A couple of months ago, I was confronted by a friend. Initially I was really taken back, even a bit upset. Here’s what happened…

I work hard, right? So does everyone around me! Our team is down-right amazing - hands down. But, having a stellar team does two *bad* things…

1. You get spoiled…start to think that’s just normal and expect it.

2. Sometimes, you even expect more (because you’re so used to it)…

I’ve always treated everyone around me with nothing but respect. Especially for my team, I give them everything they ever ask for, period. It’s a family and I am willing to make ANY sacrifice for my family.

We’re all so busy working and working and building our empire, that we’re always on the GO. Especially this year with all my travel, before one thing is done, I’m on to the next 5 things…

What Happens In All This?

I forget to take a minute to really appreciate and thank my team. No, it’s not enough to just “be there for them” - people are people. They need to hear that you DO see their effort.

Most “A players” don’t need to be told every day or even every month. But, in the end, EVERYONE has their points.

Bottom line is this. Consider it the BIGGEST flattery if someone is looking for appreciation from you. Mostly it means they really respect you and want to impress you!

But, if you go a long time without doing it - it can be the biggest de-motivation.

I found that this was the BIGGEST weakness in my style of leadership. I’m seriously working on it now and I can’t appreciate my friend enough for bringing it up.

It not only makes the person feel good - it makes ME feel good.

Try this:

EVERY DAY - Try appreciating someone. Anyone. Even the cashier at your lunch cafeteria. How about just saying…

“You know Sam…you’re always really pleasant…I appreciate you for that - thank you” or…

“Sam, you make a killer cheese sandwich man - just wanted to say, I really look forward to it everyday!”

Think about it - the last time someone said something nice to you - didn’t it make you feel great?

How would you feel if you can make at least one person feel that way every day?

It’s very powerful.

Popularity: 36% [?]

3 days ago I just read a chapter in the book “Influence.” The chapter talks about “concessions.” The book is all about how to influence people, a.k.a, how to get your own way, a.ka, how to manipulate people

This particular chapter teaches you to go in with a HIGH demand with the expectation that the person will reject it. Here’s the neat part…

It’s proven that when someone declines you, a small part of them feels a bit guilty for doing so. Now, if you come back at them and DECREASE your demand and re-position it, they’re mind thinks “Oh…he’s willing to work with me, he’s making exceptions” - I should say yes.

Here’s the example used in the book to explain this (I only roughly remember it):

As a research experiment, a few people set out on a campus to ask students the following question:

“Would you be willing to commit 2 hours of your time to help guide and mentor a young child?”

If I remember correctly, about 15% said yes and the rest said no.

As a part of the research, they changed it up. Now the LEAD question became:

“Would you be willing to commit 1 day a month to guide and mentor a young child?”

Not to their surprise and overwhelmingly large percentage said no. However, they had a follow-up “decreased” request:

“OK…we understand, that is a LOT of time, how about just 2 hours ONE TIME deal to help mentor a young kid really in need?”

Guess what the results were?

A 233% increase in the number of people that said “Yes.” From 15% to 50%! (Again, I don’t remember the exact numbers but the increase was HUGE).

The only difference was that they changed the LEAD question.

Why am I talking to you about this today?

A) It’s a freaking awesome strategy, I just realized how often I personally use it without even knowing.

B) I just realized how often it’s used on ME.

Also, the day after I read that chapter, I witnessed in-front of my very own eyes, the concession sales technique being used and it worked amazingly.

My roommate in Mumbai, Ankur and I were at dinner and he got a phone call from someone who was at the house trying to deliver a package (but we were not there).

Ankur asked if he could bring the package where we were and the man declined.

Ankur flipped on the salesman and pushed hard, but the man insisted that he had “other things to do…”

Immediately Ankur offered him a concession (realizing that the REAL problem was not that the guy was busy but that he did not want to pay the fare to come to where we were).

Ankur offered to pay the taxi fees for his commute if he would bring the package that night itself to where we were eating dinner.

The result? 30 minutes later, Ankur was collecting his package!

I laughed after seeing this and then also realized how many times Ankur has used these mind jedi tricks on ME. I’ll give you another example of when he used this very example on me.

Ankur does design work for me sometimes. About a year back, I was not happy with his design work and actually got upset. I was about to “fire” him or at least pull my projects from him and he again put his salesman ship hat on.

I told him that I could no longer afford his high rates for the quality of work and that I was going elsewhere.

