happy with a million and you were expecting to pay 1.5, then you're still happy. But me with the pause makes it to where you don't think man, I probably could have gotten her for half a mil. That's the whole dynamic at play in this world. The next one is this is not a confrontation. There is nothing about negotiations that means that this has to be a battle. Anytime that you get in an argument, anytime you feel like this is a pissing contest of some sort you are forcing the other person to dig in their heels and say well this is how we're going to do it. This is the price. And they are not going to budge. In fact, it creates a really bad working relationship in the end when the first thing you start off with is a battle. Definitely wanna make sure that you come at it from a collaborative standpoint rather than again, it's an if this, or us versus them type of situation. The next one that I really love is the feel, felt, found formula. I use this actually in presentations fairly often, it's similar to what I described in the public speaking session when we describe the audience's pain. If you can empathize with that pain, I understand how you feel, I used to be in the exact same situation, let me just tie it here into negotiations. So if they are shocked at your prices this is typically when you use this. If they go oh, I was expecting it to be $200, not $2,000, if you get that reaction then your response is you know, I completely understand how you feel. When I started setting my prices and really breaking things down I felt the exact same way. Once it all came out to be $2,000 I could see that this could be a potential point of resistance. But what I found is that through this process my clients have actually made $10, after the sales coaching. It's the I understand how you feel, I felt the same way when I was in your scenario, but what I found is that the value of this is still well worth it. It's one way, it's a negotiation technique to help you not negotiate. Instead of them saying oh I thought it was going to be $200, instead of saying okay well I can do it for $1, you lean on the feel, felt, found technique to see if they then can, if you can spark the discussion to bring them to understand the true value of what you're bringing to the table. Then if it needs to lead to different gambits, totally fine. The next one is the reluctant seller. This leans a little bit towards the scarcity technique that we mentioned before. So if I am reluctant to sell you my services, if I am reluctant to take your money it actually increases my negotiation range because similar to if I mentioned before how I can only take seven executive coaching clients. If I have somebody banging down my door saying but I can be an eighth, I really want to be an eighth, I will be a reluctant seller. For them to pay me the same amount of money it still it more time taken away from me. I could say look, this might diminish my value to my other clients. You, with your situation still is going to take time. Sometimes if they really want it they'll say I'll pay you five grand more to make it worth your time. They will negotiate themselves up. So with your reluctant seller and even if they don't negotiate up you still are really firm in your value. Your perceived value continues to go up when you say I don't know, this is a fairly exclusive group. I don't know if you meet the parameters, that value keeps skyrocketing. So that's a twist on that scarcity technique from before. The next one is the silent close. If you have the negotiations going back and forth you absolutely can lean on this one where you just simply say this sentence and then shut up. You say I mean you're gonna have to do better than that. The ball is in their court. This also potentially is going to be where this is your walk away point. This is generally when they are really, really teetering near your walk away point. So you need to be prepared that this could be their walk away point and in which case fine. There are some gambits that you can run in that scenario. But this is a great technique once you're kind of near the edge of that walk away then you just say you're gonna have to do better than that. And don't speak afterwards. They must do the speaking and see what they say. The next one is to appeal to a higher authority. For people who are solo-preneurs this is kind of difficult to work in authentically. However, if you are within a company this can totally work. What it is is that if you negotiated down to a point where you're just not willing to go any further and you're not even sure if you want to say yes to this, what you can do is appeal to a higher authority and say look I really appreciate the time and effort that we've put into coming up with what we have so far. With what you've presented me, I don't know if I can convince my boss to go through with that. I need to take this to my executives. Or I need to take this to my board of directors. If you have a higher authority then that's you way to stall the negotiations and then take it from there. The next one is to anchor the decision at the beginning. This is kind of assuming that you have had some conversations up to this point. Now it's time that you are presenting the proposal that you have discussed. You open up the meeting with, I'm so happy that we finally reached this point. I think our discussions and conversations have been great, and you review all the things that they wanted. You told me that you wanted more time, you wanted less stress, you wanted more confidence and we discussed all the different methods to make that happen. I've come up with three different methods. You mentioned your budget, I made them within your budget. Assuming that what I present today is exactly what we discussed, is there anything that would keep you from saying yes today? Then if they say well, I've got to take it to a committee, then you can say well, we'll get to that in a second. Basically, usually what happens is they'll say nope, if it's exactly what we've talked about we can move forward today. Then if they backtrack later in the meeting you can bring it back to this and say oh, okay I guess I'm so sorry. I'm a little confused because at the beginning you said that if this outlined what you had expected then we could initiate this project. Is there something that I missed? Or can we go ahead and move forward like we said at the beginning of the meeting? So you can lean on that. That appeals to the law of consistency that we mentioned in the previous section. What I love about this is that you really start to see how so many of these things intertwine. When I talk about removing that mystique of influential communications, this is what I'm talking about. That you start to see how so many of the same lessons overlap into different areas and it becomes even easier and easier after you apply them in business and personal life in negotiations, in sales, in leading a team and motivating people. Yes? What are some general emotions that we might want to prime for, for