This weekend I spent an entire day with a client. He was managing many major changes in his life and it requires him to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week. While I happened to be in ear-shot he received a call from an irate customer. I knew some of the back story to this particular customer and I suspected the call might be a defining moment in my client’s relationship with his client.

10 minutes later after some rather intense phone time with the irate customer my client was unhinged. He like many Negotiating Clients wanted to validate his “point of view” with me after having gotten off the phone. Me, like I am when it comes to Negotiating, wanted to TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN my client to appreciate the phone call like a Negotiator.

In the first few minutes of the conversation between my client and his client “blame” surfaced. The irate customer blamed my client. My client’s response to that was to defend the blame and talk about what he “didn’t do”. After the phone call had ended and some cool-down time had passed, I addressed these areas with my client.

Here’s what I said:

1. You can’t prove a negative.
2. When a client blames you for something unfairly if you can manage to keep your center and remember you are a Negotiator you can actually turn that event into a great advantage.
3. Blame or being a victim is a Negotiating Position. The position looks like “I take the position of a victim with all the victim monologue”
4. When you start “reacting” in a Negotiation you’ve lost the Negotiation. If both parties are reacting, the Negotiation is simply “done”.
5. The key to managing someone who is taking a “victim” Negotiating Position is to challenge the position through Asking Resourceful Questions. Most “victims” will change their tune when they discover there is a)absolutely no pay-off or b)a potential loss for taking such a Negotiating Position to begin with.

My client wanted sympathy and to focus on the drama of what his client had said while he and I were working through his experience. This is a very important distinction to make in each potential Negotiator’s mind. You can either get lost in the drama of a Passionate Negotiation or you can appreciate the value of a Passionate Negotiation and navigate through it to even greater rewards than a standard non-passionate Negotiation.

By challenging a “victim” Negotiating Position effecitvely, the Negotiating Complement often times will regret having been a baby and try to make up for the self-realizing humiliation by Overcompensating you in a Negotiation. Who doesn’t want $ in terms of overcompensation?

If you’ve ever been faced with Blame in business and would like to ask questions or just have a comment then feel free to comment or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.  To hear more about how to Negotiate, sign up for my newsletter on the right hand side of my site and receive a free copy of The Negotiator’s Checklist.  If you would like to dive deeper into the world of Negotiations then you may want to consider my (currently free) Apprenticeship Program.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table.

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

Knowledge is Power to the Negotiator on a scale like no other profession. Your words equal an increase in profit, position, opportunity, alliances, options and every other word that represents Resource. If you never learn anything else about Negotiating then please please hear this: A Negotiator’s duty is to inspire the Negotiating Complement’s information to flow and flow and flow. Get your Negotiating Complement talking by any means necessary. The metaphor that helps me remember what I’m doing in this part of a Negotiation is to think of myself as a Safe Cracker. My function is to get the Negotiating Complement to reveal his entire combination so that when I begin spinning the tumblers – the question of accessing all his resources is only a mater of how long I wish to draw the Negotiation out, nothing else.

I wish to qualify the point earlier about any means necessary. I don’t intend to arm any of you with ugly negotiating tools. The only time that I pull out my lumber-jack Negotiating tools is when the context is instantaneous and the rules of the game are already dirty and unforgiving – like catching the car thief hot-wiring your car or the guy that cuts in front of you at the movie theater. Hostile Negotiations are an essential element in the vast array of tools and resources needed by The Excellent Negotiator! that we will cover another day.

The opposite of an assumption in a Negotiation is Asking a Resourceful Question.  If you find yourself thinking in terms of an assumption or if the next thing out of your mouth is derived from an assumption – STOP!  Take a little more time and Ask a Resourceful Quesiton.

In my youth – I remember learning one thing and the excitement and the power of knowing one thing – like how to change the oil in my car was so great that it helped me halucinate the following logic: I know one thing and I learned that thing.  Therefore – I can learn anything and the knowing of all things is simply a mater of learning it.  Therefore I know all things though a few of those things are as yet unlearned.  (which gets shortened to) I know all things.

Today I am 43 years and 1 day old.  I’ve learned enough to know I hardly know anything at all.  In my Negotiations I amp up my own ignorance.  I want my Negotiating Complement to feel the great rush of vast knowledge and shine his rays upon my dull self…so I can then open up his safe and take what I wish.  By the way – each model of car requires you to learn how to change the oil all over again and oh my god that’s such a great way to spend my time.

