From Uber Driver to Millionaire: Dr. Daniel Moses on Creative Negotiation Strategies

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Daniel, thanks for joining us today.

Great, great, great. Kwame, thanks for having me on your podcast. Looking forward to having a great, great conversation. How's it going, my man? Man?

Things are good. Things are good. I'm excited for this. And there's so many people in our audience that are in the real estate world and then people in general in the business world. And I know you have a lot of great things to say, not just about like the skillset, but also the mindset too. But before we get into all of that, how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Yeah, fantastic. So I've been an entrepreneur for the last 22 years, went through so many different types of roller coaster and it's something I love to call myself because I think I've earned it. I'm a very successful entrepreneur. Mindset wise, money wise, creativity wise. I'm very, very sound. I'm a business coach, I'm a member of Forbes Coaches Council, and I'm a two times author, podcaster, business and success and property coach and mentor. And yeah, I'm a keynote speaker and as well as I'm very, very passionate about helping entrepreneurs deep into the creativity that they have within themselves to use that as a tool to winning in business.

I love this and I love the focus on creativity too, because that's a key to winning in business but also a key to winning in negotiations as well. Absolutely.

Like you can't take creativity from negotiation. You see, negotiation is everything. So I'll give you a very, very typical case scenario because I love to talk in stories and I love to give examples. So the other day, one of my business, one of a member of my team in the office. Basically got a massive bill brought to the office from a contractor. And the bill is what, about five and a half thousand pounds bill to spend? And she's going to go straight in to make the payment. And I'm like, you can't just go and accept paying over five and a half thousand pounds without negotiating the reason why. She's like, oh, actually they've provided a quote and they're going to go and do the job and they're going to do the job anyway, so let's go ahead and pay. I was like, no. Now instantly I get into this conversation now with this contractor and I ended up reducing a bill of about five and a half thousand pounds all the way to £4,200, saving over £1,300 from this particular quotation that's been provided by a contractor. And then she said to me, how come, Dr. Daniel, you was able to knock over £300 off this particular quotation that's been provided by this contractor? And I said, negotiation comes with creativity, comes with experience. It means that you should always reposition any situation or any quotes or any sort of contract that you're about to have. And people don't even understand the fact that not every single time someone brings a bill in front of you that you just have to pay for that bill. It means that it could be overpriced. It means that you can come out from the other side and you create a win win for your business because your business is paying less. And again, the contractor is still going to do the contract anyway, regardless of the fact that £1,300 has been knocked off the bill. So negotiation is everything because you have to learn to negotiate your way to becoming the best version of yourself. Our kids, getting our kids to do stuff for us at home. Sometimes you have to negotiate with them. So I'll give another example. My son is 15 years old. There are certain times I want him to do some setting stuff for me and he doesn't want to do it. Number one, I've got to sell to him the reason why he needs to do it and negotiate with him the reason why he needs to do. And there's a reward at the end of the day. So negotiation is something that is embedded in us. But sometimes people just don't know how to use this great gift, this great skill to actually grow and scale and drive a business.

Oh my goodness, we're starting off hot. I like this. In a very short period of time, you blended what we were talking about, the skillset and the mindset. Because first of all, you have a different mindset, you see the world differently. So you are, like you said, you're trying to get the best version not only of yourself, but of your relationships. You gave an example with your son, but also your business. You gave an example at work, right? And so what you're doing is that you're shedding that paradigm that most people have where it's either, it's a false dichotomy, a false binary where we say, okay, here's the situation, yes or no, you're like, I see your option, let's make it better by actually negotiating. And so when you think about the iterations over time, what you're doing in business, right here, you saved 1300 pound. But then if you continue to do that over the course of the next week, next month, next year, next decade, that adds up very quickly, you know, and then we're recognizing how this skill of negotiation just improves every single aspect of your life. But first you have to have the mindset to recognize the opportunity and then the skillset to actually put it into action 100%.

When you talk about sales and when you talk about negotiation, these two things, they intertwined each other. And I can go on in giving real life case scenarios. In my new book called the Test, I talk about how I negotiated with my wife in a certain way that she became 17 years ago. She was my girlfriend. Now she's been married to me for the last 17 years and we've known each other for 18 years. In order for her to say yes, number one, I have to sell and number two, I have to negotiate. You see, every time you're trying to chat to a nice looking lady, for those who are not married and for those of us who became married, the fact that at some point you negotiated with that nice looking female that became your wife, you have to sell, you have to negotiate and you have to create a balance. And the same thing goes in the business world, not every single time a contract is thrown in front of you that you just have to take it for what it is. But sometimes you have to look with a best eye view, looking all the way from the top to the bottom and actually see how can I create even more a win win? You see, negotiation is a win win. It's creating a level ground for two people to grow and to thrive. The topic about negotiation, but people don't understand sometimes that you don't have to be excessively over intentional about negotiation. Sometimes you just got to be able to Flow with negotiating. Because negotiating is the way we talk, is the way we carry ourselves. It's even sometimes about your Persona, how you position your product, your services, so that others become attracted by it. Okay? And to create that sort of win, win negotiation is a way of life. It should be way how businesses set up their own business tradition.

I love this. And again, you're talking about it from the business side, but also the personal side too, because I've been married for 13 years and I know. Well, actually I'm glad I said this anniversary next week. I didn't forget, but I know there was a lot of mutual negotiation happening, right. Because when I Whitney an undergrad, yeah, I thought she was attractive, thought she was really cool, but she made it very clear she had high standards. I was doing well in school, but I had to do better. I wanted to have a shot. So the thing that you said about negotiation, I really loved because you said you create a level ground for two people to grow and thrive together. And I think that's something that's really important for us to recognize because sometimes people might say, okay, yes, I understand, I can negotiate, I. I should negotiate. But then they go in with a very selfish mentality, focusing only on their own needs and they wonder why they're meeting resistance and it's because they're not considering the other side in the process. So for you, when you're having these negotiations, whether it's at work, whether it's at home, business deal and real estate negotiation, how do you make it clear to the other side that you see this as a win and you want to help them to succeed as well through the process?

