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Lance, thanks for joining us today.
Kwame, I appreciate you having me on today.
Yeah, it is our pleasure, my friend.
So how would you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Yeah, thanks for asking.
I am the CEO of the Tyson Group, and we are an award -winning sales training organization.
So it's just not me.
We've got a whole team around us, and we really specialize in customizing sales training or coaching or consulting to a semi -complex or complex sales process.
So we really kind of go in there and assess, design, and then install some kind of training or coaching, depending on the situation.
So we've written three books, Publish or Parrish today, right?
So a lot of our training is based off the research we do in our writing and trying to get content out there that's relevant to the marketplace today.
This is great. And I think the best part about this serendipitous relationship is that we found out we're neighbors.
Yes, it's great. We might be two miles apart at math.
That's wild. That is crazy.
Small world. Well, we're excited to have you on.
And one of the things that often comes up is the distinction between sales and negotiations.
And I think what would be cool in this interview is to kind of talk about the interplay between both and your perspective on that.
And then we could leave the listeners with some actionable tips going forward.
So when you think about sales related to negotiation, what is the connection?
Yeah, so it's kind of interesting, and we were talking about this kind of in our pregame.
I think when I hear salespeople talk, and there's a lot of opinions about negotiation, so I might say something profound.
I had heard somebody say one time, so just that sales is a lot, or excuse me, negotiation is a lot like the word pornography.
So I don't mean to be, and people will probably be like, what is he talking about?
Well, if you think about this, the US government versus Larry Flynt dubbed pornography is in the eyes of the beholder.
And I think a lot of times negotiation, well, if you think of pornography, it's like, is David, the statute David, that, or is it something else?
And I think salespeople really confuse what negotiation is or where it fits into their process, because a lot of times it's not a formal part of their sales process.
And where that sales begins, where objections happen, and then when they start negotiating.
And a lot of times we find when we're looking at a client, salespeople don't know when they're getting negotiated with.
Like, they don't know if, hey, all of a sudden did negotiation formally start when they added another decision maker in?
When somebody, you know, you threw out an offer, and then all of a sudden they start asking a lot of questions or ask to change a term.
So I think, just in my opinion, and what we see with our clients, I think it changes per industry you're in and per, you know, maybe the vertical that you're in or the type of sale you're in.
So I think there's some confusion there.
And we spend a lot of time trying to pull those apart.
We philosophically, and I've written a lot about this, I don't believe you can start negotiating until you've at least identified and clarified objections.
Because I think that's where the separation is.
And sometimes that could happen in one conversation, or that might actually happen in another presentation, depending on how many steps you have.
So I think there's a lot of, just in my opinion, I think there's a lot of confusion out there.
I know in some industries, there's a very formal negotiation process when procurement jumps in, you know, when that kind of, that part jumps in.
But there are some, literally some industries that that's not as clear.
So I think that's kind of where I'd like to start.
Sorry for, I didn't tell you I was going to open up with that.
No worries. But I mean, you saw my smile come on my face when you said that.
Because, let me clarify why.
Because I'm a lawyer.
And I knew exactly where you're going with that too.
Because it depends.
Different people perceive it differently.
And I think it was one justice said, you'll know it when you see it.
Yeah, that's exactly, you finished the line.
There you go. You'll know it when you see it.
And I think one of the challenges is in the business world is that you just won't know it.
A lot of people just have very low awareness to when a negotiation is or is not happening.
So you might have somebody who's in sales and they're really well versed in sales.
They understand the sales prospect, the sales process.
They're really great at prospecting.
So they have great sales skills.
But then they don't really identify those elements of the interaction that become more of a negotiation.
So they don't bring the right skills to the table at the right time.
And so when you think about the distinction and understanding at some level conceptually the distinction, let's talk about the strategic advantage that gives you in the sales process if you can identify, oh, this is kind of where the sales process type of ends and negotiation begins.
Yeah, so it's kind of interesting, right?
And I don't know if you'd agree with this, especially with your law background.
