In this episode, I’m joined by Derrick Chevalier, negotiation strategist, speaker, and author of Evolve or Be Slaughtered: Negotiation for the 21st Century.

Many people think negotiation begins when it is time to talk numbers, price, or terms. In this conversation, Derrick challenges that idea and explains why negotiation actually starts much earlier, from the first impression to the first email, phone call, or meeting. We explore how negotiation is not just about deals. It is about people, relationships, trust, and communication.

Derrick shares his perspective on what he calls evolved negotiation, a framework that shifts the focus away from simply negotiating the issue and toward understanding the people involved. We talk about why assumptions can derail conversations, how better listening leads to better outcomes, and why asking stronger questions can completely change the direction of a negotiation.

One of the most interesting parts of our conversation was Derrick’s insight that effective negotiators are not just persuasive. They are observant, curious, and intentional. They pay attention to demeanor, meaning, and what is happening beneath the surface of a conversation. That awareness can make all the difference in business relationships and in the results we create.

This episode is a great reminder that negotiation is not separate from relationship-building. In many ways, it is relationship-building. When we listen well, stay curious, and seek to understand before reacting, we create stronger connections and better outcomes for everyone involved.

Key Takeaways

1. Negotiation starts earlier than most people think

It begins with first impressions, early communication, and the assumptions people make before any formal discussion takes place.

2. Great negotiation is really about people

Derrick emphasizes that contracts, numbers, and terms do not make decisions. People do.

3. Listening is a strategic skill

True listening means checking for shared understanding, not just hearing words.

4. Better questions create better outcomes

Open, thoughtful questions invite insight and move conversations forward more effectively than simple yes-or-no questions.

5. Relationships and negotiation go hand in hand

Trust, curiosity, and clear communication all play a vital role in reaching outcomes that strengthen rather than damage relationships.

You can reach Derrick at: https://h-c.com/

or on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derrick-chevalier-6323272/

In appreciation for being here, I have some gifts for you:

A LinkedIn Checklist for setting up your fully optimized Profile:

An opportunity to test drive the Follow Up system I recommend by checking this presentation page - you won’t regret it.

AND … Don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and be eligible for my complimentary LinkedIn profile audit – I do one each month for a lucky listener!

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In business, many people think negotiation begins

when the numbers come out, but what if negotiation actually

starts much earlier in the way we listen, ask questions and

build relationships? Well, today I'm going to be talking with

Derek Chevalier, who is a negotiation strategist, a

speaker, an author. He has many titles, but mostly he has spent

decades helping executives, sales professionals and

entrepreneurs improve their results through smarter

conversations. So we're going to look today at about why

negotiation is really relationship skill and how

understanding value can change the way we communicate in

business, and why better listening and questioning can

dramatically improve one's results. So welcome to the show.

Derek, thank you so much.

I appreciate that. That introduction. I

listened to that, and I was like, Who is that?

Yes, of course. Now I know, I know that you have

written and read and updated a book that's been around for a

while that speaks to your expertise, called evolve or be

slaughtered, which is kind of a interesting title. It has a

subtitle. What's the subtitle? I can't remember,

negotiation for the 21st Century.

There you go, perfect. So first of all, let's

start with many people thinking that negotiation is usually

about price or about getting the best deal. I know you see it

differently. So how do you define negotiation today?

Well, negotiation, I don't necessarily

redefine negotiation. So let's look at for everybody,

negotiation. In a nutshell, if we look@dictionary.com is going

to sound something like two or more people or entities coming

together to explore an issue or resolve a problem or challenge

of some sort. So that's the process of negotiation. So the

idea is that, traditionally, my mentor was Chester cares, who's

still the largest negotiation seminar company in the world.