If you have a story about someone who Negotiates through Assumption (including yourself) or have a question about how to deal with assumptions, asking resourceful quesitons or anything else I may have covered, please feel free to leave a comment or write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

If you are interested in hearing more about Negotiations and would like to receive my Newsletter please fill out the form under my picture to the right.  If you wish an even deeper grasp of Negotiations you might wish to sign up for my currently Free Apprenticeship Program.

What would happen if every time you opened your mouth you got exactly what you wanted?  Have you Negotiated to your Own Best Good Today?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

His situation is that he’s had several unfulfilled relationships in the last 8 or 9 years. He really wants to step-up the quality of his mate-choice process and discover someone that is willing to commit for the long haul. As we began our training for this aspect of his life – I do what I always do – ask resourceful questions. When someone asks you a resourceful question, what they are really doing is examining your life. A resourceful question is almost always a question that you ask someone else that they themselves have refused or not known to ask their own self. Thus the essence of The Art of Asking Resourceful Questions is revealed by the relative significance of any question to the person being asked.

As I began my barrage of resourceful questions I soon discovered that my client had a low frequency of flirting as a result of having a vast array of rules governing his own process of flirting. I challenged his information and instructed him to practice every chance he was offered. This was quite challenging to him and he of course showed me his resistance. His resistance was-is a form of anxiety that is defined by unresourceful questions such as “What if I’m wasting my time? What if she’s not the one? What if she states on her myspace account that she’s not looking? What if she’s wearing a ring and I’m not sure if it’s a wedding ring or not..” His list was endless.

We have all played the “what if” game. When adults play it to prevent taking action – they can become self-oppressing. When I find a client has this much resistance to new information then the new behavior I help them install must be easy and simple – something they can do all the time in any situation without alot of thought. For this client the prescription was this: 1)Ask any woman you meet thoughtful questions and 2)Make her feel good. Of course he had a million questions and “what ifs” and so on. He didn’t like the specific instructions – he wanted to “get there himself” so he asked me for a metaphor as a guide. My metaphor was “Treat flirting like golf. When a woman appears before you in any situation think of the golf rule of “playing the ball where it lands”. So if you are in a restaurant, on a subway, walking your dog, jogging, parking your car, etc. that is the right place to flirt. He had another wave of questions for this of course. Resistance is as resitance does not.

The purpose of my instruction was for him to become masterful at flirting so that if he ever did meet the one he’d be ready for it instead of getting overwhelmed by his emotions and choking. Have you ever been in a situation where you knew what you wanted in a relationship but you had no idea what to say next to get it? Feel free to share your thoughts and comments or even your questions in the comment section or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

What would happen if you were able to flirt for your own best good?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Last night I had the great fortune of speaking with a woman named Kelly for the first time who had read The Attractor Factor by Dr. Joe Vitale. She was in alot of emotional pain and after reading a part of the his book she was inspired to contact him. Her call was eventually directed to my office. We spoke for over 2 hours and the topic of our conversation was RESOURCES.

If Negotiation is my strong right arm, then Resource Coaching is my other strong right arm. The first challenge when someone needs Resource First Aid is to re-direct their attention. When people are in a resource-depraved state – so is their attention. If you ask them what they notice about what’s going on around them and their life – they will tell you all that is wrong, broken and missing. I asked Kelly if she would be open to some training from me over the phone and she agreed.

Resource Coaching is a step-by-step technique. You must train the eyes to see where the feet need to go and get everything working in concert step-by-step. I was taking the first step with Kelly when she balked. She went from listening and wanting help to a long dreadful story about her life. I thought “We’ve slid off the road and now we are back in the ditch she probably called me from. I don’t like being muddy, so I washed my brain down and refocused to get Kelly and I back to the smooth clean road of Resources.

We stumbled up the incline to the road again and I put our “car” into gear and headed on back down the road trying to complete the “first step”. We were approaching the first step when suddenly she reached over (through the phone) and steered us right back in the ditch. It was like 8 or 9 pm when this was happening and I had already had a full day. I was “trying” to be “happy” about Kelly and I being in the ditch again.

This time instead of climbing back up the incline of our experience – I just stayed muddy with her as long as I could to “get” how she kept recreating the ditch result. I asked her lots of RESOURCEFUL QUESTIONS. Guess what I learned? She hated the word “resource”. I use the word resource in about every other sentence when I’m sleeping – you can imagine how often I might use it when I’m awake. So now I have to keep from laughing at the potential Mad TV skit that is arising from this experience: A woman in a resource-depraved state contacts me so she can really hike up her resources and I start giving her the Resource Remedy but she can’t stand to literally hear the word “resources”.