There are some people that have a natural proclivity to being able to negotiate.
They're kind of good at it.
They know when to not talk too much.
They know what to say and not say.
So I think, number one, we start to identify in the sales process how somebody's interacting with you.
Do they take control of the situation?
Do they get quiet with certain things?
So we try to angle certain questions out of order to get people talking.
For instance, and I'll kind of get to your question, but say you and I were in a first meeting.
I might say, Kwame, what can you take the meeting with me today?
And I might do that right off the cusp of saying, how much time do you have?
And a lot of trainers and consultants say, it's about asking the right questions.
I disagree. I think it's about asking the right question at the right time.
I think it's too general to say it's all about questions.
It's just too wide.
So I would say, let's build it for instance.
So say I was selling you, let's go with what your background is.
Say I was selling law services, kind of like a shared service.
And I was selling it to small to mid -sized businesses, right?
So somebody didn't want to have a lawyer on retainer.
Say I gave you the presentation about why you would want to purchase my law services, how it could protect your business.
Things would be less risky, get in front of some things.
So I gave you the presentation.
I would say something like, so what are your thoughts on moving forward, right?
So it's not really a hard edged close, but it actually moves you past the close.
So what are you thinking moving forward?
You would naturally say something like, I got to think about it.
I need to talk to some of my people, right?
Can you send me some more information?
Can I get a referral?
Now, as a salesperson, I'm going to either right there at that pivot point, start to decide what category of objections that can be.
How serious are you, right?
So right there, and if you think of some basic negotiation processes, like basic negotiation processes, say investigation, presentation, bargain, close, So, and it's very basic form.
And there's a lot of negotiation processes.
Well, you know, it's interesting.
That's actually a very basic sales process, right?
Evaluate, diagnose, prescribe, dialogue, close.
It's not much different depending on the wording you use.
So what you're doing is you're doing a deep type clarification there.
So like, I would start, you could say, well, Lance, you know, I'm interested, but very concerned about your fees that you talked about.
Well, I'm going to say now I'm going to deal with an objection right there.
I'm going to say, so what else other than the fees?
And you would say, well, there's nothing else.
So then I might say, so if we could really get you to see the value of the fees, might you move forward?
And if you kind of start stuffing me there, then like, and I'm talking a semi -complex, complex sales process, a lot of small to mid -sized businesses, which is 90 % of every marketplace in the country.
That's where I might start negotiating a little bit, right?
If you say, no, it's just about this or just about this, then I start entering into a negotiation phase of a deal.
So that's kind of like with that example.
But with that example, Kwame, you know as well as I do, you really have to understand your sales process, but you really have to understand why people buy from you, right?
That's the big thing because you're probably taught a couple of things in law school.
Once somebody says it's about the principal, just stop arguing, right?
That's lesson number one, probably first year of law school.
And then two is you can't bargain if you're blind.
You can't even get into the bargaining stage if you're blind.
So you got to kind of have a really strong dialogue.
We actually, in my first book, it's called selling is an away game, and it's kind of a play on the sale really happens in the mind of the buyer, right?
And we have a step in the sales process.
We think it's unique.
We actually call for dialogue.
So if you give a prescription before a diagnosis, that's malpractice.
So evaluate, diagnose, prescribe, dialogue, close.
That dialogue step, we really want to force the sales people to start clarifying objections because a red flag would be if you brought up no objection because then you're not going to negotiate at all or deal with objections, right?
So I know it's a long answer.
I apologize. Seems complicated.
It's not if you think sequential about it.
Yeah, I agree. I think, and I will have to say, Lance, the only thing I disagree with is about law school.
They don't teach you that once they say it's about the principle, they keep that as a secret, a sadistic secret and wait for you to get out and practice.
I can see that. That's right when you start arguing.
I haven't even learned that at this point.
So as soon as somebody says it's the principle of it, get out of there, right?
Honestly, that's what we used to say in mediation all the time because whenever we were mediating between two parties and then one person says it's the principle, we say, okay, well, this is going to be a long day.