And his background was working in the transactional negotiation

his he worked for Howard Hughes, his background was in in

procurement, so a lot of the negotiating strategies and

tactics that he brought forward revolve around transactional

negotiation, right? And so and he goes all the way back to 1970

and there aren't there's not much contemporary negotiation

prior to that and after that, the big move was to Harvard,

which was positional. So Dr Chary is looking at

transactional negotiation, which comes down to the dollars in the

cents or the goods and the services that are being

explained. Positional negotiation was standing back to

say, Well, hey, we from a standpoint of politics or

government issues, we need to look more at positions. We need

to look more at policies and the way treaties and and contracts

get negotiated. So if you think about it right now, there are

three primary frameworks of negotiation, and the framework

is just a set of principles or rules to use in conducting that

negotiation, whether it's transactional or it's

positional. The evolved negotiation was built in the

21st Century, and can be applied universally, whether it's

transactional with its or or anything else. So the difference

here is that we believe that that bless you. We believe that

instead of negotiating the challenge that in the 21st

Century, we want to negotiate the people. So not the dollars

in the cents, not the contract. And the reason is the contract

and the dollars in the cents are inanimate. They don't think,

they don't feel, they don't have empathy or anything else. They

are the same. What is different and what does shift negotiation

to negotiation are the human beings, and the human beings are

the ones that are going to make the choices around how that

issue gets negotiated.

So go ahead. So what I wanted to say there was

so that happens before the actual traditional negotiation

starts. Absolutely that

happens the moment the contact happens. So

the moment that. I begin that process. So when you say two or

more parties coming together, that could be an email, that

could be a phone call, that could be an RFP, an RFQ,

whenever, and that's when it really starts.

It's first impressions. It's seeing

someone's first impression of a LinkedIn profile. I have to say

that, because that's what I do. It's all of those things that

can happen before it's judgment that happens before you even

talk to the person, for sure, absolutely okay. So, so how does

that? In essence, well, I kind of know the answer, I think, but

I want to know from you the expert, how does that affect so

the person coming in to make the sale or to do the deal or get

the best price, how does that affect the negotiation when all

that's happened ahead of time?

Sure. Well, what's happened ahead of time

sets the stage for what's going to happen when we come together,

right? Because during that period, that is when each side

is really considering and thinking about their assumptions

and their presumptions about what's going to happen. And

here's an important part about traditional or classic

negotiation versus evolved negotiation, both Dr Chary and

Harvard and others will suggest that you should go into the

negotiation and aim high. That's Dr Cary, one of Dr chary's rule.

Harvard comes in and says, Well, you know to make sure that you

have a BATNA or best alternative to a negotiated agreement. And

this is standard fare in negotiation for decades that I

go in, if we talk about you, you buy low, sell high. And if I'm

buying something, then I start very low, and then I work my my

way up to see who I'm negotiating with. I law, Dr

Chary, his role, aim high. Well, after working with Dr cares for

a lot of years, I started to ask myself, well, the rule aim high.

So aim high based on what so, so we're aiming high on generally,

then people are aiming high based upon what the first ask

is, so I'm asking a million dollars for my home, and that

may be for me aim high. Now, if it's real estate, I'm going to

go look at comps in my neighborhood. But there also may

be other reasons, because there's a lot of things that the

comps don't show. I just painted my house, so I'm asking

1,000,002 for a house that other people are selling for a million

so 1,000,002 and that's my high. So I think to myself, it's worth

1,000,002 but I really want to get 1,000,005 so you come in and

you are want to buy my house, and you're thinking, How Low Can

I get this house for? So we know whatever product is being sold,

if it's procurement and sales, there's no mystery about what

each obligations is. My job is to buy it low and your job is to

sell it high, or vice versa. So the question is, what is low and

what is high, and ultimately that just becomes my opinion or

assumption based on what you're asking for, but also based on my

training. Because if I think aim high, so and I'm a buyer, a

buyer, buyer. Then I go into your million and a half or

million to home, and I say, Well, I can offer you 800,000

and then you say, well, that's ridiculous. And we go back and

forth, and we bought her, barter, right, right? And then,

so let's say that at 1,000,002 you ultimately get the house for

1,000,002 let's just say, or let's say you get the house for

a million. When I was asking 1,000,002 Okay, so how do you

feel you were asking 1,000,002 you really needed a million and

you

got a million. Yeah. So you feel okay, just not

super great, right? Right? Because that really was your

bottom line, right?

So I say, Well, I didn't really want to

spend a million. I offered 800,000 I didn't want to spend a

million, but I spent a million because you pointed out some

things. So the two of us walk away, and we think many people

will call that a win, win out. Outcome. We didn't get

everything we want, but we got most of what we wanted. We were

close, within the range of what we went in there, expect,

expecting, and we walk away. Now, was that a win, win?

