Ep.503 ~ Applying FBI Expert Negotiation Skills in Business ~ Brandon Voss

How does the FBI, CIA and Special Ops teams negotiate with kidnappers, international terrorists and the most dangerous people on the planet? Are there secret strategies to negotiate that give you a superpower for getting anything that you want? What if you just learned a few key tips on negotiating to save a couple thousand dollars on the price of your next car?

Well the truth is, there are tips and strategies we can use to learn how to be better negotiators, they are easy to learn, and it doesn’t take months of training to pick up. In fact, everything in life is a negotiation. You negotiate with people you live with, your family, and friends, strangers, and you even negotiate with yourself on a daily basis. Quite often, they are simple things like what you’re going to eat for dinner, other times they are more important things, like what school to send your kids to. Good negotiation is really about good communication, and learning to the back and forth of communication well. It is not about manipulation, but about empathic communication, and understanding others points of view.

Today, we have one of the top authorities on negotiation on our podcast, and I am really excited to have him on the show! His name is Brandon Voss, and he is the President of The Black Swan Group. The Black Swan Group is a strategic business advisory firm that focuses on business negotiation. Their negotiation structure stems from Brandon’s father Chris Voss who was the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator for 20 years. They use hostage negotiation skills to solve business negotiation problems, and it works like a charm. It is a process that recalibrates communication efforts in order to close better deals and create long lasting relationships.

Brandon is Black Swan’s thought leader with respect to the three main negotiator types: The Analyst, the Assertive and the Accommodator. Knowing these three types can change your results massively when closing deals. It gives you an edge over others when sitting at the negotiating table. Throughout the show, we are going to discuss Brandon’s strategies, how to use them to make more money, find out how to mitigate conflict with confidence, become a better communicator, and create better relationships in our own lives. Last, but certainly not least, we will talk about the little known ‘Black Swan’ effect that is essential to understand when negotiating any deal in your life.

04:57 Who is Brandon Voss?

06:38 Brandon’s Most Intense Business Negotiation

14:17 Understanding The Emotional Brain

19:05 Neuroscience of Negotiation

25:10 Is Chris’ Negotiation Strategy any Good?

31:57 The Next First Move

35:27 3 Negotiator Types

38:49 The “Black Swan”

44:12 How To Disconnect From a Desired Outcome

47:54 The Short Game

51:02 The Mirroring Tactic

53:40 Active Listening