Then the other person says it's going to be about the principle.
I said, well, you want to end this now?
That makes things tough.
Not impossible, but tough.
But I love what you're saying too because one of the things that people often say about a negotiation is that it doesn't begin until somebody says no.
And essentially what you described here is a situation where the sales process is moving smoothly and then we have a little, let's say a bump in the road, but an expected bump in the road, we should be anticipating objections.
But once we get that objection, now we realize, all right, we need to be a bit more dynamic in this moment.
And that's where you start to blend those negotiation skills within the sales process.
Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question.
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Totally agree. When you said that, it kind of brings up a point.
A lot of salespeople don't know the difference.
And I think a lot of business people struggle with what a buying signal is, what a warning signal is.
And they struggle with defining the word objection.
So a buying signal would be anything a buyer says or does, or doesn't say or doesn't do that would indicate interest.
And a warning signal would be anything a buyer says or does, or doesn't say or doesn't do that indicates some kind of hesitation.
So they kind of X each other out a little bit.
Then an objection would be anything they say or do or don't say or don't do that would cause a complete stall.
And that's where the V in the road is.
Because then you start, as you clarify, you start to say, hey, am I going to split the difference here?
Right? I know Chris Voss says never split the difference.
I would kind of argue, like, yeah, maybe you don't split the difference if you're arguing somebody's life.
But there's a lot of products or services out there that the value is arguable.
So and that's kind of so in business here.
There's a lot of businesses that that's that's a fight.
And then so that's like, maybe it's more like a trap door.
Objections negotiation in a sales process like a trap door is the way I say it.
Oh, that's fascinating.
I like that, that metaphor of using the trap door.
Because, yeah, if you, if you fall down that trap door, I mean, you're pretty much done.
Right? And but it's, it's, it's important to recognize the consequences of not handling those moments appropriately.
And so I think about it in terms of inflection points.
So the entire conversation is important, but they're parts of the conversation that are more important, relatively speaking than other parts.
And those objections are those parts where you have to slow down and say, hey, this is one of those points where I could either make or break the conversation in this very moment.
You know, it's so interesting you say that too, because there's that there is those cruxes and inflection points.
And, and we talk a lot about when we look at deals, and I mentioned kind of before, that we do a lot of pre, pre operations and post ops, right?
You know, or post mortems.
And what we try to show salespeople is there's natural momentum in some deals.
And there's artificial momentum that you might have to create to get it moving along.
And the natural momentum, there's a lot of inflection points, there's a lot of turns where you got to maybe if you're on a bobsled, you got to kind of stay low, right, and be synchronized when you're doing it.
So I, so I, and I think the sales, salespeople, because they have to put a lot of times in a semi complex or complex sale, they have to put so much effort into certain parts of the funnel, they get deal, they have deal exhaustion.
And then they get really weak when they have to negotiate.
So any deal feels kind of good to them.
And you know, you know, like a simple, simple way to look at this, if you've ever bought a car, car deal, and I don't want to like tie everything to sales, car salespeople.
But at the end of the day, it's kind of relative, you would never let a salesperson in a car dealership, negotiate the financing because they give everything away.
Because because it's in their best interest, just to get it done because of deal exhaustion.
And too many times in a lot of businesses let their salespeople negotiate.
So like in my business, for instance, and we're probably a lot like yours, we sell professional services.
So we put a couple, we could have put a couple barriers around our salespeople not to allow them to get deal exhaustion.
One is we show them all the numbers, right?
So they, they, they're allowed to negotiate at a certain threshold of profitability.
But as it goes a few points below that they have to get approval of their VP and then get approval of the CFO.
So there's guardrails to protect them a little bit from.
And the other thing is they're not allowed to start negotiating less, unless they get a stated objection, which leads to negotiation.
So you got to kind of watch because that deal exhaustion and, you know, bottom line is most of your salespeople will behave in a way that they're paid to behave.
So compensation drives behavior with salespeople a ton, which makes them either really good negotiators or not.