Outcome? What would you say? What do you think most of your

your your audience, will say, yeah, that's,

that's a good question. I there's so many

factors, right? There's just so many factors. I think the person

I don't know, I mean, it could go either way.

Well, actually, no, it can't, because

in evolved negotiation, we're going to break that down. We're

going to break that down quantitatively. When you came up

with 1,000,002 who was in the room you, when I came up with

800,000 or 800 who was in the room me. So that defines the

roles of each people. It was you and whoever was on your team,

me, and who was ever on my team? Did you actually ever see my

notes or hear my discussion? Were you ever involved in any of

my things? No, and I was not involved in yours. So we are

unilateral entities coming together, which is the

definition of competition, two unilate in evolved negotiation,

two unilateral entities coming together to negotiate an issue.

So the reality is that all you really know about is what your

gold was and what you set and all I really know is what you

told me about, what you were willing to do. So I came into it

with a unilateral perspective, how low I wanted to go. You had

only unilateral perspective, how high you wanted to get. And we

both walked away with a unilateral perspective. There's

no way to determine what the Win. Win was quantitatively. It

cannot happen, right? And yet, and yet, perception, Trump's

reality. What's that mean? You walk away feeling like it was a

win. Well, it was a win for you in your mind, but you have no

actual idea. So in evolved negotiation, we do not espouse

that people determine whether or not the outcome was Win, win

based upon a goal they set before they walked into the

room. We would say that the outcome of a negotiation first

of all, should, should generally be determined later after down

the road, when you really look at all the especially if it's a

relationship or a contract, because I can feel great about

the contract, then you don't perform. So that's not such a

win, win, right? So ultimately, what we think is the outcome

should be determined by how much of the outcome was based on

information or insight that I did not have when I walked into

the room.

So how much conversation went on? How well,

not just that, how much, for instance, I

had data when I walked in and I had ideas that when I went on.

So our objective is to get each party to share as much

information as they previously were unwilling to share data and

background. That you would say, I'd ask you, well, why are you

asking a million to and you would say, well, because I just

remodeled the home. Well, I don't know what that means. So

now you would say, well, here is a folder full of all of the

invoices for the work that I had done, the painting that this did

that. Okay, well, that's data I didn't have which substantiates,

and if they're, you know, assuming they're legitimate, and

I might want to check that out legit, legitimate bills. I would

have more insight. Now that may turn around and cause me to say,

Well, wait a second, the house may be worth more because I'm

not going to have to put any money into the house and it's

and I have warranties from all of these people. Now, what did I

share with you? I might share with you and say, You know what

the reality is, I was asking 850 because I didn't have insight

about why you were asking a million too. So now we have gone

past the unilateral and come toward a cooperative right

negotiation in which we're sharing data that previously was

not being shared. Now, the goal would be that you would

ultimately share everything that you had with me, and I would

share everything that I had with you, but the reality is that

that is rarely going to happen, you know. And. Transactional

negotiation that's not significant, maybe, but in a

major relationship or partnership, that's never going

to happen.

Well, we also in that, in that example, that that

you just gave too, we also have to realize that the the buyer

and the seller are probably not in the room. It's the real

estate agents that we have to trust to make those those to

have those conversations and bring back to us. So that's

another whole thing about trust and and, you know, and so forth.

And I think the biggest piece that I'm hearing here is that

listening is so important as well that we it's something that

we talk about often in business, but a lot of people

misunderstand what effective listening really means, and what

so so because we say we're listening, but right half of it

goes over our head. So what would you say is, is important

in terms of strategic listening, effective listening, active

listening, all of that.

Yes, and we call that effective effective

communication. You with a which is a bag that uses all those

tools. One of the greatest tools that I think that that folks

ought to use is reframing. So I might say to you, Well, as I

understand it, what you just said was that effective

communication or listening involves actually paying

attention to what the other person is saying and making sure

that what they're saying is, first of all, what they mean,

and second of all, that You have an actual good understanding of

what that means exactly. So that's reframing. Now, here's

here is where reframing is a double edged sword. First of

all, I can tell you that if reframing, depending on who you

read and how you goes, people might say you ask the last five

words or six words that repeat the last five or six words that

someone said and said, as I understand it, you're saying and

I repeat five or six words. I can tell you this nine out of 10

times. When we reframe what someone says using exactly what

they said verbatim, they're going to stop you and say, No,

that's not what I mean.

