Published August 2018 on Spotfiy
76: Alex Kouts | The Secrets You Don't Know About Negotiation Part Three
Chapters
1. Introduction2. Advanced Negotiation Insights3. Negotiating Leverage4. Negotiation Insights5. Emotional Negotiations6. Emotional Control7. Emotional Intelligence8. Self-Awareness Tips9. Open Options, Reading People10. Communication Secrets11. Communication Insights12. Social Proofing Strategies13. Social Proofing in Negotiations14. Fashion and Social Status15. Negotiation Superpowers16. Outro1. Introduction
Alex shares his expertise on negotiation tactics that are not taught in classes or documented anywhere. He covers the psychology behind it and provides drills and exercises to hone your negotiation skills. The episode also includes new insights and tactics that even negotiation experts haven't heard of.+
2. Advanced Negotiation Insights
Advanced Negotiation:Alex Kouts, a professional negotiation teacher, discusses how human behaviors can affect our ability to negotiate effectively. He shares insights on the importance of understanding human psychology in negotiations and how it can make a significant difference in the outcome.+
Mastering Negotiations:Alex shares insights on how to become a better negotiator by focusing on internal emotional experiences and paying attention to how we react to new data. He emphasizes the importance of not looking inward too much and missing out on other important factors that can affect how a negotiation should go.+
3. Negotiating Leverage
Negotiating Job Offers:Alex and Jordan discuss the importance of understanding your leverage when negotiating job offers. Companies invest time and resources in finding good people, and competition for talent is high, giving candidates more leverage than they may think. It's important to consider the emotional experience of the HR representative and the opportunity cost of the company when negotiating.+
Negotiation Tips:Alex shares his tips on negotiation, emphasizing the importance of leading with questions and considering the other person's perspective. He also gives examples of how to use this approach in scenarios such as shopping around job offers and negotiating car prices.+
4. Negotiation Insights
Negotiation Strategies:Alex shares his strategy for negotiating without showing emotions or giving an immediate reaction to an offer. He emphasizes the importance of asking questions and taking time to consider the offer, as it shows respect to the other party and can lead to better outcomes in negotiations.+
Negotiation Questions:Alex Kouts shares two questions he always asks in business meetings: "What does a win look like to you?" and "What keeps you up at night?" These questions help him understand how people evaluate success, their goals, and what they're worried about. Jordan and Alex also discuss the importance of getting out of your head and focusing on external data when negotiating.+
5. Emotional Negotiations
Emotional Negotiations:Alex and Jordan discuss the importance of recognizing the emotional aspect of negotiations and how it can help to view the other party as a soft human rather than an intimidating difference engine. They also reflect on their own experiences negotiating early in their careers.+
Question Technique:Alex shares the question technique to help get outside of internal monologue during negotiations. Clarifying questions are also discussed as a way to actively listen and learn deeply about someone's needs.+
6. Emotional Control
Emotional Control:Alex and Jordan discuss the importance of emotional control in negotiations and provide examples of physical responses to emotional stress. They highlight how anxiety can hinder one's effectiveness in approaching a negotiation.+
Emotional Control:Alex Kouts discusses the importance of emotional control in negotiations and how emotions can cloud our judgment. He shares personal experiences of feeling discriminated against due to his age and how he had to work on being aware of his emotional responses to avoid turning into a "raving lunatic or a total asshole."+
7. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Distress:Alex and Jordan discuss how our inability to manage our emotions can create bad decisions in negotiations. They also talk about how people are constantly telegraphing their emotions in daily conversation.+
Understanding Body Language:Alex and Jordan discuss how our emotional responses manifest physically and how to control them. They emphasize the importance of paying attention to body language and inflection to gauge emotional responses and how they affect communication with others. They also suggest recording oneself during conversations to identify areas of improvement.+
8. Self-Awareness Tips
Self-Awareness Tips:Alex shares tips on how to improve self-awareness, including recording yourself and delaying emotional reactions. He also emphasizes the importance of regulating emotions, especially in high-pressure situations like tournament poker.+
Emotional Control:Alex and Jordan discuss tactics for controlling emotions in high-stress situations such as job negotiations and poker games. They suggest taking a break, communicating via email, and broadening your context to avoid making bad decisions.+