So it just, you know what I mean?
So there's a couple of nuances to that.
Yeah. Let's, let's stay on this point because I think it's really important because a lot of times the salespeople, they focus on getting that commission, but they don't focus on profitable deals.
There's a difference between the two.
And so when you talk to your sales team and you're coaching them on how to negotiate and you have those guardrails, one of the things people often do is that they concede too soon.
So when they think about their tools in their toolbox and they reach some resistance, concession or compromise is like tool number one, when it should typically not be tool number one, right?
So when you give them those guardrails, how do you make sure that they are not inadvertently conceding too quickly in order to expedite deals and get more deals under their belt?
So, so typically number one is when they get an objection, we, we, we wholeheartedly believe in very rare times is only one reason why somebody will do business with you as opposed to why they would.
It's rarely because, so what that means is if you tell me, Hey, you know, let's pick something very simple.
Most happens with most companies.
So for instance, this happens in my business and a lot of the companies say, Hey, I'd like to talk to some people that you do business with, right?
Which asks for a referral.
There's tons of sales processes that people ask for a referral.
So a response to that is we don't, you know, Kwame, we, we typically don't give referrals out because you're asking us essentially to get one of our customers to do our selling, right?
Obviously there's probably something I didn't say or didn't do that it's causing you to kind of ask that is, is there something you'd want to hear from one of our customers that you didn't hear from me?
See now, now you're kind of in a corner a little bit, right?
Because that could be a stall technique with you.
It could be part of your buying process, right?
So, so then, then we start making that negotiable, right?
So we don't, we don't ever, and then now you know, as well as I do, if I give something up and you don't give anything up, that's extortion at some level, right?
So what do I get as a result of that?
So we really put those guardrails around like if our salespeople can't produce those answers, right?
We're going to challenge them internally.
So like, that's something little.
Do we give referrals out?
Certainly, right? We give references out all the time, not referrals, excuse me, references, right?
We use references, but it doesn't come easy.
So it's, it's little things like that.
And, but now here's what I'm invoking also.
I'm invoking that most businesses should actually know, and you said this a few minutes ago, you should never or very rarely be surprised with an objection that you would get.
You should know how, how could you not know, right?
You know, you never ask a question that you probably don't know the answer to.
So most businesses get very challenged or they haven't really thought about this about, you know, what do you get beat up on term, price, competition, you know, are you in a red ocean?
Are you in blue ocean?
Like what is it? And we spend a lot of time there first.
So as we set up, because if you look at objections and negotiations, so think about this way, what's the worst time to handle an objection?
Probably when you bring it up in the moment and I don't ask for it.
That's the word. That's your lowest odds.
Well, what's your highest odds?
Well, the highest odds would be me dealing with it before it ever came up.
So I would present to the objection, right?
So the, so what's in the middle there, me actually asking you what would cause you to hesitate, because then I have the advantage of the fact that I at least asked for it.
So like, I think that's it.
That's a really big challenge.
And there's a lot of, there's a lot of design work, if done correctly, that you can bake into a sales presentation that would give you better odds.
Yeah. Oh Lance, I like that a lot, because I just want to recap this for the listeners too, because what you said was really insightful.
So as you're going through these processes, you're selling multiple times over and over to these clients, then you should realize that there are going to be some objections that are going to come up repeatedly.
And so don't just sit there and wait for the objection.
You bake that into your pitch, into the way that you are proposing the product or service that you're selling.
So you are essentially taking a preemptive strike on that, that objection that we know is going to come.
But then when that big objection has been addressed, because your presentation skills have improved, you still recognize that there are going to be some underlying objections that they might not share that are less obvious.
So you actually invite those and ask what other reasons may get in the way of you purchasing, right?
Correct. That's exact.
And look, it's not foolproof at all, but it's way better than the alternative, right?
Because at the end of the day, you know this, just like you said earlier, when somebody brings up the principle, you learned over time that we're probably in a little bit of a long battle or we're probably in a longer game here, right?