He did not want to lose a client so his next offering was: “Fine, I want you to be happy with me and I refuse to lose you as a client - you don’t have to pay for this or pay me whatever you want, but I need you to be happy.”

How does someone say NO to that? Of course I said OK and since then he’s collected MANY new projects from me.

I can give you yet another example from when Ankur (again) used these tricks on me (I really need to be careful of this guy).

Again, for design work, he quoted me a price and I said “WO! way too much buddy…”

His concession:

Don’t pay it to me now, just pay me over 6 months…all of a sudden the cost was really just 1/6th to me. I said “that sounds fair, let’s do it.”

Again, MY thinking is that “Man, he’s really willing to work with me, how can I say no?”

So, there you have it Fighters - use the concession technique. Use it wisely and for good only.

Popularity: 9% [?]

That’s right, I said BRIBE. Before you go and start judging, hear me out. Lately, I’ve really been stroking my own ego about my ability to “network.” Needless to say I’ve been very pleased with the results I’ve been getting.

In the last 4 years, I’ve gone from being practically a “nobody” to being a very well connected person in our industry (and even outside this industry). I pretty much know everyone in our industry and if I don’t know them, I’m only one person away from getting to know them.

How Do I Do It?

Great question and until recently, I would have told you - I have no freaking clue.

However, lately, I’ve taken some time to really look at myself from a bird’s eye view and I definitely see some trends:

1. I’m pretty darn charismatic - I tend to switch on the “charm” the instant I meet someone new (more so in business settings, not sure why that doesn’t carry over at social situations like clubs).

2. I take it slow - I don’t snap right into “what you can do for me” or even business in general. I take my time to get to know the PERSON and go from there…

3. Give FIRST, Then Ask - Yes, try to DO something for the person first before you go asking them to do something for you. The principle of reciprocity is enormous and works 99.5% of the time.

You do something nice for someone (even if they never ask for it) and all of a sudden they are obliged to you.

4. I talk their talk - I almost feel like an iguana sometimes. You can see me at a networking event, I’ll be cursing with one person and then immediately turn around and grab a glass of wine (with my little finger sticking out as I sip).

I get to know someone and can pretty quickly talk their talk - this instantly creates a connection and makes others feel comfortable around me.

5. I BRIBE.

Let me explain before you judge. I’m not saying I go to them and slap $10,000 in front of them and say “do this…” Well, at least I don’t do it in THAT fashion.

I may very well HIRE someone for $10,000 to consult (but that’s a different strategy - I call it “buying your way to the top.”)

Allow me to use an example to make my point…

At the end of 2008, we were sitting on some profits and great cash flow. We had made some serious new relationships in 2008 that turned out to be very profitable. These new relationships also opened doors into many new possible relationships.

I wanted to do something to really STICK OUT at the end of the year. Going into 2009, I wanted to do something memorable.

Sending thank you e-mails, calling people, sending greeting cards, blah blah blah - BOOORING. EVERYONE does that and you’ll just blend right into the background.

I thought about the group in general that I was trying to “schmooze.” Mostly male, all young or middle aged and all making good money. Also, all these people are VERY used to competing in sales competitions where they win cool electronic gadgets.

“Ah hah…they like electronic gadgets, even the demographics fit.”

So, I thought, “rather than sending a stupid greeting card that gets thrown away, what if I go over the top and send some electronic gadget - a big box they get to unwrap and something they can’t really throw away - even if they won’t use it.”

Let’s face it, who doesn’t like unwrapping big boxes, who doesn’t like a new electronic gadget to play with (even if it’s only for minutes)?

I instantly made a list of all the people I wanted to be more *memorable* to and it came out to 30 people. Now, I didn’t want to “bankrupt” the company and I didn’t want to go OVERBOARD.

I pulled a random budget out of thin air and ran the numbers. I budgeted a $150 gift for everyone. $150*30 = $4,500. So, I would have to spend near $5,000 to make this happen.

Now, $5,000 may SOUND like a big number, but lets BREAK it down.

The people I was sending these too were all qualified to generate a MINIMUM of $10,000 in sales (easily) if they participate in just ONE product launch for the company.

So, if ALL I did was get ONE person (out of 30) to appreciate the gift enough that they would promote, I would instantly see a positive ROI.

You can’t argue with those numbers! I sure couldn’t…

Well, we sent the gift with nice notes. Wanna know the results?

Within 1 month of the gifts, we’ve SPECIFICALLY heard back from at least 7 people who have never promoted our products before (or at least not promoted hard). Each of these individuals is capable of making way more than $10,000 in sales. However, for consistency let’s just use $10,000 as the number.