Nine times out of 10,

absolutely, because, because there's a

difference between an evolved negotiation. What we talk about

is the difference between what is said and what is meant or

interpreted by the other person. So in evolved negotiation,

effective communication occurs when there is congruence of

meaning. That means, I say something, you listen, and then

you say, well, Derek, I think what you're saying is XYZ. And I

say, Absolutely, that's exactly what I mean. And you say, Oh, I

understand. We both agree, that we both understand, and that is

congruence of meaning, and that is where a Nicholas, where we're

communication, takes place,

yeah, and that that can get misconstrued very

quickly. You're right. You're absolutely right. We think we're

listening. What was the frame? I used to say something to my

daughter when they were little. I used to say, I'd ask or tell,

ask them to do something, or whatever, and then, of course,

they didn't do it. And I think I would say, Well, let me know

when you're ready, and let me, let me know, and I'll tell you

again when I think you're listening, or when I know you're

listening, or something like that, I forget exactly, but it's

like because you weren't listening, it's very evident,

right? Yeah, and it is an art to listen properly.

It absolutely and but, but it's also an

important part of negotiation, because here is a tactical

reality when people listen effectively, and, for instance,

establish congruence of meaning. We both agree that we both

understand what the point is. We, by definition, communicate

it. One of the tactical realities of that is that when

somebody is has congruence of meaning, both parties feel

heard. The other party feels like, oh, Derek heard me. He

hears me. Now, what a lot of people do psychologically then

is to say, oh, since most people don't listen and Derek is

listening then, and I say, Yes, we have congruence of meaning,

many people will actually believe that, because we have a

congruence of meaning, that I agree with them, I may not agree

with you, at that exactly what that is and so that can be used

tactically. I could establish communication with you how. Have

congruent so as I understand it, what? But you just gave me

insight into which closing strategy to use versus another

closing strategy, because you just confirmed some point of

view when, when it when you didn't think at all that that

was going to inform which tool I might use to sell you something?

Yes, absolutely, I was that reminds me of stories

like going to buy a new car and going into the office when the

in the dealership and and and your partner saying to you,

don't say anything, let them talk first, right? So that,

yeah, you don't give anything away or and that, that kind of

thing. And so, yeah, that's that's definitely dangerous, and

puts you at a disadvantage

when you Yes, but the other person is

completely underwear, that it's happening, that's the thing.

Yeah, you don't even know that it's happening. And let and, you

know, we just did a poll in LinkedIn, had 19,000 almost

20,000 impressions. And the question was very simple. It was

negotiation skills and expertise can be acquired through

experience alone. And 19,000 impressions, we had two or 3000

votes on that. And not unexpectedly, to me, the vast

majority of people concluded that, yes, indeed, you can

acquire negotiation skill and expertise through experience

alone. And of course, in the book, evolve or be slaughtered.

I talk about that and say most people are too stubborn and too

lazy to do what it takes to learn negotiation skills. This

is why you have people saying, Yeah, I don't need to learn that

formally. I can learn it because it's self serving. If I can

learn through experience, I don't need to read a book. I

don't need to listen to a podcast. I don't need to do

anything else. I'm I'm already know everything I need to know,

which is ridiculous if you say to yourself, Well, you didn't

learn to ride a car that way. You don't want your doctor, your

optometrist, you don't want your dentist, mechanic or any or

certainly not the pilot of a plane who learned by, you know,

crashing planes and then suddenly began to fly them

correctly. But you want to Troy, you know, you want to negotiate

millions and millions and trillions of dollars by learning

on the job, so to speak.

Yeah, interesting. It made me think

also of gamblers. I don't know why that came to my head, but

yes, I just read a fantastic book that I

would recommend to everyone. It's by Maria kinikova, and it's

called the biggest bluff. And she is a psychiat, a

psychologist, and she with no background in the World Poker

Tour, wanted to know whether or not gambling, and poker in

particular, was a skill, or was it luck, kind of like there was

a great movie with Matt Damon about that same thing. So she

actually went to a couple of the top World Poker Player

champions, and asked them if they would mentor her from day

one, no background or experience. And her objective

was to sit down at a world poker table within a year, which was

phenomenally ambitious. Yes. And the book goes through the entire

iteration, in which, within a year, she won several hundreds

of 1000s of dollars and became a world class poker player.

