In the latest episode of The Dropout Multimillionaire podcast, host Brian Will discusses the psychology of sales and negotiation, and how mastering these skills can help you build a multi-million dollar business. Drawing from his extensive experience teaching sales and negotiation, Brian emphasizes the importance of understanding that every sales situation is also a negotiation, and that being a good negotiator is critical to success.
Brian shares tips on using the power of the word "no" to control situations and establish a bottom boundary, and explains how starting negotiations with an offer that's guaranteed to get a "no" can help you establish a floor and ultimately arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement. His insights are also included in his bestselling book, The Dropout Multimillionaire, and his upcoming book, NO: the Psychology of Sales and Negotiation, set to be released on May 15, 2023.
Welcome to the Dropout Multimillionaire podcast, where we talk about tactical business strategy, building high performance sales teams and growing your business. If you're ready to break free from the status quo and join the ranks of the Mavericks, the rebels and the renegades who refuse to conform and instead of multi-million dollar businesses, then buckle up, because here we go.
Hey, everybody, and welcome to this episode of The Dropout Multimillionaire podcast. I am your host, Brian Will. This podcast is based on my bestselling book, The Dropout, Multimillionaire, and now the new book coming out May 15, 2023, which is called Know the Psychology of Sales and Negotiation. Today, we're going to continue with a series we started last week, which is based on the second book.
In last week's episode. We kind of set up the series and we talked about lesson number one and lesson number one was that every sales situation is also a negotiation. We also talked about the fact that you need to become a good negotiator after before you end up in a situation where you are against someone who is a good negotiator because they will absolutely eat your lunch.
We also talked about the fact that over the last 25 years, I have taught sales and negotiation to probably over a thousand salespeople and trainers and the book and this new podcast series captures some of the highlights of those training courses. So with that in mind, let's move on to the next set of lessons. And today we're going to talk about the word no.
Word no, in my opinion, is the most powerful word in the spoken language. The word no has the ability to stop, slow down or control whatever situation you may find yourself in. In fact, saying no in a sale, such a situation can give you the time to stop or slow down so that you can focus on your next move.
I learned some of these lessons that we're going to talk about today from Richard Branson and some of his books. I love his books, but in one of his books, he has this rule. He says if your first offer doesn't insult them, you offered too much. And by the way, that works on both sides of a negotiation, you can be offering to buy or you can be offering to sell.
Today, we're going to talk about offering to buy. However, the rule here is that the person on the other side of the negotiation is more than likely going to say no to whatever your offer is. So if we're going to say no or if they are going to say no to the first offer, you might as well offer something that's guaranteed to get them to say no.
And it's way less than what they've asked for. Because what we're really trying to do in this situation is we're trying to establish a floor. The asking price is the ceiling. Now we have to negotiate and figure out where that floor is so that we can figure out what the final sales price will be. We've all played this game right?
Somebody asked for something that's more than they're willing to take, and I offer less than I'm willing to give. And then we negotiate somewhere in the middle. This is an age old little battle that we play with people when we go to buy and sell things. The problem here is that if you're buying, you don't really know what their floor is.
And if you don't know what their floor is, you need to be careful not to offer them more than what they're willing to take. Right. So my first offer being super low is going to try and establish a bottom boundary so that we can eventually negotiate, negotiate our way up to the Delta, the Delta being the breaking point of that negotiation or what they're willing to take or walk away from.
Okay. So here's my example. I like to do things on a simplistic level. So let's assume that you are going to buy something. And the seller in this case is asking $100 for whatever it is. It's a widget. Now, you know, they're asking $100. What you don't know is what they're willing to take. I will even submit to you that the seller might not know what they are willing to take at this point, because we know that human nature tells us that the fear of loss on either side of that negotiation can change the floor and the ceiling right up until the last second.
Okay. So let's assume that in this case, the seller is asking $100, but they've already told themselves in their mind they're willing to take 80. They know you're going to come in and negotiate. They know it's going to be a offer low, sell high, and we're going to get to the middle someplace. And they've now told themselves, I'm asking 100, I'm willing to take 80.
That's generally how this plays out. Now, I come along in this case, I say, Hey, you're off. You're asking for $100 and I'm willing to pay you 90. And see, what I just did is I set my floor at 90. What I didn't know was that I set my floor $10 above what they were willing to take. They now know my floor is 90, and so they're not going to offer to me at 80.