Would you have quit at that point? I did briefly think of hanging up so I could go eat dinner before 10pm but I decided since I had already uesd the words “Play Full Out” with her – that I had to be a model for those words or look like a snake oil salesman.

Staying in the ditch with Kelly (nice and muddy), I began to ask her questions about things that made her happy. Her level of resource-depravity was so strong that we had to sort through about 3 stories before I finally actually found a happy one. (The mud was starting to dry) On the third story of her son eating doodle bugs as a child – I discovered the word “doodle” made her laugh so much she could hardly think of what to do next – so I substituted the word “resources” with the word “doodle”.

We spent the next 30 minutes or so doing some “Doodle Coaching”. We quickly climbed out of the mud, got back on Doodle Road and I discoverd that the Resource Coach’s Fast Car was now a Doodle Bug (pun intended). Near the end of the conversation Kelly asked me if I knew anyone that did Energy Work. I have another client who I do Resource Coaching with and lo and behold at that moment (almost 10pm) she called me on the other line. I took the synchronicity as a sign I could finally have dinner so I networked the two women together and got off the phone.

In a Negotiation sometimes you have to be willing to either a) speak someone else’s thought-language or b) invent a new language in order to Manifest your outcomes. If all forms of communication are a negotiations then communication itself is the most prized negotiation-resource there is.

In Negotiating to Your Own Best Good – I have an ABN and I bet you can guess what that is! That’s right, Always be Negotiating. At some point in your training and life experience you realize that this isn’t a tool you need to take out and dust off once in a while – but a way of translating what’s going on in your moment to moment life.

Recently a client of mine had a situation where a friend was offered an opportunity to get one of her photos published in one of the major magazines (ie Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, etc). The client was in the photo and wished to use it for an interview. The photographer “friend” responded back with a “demand” – she wanted to be “compensated” for the photo. The client discussed her dismay and disappointment. The client had other photos but preferred the one the “friend” had.

After telling me the story – the client ask me what I thought. In Negotiating to Your Own Best Good you MUST know what you want. So I started there “What is it you’d like to happen in this situation?” She said “I’d like to be able to use the photo without complicating a 3 party situation with discussions of Money.” I asked “How did the photographer’s counter-offer make you feel?” She explained those feelings – suprise, disappointment and a sense of loss. “Loss in what?” I asked. “Loss in appreciation for the friend, loss of interest in the business connection with the friend.” she responded.

***Pay Attention to this Part***

The error that we make when we negotiate conscious or unconsciously is that we hide our feelings from the person of whom we are conducting the negotiations.

The CORRECTION of that error is to consider your negotiation-compliment’s (the person you are negotiating with)position from their point of view the best that you can. And of course you do this through asking resourceful questions. “Does the photographer know what effect she’s had with her counter-offer?” “Does she realize that the ‘feelings’ that she inspired from her counter-offer might effect any future business (like sorry – we’re not interested)?” “Can the photographer truly afford to loose the business of my client on a long term basis?”

Here is a paraphrase of the email that went to the Photographer:

“We are a little surprised by your response. I’m sure you have better offers (than to be published in a major magazine). I will be informing [insert name of magazine here] that your photo will not be available as a choice for the article they are publishing tomorrow morning.”

And the rest of the email was a “thank you and gratitude for doing business with you” type thing.

Here is the forumula of the email 1)Reveal your emotions – “We are a little surprised by your response” in this instance the emotion-reveal was very understated – nonetheless included as a starting point for the negotiation. 2)Frame her “false position” as is represented by her “counter-offer” “I’m sure you have better offers.” – You are almost certain this is not true but her offer gives that impression – so put her in the box she forged with her counter-offer (make her FEEL the weight of “demand”). 3)Leave a you-control-the-terms window to “re-negotiate” open. “I will be informing said magazine that your photo will not be available as a choice for the article they are publishing TOMORROW MORNING.” She still has time to take the information you’ve given her and change her position.

That’s it. My client wanted to add other stuff in the email to soften the blow but I advised against it. If people were encouraged to feel the weight of their choices, then often times they would not just consider themselves in a negotiation – be it in our professional lives or our personal lives.

…then I’d want to make sure you had the first and most important key of the whole set of keys you might choose to collect.

The most essential key to negotiating to your own best good is to Ask Resourceful Questions!

Let me begin with the second question (the first one is in the subject line):

If enhancing every Negotiation you ever had from this day foward ONLY required you to learn HOW TO ASK RESOURCEFUL QUESTIONS, when would you choose to learn this powerful yet simple technique?

When you’ve answered this question then see if the resources that are available for you now on http://yourownbestgood.com/ sound like something you would try now. Get a feeling for it.