9. Open Options, Reading People
Keeping Options Open:Alex and Jordan discuss the benefits of keeping your options open during a job search or negotiation, emphasizing the importance of tangible opportunities and how they can broaden your context and lead to better decision making.+
Reading People:Alex Kouts and Jordan Harbinger discuss the importance of establishing a baseline when reading someone's body language and mannerisms. They caution against relying on absolute rules and instead emphasize the need to look at how someone responds to stimuli. By understanding a person's baseline and tolerance levels, you can effectively read their behavior and communicate more effectively.+
10. Communication Secrets
Communication Secrets:Alex and Jordan discuss the 7-38-55 Rule of communication, highlighting the importance of inflection and intonation. They emphasize the significance of body language and how it can be used to communicate effectively.+
Social Equilibrium:Jordan and Alex discuss how people use question tonality to avoid being too confident or dominant in social situations, and how this can be a tell of their mental state. They also talk about the importance of understanding someone's baseline communication style and looking for deviations in inflection, rate of speech, and volume of speech to gain insight into their confidence level.+
11. Communication Insights
Communication Tolerance:Alex Kouts shares insights on how to establish a communication baseline and test people's tolerances through inflection and body language. Jordan Harbinger adds a tip on using statement questions to avoid sounding unsure.+
Improving Communication:Jordan and Alex discuss ways to improve communication skills, including recording and analyzing phone conversations, using empathy in negotiations, and leveraging social proofing to influence others. They also touch on the importance of avoiding filler words and understanding the social fabric of conversations.+
12. Social Proofing Strategies
Social Proofing:Alex and Jordan discuss the four types of social proofing: expert, celebrity, user, and friends. They explain how companies use social proofing to influence consumer behavior and why friends' recommendations are the most effective. They also touch on the importance of online reviews and the potential downsides of social media referrals from strangers.+
Social Proofing Strategies:Alex Kouts shares how social proofing can be used in negotiation scenarios, emphasizing the importance of using objective evidence rather than subjective opinions. He also provides examples of social proofing, such as the value of an Ivy league education.+
13. Social Proofing in Negotiations
Social Proofing in Negotiations:Alex explains how social proofing can be used in negotiations, specifically when making a counteroffer. However, he warns against using printed salary offers as it can come across as premeditated and alienate the other party. Social proofing is a dominant behavioral trigger that affects many aspects of our world.+
Social Proofing:Jordan and Alex discuss the use of social proof in advertising, including questionable tactics such as using people's Facebook photos without permission. They also explore the effectiveness of social proof in decision-making and the importance of using it subtly.+
14. Fashion and Social Status
Fashion TV and Social Proof:Jordan and Alex discuss the intricacies of fashion and how it serves as a signal for social status. Jordan shares his experience of watching Fashion TV and how it helped him identify high-end jewelry.+
Social Proof Tactics:Jordan and Alex discuss the importance of using social proof tactics in a subtle and natural way to avoid destroying trust in a relationship. They provide examples of how to make it feel natural and familiar, and caution against using tactics that seem obvious or forced.+
15. Negotiation Superpowers
Moral Licensing:Alex and Jordan discuss the concept of moral licensing, where individuals rationalize their behavior based on past actions. They caution against using this mental accounting table when making decisions, as it can lead to poor decision-making and missed opportunities, such as not negotiating a salary.+
Mastering Negotiation:Alex shares advanced negotiation techniques such as asking clarifying questions, emotional control, and reading people. He recommends experimenting with these techniques and accepting that the first few attempts may not be successful. He also suggests negotiating small things to gain confidence and recommends getting 20 "nos" as a homework assignment.+
Negotiation Superpower:Jordan and Alex discuss the power of negotiation and how it can be used to test boundaries and gain agency in situations. By realizing that rules are made by people and can be flexible, negotiation becomes a valuable tool to invest in.+
16. Outro
Jordan Harbinger shares his free course, Six-Minute Networking, which teaches listeners how to create an amazing network in their personal and business lives. The course is a game changer and will help listeners level up their network.+