Because it is, in fact, a skill game, and it is a skill game of

communication and people, so so they actually talk about all the

psychology involved in knowing every player at the table,

understanding their tell, understanding their philosophy,

their background as as an important part of skill. Yes,

and she was saying, the greatest players in the world have very,

very high levels. They're disciplined, they're focused,

they're not what people are thinking. They're ambling around

the world. These are focused people who study who read, who

write, and they study human behavior Exactly.

It's very interesting. I might have to

read that book that sounds great. One, great one, oh,

that's so cool. I don't know why. Just like it just floated

into my head, sure, because I do watch poker, and I have played

me too, and it's fascinating. I'm not very good at it. But

anyway, they see you coming in Vegas, when you come from the

you know, from the city that you. Come to spend your your

vacation there, and they come to take your money. So, you know,

there's a

great quote in the Matt Damon movie. In the

very beginning of the movie, he's going around the house and

he's and he's finding all these spots where he's hidden money,

and he's going to get be going out and gambling. So he gets all

his money. And just as he walks out the door, the movie begins

with him saying, listen, here's the thing, if you don't know who

the sucker is in your first 30 minutes in the table, then you

are the sucker. And that is true in a negotiation too. And for

all those people who think they can acquire skill and expertise

by experience alone. Guess what? You are the sucker, because if

you're negotiating with somebody who is trained, they're going to

peg you in 20 minutes, and you'll never know what hit.

Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. Okay. Back to my

question. See if they make any sense anymore. Many people feel

uncomfortable negotiating because they worry about

conflict. How can shifting the focus to relationships possibly

change that that experience?

Absolutely, that's a great question, and

that is the difference between demeanor and intent, something I

talk very much about in Evolve demeanor is the way we present.

So that's the tone of voice, that's the speed at which I'm

talking. That is the the base medium trim or treble par

frequency of my voice, if you will. So and that may be how

calm I am, hand gestures that I'm using, eye contact, head

movement, so the demeanor that I come in with, many, many, many

people mistake demeanor for intent and one of the one of the

most powerful tools of a snuff or evolved negotiator is

understanding that nine out of 10 people are going to read your

demeanor and ignore your intent, and nine out of 10 people don't

understand the difference. So the demeanor is that I come in

and I'm very calm, cheerful, and I'm laughing and I'm jovial and

I'm personable and I'm attentive and I listen and I care about

you.

You have an air confident about yourself.

And there, there may or may not be now

that's when going back, we're negotiating people and not

products or or contracts. So that means that my demeanor when

I enter a negotiation is going to be dictated by who you are,

if I would want to mirror you as well.

And so now we were talking about mirror and

matching. So part of the due diligence I've done and during

the preparations in the negotiations, is I've come to

some conclusion about your demeanor. That's why I'm going

online. I'm watching your podcast. I'm listening to do in

which I can go out and find and so now when I come in the room

and I find that you're very laid back, then I'm probably going to

be pretty laid back. I'm going to mirror and match a lot of

your behaviors, which is going to give the impression that we

have a common demeanor. So demeanor is the way that I act

and and demeanor is a great substitute for intent or cover

for intent. Now, what does that mean? What I mean is, very

simply, is, let's just put it this way, Jeffrey Dahmer did not

walk up and go whale. You'd be great for lunch. Is he had a,

you know, he had a great, personable demeanor and but that

was not his intent. No, the

intent is to pounce later, when you

exactly so the entire reason of using a

particular demeanor is to create an opportunity to execute

intent. So part of what I'm interested in is, is there a

congruence between the intent and the demeanor of the person

and that in your in your podcast, several of them, when

the that I really recommend people go back and listen to on

trust, right? Because a lot of trust is dictated by demeanor,

in the way that that we interact with someone, in the way we feel

comfortable with them over a period of time. So we want to

make sure that there's a congruence between our the

demeanor of someone and the intent of someone. Because all

of this is tactical, going all the way back to what you said,

the negotiation started the minute that I met with you,

because that was when I was determined. Learning what set of

tools to use in a particular setting.

Wow. So I'm also seeing or or or sensing that you

would read somebody a lot faster and than most people, and that

would be an advantage for whatever conversation,

absolutely, by the way, let me ask you,

when's your birthday,

September, right early.

