Is Everything Negotiable? The Two Muscles Most People Never Build (with Aryeh Sheinbein)

podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie Chenell, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories. It's about the grit it takes to get there.

Hey everyone, this is Julie Chenell. Welcome back to Million Dollar Grit. Today I am joined by Aryeh Sheinbein, and I decided to bring him on for a candid discussion around the topic of negotiation. Simply said, is everything truly negotiable? And I think that there are two types of personalities. There are the people who think that everything is a negotiation, that nothing is set in stone. And then there are the more rule follower type people who are like, that's not negotiable. I just have to accept what is. This conversation that Aryeh and I had was extremely casual, a little bit personal. Of course, I always want to know the psychology. For those of you who don't know, Aryeh Sheinbein is a partner in the course Future Fund. We launched that together in 2021 under the Funnel Gorgeous brand, really helping people understand their money, understand what they need to live, what they need to retire, and how to grow wealth. And in a world where it feels like there are as many scammers in finance as there are in internet marketing, Aria Was a Sound Wise Voice. We've had that course out for the last 5 years. It's an excellent course. I recommend that you go through it. You go to futurefundme.com and you can get access to that program. All right. He also has a podcast that he does, Inside the Lion's Den. He works on Wall Street doing things that I don't understand, usually having to do with private equity, valuating, uh, companies. He's been a longstanding advisor for me in all kinds of money-related things. This is the conversation with Aria about negotiation and if everything truly is negotiable.

Do you actually think everything in life and/or business is negotiable?

Everything? Maybe not everything. I think, I, I think in business most things are. I think in, um, non-personal relationships, most things are. I think the life question, when I think about personal relationships, there's probably a line that doesn't get crossed about negotiable. But I think like if you think about— I don't really follow any dating coaches, but I've definitely seen posts about like your non-negotiables and your negotiables, right? So that's So when you think about is everything negotiable or not, I guess in theory, if you, if you've made these non-negotiables, then they're not from a personal relationship standpoint. But if these aren't in your non-negotiable part category, then yeah, those are negotiable, right? So, um, but I think a lot more than people think is negotiable. Yes.

Well, I think there are two types of people, maybe. I mean, there's probably more, but there are the people who think that everything is negotiable and everything is an opportunity to go back and forth. And then there are the people that it doesn't even dawn on them that negotiating is an option. And I would say my personality naturally is that side. Like, I don't— it doesn't dawn on me to negotiate. I'm much different now, but back in the day, pretty, pretty rule follower. You seem to think that things are negotiable in most cases. Do you think that's in part because of your background in finance? Do you think Like, where did you come up with this idea that, like, you could talk your way out of something that seems pretty concrete?

Yeah, so I— it's, it's an interesting question because it's definitely, like, not my parents. My parents are, like, the most non-negotiating people out there. Um, and I would say they're both rule-following and, like, the price is the price type of thing. Um, I think it's probably like a smattering of, of different things. So in 2005, 2006 through 2012, I worked at a fund and I worked one-on-one with the chief investment officer. So I had probably had the most one-on-one time with him. Every month we would spend 1 to 3 hours together going over all the investments. And I would sit on the investment committee before they made investments too. And I would hear the back and forth. I did not have a vote on the committee, but I got to be there before we made investments. And I found that he negotiated, I almost felt at times just for the sake of negotiating.

Yeah. Like it was just, it was like a sport. Yeah.

It's, it's, and there's definitely people who game like it's a game. Right. And sometimes I felt like it was stupid because I'm like, I don't even know what we're doing here. Um, he also. What I learned over time is like he avoided confrontation. Okay. And so he didn't like to say no. And I think what he did a lot of times was in order to prevent himself from saying no to somebody and being the bad guy, he put strange parameters around the negotiation, which effectively said, like, if you were looking at this objectively, you're like, there is no way in heck this is going to work. And so he's designing it to fall apart. But this way, he's not the cause. He didn't say no.

Oh, yeah, it's absolving.

