Building Value Based Relationships with Alex Barker

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute, and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian, and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at AI we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings, both virtually and in person, all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview.

For the audience. Tell them a little bit about the compound effect. I really think that's a powerful book for anybody who wants to be successful in whatever it is they're doing, not only just business. So can you give, like, a little, you know, elevator pitch for that one?

The concept is really simple. The compound effect says that daily action over time leads to a synergistic outcome. So you've probably heard people say this about things like exercise. Like, in the beginning, it seems like nothing is happening, that it's just hard, it's just tons of sweats, tons of misery. But at a certain point, something happens in your body and things just start clicking. Your workout becomes a routine. It becomes easy to do. It becomes something that gives you energy rather than takes it away. That's a compound effect.

Let's get into the business, because one thing that I really admired about you is the way that you generate sales by focusing on the relationship and creating value. Can you talk a little bit about how you used to generate sales for your business and how you do it now?

So if we're just going to focus really on one area, it's my coaching. So I knew that from the beginning of my journey that I love to teach, I love to help people overcome whatever barrier it is that. That they want. I first started out as a podcast coach. I would help people start up their podcasts, and it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. And in the beginning, what I would do is be very, very timid, and I would ask them some questions about what they wanted, and then I would. I would Essentially just present the sale right there. I would say, okay, well if this is what you want, this is what I can do. This is what I can provide to you. The very first sale I ever a consultant, that's what I would call myself then, was $37 a month. I was so scared to ask for that amount of money because as a professional pharmacist, we had no business classes. We don't know how to ask people for money. We're just given money for the job that we do. We're just cogs in a wheel. We're trained to be that and to step out, to not be a cog anymore and to think of myself as a one tool that does it all. I didn't have the confidence to really make that happen. And business was hard. I did not do very well as a consultant. It wasn't until recently, this year that I realized the power of just doing something different. So when you talk about relationships, something that I've understood as a consultant and as a coach, that no sale is made without a relationship, without someone really understanding who I am, what I do, what I represent and how I can help them. And so what I realized that with relationships, the best way to really grow a relationship is to do what? To be with someone more, to experience them more, if you will. But I thought, well, if I want people to really experience my coaching and to understand the power that it has, how it can literally change their lives, give them clarity on what they're doing and help them push forward on the things that are holding them back, I could probably change my whole coaching practice. And a lot of the revelations came after reading a few books on consulting and getting really serious about it rather than just kind of playing around as a coach. This was about, if you're thinking timeline, it's 2016, probably occurred around January, February. And I was coaching a few people at the time and it was really just like chump change, like side income, maybe around a thousand or a little over that a month. I started to say, you know what, I'm really good at this. How can I really make this whole process an amazing experience, a wow experience? And I read this great book called the Prosperous Coach, which sounds, you know, so self helpy. So I immediately questioned it because I don't really believe in self help. I'm always a skeptic. Rather I think there's only great ideas and we have to think about how to implement them. And I got so many awesome ideas and namely the main one. And it's something I do now for everyone who wants coaching for me is that I provide a two hour consultation for anyone who wants coaching and we go really, really deep and people get some really crazy revelations. I was talking with, I believe he was a engineer, but he had a website that was about codependency and it was gaining a lot of traction and he was passive income from it, and he had a book and he was about to launch a course and he was doing really, really good. But when it came down to it, he wasn't getting a whole lot of joy or satisfaction from it. Rather, what he really wanted to do was create these really fun experiment like videos to teach people about codependency. And he had never really verbalized that before. And so now he's got a plan. Now he has an understanding of what his dream is, which is to make these videos that potentially could go viral to show the world how everyone has a little bit of codependency within them and how they can break free from that. Because that was one of his core values, is freedom. And so now he's on the path towards that. Rather than just building something that'll make money, he's building something that will make money and will fulfill one of his life goals, one of his big dreams for his life. The whole concept of spending two hours with something is actually stolen from, I believe, a CEO of, I want to say MasterCard or Visa, I don't remember the name, but he's famously quoted for saying, if a meeting doesn't last two hours, then that task needs to be delegated to someone else. And the whole premise is, look, if I'm going to be the leader of this company, I need to deal with some really significant problems of our company. I need to think about the direction where we're heading and I'm going to be the one who leads that. I really just adopted that into my own life. People are coming to me for help with their visions, their dreams, their ambitions. And if they really want that, then I want to spend as much time as I can to help them figure out first off where they want to go and how they can do it and really change the way they see the world. Because that's ultimately what we're doing, is we're going from impossibility to possibility. And while that sounds kind of frou frou for some guys, I know for me it sounds frou frou, but really that's what the conversation is revolved around is thinking about, okay, is this the direction you want to go in your life? What could Be bigger, what's possible. Because really, ultimately there's no limitation. I mean, you, Kwame, you probably never thought that you would be podcasting one day.