negotiation? Collaboration, collaboration, teamwork, creating something together, things along those lines are generally my go-to primers because that's how I view the negotiation process. This is one technique, sometimes I'm not a fan of this, but I feel that it can be very effective and I want to share it with you is if at the beginning they say yes, we can move forward then they decide to appeal to a higher authority and say actually I have to take this to the committee, one thing you can do, this will appeal to their ego a little bit. Kind of give them a little bit in the jab in the ego. The key part of this is that you have to say it with a smile 'cause that kind of evens things out. But you say oh, I'm sorry I guess I misunderstood. I thought that you were the decision maker like we talked about before. Totally cool if you have to take it to the committee. I understand that if that's the process. Do they usually not take your recommendations? Yeah, exactly. With some people that can be very effective. This is why I don't usually use it. However, it is potent with certain personality types. So use with care on that one. The next one is the baby step up from no. If they go wow, that is way too much then you can say I understand if that's outside of your budget range. What did you have in mind? This is one gambit that you can run is you can say okay, well rather than the full scope of the project that we've been talking about up to this point, for your amount that you said we can do phase one. Then while in the middle of phase one while you get the funds ready for the rest, then we can initiate and follow through with everything else that we've talked about. This is really important why you need to bundle your services and have multiple things to choose from. Because if you are just simply selling time for dollars you have little to no negotiation room because it's basically you are negotiating down your dollars, you can't change your time. Time is the only thing that you have it once and then it's gone, okay? Yes, great the next one is the trade-off. This is really, really important. Any time you are conceding something you immediately need to get a concession in return. It's reciprocity in negotiations. Again we're tying this all together. So if you say okay well if I give you that will you please give me this? That's the collaboration part. Anytime you concede you ask for a concession in return. It is an exchange of value. If I'm not getting this dollar amount then I need to get rid of some of the value that I proposed to you before. Another great technique that I think so many people don't utilize is the set it aside gambit. Sometimes people will walk into the negotiation saying okay, we needed to be at this price point, we need it at this, what do you got for me? To which you say I completely understand that price is very important in this discussion. I absolutely look forward to discussing it with you. However, there are a few points that we still haven't gotten clarity on. Let's set the price aside for now. Promise we're gonna get to it, but I think the price will get clarified after we resolve some of these other issues. That's your way to take back control of this situation. You just set it aside, still get back to it, but explain your reasoning. And notice how I used the because technique in there. It's not just well let's just set it aside for now and I wanted us to focus on these issues. They're not going to have that buy-in unless you say because I think once we resolve these smaller things it's going to shed light on the ultimate price. The next one is small to big resolutions. Sometimes they want to jump in and figure out is this the project that I'm going to say yes to. What you need to do is say well let's figure out the smaller steps up to that bigger project. You say you want this result. I'm more than happy to provide you a package for that. But let's talk about what phase one might look like. Let's talk about phase two. You create phase one together and you say does phase one sound good to you? Yeah, it sounds perfect. Great, let's move onto phase two. You've built out this project with them. This is also the series of small yeses that we referred to in the last section. They are creating this and they have momentum of saying yes to each component of this. Then you can build out the project and say great, well for this that's going to be a $50,000 project. If they say whoa, you say I'm a little bit confused. Totally cool, let's talk it out. But for everything you wanted and all the value and all the resources that we've talked about this is the price. They are more likely to say yes still to that because they have been a part of the process and it's the law of consistency. They're less likely to say no to something they've said yes to 10 times leading up to the endpoint. The other one of course, is to withdraw the offer. You need to know when your walk away point is. Using that means that, and it's not even that you have to physically walk away. I wanna make sure that I point that out. It's that you know, I am very happy that we've had this time to chat. It's quite a shame that we have spent so much time and energy trying to come up with this project and find something that works for both of us. But honestly this is as far as I can go. I think it's a really shame that that's gonna be time wasted and that we're not going to be able to work together. But thank you so much, I've enjoyed the conversation. I'm going to have to rescind this offer. If they go oh, no no no no no, let's talk. Let's just sit back down, let's talk about this. The withdrawing of the offer is very powerful. Keep in mind again it's not to pick a fight with them. It's not saying well if you guys just aren't going to work with me, fine, forget about it. Completely different energy around it. Still say it respectfully of I think it's a shame that we have so much time and energy lost. But if we can't come to terms today I'm sorry, but I have to withdraw this offer. Perhaps we can come to terms at some point in the future on some things, a different project. But for right now this is just isn't going to be a fit, thank you so much. So still be polite and respectful. Then last but certainly not least is always congratulate the other side. Make it a win-win. Tell them once at the end you can say oh, I'm so happy that I've gotten a chance to collaborate with you on this. Completely looking forward to it, great job. Handshake, win, all good. Questions about these gambits and negotiations? Didn't hear from you guys right now. Do we see how this all kind of ties into all of the other lessons that we talked about? We see how these are basically the techniques built off of the other techniques that we've discussed in the future, Chris? When using these practically with everything else that you've taught this would be the gambit or structure. And then within these all the communication we're having we would use your other influential techniques for rapport and everything else to