The terms— yes, exactly. Absolving responsibility, right? And so that definitely took my thoughts on negotiation to a whole nother level. But I think I remember I may have said this story one time, so if it's redundant, I apologize. But like when I was a kid, I was really into baseball cards. In addition to playing sports, I loved collecting cards, but it was because I studied the price guides. And, and you studied—

let me just stop for a minute and just like, dork Aria here studying the price guides of baseball cards. Go ahead.

So because it was like my stock market, like it was easy access, right?

And so, right, because that's what all 12-year-olds do. Cool.

Well, there was like— let's date myself a little bit, right? There was no internet then, so there was no, there was no real-time market for like what someone would pay for a card. And, um, and so, and anyway, I would go to shows on Sundays. My dad would take me and I would know like the movement of these cards, like backwards and forwards. And so if there was a hot rookie that this dealer has a table full of stuff, he can't stay up on top of everything. He's running a business, he's got a life, you know, he's an adult or whatever. And so like, uh, there was one time that I found this card There's a player who's a rookie who's super hot. And let's say the card was like, I'm going to make up a number. It was like $5 in value and he was selling them for $0.25 and he had a whole page of them. Like there were 8 or 9 of them. And I said, oh, can I have that one? And he says, he goes, you want one? I'm like, no, I want the whole page. I want all of them. And so immediately, like as an adult, you see this 10, 12-year-old boy asking for 9 of a non-New York baseball player, right?

Like, right.

You know, you know, you know, you're probably on the wrong side of the trade at the moment. You just don't know how far off the mark you are, but you know something, you're not getting the value here.

Right, right.

So he immediately says, oh, hold on, opens up the price guide to try and find it. Right. And he immediately wants to retrade me on the price.

Okay. So he wants to negotiate because you, you tipped him off to the fact that he's underpriced. There was something he was leaving on the table.

Yeah, there's an arb here that I'm playing that he didn't know about. Like, there's an arbitrage in his price to value.

Gotcha.

And I didn't know. I was standing there alone and he starts to say something. And my dad, I don't know where the heck he was this whole time, but he just, he's like, no, like, you can't take advantage of him because he's a kid. Like, you, your price says 25 cents-ish. That's what you have to sell it to him for. I was like, whoo. And, and so that actually showed me though that there's just, 'cause someone said something doesn't mean it necessarily is.

Right, right.

Um, well, you know, I think eBay though changed the whole, my whole mindset. I, I'd say actually the internet now that I think about it, 'cause eBay allows you to like, you know, okay, buy, bid, or make a best offer.

Right, right.

And so that was like, huh, what's the harm? What's the worst that can happen? And that's like, I think when I used to tell you, like, I would DM people on Instagram, like people way bigger than, like, you know, like a million followers or whatever. I'm like, what's the worst thing that happened? They ignore me. They say no. It's so different than in person, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So internet definitely changed things. Well, I I think I'm way better at negotiating. I used to think like the only thing you can negotiate is our cars, like used cars. That's, that's where I learned like you could negotiate everything else, you know, it was, it was too hard. But I, I'm currently facing a financial struggle with a refinance. I have to refinance my, my home, uh, because of my divorce and People may or may not know this, but when you try to get somebody off a mortgage, uh, it's very difficult to do. And I was really surprised because I asked you, I was like, well, you know, all the research, everything is like, you just have to refinance. That's the only, that's the only option you have. And you actually, it, we, it remains to be seen if it will work, but you suggested that I negotiate with the bank, which at— I was like, oh, that's brilliant. But also, like, will it work? I don't know. We're about to find out. But worst they could say is no, right? I thought it was really interesting the way you thought about it in terms of, like, how to position it to the bank, right?

And I think so in terms of negotiating, right? Like, I don't go into a grocery store thinking, like, huh, how can I get this for a price lower than what they've priced it? Like, I respect their pricing.

Have you ever negotiated something at the grocery store?

Not at— well, if it happened, I'm not saying it did because I don't remember, but if it did, it was because there was like a price mistake, like there was not fair representation of something.

Okay.