And so you have these tells, but it's no different than, and listen, my experience of wanting to go to law school and not going is probably knowing enough that a good prosecutor or a good defense lawyer, probably at some level takes a lot of consideration into how the opposition is going to present
their case. That's probably, I don't think that's any different in sales.
I don't think it's any different at all.
So I think as a matter of fact, it is exactly right.
Which then, then bodes the question philosophically, when do you actually start negotiating before you even walk in the door?
There you go. You're taking high ground.
So is it really like a spot or is it a philosophy?
See, I think it's a philosophy.
It's like, you know, you go to the Kroger down the street from UNI, you know, they practice good customer service.
Is it a department?
No, it's a philosophy.
It's an attitude toward it.
That's probably more real than anything else.
Absolutely. Yeah, we're on the same page.
The way I define negotiation, just to keep it simple, as I always say, anytime you're in a conversation with somebody, and somebody wants something, that's a negotiation, right?
And you can see that from a salesperson, sales perspective too, because anytime you want somebody to do something, you have to sell that idea too.
And I think if you incorporate both of these approaches as more of a life's philosophy than a skill set per se, even though it is clearly a skill set, then it helps you to be more aware and know, hey, I'm going to whip out this skill at this time.
I'm going to whip out this skill.
Sometimes I'm selling, sometimes I'm negotiating, but I'm always doing both.
One might take the lead at different times, but I think just recognizing that it helps you to be more intentional about the way you interact with people too, and more flexible and dynamic in the moment.
I agree. And you know, what you just said made me think of this analogy because it's a skill set, but it's also like the strategy.
And my challenge to most people I talk to is like, look, did you drive today?
Yeah. Did I negotiate my car into the parking spot?
Right. So it's a skill and it's execution.
So like you said, it's perspective and awareness, and then you got to ultimately execute on it.
And sometimes those things don't combine.
You know, one of the last things I'll mention is we do a lot of assessments.
So we do a lot of competency -based assessments.
Last year in pro sports, we did almost 3 ,500 of them between partnership salespeople and like even ticket salespeople.
We don't want them to do what we do.
So like you name the sports team, we probably do business with them.
And you know, there are some skill sets like negotiations, some things with objections that there's something, some people just aren't good at it.
And then you got to provide a workaround.
So like some of the things we're talking about is considering like a workaround.
So like, if you got somebody that's not going to deal with objections or negotiating, then we got to put a workaround, a process around them.
Like you got to bake this into your sales process.
Because you're just not going to be, everybody's, it's statistically improbable that you'd be good at everything you'd have to be good at at sales.
You know, all the skills.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
And before you go, if you were to give the listeners one piece of advice to become better at selling, what would that one thing be?
I, you know, I've, I come out of early part of my career and Dale, and I worked with Dale Carnegie training, that's all I got to Columbus, actually, Ohio, and I own several of their operations in the Midwest.
And I would suggest that people skills is critical.
People skills isn't always liking people, though.
And there's a lot of misnomers, it's all about relationship building.
Now, I don't think it's about relationship building.
I think it's about rapport building.
It's a likability factor.
I can go to the Starbucks, not far from where you and I live, and in seven seconds, have rapport with the barista.
And I think that's I would focus more on that.
And it's like I said, it's you're not gonna like everybody, but you're probably gonna have to get results for people.
So I would leave I would leave everybody with that.
That definitely helps with negotiation.
Because, look, it makes it a lot tougher if you just can't stand the person, or you're not likable, or they're not.
And you and I both know that, right?
So that's definitely a part of it.
That's what I'd leave with the audience.
I love it. I think that's a great tip.
And Lance, before you go, let the listeners know how they can get in touch with you and how they can connect.
Yeah, no, I appreciate you asking.
Tyson group .com would definitely be a spot where, you know, check out who we are at Lance Tyson on Twitter and just or connect with me on LinkedIn.
It's usually that seems to be the spot in box me if you wanted to connect or maybe I can answer a question or two.
So perfect. All right, my friend, really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
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