make sure we've got a good relationship with them. Absolutely, absolutely. And your awareness will be so heightened that you can tell when you're losing them. You'll be able to see those significant shifts and you'll know that this is a key point for them. One thing to tie it into what we've learned in the workshop so far is if you can tell that one component is of big-time value to them, then that might be the first thing that you take away. They may say oh no, we've got to keep that, we've got to keep that. Oh okay, well then that's $15,000 that we still have to keep in the project. That's our baseline, where are we going from here? You can take away what is most valuable at the beginning based off of your observations from before, absolutely. Yeah, other questions? Yep, Erica? To use some of this, maybe not necessarily money but in even the field guide that we did earlier, could you use some of this negotiation with Reva and her dad if her dad didn't? Okay let me think. If they got to the point where they were negotiating who would do what with her mom in trying to convince her mom. There could be, off the top of my head nothing else kind of comes to mind. But there certainly is a possibility for it. I hadn't thought about that type of scenario before. But very interesting question. Good insight, good insight. Any other questions about negotiates? Does this kind of remove some of the mystery behind negotiations? Do you feel more empowered, or does negotiations have a little slimy feel to it as before? Did we remove the slime? Did we get rid of the slime, slime-free? Love it, love it, alright. So oh my gosh, you guys. We have had such a blast, right? 24 hours of training, oh my gosh. I just wanted to recap a little bit about what we've experienced in the workshop and make sure I reiterate the power with which you can use these tools. What we've learned is that influence is really and truly a three-step process. We start with the foundation of observation. Observation is the foundation of influence because if we don't know where our most influential key points are within our target, any influential technique is going to fall flat. We start with not only observing our mark, but we learned quite a bit about ourselves, right? About our own communication styles and our own personality types and what our body language communicates. And then understanding that we can control so much of what we communicate to mirror and connect with our mark. And that is the second step of the process. First we start with the observation, the next is to connect to connect with your mark, build that rapport, then also connect the dots of which technique is going to be most influential for that mark based off of your observations. Last but not least we learned a host full of influential strategies and techniques, right, for sales and negotiations and beautifully we had the wonderful opportunity to demonstrate how these techniques can be used not only in business, but in very heart touching parts of our personal life. Thank you again to Reva for sharing that. It just warmed my heart in many ways. I'm so happy we got the opportunity to help you with that. Then we moved into profiling our mark and learning about them, learning about how different personality types can shed light on the different influential techniques that we can use on those personality types. And here in the studio audience you guys rocked that. When we started showing the influential vibes up here you were able to identify personality types so quickly and easily and find those influential hooks. What else did we learn today? We learned that we have much more control within our own communication than perhaps we realized. Ultimately, as you know, this is all about bringing the dark arts of influence into the light. So many of those nefarious creatures out there like the con artists and the pick-up artists and all of those guys who may not have the best of intentions know these influential skills. I am so thrilled that CreativeLive has given us the opportunity to shed light on those techniques and get the right tools in the hands of the right people who are making positive change in the world. I know that with what you've learned today and over the past few days you will be able to build your businesses more successfully. You'll be able to deepen your relationship. You may even be able to fix some friction that might exist in current relationships just simply because there's been a mismatch in communication. Now you'll be able to match that communication and get those influential results. One of the ways that I love to think about influence is from a child's game that I used to play and I know you did too. If we can bring back that PowerPoint in a second. My favorite one was Barrel of Monkeys. What I love about Barrel of Monkeys, I don't know if you recall how to play with them or not, but what it is is that you hold onto one of the monkey's paws like this guy here, and you tried to hook it into the next monkey. Then you tried to get this one without touching the second on, to hook into the next, to hook into the next, to hook into the next. With control over one, you can create connections with many. Ultimately that's what I think that this entire journey of influential communications is about. You understand the control of the one thing you do have control over. And yet the power that it can have on the connections that you continue to make as you finish wrapping up your session here with CreativeLive. I want to make sure if you don't mind Chris, that people have an opportunity to stay connected because that's what this is all about, fantastic. Thank you so much. If you want to learn more about influence, absolutely I'd love to stay connected with you. I do have a Facebook page and you can reach me at Facebook.com/alexandershari. Then you can reach me on Twitter which my handle is sharialexander, on YouTube I am sharialexanderspeaks. And of course you can visit me at my website which is ObserveConnenctInfluence.com. I blog regularly, I love writing about influence. There is a course, Influence HQ, if you really want to take this influential learning down to the deeper level to get that kind of mastery. We have two calls a month. One is a master class call where it's very similar to what you've experienced here in CreativeLive where I teach. Then our second call a month is a Influence HQ, or I'm sorry, the HQ Hangout. This is your forum to ask me questions. So just as we've had this interaction here in the studio audience and in the online world, that's what happens in the HQ Hangouts. You say hey, I've got a job interview coming up. Can we rehearse that together? Or hey, you have a negotiations meeting. What kind of gambits can I run? All of that great stuff. Thank you again so much. It has been a blast. It has been an honor to work with CreativeLive and to be in the houses and offices of so many people. Please do absolutely stay connected. Wonderful, thank you so much. Round of applause for Shari Alexander. (applause)