Let’s also assume that these new relationships only promote ONE product the entire year of 2009 (unlikely since once we have the relationship they’ll likely support everything we do).

JUST worst case scenario, we can safely say that we have already created $70,000 in extra revenue - that is a REALLY conservative estimate!

So, let’s calculate the ROI on that. I spent $4,500 and created $70,000. That’s a 1,455% return on investment.

Take THAT to your stock broker and see what he says.

I don’t understand why we all don’t invest more into RELATIONSHIPS and NETWORKING - it’s the best kind of marketing. It will out do the results you get from investing in direct marketing, tv ads or brand building any day.

Bottom line, invest in your relationships and networks. Even if it’s not for business purposes, it can pay VERY large dividends in your personal life too.

Popularity: 13% [?]

I had planned to write a post today about the “power of honesty & truth” and one of our customers from PPC Classroom made a comment that is a great lead-in to my point…

Here’s what he said (right on this blog, here…):

“…I think you did great by boldly accepting that things did go wrong and offering huge bonuses. I can’t even imagine how freaky the situation might have been considering it was a mega launch and the expectations were high.”

Abhijeet was commenting on a post where I discussed a massive failure we had during the biggest product launch of the company’s history. It was a huge nuclear meltdown after months of work and THOUSANDS of people anticipating…

Here’s what happened…

We planned for a long time and had set to launch a product on Day X and Time Y. Everything was perfect. The pre-launch buzz was HUGE, people were running, stampeding and tripping over each other to get into the course.

We had TONS of promotional partners & an amazing product.

Now, in this industry, we’re used to seeing servers MELT the minute a product is launched. It’s happened to 80% of launches for years (no joke) - so you’d think we would learn, right?

Well, our company spent close to $12,000 preparing and getting a crazy server set-up.

Yet…the minute we launched - KA BOOM! it all exploded and eggs were thrown in our faces.

Now, instead of the biggest launch in history, we had…

-> Irrate customers
-> Support e-mails/calls flying in
-> UPSET promotional partners
-> Overloaded/Under-slept team members

You name it…we had it…

So we’re embarrassed, scared, shocked and darn right humiliated…what now?

Well, we chose to go down the route of HONESTY. Rather than make up some “gimmicky” message saying, “Oh, we’re so awesome, we had so much traffic, it all exploded” - no…that was not the truth. Yes, we had tons of traffic, but THAT’s not why we exploded.

We wanted to take the high ground.

We sucked it up and immediately apologized.

I made a video for the promotional partners, I let the customers know and we just worked on getting the system back up.

…When finally up - it was time to make it up to everyone.

Now, we sat down and thought “what can we do that will blow everyone away and really make them happy with us again…”

Yes, this was going to mean taking money OUT of OUR pockets - but you know what? WE screwed up and we needed to make it up to everyone who’s time was wasted.

So, we did it.

The end result?

Believe it or not, but we are actually MORE respected in the industry for it. Almost a “blessing in disguise” - I said ALMOST.

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Lesson of the day: Sometimes you need to turn the salesman off. Accept what happened, stick your tail between your legs and own up to it. Be HONEST.

You’ll be surprised how far honesty with others can take you. Most humans, by nature, are incredibly forgiving - all you have to do is ask for their forgiveness.

Popularity: 15% [?]

For those of you wondering where the heck I’ve been the last month, there you go - I’ve been under my desk!

Of course I’m only kidding, I only spent a few hours there

But it does bring up an interesting question - why was I down there to begin with?

Here’s what’s been going on the last couple of months…

We had an ENORMOUS product launch, the biggest in our company’s history and to say “we had some problems along the way” would be an understatement!

We launched a huge brand new eLearning system and well, it crashed. We also brought in over 6,200 customers so you can imagine - every time someone so much as “farted” inside the system, we got TONS of emails!

But, you know what? I have NO bad news to report - only good news.

I’ve Never Learned So Much About Myself & My Business…

This launch really was the moment of truth for us and a test to the will, power and “fighter mentality” for everyone on the team.

I learned a TREMENDOUS amount about my own fighter mentality and also that of those on our team.

I also have great lessons that came out of it - things I will share over the coming days with you right here on this blog.

We’ll start with the first lesson today…

It’s OK To Freak Out - Just Do It Fast…

Look, we’re all human and it’s only natural for us to “lose it” or get overwhelmed. Being a fighter does not mean you’re not allowed a moment of weakness.