I'd hoped, but I never saw the path. Yeah, that's so interesting. It's funny because my initial reaction to that meeting statement was like, hey, I hate meetings. Who is this guy who loves meetings? But. But now. No, I understand what you're talking about because it takes time to develop a relationship. And you know what's really funny is that now looking back on our relationship, I know when we. One of the times we set up a call to just chat after we met at Podcast Movement, I realize now, now understanding your. Your system, looking back, that was. It was almost like a prospecting call for you. But on my end, it never felt like that because you approached it as Kwame's my friend, I'm genuinely going to build a relationship with him, see where he is in his business, see if there's anything I can do to help and add value. And I really appreciated that, you know, and when the time comes and I'm in the market for a new coach, you're honestly somebody that I'm going to look for because I believe it's important to have variety when it comes to coaching, but.

Well, thanks for claiming that on the air. I can now use this episode.

I am very. No, I'm very confident in your abilities. That's why I'm willing to do that. You know, as a lawyer, I know about paper trails and whatnot, so I knew what I was doing, committing myself to that. But one of the things.

Can I just touch on something, too?

Yeah.

This whole thing that I'm talking about, this process, if you're a consultant or you're a coach, you're thinking about this and how it actually works. The beauty of it really is that I don't have to worry about what other people are gonna say and I think, or what they're gonna choose rather. That's a huge part of my business that I've been able to adopt is this law of falling in love with action. The law of falling in love with action is probably what I should be adopting into my life rather than the law of determining my self worth and my mood and my attit on the results or lack thereof.

Wow, that's pretty deep.

Go.

Go deeper in that.

You know, if you're listening to the show, you're probably an overachiever. You're probably someone who says, I want to take control of the results in my life. I want to learn from Kwame how to persuade, how to negotiate so that I can be more satisfied with the things in my life. Whether it's persuading a spouse to go to Disney World or a boss that you deserve more vacation time or more pay. You're someone who wants to take charge. And I'm like that too. I want to take charge of my life and not let life just happen to me and complain about it and be a victim of my circumstance. While that sounds great and it's a positive way of looking at life, it comes with all sorts of barriers, mental hurdles and challenges. And the main one being that if you're an overachiever, you sometimes determine your self worth, your attitude, and really your actions on your results. So when your bank account is full, you feel good. When you're making money, you feel good. When you close the coaching deal or when you close the sale, you feel good. And when you're not doing those things, you feel like garbage. You feel like you're not obtaining what you want out of life. You compare yourself to other people who are doing what you want to do and you feel like you're a loser. I feel this way, if I don't check myself, I will determine my self worth, who I am, and my attitude based on the results that I get. And so if in the future, Kwame comes to me and says, hey, let's do this thing, and we have a great conversation and then we get to the. This is really a weird conversation to have on a podcast about a future conversation we may or may not have. But let's say, for example, he comes to me, we do this coaching experience, and he says, you know what? I don't know. I don't know if I can afford this right now. I don't know if I can do this. I gotta talk to my wife, I gotta talk to my. Whoever. I have come to fall in love with the fact that I am getting better as a coach every day. I'm growing in my mastery as a coach and a teacher. So rather than putting my self worth on whether or not he says yes or no, I know for a fact that I'm getting better. And I try to move everyone who works with me either into an absolute yes or an absolute no. Because I hated prom and girls telling me maybe I hated. If you think about. I mean, I don't know, any typical guy probably knows this scenario where you ask a girl to go on a date with you and they don't say yes or no. Yeah, I hated that, and that's what happens sometimes in these conversations, when you think about what's a powerful conversation and, and how things have really changed. For me, it's really moving people to decide saying yes or no. And I'm not talking about persuasion or manipulation or even negotiation. It's getting people to say, this is a right now, what you're telling me, it's an absolute no because you can't afford it, or you don't know what your spouse is going to say, or you don't know this or that. And I'm fine with that because that's your decision. And I can't control it. I can't tell you what this program is worth to you. Only you can determine that. Only you can determine what you're going to get out of it ultimately. And so this has created so much freedom for me because I have such a problem with dealing with rejection. That's why I did that season two of my show of 66 days of rejection because I hate it when people. I'm negotiating something, I'm proposing something, and people say, no, I don't want that, or no, I don't want to follow through with that because then what happens? Well, the rest of my day is ruined. I feel like garbage. I go home, I complain to my wife, I don't feel like playing with my kids, because what does that mean about me? It means I'm a failure. It means I'm. I'm not doing the best. What's wrong with me? Why can't I close the sale? Why can't I accomplish this? Why can't I do these things? And so the reason why I brought all this up is really this idea of falling in love with just doing the work because I can control that.

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It's really interesting because I remember I can't remember which book this was, but they were talking about adequate goal setting, how to do it successfully. And most people focus on the outcome, kind of like what you were saying, which is problematic because you can't always control the outcome. There are a lot of variables, especially when you're dealing with people, but you focus on the actions. What can you control? And just to what you're saying. Looking at it from a negotiation lens, it is so liberating to know that negotiation is the art of deal discovery, not the art of deal making. So you can't discover something that's not there, that's not your fault if it doesn't work out. Your job is to utilize these techniques and put yourself in the best position through action and see what happens. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. So I'm really glad that you brought that point for us today.

Yeah. The image that comes to mind, honestly, is someone like Leonardo and his very first drawings of the forest.

