Don't Be a Negotiating Underdog

How are you? Well, here we are with the happy theme music again. That must mean I have a sensitive, maybe a heavy topic today. Sort of negotiating and feeling like an underdog.

I like, I think it's a great idea, but okay. I need a boost. I need a daily boost. I need a daily boost. It is the Daily Boost from MotivationToBoom.com.

How are you? Good to have you. My name is Scott Smith. If you're brand new today, we have a lot of folks who come back after summertime kind of plugging back in again, right?

And you're like, what is the show about? Well, it's a boost. It's positive. It's optimistic, but it's real. Some people can't take me because I'm too real.

I'm sorry. It's just who I am, right? I was watching the movie Top Gun Maverick. Have you seen that? I've seen it like seven times now. It's great. It's on Paramount.

And Tom Cruise's character many, many times, they'll say, don't give me that look. He'll say, that's the only look I have. So when you come to my show, the only approach I have is to be upbeat and positive and yet very real and very grounded. So we're going to do that today a little bit, give you some framing on negotiating because I just got off an inner circle call.

I face your passion inner circle call. What a great group. If you don't have a group that's demographically and psychographically like you, that shows up to support you and be with you and just kind of work through stuff. A group is not your boss and not your attorney and not your wife.

It's just people that just get you. Man, you need one. You can send a note at coaching at motivation to move.com. Tell me you're interested in joining my group.

And we'll have a conversation to see if you're a good fit. I really mean that. It's not a sales call. It's just to see if you're a good fit. How much?

I'll tell you. It's $2.97 a month. It's a deal. It's a deal. So the money is not the issue. Interested? Somebody know, okay? All right. So let's talk negotiation.

Let me frame this out for you just a bit. Number one, some people hate negotiating. Some people love it. but life is about negotiating. Almost everything you do today will require some degree of negotiation somewhere.

Even you have the parking lot trying to squeeze your car into a parking spot. That's negotiation, isn't it? Every single thing in your life requires some negotiation. Now, some people just absolutely hate it.

Like I hate garage sales because people think they're negotiating. They're not. They're just starting to steal from me. I don't play that game. Real negotiation is a lot of fun, but you're going to do it anyway.

And the other thing is I want you to know this as well. I have a lot of experience in training and sales and negotiation, all that stuff. I've studied it for many, many years, but I don't walk around as a walking, talking negotiation guy. I'm not always on my game.

I don't strategically do that. I lock it in when I need to. That's what I do. So let's talk about one of the things that I think a lot of people have a hard time with when it comes to negotiating, and that is being the underdog.

Let me take you back about 25 years now. I was in Atlanta. And at the airport, it's been the entire day. I was visiting a client, one of those business things where you get on the plane and you fly up and you spend the entire day hanging out with a client whose business you hope to get.

And you're like, man, I don't have time to do this. I didn't have the money to do this. I got work to do. I mean, how am I going to pay for the plane ticket?

All that stuff, right? Early in on business. Hard to do, right? So the entire day, my flight was in like 30, 40 minutes. And I was beginning to think this deal was not going to happen.

Things are really interesting, though, because now over the years, I spent a lot of time negotiating. I've grown pretty confident in closing deals. I always think I'm going to win. I'm surprised when I don't.

And when I win, it's got to be a win-win because every time you start a deal with anybody, when you're doing negotiation, as uncomfortable as it may be, every time you start the deal, it needs to be a good deal. And the reason it has to be because it never gets any better.

If you start it bad, if somebody feels bad about the deal, it just gets worse from the beginning. So I like to win, but at the same time, it's got to be right.

I was a little surprised in this case. I knew the game wasn't over yet, and I figured, okay, what's my gambit going to be here? So we kind of approached the gate area, and my client kind of pulled me off into a food court and bought some tacos, as I recall.

And as we're sitting down, and I'm thinking, all I want to do is get to the plane, man. And he's got this scarcity of time running out. He kind of put a clock ticking on the negotiation.

Very, very unfair. But people do it all the time, right? Pulled out my contract. I'd sent it days before. Took out a pen. Never forget it. And he scratched out my fee and put a lower number, substantially, like 25, 30% lower.

Handed it back to me and gave me the pen. He said, if you can do it for that, I'll sign right now and give you a check right now. He knew I needed the money. He knew my wife is waiting for me to bring a check home.