I do know a time that this happened at Walmart, and I don't classify the grocery store as Walmart. I like Walmart's not a grocery store in my mind. And this was when I was doing Amazon you know, so what I would call arbitraging, right? So you buy something. And so there was an end cap of a product that was pretty hot, and there was a sign up there that said 1996, like two standard, like Walmart, you know, not ending in the 7, not ending in a 9, but it was ending in a 6. It was 1996. And the market for these things were like $50 to $100. So I'm like, that's a mess up. So I literally like kind of like, come on down to the cash register with a cart or 2 or 3 full of the end cap, basically. And I think I left like 5 because I'm like, I'm not like, I'm not going to totally clear them out and whatever kind of jerk thing. Anyway, I get there and they're ringing up at $49.95 or something like that. I'm like, I don't want any of these. I'm like, so I said, but that's not the price.

Yeah.

And they're like, no, that's the price. I'm like, well, it says $19.96. So I quickly go back and take a picture of the whole thing. Yeah. I come back, I show her, she calls the manager. Now this was the thing that really set me off, and that was they sent someone to change the whole sign. To show that I was wrong, but they didn't know I had already taken a picture. Like, back then, I even didn't have to run, take a picture.

Back then, they were trying to gaslight you.

They, like, not just gaslight, like, totally say, like, not only were you wrong, but, like, look, you know, like, I've proven you're wrong, right? And so they literally had someone was trying to take down and change the thing. And so back then, what I used to do is I used to take pictures of it because sometimes, like, my memory could have been wrong and maybe the market wasn't as high and whatever it was, or I scanned it wrong or something. So I'm like, are you kidding me? And so, like, basically I said, okay, I'll buy all these at $20 and I'll return it to you at $50. Then give me the price.

Oh my gosh, you did.

I did, because I was really— they were really like being jerks about the whole thing. In the end, I didn't buy any of them because they were like, it was a mistake. We could sell you one at that price. I said, I don't want one at that price. I appreciate it. But if you'd like to like I would, I was trying to like say, here, just credit me all the money, the $30 difference times however many I was trying to buy. But I don't generally try and negotiate in a store if it's like, this is the price, you know?

Right. But I mean, I think it's that whole, that whole saying that like whoever can afford to walk away tends to have the upper hand in any type of negotiation. If you don't actually need the offer and you can say, you know, this is what I'm willing to do and I'm willing to walk away. Then you are more likely to win a negotiation than if you really have a lot at stake. Agree?

Yeah, I, I would agree with that. I think though, like, I guess I think about it is I rarely go into a business transaction thinking like, well, let, let, I should caveat this. And this is why I think my first instinct with the mortgage was what it was. And that was, um, I don't look to— I want everybody to feel like there's a win here.

Is that part of your value prop with negotiation, is that it has to be a win-win?

Not necessarily, but like, the reality is, is if you, if you are constantly negotiating and you are always on the winning side and you're always leaving people with the raw side, yeah, they're not going to want to do business with with you long term. Like, you may get the win that one time, but like, you now need a new business partner or transaction or whatever. Like, I remember with— we built this house and we moved in, we closed in 2018. The process started probably in 2016, and we basically agreed on a price. And he gave me the specs and all the stuff, and, and there was like 20 pages of like a lot of— at the time, what I didn't realize, a lot of vague wording. But it was like custom this, custom that, custom this, custom that. And so we were about at least a year, probably a year into the process, and every time we said we want something, he was like, oh, that's, that's out of scope, basically. Like, that's more. And I'm like, That's not more. That's what the contract says.

Yeah.

And we went back and forth, and finally I just said, well, I'm not paying for any of this. And, um, I had put down 10% on the house, but that was all I had at risk. So I called my attorney.

Yeah.

And I said— and this goes back to like, who has more to lose, right?

Right.

He's a year plus invested in this project.

Yep.

He's framed the house already to our customization.

Yep.

He's literally put all the rooms up the way we wanted it.

Yep.

And my view is like, okay, so if I lose 10% of this house, it's a lot of money. Don't misunderstand. But like, I'm okay because I'm not going to overpay for this by double.