Being a fighter means you can recollect yourself fast and snap out of it.

Let me give you a story I remembered while I was under my desk…

This Lesson Brought To You By a TV SHOW - “Lost”

Background of the show: A plane mysteriously crashes on an island. Lots of people die but lots also survive. The island is weird and lots of unexplainable things are happening - people are still dying; everyone is scared out of their minds.

As in all crisis moments in life, a leader rises to the occasion. His name is “Jack” and he’s a spinal surgeon back in the ‘real world.’

He gathers everyone and starts to provide structure.

During the first season, something horribly horrifying is happening that they don’t understand and he needs to take a moment to calm down his “right-hand man” - who happens to be a woman (Kate).

She’s on the verge of a breakdown and asks him how he is keeping his cool.

Here’s what he says (I’m paraphrasing, I don’t remember exactly what he said):

“I was once in a surgery, life-threatening surgery, one small mistake and the patient would be dead and it would be MY fault. Well, it was one of my first surgeries and it was a very serious case…

I’m in the process of the surgery and I did something wrong, something terribly wrong - I had the patients entire back open and all her spinal nerves exposed.

Whatever I did caused ALL of her spinal nerves to pour out of her like spaghetti - I had basically sentenced this woman to death - holy sh** what had I just done?

Panic came over me, I freaked out and I filled with fear…here’s what I did:

(Pay attention to this part - it changed the way I handle crisis moments…)

I told myself ‘Jack, it’s OK to be afraid…here’s what we’ll do - go ahead and freak out, go nuts, lose your mind, fill yourself with fear - but do it for FIVE seconds. That’s it.’

Jack goes on to say: ‘I counted down from 5 to 1 and I let fear overtake me, but the instant my 5 seconds were over, I cleared my mind, got rid of the fear and FOCUSED. I fixed the problem and the woman survived and is living a healthy life.’

So what’s the moral of that long paraphrasing?

It’s OK To Be Afraid - Just Get Over It Fast!

Look, the launch that went sour this past month for us, the results could have been catastrophic - my name/reputation/team - everything I spent 4 years building could have been gone in the snap of a finger.

Scary eh?

And, yes, I WAS afraid. But, when I was under that desk - I told myself:

“Your team, your business, your customers - they need you right now, people are counting on you. It’s OK that you’re afraid, just let it overtake you for a minute or so - don’t fight the fear, let it come…

BUT, after that, shut up, sit up and get it done!”

What was the result?

The result was a record-breaking launch not only for the company but for our entire industry.

I’m actually being PRAISED and RESPECTED for the way we handled the aftermath - it’s freaky but it’s almost like it HELPED us. That, my friends, is called making lemonade out of lemon!

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The moral of the story is to NOT fight back against fear - let it come, accept it, acknowledge it, even let it overtake you. BUT, always control it.

YOU tell it when it can come in and YOU tell it when it has to leave. Let it come in for just a bit, then kick it out, re-focus and bring the fighter back out to solve the crisis.

Till next time…

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** This post has been dedicated to 2 Indians who actually got Tshirts printed with this blog on them! hahaha…

Popularity: 15% [?]

Quick post today about a BIG lesson I’m learning hands-on right now.

Here’s the background story:

We’re in the middle of a product launch right now and so we’re talking to a lot of “promotional partners” and trying to convince them to promote for our new product.

The best scenario for us is if they promote at least once or twice during or “pre-launch buzz building” and then do another few promotions AFTER we launch…

The problem is that some of our BIG promoters are VERY busy people. They have tons of projects on their plate and even more promotional committments.

So, time is scarce, I feel lucky enough just having them AGREE to promote, much less how MANY promotions they’ll do.

But, the bottom line is that we will have a much bigger success IF they pre-promote.

Just yesterday I had an e-mail from one of these partners (one of the biggest ones in our industry) and he had agreed earlier to promote our product. He sent me an email flat out asking me:

What day do you want me to promote?

Now, I sat back and thought about what to say? From the phrasing of the question, he seemed to be making it clear that I had ONE day and ONE promotion to get out of it - what day did I feel I could get the MOST out of it?

I was a bit dissapointed because I really wanted him to do more than one promotion. However, I was afraid that if I asked for that, I’d offend him or sound greedy.

But, before I replied with my assumption in mind, I figured that I really had nothing to lose. I had to PUSH here. I had to get the HUSTLE into this!