That's interesting. Now, what did I

just learn out of that?

Possibly, if you believe in astrology, a little

bit about right?

Finality, yeah. Now, if I believe in neuro

linguistic programming, what you would know is this, first of

all, do I know that you know your birthday all of it? Yes, I

do. You told me September, and you left out a few things right

the day and the date. So do I know that you know those things?

Yes. Now when I asked the question, I asked the question

out of context, but when's your birthday, smiling up, and you

said, up, September. Now, guess what? Every time I ask you a

question, when you're surprised and when you want to withhold

information, you will do that exact thing. So all I was doing

was reading what happens when you're not being completely

candid. And that is a little piece of neuro linguistic

programming. So I am now reading every time I ask a question and

I see that reaction, it that is a tell. It's a tell, right? So

of course, I'm going to have more insight, because you had no

idea that that from that point on, every time you look up to

the right or left or whatever you did, it's telling me three

things. One, what your demeanor changed, and two, what part of

your brain you were going to to look for that information. Was

it in the recent past, long pass, or all of that, all of

that is just by the eye movement of high left, high right or

straight up, where we're going. And so of course, you're going

to have more insight, and another person is not going to

even be aware that that's taken place.

Yeah, so now I feel very guilty that I didn't

tell you, but I'm not going to. I'm so sensitive about my age

that I don't like

Well, so am I, but you're asking, Yeah, but

you're

asking you in many it's inappropriate. In a lot of

instances that might be inappropriate, but that's not

the purpose of what one is asking. I'm going to ask another

type of question that would be one. So now I might ask a

question that requires that you go back into your long term

memory, so I know where you're going to go look to get that

question from your brain and the eye movements and the demeanor

that you exhibit every time I ask you that type of question,

you're going to repeat it and I'm going to test that several

different times. And once I know that I'm reading the tell

becomes pretty powerful. Now, for a trained negotiator, if

you're listening to Chris Voss, never split the difference. He's

given you a static rule. Never do something which, by the way,

I don't have static rules in evolved negotiation, because

they create habits, or so. Dr, Chary might say, Well, you

always have a bat in the I mean, might that you always aim high.

Well, I would say, because he said, By the way, don't split

the difference. 40 years before, Chris said, never split the

difference. But in both cases, they're telling you to limit

your behavior, whereas evolve negotiation is going to tell you

Nope. Sometimes we're a cook, sometimes we're a baker, and

sometimes we're a hybrid, and we throw all of the rules out and

make up a rule appropriate for that particular situation. Why?

Because, in part, we don't want to establish patterns,

especially if we're negotiating with people repeatedly or over a

long period of time. We want them always guessing right as to

how we're going to respond, or at least not if we are using a

consistent demeanor, we're doing so to establish a pattern so

they believe that is our intent.

That strategy, that strategy, yeah, that's

That's fascinating. Can you? Can you share an example of where

better questioning or listening dramatically improved the

outcome of a negotiation that

you Oh, absolutely, absolutely, that's

such a great question. Yes, over the years, I have learned that

far more people, very experienced people and not and

if you listen closely to people from. Across the spectrum, more

often than not, people ask questions that are yes or no

questions. Now, when you ask a yes or no question, what are you

doing? Well, from an evolved perspective, you're giving your

power away, because when you ask a bilateral yes or no question.

You're giving the other person permission to shut you down

without having any inquiry. And it's a habit. Do you believe?

What do you think? Or I make a statement, and I then, by the

tone of my voice, a lot, you we see this in California a lot,

when you have that valley girl, which is poor guy, which has

exploded all over the world, where people ask a question is,

don't you think were they at the end, which is a question mark,

right? Which, which sounds like a question mark. So if I'm

asking yes or no questions, I'm actually shutting down the

communication, right? So here's here is a test. What other kind

of question that we might we ask

an open ended question that's right?

Now, let me share with you and your audience

one of the dynamic differences of evolved negotiation. What is

an open ended question?

Something that a question that that's saying, how

would you do this? Or what's your opinion on this, or

something that gives them an opportunity to say more than

just yes or no Exactly.

So all over the world for eons, open ended

questions have been taught in exactly the way you just

explained. So you're sitting down in a negotiation, and you

just heard Derek Chevalier say, you know, yes or no questions,

not a good deal. You're shutting people down. You're closing off.