Yeah.

And I, I basically held my guns and everything stopped for months. Like at least 5 months. There was no work on the house, no anything. And so we went to mediation with our attorneys. He actually got rid of his existing attorney, hired a new, like, more litigating attorney. Um, my attorney said that means he realizes he's got gaping holes, because if he, if he thought the contract was rock solid, then he would have just stuck with his real estate attorney.

Okay. Yeah, I have a question about contracts and negotiations, by the way. Okay, when you finish that story.

Sure. Long story short, we negotiated it out. We got everything we asked for and wanted. We didn't pay a penny. And then what happened was I re— we rewrote the end of the contract because now we're like, okay, we need to move this forward. We need to like— so when you are building a home, you want an end date.

Yeah, of course.

Especially if you are going to sell another home.

Yeah.

Yeah. To move into this home. So we put a hard deadline of March 31st or whatever the date was.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. And we, I put in place a daily penalty.

Okay.

That if he misses every day he miss, it was like, I don't know if it was like $1,200 or some, it was, it was a painful, it was at least $1,000.

Yeah. I need to do that with my kids.

Oh, well, okay. So, um, I'm like, when it comes to family, I'm not so good, but like, like, but anyway, um, so we ended up— he ended up totally missing by, I think it was close to 60 days.

Oh, wow.

And, um, we sold the house, so we had to move out. Yeah, because it was looking like he was going to hit it, and then like at the goal line, like the wheels just fell off. Yeah. And, um, because he, he did things in the wrong order. Order of operations matter, like in math, it mattered here and it really screwed him.

Yeah.

Um, so when we, so I said to my attorney, I'm like, okay, he goes, you gotta, he says, you gotta settle it all out with the builder. Um, before we go to closing, I'm like, that's your job. You're the lawyer. And he goes, I think you should call him. And I'm like, okay. So I, I had kept everything in a spreadsheet. Yeah, everything I paid for, everything he paid for in the add-ons. And then basically in order to, to get the house at the right time, we moved out. We actually— it was actually Passover, so we flew down to family in Florida. I paid for a rate lock so that the interest rate didn't move on, on the mortgage rate and a few other things. Oh, I had a mover, an extra mover cost because I had to store the stuff and whatever. And I put that all in a spreadsheet. And we get on the call and I'm like, I sent it to him and he goes, are you going to hold me to the $1,000 a day fine?

Yeah.

I said, here's what I'm going to do. I said, you see all my hard costs that I paid out? I said, you take care of that. And that was probably, let's say, let's say $15,000, $20,000. I'm like, I'll, I'm not going to make you pay the other $40,000.

Yeah.

He was like, done. Right. And I call, and so at the end he owed me money because of how the numbers work out. I call my attorney back and I'm like, I'm like, okay, it's done. He says, okay, how much do you owe him? I'm like, owe him? I'm like, I'm like, he's paying me $15 grand at close or whatever. He goes, oh, it's a good thing you called him and you negotiated that because I don't know that I would have gotten that for you. And I'm like, you suck.

You're a bullshitter. So there's a few things, there's a few things here that I want to point out because number one, I think that Sometimes you don't think the rules apply to you. I mean that in the nicest way possible, but like, I think people who are good negotiators just think that like, like the, why can't I do something that like is very uncommon, right? Like even the lawyer who's like trained at negotiation couldn't imagine how you managed to get out of that situation to be paid. So there's that. There's, so it also requires a deep understanding of like all of the, all of what's going on underneath, right? Not only like the money, but also what's at stake psychologically for the other person. So you have to be really like savvy. I want to give you an example of something that I did not negotiate, and I want to see if you would agree with this or not.

Okay.

I had a, I was under contract for a flock of sheep. And I had put down $10,000 as a deposit. The contract said the deposit was non-refundable, and I did sign that. So in my head, when the deal fell apart and I walked away, I didn't even attempt to get my deposit back. Would you have done the same thing, or would you have decided, no, I'm going to try to negotiate to get my deposit back?