So, my response flat out asked him to do a pre-promotion and post-promotion. I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous.

This morning, I woke up and received a message from him asking me for some promotional material to send his way…

Wait…did he just agree to do it?!  I think so!

A small example, but an iron clad one for sure. Had I “assumed” something and not asked, I would be stuck with just one promotion. However, since I just got over my “fear” and asked him, I’m now getting exactly what I wanted!

The worst thing that can happen when you ask is that they say “no.” Big deal, you’ve been hearing no your entire life! But, even if there is a .1% chance that they’ll say yes, GO FOR IT!

( By the way, I DID have another promotional partner flat out say no. So what? I’m still alive and he’s still promoting on launch day. I lost NOTHING, only had something to gain. )

Popularity: 10% [?]

So, I was scheduled to fly out today (out of the country). I had my flight leaving Washington, Dulles Airport at 5:05 PM and running a connection through New York (JFK).

It hit 5 PM and they announced that our plane had not even left it’s other destination yet, but that it would come (don’t worry everyone).

Then, at 6 PM, they suddenly just canceled the flight! My connecting flight was at 8:55 PM and this left me little room to do anything.

All the passengers got in the herendous line to get help from the rediculously mean women at the counter. I had two options:

1. Follow suit and get in line and pray for the best.

2. Take things into my own hands and CALL Delta.

I did the latter and although it took me a good 30 minutes on the phone, we came to an agreeable alternate solution (which has me leaving tomorrow). However, there were many times that the call tested my patience. As nice as the woman was on the phone, some of her rediculously imposed red-tape was seriously starting to pi** me off!

“But I Kept My Cool…I Kept On Smiling…”

I almost lost my cool, but I made a conscious decision not to. I was watching what was happening down the line from people who were flaring their arms around and acting like monkeys.

They were getting the same rudness in return and ended up with results they were not happy with.

I, however, kept asking the attendent on the phone to place herself in my shoes and to be fair. The more I talked to her as a PERSON and REASONED, the further I got to getting a desirable result!

In the end, I got a great outcome and was very happy with it.

Then It Happened Again!

As I got home, I had to call the hotel and change my reservation and I already knew that they were going to try to charge me the day because I was within 24 hours. However, IT WASN’T MY FAULT!

Plus, I had extended my stay by one more day, so they were still going to get the same number of nights from me. When I called, the initial reaction was the same “no sir, we have to charge.”

I immediately asked for the supervisor (very nicely) and I made my case. However, STILL they didn’t listen!

Again, about to lose my cool to people who are being unreasonable, but then I remembered…

I realized that I could just call the corporate office and reason with them given my high points with them. So, that’s what I did. The representative was GREAT. She immediately called the hotel on my behalf and argued my case.

Eventually, the entire matter got handled and I have to pay nothing.

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Here’s what I learned…

I’ve watched my own father handle these situations and he’s a firm believer in “ATTACK hard and you get your way…” - Many times I’ve felt that he’s too fast to yell, shout and throw around threats, I’m starting to think that I may be right.

Given that I run my own business, lately I’ve actually been LESS likely to help someone if they call kicking and screaming then someone who calls reasoning with me on logic and nicely asking for HELP.

My Advice To You Is This - Don’t be that guy in line who was flaring his arms around and shouting - it won’t get you what you want. Take a deep breath, nicely ask for help and reason by asking the other person to place themselves in your shoes (while also placing YOURSELF in their shoes so they know it’s a two way street).

Popularity: 14% [?]

“Thank you so much, you do such a great job, I wish I could do it this well…”

Sound a bit too mushy for you? Well, either way, try it. It can make a major impact on someone.

Yesterday night, around 9 PM my phone rang, it was my sister. I picked up and she said that my brother-in-law wanted to talk to me.

Some Back-story for you:

My sister is applying to medical residency programs and wanted me to edit her personal statements. I was cursed (I mean blessed ) with being a good writer. Funny thing because “writing” was the only thing I got a B in in high school (screwed up my 4.0 GPA).

Thanks to learning how to copywrite from Justin Ford, I do write very well now.

Anyways, I digress in self flattery…

She has two essays, one of them I had re-done and sent to her the night before. I was extremely tired when I edited it, it was NOT my best work, but still felt it was much better than the original draft.

My brother-in-law had called JUST to thank me. First of all, mind you, this favor was for my SISTER, not him. However, he said he was so incredibly impressed with my ability to write that he just had to call and say thanks (I’ve written things for them in the past as well, so he’s seen me at work in the past).