They're going to try and negotiate me up. That's the way the game is played. So they're thinking in their mind Now I'm going to get 95. I was willing to take 80. I'm going to make an extra 15 bucks, Right? In that case, I negotiated against myself because I didn't know what their floor was. And in this case, I will lose.
I will pay too much. Now, in the second scenario, let's say I come in and I offer 50, right? My first offer is insulting. I know they're not going to take 50. I know that. And I know that they're going to say no. But what I'm trying to do is establish a floor that is so low that I've got a lot more room to negotiate so that I can find whatever their their actual floor is right now.
A couple of things are going to happen here in the seller's mind. They may start to think, oh, they're offering 50 and I'm asking 100, even though I'm willing to take 80, maybe I've overpriced myself. And it's just a thought that a roll through their mind. Right. I'm trying to create a doubt. Now they take they say no right out of the gate.
They say, no, I'm not taking 50. I might come down to 90. And in their mind they're thinking we still have room. So we talk for a bit and we do this back and forth. And what happens is eventually I come up to 70 and they come down to their actual floor, which is 80, and they tell me that is bottom dollar.
Okay? Their bottom dollar is 80. The only way I figured that out was by starting at 50 and move my way up, by the way. So now I know what they're Flores I know my offer 70. I know they're at 80 now. The real negotiation can begin, Right? So at this point, by the way, we have a seller who's thinking, okay, I'm willing to take 80.
They're 70. We're going to get a deal done. We're very close. And the fear of loss is now what I'm trying to get to kick in. I want them to think this is a done deal. I want them to have spent the 80 bucks on their mind that they're about to get. They want to get this deal done.
And I know we're only $10 apart. So I tell the seller, Look, I'm at 70. I think we're at a stalemate unless you're willing to come down. Right. The only question at this point, by the way, is who's going to blink first? Who's willing to walk away? Now, I will tell you, as a buyer, you should. And I am always willing to walk away from a deal.
I say this in my books, never chase a deal, never pay more than you want to. Deals are a dime a dozen. You will always find another one, right? So I'm willing to walk away. And many cases I will say, Hey, man, don't like what? Can we get a deal done here? I know only $10 apart, but that's my bottom dollar.
Unless you can do something else. Right. I want to know if they'll still come down a it. And by the way, if you were the seller, you should also also be willing to walk away just to find out if your buyer is willing to come up anymore. Right. So both sides, depending on how good they're negotiating, are willing to walk away and may play that card if necessary.
In this case, however, we're ten bucks apart. I kind of want what you've got. You kind of want to sell what you've got. And so I will use the age old. Imagine you're at 80. I'm at 75. Last ditch ever. Why don't we split the difference of 75? We both lose five bucks off what we're willing to do, but we walk away happy and we get this deal done.
And you can quit worrying about it more times than not. And I'm sure you've done this. That will work. It will work because at the last minute that fear of loss will cause that seller to change their floor and they will change their mind and they will take less if they think it's this or nothing. I do this in negotiations with contractors all the time.
They come in and say, I want $2,000, and my answer is I'll give you 700 so you can leave and get zero or you can stay here and get $700. Which would you rather do at the time they stay and do the work for less. Half the time they leave just depends on the person. So in this case we offer the 75.
We split it, we walk away. I got a good deal. I know I didn't pay more than he was willing to take. He got a good deal because he sold his product. Everybody walks away happy, right? So this is my simple scenario on the word no. Always offer less than you're willing to pay so that we can establish a floor work on that fear of loss by trying to find the delta.
And that brings us to our two lessons for the day. Number one, if your offer doesn't insult them, you offer too much. Lesson number two for the day, don't negotiate against yourself. Learn to use low offer and then the fear of loss in your negotiation to find the delta and then negotiate against that. Okay, so that's it for today.
If you want to learn more, you can copies of both of my books, The Dropout, Multimillionaire and Know the Psychology of Sales and Negotiation. You can also find me at WW Brian Will Media Medium.com everything's on there, the books, the podcast, the blogs. And finally, if you really want to learn about in-depth tactical business strategies and creating high performance sales teams, come to the website, drop me a note, I'd like to send you some information on the force multiplier mastermind and my one on one coaching programs.
My coaching is tactical in nature. No theory, no fluff. This is where we will break down your business and show you how to make it and you better. I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you would like to get more information on either of my books, joining the force multiplier mastermind for my one on one coaching programs you can find me at W WW Brian will media dot com.
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