Why did the deal fall apart?

The deal fell apart because we were waiting for the sheep that we were going to buy to all have their lambs, and then that's when the next payment was going to be due. And by the time we got there, there was like a 4-month difference. One of the sheep had died, and they had said, well, we'll give you one of the babies as a replacement. And we said okay. That was just like an over-the-phone thing. And then a bunch of the sheep had very difficult births and vets had to be called in. Some of the sheep didn't actually have babies, like the, the babies were absorbed, and we felt like there was enough there that suggested that they wouldn't make ideal breeding stock and we wanted to walk away.

Okay. So these are all good reasons to break contract and they're probably reasonably good reasons to negotiate the non-refundable, right? Like, if you told me, like, um, it was going to be delayed another month, or I don't— you know, you guys had a change of heart, or like nothing material, I'd be like, yeah, it's cost of doing business, right? Like, just like I would have walked away from the $100 grand on, uh, the 10%, uh, or whatever on, on the house, the POS, right? Like, whatever. Like, it, it's a cost of doing business, and if I was in the wrong, I'd lose that. In your case, I would argue that they, they weren't good business, uh, stewards and therefore, um, there's a little bit of a breach on their side. And my opening ask would've been for the full refund, knowing that I wouldn't, I wouldn't expect it.

Yeah.

But I would hopefully meet at the $5K middle. Um, because like they did, there were enough question marks. In— and again, I don't know what was in the contract. I don't know what the stated thing is. Like, if it says, hey, um, you get the, the lambs and you get the sheep and you get healthy and all the things, right?

Like, yeah, I think, I think the contract was pretty protective of them and not super protective of us. But it didn't even dawn on me to negotiate. It didn't, it didn't even dawn on me to try to get a partial refund or Right. And like, what's, what's the personality difference of someone who's like, well, I said I signed it, it said non-refundable, so I'm, I'm done, versus you is like, well, but you actually had some legitimate reasons why you were walking away from the deal and you could maybe negotiate even just a partial refund.

Right.

What's the difference?

I think the rules don't apply to you, right? No, they do. They— I think they broke some of the rules. And so therefore they should, they should give back on some of the things.

There should be flexibility. So you're saying like they didn't really do right by us. And so therefore, like, there should be, there should be some wiggle room.

Yes. And I don't think there was malicious intent on their part. Right. And you asking for the money is not malicious intent either. You both went in with the idea that this will work.

True.

I look at the deposit as the protection that someone walks away and bails for no real reason.

Right.

That to me, in my mind, is like the reason for a deposit, right? Like cancellation or whatever. And now I'm up the creek, right? In this case, I think, I actually think if you had negotiated, they may have even offered, they may have said, yeah, I hear you, here's the full $10K.

I'm not saying they would have. They would have forced us to take them to court.

Okay. And so that, that's the last part on the court piece. And that is like, Is this going to be worth it?

Right, right.

Like, yeah, I would have opened the conversation with them. Seeing how strong that they were in their position, I may have asked a lawyer friend to draft a letter on letter— legal letterhead.

Okay.

In a kind of like a— not a threatening tone, but like a, hey, I don't— you know, we don't really want to sue you or something. Lawyers probably have better wording and more Tony, like, um, and then see where that took me, if that brought them back to the table or not. And if they were like, so sue us, I probably wouldn't because like the cost— like I always say, like in litigations, the winners are the lawyers because for sure they're the ones who make out the best. Um, so, you know, I definitely would have— I would have said, hey, this isn't exactly how we agreed on I'm not walking away. Like, you can't resell what you have today. Like, you know, it's not the product you offered me. And so my deposit should be at least partially refunded.

Partially refunded. What's the craziest thing you think you've ever negotiated?

I mean, I think my house, like, I didn't know it at the time.

That was pretty, yeah, that was pretty intense.