His exact words:

“Man…thank you so much…I just don’t get how you do these so well, it was amazing. Keep this up and you’re going to take over the world!”

(Obviously he got a bit exaggerated, I have no plans to try to take over the world).

The entire conversation lasted less than 2 minutes and I was glowing from ear to ear!

My sister had already thanked me. They weren’t telling me something I didn’t already know. Yet, him taking that extra step to make a phone call out of his way SPECIFICALLY to appreciate and acknowledge me went a long way for me.

Next time either of them needs a favor, I’ll be 10 times happier to do it for them versus someone else.

Lesson to take away - Take a minute every day or at least once a week and appreciate someone near you. Your wife, kids, co-worker, boss, kid’s teacher, employee, the local cross-guard - anyone, just do it.

Popularity: 67% [?]

What you learn today: The structure to follow to peacefully and powerfully resolve a conflict.

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Yesterday I got a call from someone who works with me letting me know that I was going to have to step in as an “authority” on a call to help resolve a disagreement that was fast turning ugly. Here’s what the problem was for me, on a personal level, I’m friends with everyone involved.

Either side I take, I risk fighting with those I respect and like.

However, at the same time, I felt strongly about one side (professionally) and had no choice but to “take a side” and represent it.

For hours I thought about how to proceed so as to have the best consequence and my mind kept running through scenarios that all resulted in a big blow up - needless to say I was a bit nervous and apprehensive.

However, I realized one thing: A leader needs to be able to peacefully resolve conflicts, a leader needs to make sure all voices are heard, but also a leader needs to be able to stand strong and make a decision (even if everyone does not like it).

An indecisive leader is not only ineffective but will never have anyone’s respect.

Resorting To “Active Listening” - My Version of It…

I made a decision to handle the call in the following format:

1. Start by saying that I was there to hear all sides.
2. Summarize the concerns as “I” know them and ask the other party to confirm.
3. Ask the other party to spend some time to voice details of their concern.
4. Summarize what I heard.
5. State my side (without being combative or pointing fingers) - I would make it very clear that I was speaking my mind openly and meant no disrespect.
6. Give time for rebuttal or further concerns.
7. Explain my position one last time.
8. State how I would be moving forward.
9. Thank everyone for their time.

–> Through this entire call, I was very good about consistently reminding all parties that this was a PROFESSIONAL disagreement and was NOT personal and so nothing said should be taken personally.

I think it’s easier said than done, but the end result was fairly impressive and although we didn’t walk away “loving” each other, I do think it was fairly cordial and we’ll all get over it soon enough and that it was for the best in the long-run.

Did I Follow My Outline During The ACTUAL Call?

With the exception of a few distractions, I was very shocked that I really DID follow the outline above and it worked amazingly.

The best part about the outline above is that it makes the opposing party feel that you really ARE hearing them and are trying to work with them. However, at the same time, the outline above allows YOU to take and stay in control of the dispute and the eventual resolution.

I highly recommend that you study the outline above and implement it into ALL conflict resolutions.

Popularity: 14% [?]

What you learn today: Do you get uncomfortable with silence? Feel the need to talk to replace it? Do you get antsy when you don’t hear an answer? Here’s an exercise…

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Have you ever noticed how intimidating silence can be? Most of us innately feel the need to talk and fill in silence, what we don’t realize is that we’re showing too many of our cards when we talk too much.

The less you share many times, the more cards you have on your side…

This may sound vindictive, but it’s the truth. A big part of being a successful fighter is winning debates, negotiations and winning over people. Many times, the key here is to keep an upper-hand, know someone else’s “touch points” without revealing yours.

I’ve noticed that when I talk too much or am too aggressive, I end up being on the “needy” side of things and lose control over the “fight.”

Here’s an exercise I’ve been working on and I welcome you to join as well…(I encourage you to join):

PRACTICE SILENCE & PATIENCE

Let’s use an example…say you’ve just made an offer on a car and it’s been 10 hours and the sales guy has not called you back - FINE, DON’T CALL HIM!

The minute you all him, the message you’ve sent is that you’re desperate and have nothing better to sit around and think about. He gets the upper hand and your dealing power decreases.

OR, the next time you’re trying to get something your way - mention it and then DON’T defend it. Keep quiet, let the other person talk and talk, listen to them and gather your argument points.

When you DO talk, make it razor sharp and to the point.

Silence is golden (as they’ve said) - especially when you’re negotiating…

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