He knew that. So I looked at the clocks. Did not want to miss my flight. I almost took the deal. After all, winners get the deal done, right? Just close it.

Let's get it done. But experience has taught me what I just said. It doesn't get any better. When a client comes on board and it's a bad experience just to get them in, it's not going to get any better for anybody.

Same thing if you're going on board with somebody else. If it's a bad deal coming in, if you feel like, oh man, this is not great. If you're not excited to do it, it's not going to get any better.

So I decided to take what I would probably say his less than classy negotiating gambit and kind of flip it on his head and do something that's very hard to do. Because as humans, we are hardwired to survive and to thrive. And as much as I wanted to make the deal to feed my family, I knew I wouldn't be thriving. I just knew what the future was going to hold.

It was not going to be good. I also knew my client needed what I could do for him. I was the only guy that could do it. I mean... Probably not, actually, but I specialized in one thing and nobody else did what I did.

So I was the guy. I knew that. I knew my price was fair, too. It was even too fair. In fact, probably so fair, he thought he could beat me down even more.

That's why I don't charge really stupidly low prices anymore. I charge fair prices, but, you know, they're reasonable. They're appropriate. More importantly, he was afraid I wouldn't take the deal.

He was as afraid as I was. See, that's the point about being an underdog in negotiation. If you've ever been in a negotiation or having to negotiate, there is something that always happens during that negotiation.

All parties feel like the underdog. All parties naturally feel like they're not going to get the deal done. They could act tough. They could be tough.

End of the day, they could not even care. But the truth is they do. It goes both ways. So if you're at a table today or tomorrow or the next day and you're negotiating and you're thinking, man, I hope I get this.

Just remember, the person across the table is thinking the same thing. So what I did was something that was very hard for me to do. And I said, tell you what, my deal's fair. I put the time in already.

If you can sign the original deal before I get on the plane, I'll do it for that price. Otherwise, I'll pass. but I've enjoyed the day spending, spending the day with you. And I really meant it too, but you know, I was done, man.

I found it rude. I really did. And if I'm really being honest with you, I probably should not have taken the deal at all. I probably should have walked away because you know, the deal you think is not going to be good when the behavior has already been exhibited already, even though I got the original price I wanted, trust me, I, I got, yeah, it wasn't good.

I should have said no, but still what I did was I just, I, at the time I wanted the money. So I, that was the deal I pitched back and, You've heard the phrase, he who speaks first loses.

I kept my mouth shut. Although these days people know that phrase so much, it's kind of funny. I'll be in a final closing of a negotiation, just trying to get a client on board or something like that. And we both know to keep our mouth shut.

And somebody will say something. I know I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut, but I want to do this. It's kind of funny. I said, you already lost, right?

I won. Boom. I know. It's kind of funny to think about that way, right? But it's how it is these days. Bottom line was this. 30 seconds later, I'll be keeping my mouth shut.

He signed the original deal. And as he signed the deal, he just went from there to there. He pulled a checkbook out of his pocket. He gave me the deposit.

And he said, when can we get started? Which turned out to be about 30 seconds later. He's like, oh, now I get you my money. Now let's get to work. I own you.

Like I said. When you're in a negotiation, make sure you really want to do it because it's never going to get any better if it doesn't start out great. And if it starts out great, it will get incredibly better. But if it doesn't start out, if it starts out precarious, it's not good.

Walk away, man. That relationship lasted for years. It did. We never had that experience again. It turned out to work out okay. He got, I did a great job for him.

He got great benefit, great value from what I did. And eventually, you know, that behavior that he had continued to come back in different ways and we parted ways.

But in the end of the day, what I want you to know right now is this. Whatever you're going to do today in negotiation, and there is negotiation somewhere today, you're going to feel a little bit inferior in the process.

And you're going to think everybody around you has something over you. They do not. And they also have the same fear you do, that you're not going to do what they need you to do, that they're going to walk away without the deal.

Just doing that should allow you to take a breath, relax a little bit. No, you're not going to get every single deal. And there's a lot more involved in this and how you bring things together to get the income and the life that you want for sure. There's a lot involved here.

But we all are afraid we're not going to get it. So that puts us kind of all on the same page, doesn't it? All right. So come back tomorrow. What am I going to talk about?

I have no idea. It's going to be good, though. I'll see you on the Data Boost.