So Janice says, Ask an open ended question. Now, what does

your brain do? Your brain goes, Oh, an open ended question is a

question that doesn't have a yes or no answer, so it's going to

be a question that starts with something like, how or what or

now, in the meantime, you're sitting in a negotiation across

from somebody, and then you get tongue tied, and then the other

person is like, yeah, getting lost. And now you just go back

to yes or no questions, because open ended questions have been

thought taught in what we consider a Neanderthal way, so

we don't teach that. What we teach is ask Iowa questions.

Iowa. Iowa questions, State of Iowa, Iowa questions, but it's

spell capital, W, capital, i, i, i, h, Iowa. So phonetically,

you're saying Iowa. Okay, ask Iowa question. Now, what did I

just teach you? I said ask, if, what, where, when, how, who?

Now, when you're sitting in the negotiation your brain is going

ask Iowa question. I don't care which one you ask, just pick

one. If, what, where, when, who? So this is what evolves done

that is elevated in terms of everything that's been done

before. We've not nest reinvented it, but we have

reinvented it in a way that it is more useful and it's

consistent with your brain. So everybody on this call will can

go back and listen to that Iowa question. That simply means ask,

if, what, where, when, how, who, in any order, so you don't have

to I just eliminated all the clutter out. And there's lots of

that. That's a proprietary element of the evolved, you

know, framework, yeah. But there are many of things like that

that elevate you in a in a second. Now, when people first

start doing this, I can guarantee you they will get

tongue tied, but in a very, very quickly, they'll you get

acclimated to that, and then you learn that even if you start out

with a yes or no question, you become able to then pick that up

and end With an Iowa question, it's that is worth its weight in

gold to everybody on your call.

Thank you. Well, that's a great place to wrap it

up, really, because I know we've, we've talked for a while,

and actually, I mean, it goes so fast, we could have another

conversation and still not learn it all I know. But I love that,

that you have these little tricks of the trade and that

they really are simple things to simple, but not easy, and you

have to be very aware. And I also believe, which is kind of

my, I don't know the term, but like my baseline is curiosity.

You have to be curious. Love it.

Yeah, you have. Had a guest on one of your

podcasts that talked about the joy of and the importance of

curiosity as an adult, you remember then was talking about

his kids in the backyard looking at an anthill or something, and

he goes, You have to be curious. And I was like, absolutely. So

I'm an old guy, but I'll tell you, I'm 12 years old, I'm still

like, what is possible, you know, what can we do?

I think that keeps us young. That's what

that's yes, it keeps us young. So I love it. So I think the

reminder about understanding people, asking thoughtful

questions, focusing on the values that we bring to the

relationship and to the negotiation is really important,

and I just want to thank you for sharing your insights and

experience with us today. Where can people find you? And I will

put it in the show notes.

Thank you so much, because I really enjoyed

our conversation went by quick, so listen, I would really

encourage people we want to sell some books and evolve or be

slaughtered. Is on Amazon and every other place. We've got a

4.9 rating on Amazon and 5.0 independent reviews that have

been really, really flattering, and I'm so grateful and humbled

for so that's one, but I will also say this, we offer a 30

minute, no cost, no BS, no obligation. Call. So if people

have a question, you just go on the website, H, c.com, or on my

LinkedIn profile, and you can get to the website from there

and just schedule a call. And we're not going to sell you

anything, but we may be able to give you some action pointers.

You will ask, like, what's the issue? What are you looking to

do? And in a quick turnaround, say, Hey, you might want to

consider a, b, c, d. Now, a lot of times what happens? People

will implement that strategy or take that and never call back.

But also, there are plenty of people that will take that go

out and say, You know what? Maybe there's something else I

can learn here. And they'll get the book, or they'll call back

and we'll, you know, we certainly do consulting and

training out of that. So do it? Just ask a question, or else,

you know, call up and teach me something I don't know.

That'd be great too. Yeah, that's great. I love

that too. I love that you have access to you and learn and meet

new people and find things out and open a new door. Perhaps one

never knows. So I encourage my audience to do that. I will put

all that info in the show notes and again, thank you for

listening. If you like what you heard, please let us know and

remember to stay connected and be remembered. You.