Episode description

During Chris’s 24-year tenure in the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service. Chris has taught business negotiation in the MBA program as an adjunct professor at University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. 

Chris Voss is the best FBI Hostage Negotiator of our time and discusses what the real definition of that is as well as why it is so important to Never Split the Difference!

00:00 Intro

01:30 Brad’s sworn in cop story

03:30 Chris Voss’ journey on becoming a cop

05:45 How Chris became interested in Negotiation with the FBI

11:00 The problem with police officers today… and why it is counterproductive

11:44 “Nothing is natural and everything is trained, but that might be 100% accurate.” - Chris Voss

13:45 “Negotiation should be an information gathering process.” - Chris Voss

14:21 “People love to be listened to, not talked at.” - Chris Voss

15:09 Go get Chris’ book, “Never Split the Difference”

16:36 Bomb 1: “If you make a deal, you are in a relationship for the duration of the deal so having the other side unhappy is a recipe for losing.” 

18:22 “Nobody ever has a problem with the price, the problem is what they are getting for the price.” - Chris Voss

19:32 20-50% of all salespeople are not open to learning and will not make it in every group

21:00 The process of becoming a master negotiator https://www.blackswanltd.com

27:08 An expansion of the definition of negotiation

32:00 The most valuable result from mastering negotiation

33:35 Bombs 2: It’s not just one and done, and if you treat it like it is you will leave money on the table for a long time.

35:55 Bombs 3: If you’re playing golf and you’re not out on the range shooting balls then you won’t be as good as you want to be

37:19 Bomb 4: The companies that PRIZE learning are more profitable (training has to be in your value system)

42:54 Bomb 5: Do something right three people know about it, do something wrong and twelve people know about it.

44:39 Bomb 6: We don’t give people a hard time on price, we want to know what goes with the price.