Like my, uh, my mortgage guy, he's like a pretty savvy finance guy too. When we got to closing, he had like lived through it with me. He says, I have to tell you, he says, 9 out of 10 people would have just capitulated and just said okay and just kept paying for everything the guy asked for. And then when it became a negotiation, they would have like swayed. He goes, I've seen this movie a lot. He goes, because builders never are on time, builders are never in budget and whatever he says. And I'm like, he goes, this was awesome. And I'm like, oh, okay. So like, I think at the time I don't, I didn't fully appreciate it. I also find that the negotiations, like if I'm somewhat removed, meaning like I could tell you all the times I didn't do a good enough job, right? Like I took a job at a fund at a large private equity firm. I knew what I was making. This guy had tried to hire me 3 years earlier and he's like, he goes, I want to get it to work, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I take a job, a different job for 3 years. And in those next 3 years, my, my compensation over those 3 years was lower than the years that I was at this other fund before. And so he doesn't necessarily remember the details and maybe he does, I don't know. But when we're negotiating this second time, Like I told him my comp the first time, 3 years earlier, I just negotiated the second time. The comp was lower and he was like, he goes, he didn't say like, oh, you're up here, right? Like he was like, he said, oh, you're down there type of thing, you know, like you're lower, whatever. And I didn't negotiate hard. I kind of wanted to play ball to make it work. Excuse me. And he said, and I thought I was doing the right thing in the sense of like, he'll make it up to me on the back side. And like, whether it's going to be year-end bonus or something like that. And, um, and after a year I was like, wow, I, I did myself a massive disservice here.

But you were more detached from that than you were the house? Is that what you—

no, I was more detached from the house. Like, I feel like when I'm personally in it, it's just a different thing. Like, that was, that was a— I would say like one of the I did that twice in my career where I undervalued myself.

Yep.

In the long run, I don't think either of them matter. But both of those times, like, I was trying to be a good person and a good team player. And now I look at that, I'm like, that is like— I actually tell people who are leaving, who work for me today.

Yeah.

I always tell them, before you take the job, before you accept, You should come to me and I will help you because I'm not going to convince you to stay. I'm not going to throw money at you to try and convince you unless you're like, you know, superstar that I don't want to lose. Fine. But like your average 3-year employee in my team, I tell them all the time, I'm like, do yourself a favor and come to me before you negotiate. And each time they come and I'm like, well, what'd you get this? And you know, they're a little bit shy to tell me because like, whatever. I even said like for vacation, I'm like, How much time did you take in between jobs? And they're like, well, I felt like this, da, da, da. I'm like, I'm like, always 2 to 4 weeks. Give yourself just time to relax. I'm like, you'll never get that time back. And so like each person comes after the fact, I'm like, you screwed that up. So one person I was telling that story to, like after someone else had left, a year later he takes a job. He goes, but he goes, you know what was sitting in my head the whole time? Don't start immediately. He goes, I took 4 weeks off. I'm like, well, at least you learned something. Good for you.

You know, that's a good idea. That's definitely a good idea.

So, um, I think when I'm personally involved, it's sometimes just a little bit harder. Like, not that I'm personally involved, but you know, like I'm tied to it somehow. I don't know.

You're tied. Yeah, you're tied. You're tied to it. I sometimes get, I sometimes get insulted when people want to negotiate with me, uh, because it's been very rarely, but like it's been a little bit sometimes in like client work and stuff or like workshops and people want to try to negotiate a price. And I realize that I'm just, I'm too attached to it because a lot of people just, like you said, it's a game, it's a sport. It's, it's like a, it's like a dance that they just do and they're not really trying to offend me. They're just like, this is what they're used to. But I've gotten insulted before. Like, why are you trying to negotiate my rate?