See, I thought you were talking about the ninja turtle, and I was confused.

Okay. Yeah, I can see how my mind should have gone there, too. Leonardo da Vinci, you know, the creator, the inventor.

Oh, that one. Okay.

When you think about him first starting out as an artist, as an inventor, I mean, his first stuff that he created, it was good for his age, but it still wasn't great. You know, he wasn't a master. And while he received criticism, he took it and grew and moved on, and he further just dove into what he was creating. And we all need to be that way. We all need to understand that sometimes the results that we get aren't amazing, but it comes with time, effort, energy. And again, going back to what we talked about previously, the compound effect. Hmm.

This is. This is really interesting. So before you said you try to get somebody to come to a decisive yes or no. What do you do if somebody's on the fence when you're feeling that indecision? How do you push them without them feeling pressured?

Well, I usually point out a few things. The first one being that if they're like, I just don't know, I say, you know what's interesting about this conversation, Mr. Prospect? That's a quote from Zig Ziglar, if you didn't know.

Yes, he does say that all the time.

Mr. Prospect, I'll say something to the effect of, you know, I understand that you're trying to decide, but I usually try to let them know that the very problem of trying to decide is the thing that we. Our program would be designed to Help you to do.

Oh, wow.

It's just the irony that the very thing you're trying to work through right now is the thing that we would help you create. Fearlessly decisive. Ooh, that's a great word.

I like that.

And, you know, poor you, all your life you've been struggling with making decisions. If I feel like they're that kind of way. And ultimately, failing to make a decision on something immediately leads to a life where you are really wasting some time. Because if you're not decisive in life, you lose out on opportunities. I mean, I just think about all the girls I could have asked out on for prom, but I didn't. And ultimately I didn't even go to prom because of that very thing, because I was indecisive and I was worried about what they would say. And the girls who did tell me, who I did ask, told me not yes or no. And I think a part of that problem was, is that I was a jerk back in high school. But that's another story for another day. Yeah, but that's something I'll tell people and I'll say, look, right now it sounds like it's an absolute no. And I say, let me be clear. You don't need a coach. Nobody needs coaching. But the question is, is, do you want it? I do. I want coaching. I need someone who believes in me, who doesn't listen to my inner doubting voice, my fears, or the negative stories that I tell myself. I need someone to hold me accountable to the big vision that I have for my life and help me to dream even bigger than what I currently am. Because the only reason why I'm not getting further ahead is, is not because of anyone else. It's because of me. It's always because of me. And if people are saying more leaning towards no, then I'll say, I'll help them make that decision. I'll say, look, it's an absolute no right now, and that's okay. If you feel like you want to get coaching in the future, then let's stay in contact, come back to me. Maybe they'll say something, oh, are you going to charge me at that point? I say no, because if you come back to me, then you'll make a new decision. And some that may throw up skeptics right away to say, well, then the people are just going to abuse you. No, I have systems in place to avoid people who would abuse that system. I don't want to coach that kind of person anyway. If I think they're going to Be someone who's needy. Needy is creepy.

There's so many quotable moments in this episode that's funny. So I want to know if this is intentional, because there's a negotiation technique where you kind of push somebody to the opposite side of the fence, knowing that they would run back to the same side of the fence. So here's an example. There was a study where there was somebody, I think he was working for the Republican Party, making calls in order to try and get support. And they said, okay, you lead them down this yes path, where it's like, are you a Republican? Yes. Would you like to see a Republican in the White House? Yes. This was not this year. This was in previous years.

I'm glad you clarified that.

Yeah, it was a previous. Previous election. And so you lead them through these really obvious questions, and hopefully you get the yes momentum for them to say yes to donate. And I mentioned this before in a previous episode. It was the car negotiation series, episode one. It's called the yes set. So you ask, like, three yeses and then culminating in the ultimate ask. But the person realized that he got. He ultimately received a lot more donations when he started by asking the question, have you given up on a Republican being in the White House? And they're like, no, absolutely not. And so people are saying no a lot more forcefully. And then when you lead them down this yes set, where you're asking obvious questions like, would you like to make more money? It's a hesitant yes. It's like, well, yes. But I know you know the answer to that question. Why are you asking me now? I'm skeptical. But if you push them to a forceful no, it brings them back. So is that why you approach it that way when they're indecisive, or are.

You genuinely giving them an out?

So I totally love the psychology behind it, but I'll change it a little bit. What I do, if I feel like they're indecisive and they're humming and hawing at the opportunity, what I do is I say, well, what's going to happen if nothing changes? If you don't do this coaching and you just keep doing life as you've been doing it? And they'll say, well, they'll describe the negative future, and usually they hate that. And if they're in a place, though, where things are good, they'll describe how things are good. But I may ask a following question, like, what would our coaching plan, our coaching program make possible for you, and what would that be worth to you then? I'll focus on the positives. I usually try not to talk too much about the negatives, but I understand that to drive people to the yes, you have to highlight what's going to be reality. But is it intentional? With psychology? Yes. Did I know that study? No. So that was pretty cool.

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