I hear that because like when you're a consultant, and, or like a small business owner, or like in your case, coaching or consulting. I, I think that that's fair to be like, I think I would probably be insulted too. Like I would take it personally. But I think, you know, if we think back, there was, I know there was one time, right? Like it was a corporate person who was negotiating with you. And I would think that's less personal in the sense that they probably were operating inside of a budget. Or they didn't know what they were up against. But I think if someone's like, hey, I want to hire you as a coach, or I want to hire— like, I would say to you, like, I agree, like, you shouldn't get to negotiate, and like, this is my price. And that's where like every, you know, entrepreneur will tell you, know your value, you know, like, charge your value, you're charging the value, not the price, price-value, all, you know. And there's truth to that. So I don't think like when you're hiring, like, a contractor and he's like, here's my hourly rate, or here's the, the price of the package, it's necessarily as fair as like the consultant or the whatever. But I listen, I think my clients will also ask, hey, is there anything we can do? Like I have a new small fund and I gave him a price quote. And, and it's, it's like, I think market, market price on something, market value.

Okay.

And so they said, they said, oh, we're, we're co-investors with this other fund and we know you do the work for that. So you're already doing the work. Can we leverage a price? Cause it, it, it's much more impactful to us cause we're small. I was like, oh, okay. I'll, I'll give you for this one investment that you co-invest with them. I'll give you a better price. Fast forward a year, we're doing this investment for them and they're like, we have a new investment. And in my head I'm like, okay, market price. And they're like, we're co-invested with them again. And I'm like, okay. And they're like, but this is in a smaller fund of ours and we're really fee sensitive. Is there anything you see?

Fee sensitive? That— oh my gosh, I'm going to take that one. Fee sensitive. Okay.

And I'm like, wait a second. I already gave you a discount to the market price because you're co-investing. And now you're telling me you're co-investing in a new one, but this is a smaller fund because they think about things as a percentage of the—

are you insulted? Wait, enough of the numbers. Are you insulted at this point? Are you annoyed? Are you just like, whatever?

I'm like, I'm not insulted at all. Like, I don't, I don't take it personally. Like he's, he's looking out for his investors and his P&L. I'm looking out for my P&L. And what'd you say? So, so I said, you gotta tell me what else is coming down the pike of the portfolio.

Like, are you going to come with, are you going to come with more deals and more?

Yeah. Are there more investments coming or is this like the end of the line here?

Yeah. Yeah.

And because I know they bought. A full-sized investment on their own recently. Like it was in the news. And so he says, we're going to do this other investment sometime in the next 12 months. I don't know when we're starting. In my head is that one's not getting market, that's getting above market because it's a— it's— I know the animal that I'm dealing with.

Yeah.

So I took $500 off of this other one because I wanted— I don't want him going anywhere else. I don't want him shopping for that bigger one.

Right.

Okay.

So you're saying I play—

I played the long game because there's a—

there's a bigger, longer deal coming. You're going to— you're going to capitulate just ever so slightly.

Mm-hmm.

Just as a—

as a gesture of goodwill. Correct. And I wrote a whole email on this before the invoice went out. I'm like, I know you asked. We're already below market on this because you're co-investing, but I know you're fee sensitive because it's a smaller fund. Like, I highlight all the things he said, right? Like, I reiterated the whole conversation, like, I I'm listening, I'm doing you a favor, here you go. And he wrote back, greatly appreciated. Okay, so now like there should be a favor in the bank.

Okay, but this is where my brain says he's, he's a pattern. This is a pattern. He's gonna just do it again, potentially.

But then I, I have the ability to hold the line. That's because, because now I'm holding two of his investments. He— it's, it's a pain to use somebody else per se.

True, true. So you're just kind of a funny combination of like a really hard negotiator, and then also you're really like— I don't know, like, but like you'll, you'll capitulate, like you'll give people a good deal. You'll be like, okay, I'll do that. Like, it's a funny, it's a funny combination. You, you have like, like sharkish tendencies with like Walmart. Yeah.

It's funny because like when you watch that show, sometimes I'm like, pfft. But I think some of it's like drama on the show, like the personas or whatever. Yeah, I definitely think that there's certain lines, like I hold the hard line and other things I'm just like, yeah, whatever.

Yeah, well, I think if I were to kind of like look at your pattern, I would say that when there is a relational stake you take a much more relational approach. You want to find a win-win, you want to play the long game, you care about reciprocity. And when there's not relational, like you're dealing with banks or you're dealing with Walmart or you're dealing with mortgage companies, you're like full guns blazing, like, I'm gonna go for everything I can possibly go for. That's where I see the difference, which is probably pretty smart because If you want to care about relational capital long-term, it doesn't pay to be a shark. But when you're in with these big organizations that are, could just take you for a run, you absolutely have to defend your best interest.

Yeah, I think that's fair. Um, and I think it's funny you say that because like, I think, I think a lot of times it's like, even like the recent situation with my, my credit card situation, right? Like I looked at them as the big bad bank. Like they're— yeah, I didn't humanize them in any way, shape, or form. Right.

Oh, poor dear Amex with the debt.

Yeah, right. Exactly. And I think I also think that a lot of these situations, you know, like I think about when I watched this guy who I worked for, like, negotiate, like I said, I think he gamified it a lot.

Oh, the guy you were talking about at the beginning that was like, yeah, kind of turned you off a little bit though, didn't it?

Yeah, but it also showed me that like, I think he used it in two ways that I never would want to. Like, I have no interest in, in the game, like the gamification of it, right? Like, right, I don't, I don't like have a wall that says win, win, win, win, loss, win, but you know, like, and oh, like he's keeping score of like, I don't know if he was keeping, I don't think he was ever keeping score, but it was definitely part of the game to him of like, hey, did I win? Did I lose? So I think there are people out there who behave like that. But I think if you don't— I guess you're right. Like, if you don't separate the relational aspect of it, I think in general, you— people won't want to do business with you over time, you know? And like, you know, so I think, I think a lot of things are A lot more things that other people think are negotiable are negotiable. It's kind of like if you think about, um, if you ever miss a credit card payment, right? If you're ever late, they hit you with a late fee and then you get a whole slew of interest if you're carrying a sizable balance for that month, right? First call I make is the card. They'll easily— every card will give you one time every 12 months If you, if you're late on a payment, they won't do it inside a year 2 times. Most, unless, you know, it's worth it to ask, but most, I have never had a card say no if it's once inside 12 months. And it's never like intentional. I don't like, oh, let's circle this month. I'm going to make a late payment.

Right.

And they'll wipe the interest. So it's not just the $25, $35, $40 that they charge you. It's, you all of a sudden get hit with, depending on the size of your balance, you can be hit with like multiple hundreds of dollars in fees of, of And so they, they immediately will take that too. Okay. And so like, to me, that's like obvious, right? Like that's a call you make.

Yeah, that's easy. And that's like what you said at the beginning, like what's the worst that can happen? People say no, right? But it's, yeah, some personalities it's easier for than others, but I think those are the places to try first, right? The relational negotiations are always gonna be a little bit more complex and hard, especially if you're attached to the outcome or you're attached to the person and things like that. But it can't hurt in, in some of, some of those other, uh, other scenarios.

Yeah, I, I would agree.

Well, this was helpful. I, so I've got these two big negotiations. Well, I've got one big negotiation with the bank. I'll let you know how it goes. The other negotiation I kind of walked away from with the sheep and I did, I said I wasn't gonna pursue it. I don't think it's worth pursuing now, but I'm, your, your, your thoughts were interesting and it makes me wonder it— what, what could it hurt to go back and email and say, hey XYZ, and see if they would be willing to capitulate? Because the worst they could say is no, right?

I mean, I think— how long ago was this? This was like inside the last month, but was it like a week ago or was it like 3 weeks ago?

It was May 5th. Okay, 15 days ago.

Yeah, 2 weeks ago. And did you say, like, what was the last communication?

Like, I said, good. Yeah. I said, good luck with your flock. You know, we're, we're backing out basically.

It can't hurt. I think at this point you may have a harder time, but it can't hurt, especially if you don't plan to buy from them again.

No, I don't. Yeah.

Right.

All right. Well, this was a great, great talk. Great talk. As they like to say. Thank you for all your wisdom, and I'm never not going to think it's funny that you tried to negotiate with Walmart. Like, nobody would be like, that's funny. Uh, all right.

And there you have it, folks, another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until Until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit, and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie Chenell, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.