Very interesting conversation. Again, I'm going to explain this with a case study. So a little bit about this case study. It was in 2015, I lost over £150,000 in my business. And when I lost about £150,000 in my business, I became a delivery driver with Amazon and Yodel. And after doing that for about three to six months, I then chose to like, okay, I wasn't getting enough money there. I wasn't happy there. Obviously, I just lost £150,000. I'm also just trying to use it to overcome my anxiety and my depression. And I became an Uber driver. So from being an Uber driver, again, I wasn't earning a lot. I had to drive a minimum of about 100 to 150 hours a week as a taxi driver. But today I have not built a business in seven figures. I currently have a small property portfolio of just around £7 million. Now, how does someone like myself go from an Uber driver building a 7 million pound property portfolio currently in England? Negotiation played a massive, massive part and I'll give a case studies about this. So as I mentioned, I lost 150. I became a delivery driver with Amazon and Yodel and then became an Uber driver. Now, when I was going to buy my first property after acquiring my first property, my first investment property, that was way back in 2019, I needed £153,000 to do the refurbishment. The value of the asset was £430,000. When the property is refurbished with £153,000, it would then become worth around about 700 to 800,000. Guess what? I did not have the money. I found myself a builder, okay. And he gave me a quote for £153,000. And I said, okay, Mr. Builder, I haven't got £153,000, so I haven't got £153, Thousand to pay you through the refurbishment cycle, which was going to be about six months of refurbishment work. Now, first of all, the initial quotation was £153,000. And I said, I can pay you half of that money throughout the entire life cycle of that particular project. Now, the balance of about 70 something thousand pounds, there is a difference. I haven't got it. How about if I pay you an extra £8,000? So making the total cost of work would be £161,000. So you gave me a quotation for £153,000. However, can you build this house for me? And I'm going to pay you extra £8,000, but you're going to have to wait for two months for me to go back to the bank. And the bank has to agree with me that the Property is worth 7 to 800,000 pounds, which allows me to refinance and get some money back. It's like, oh, I've never really done anything like this. Then I said, well, you charged me £153,000 with £8,000. You've never really made like that. So how is it going to be? Well, I've never really done this. But I said, but then again, you're, you're also working for me. And in the £8,000 you've never made in two months without doing nothing. So I planted seeds, I sold the ideas. And he said, okay, how about we make it a round figure then £10,000, we call it a deal. And I said, yes, let's go. Now I'm paying £10,000 more. But he's allowing me three months more to owe him this money that I did not have. That got me a house that's now worth about £720,000. Now, a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs will say, no, why do I need to pay £10,000 more? That's a loss that is too much, it's too expensive. But then again, the £10,000 is allowing me create a property that's worth hundreds of hundreds of thousands pounds more. You can see two things happening in this conversation. One, I'm selling. Number two, I'm negotiating. Cut. Long story short, nine months later, I go to the bank. The property is worth £720,000 more. So remember, the property was valued at 430 and I spent £153,000 and I gave the builder £10,000 more. Now, nine months later, the property is worth how much is worth £720,000. If you do the math, getting a new mortgage at 720,000 pounds, okay, at 70 to 80% loan to value gives me almost about 300,000 pounds difference. So I created 320,000 pounds more that I did not have by simply negotiating. Now, most entrepreneurs usually would stop right there, oh, I haven't got the money. I'm not going to do it because I haven't got the money. So we as entrepreneurs have to learn to take creativity and negotiation and sales together in order for us to grow and scale our business. So that's an example of how you negotiate using nothing that is in existence to creating something that becomes.

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Master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed. That's such a great example. It also ties back to what we were talking about at the beginning with the necessity of creativity. Right. Because I love the blending of creativity, sales and negotiation. The creativity allowed you to think outside the box. So it seems like there's a no deal. Oh, I simply do not have the money. Based on what you quoted me. I'm out of here. I'm going to try something else. But you said no. I believe that if I try with a negotiation, I might be able to pull this off. What is it going to take creativity to do it so that mindset allows you to actually do that. But as an entrepreneur, you're not just a negotiator. You have to recognize that there's that selling aspect too. You have to tell the person what's in it for them. Why would you ever want to do this? Because it's clear how it can help me. But how can it help you? I. I'm going to throw you a little bit of extra money so it's worth your while as well. And so you blend that negotiation so you can try to work something out. But also you recognize you have to sprinkle in a little bit of sales in there too, so they understand the value for themselves.

You have to learn always to be selling. I do this a lot. And every single time I'm having conversation with anyone, number one, I'm always selling directly or indirectly. And as well as being very intentional, at the same time, something else. I'm the guy. This is quite interesting. I'm the guy who became a millionaire using none of my own money. Everything I ever become, I negotiated my way through the house I live in, the car I drive. My business partner, his name is Kevin. He was my first student when I became a coach and a mentor. And I said to him, I said, kevin, what do you want to do in future? He's like, okay, I'm going to go and do exactly what you've taught me to do. But I knew he had a skill in him. And I said, kevin, listen, entrepreneurship is hard. And I laid out all the cards. I said, listen, I've already built from ground zero to here, but I need your skill to help me go from here to here. Apparently, Kevin was my student. I told Kevin, you've got a skill that I don't have. He was very good with social media, is good with marketing, and it's good with so many other skills. And I said, the journey of an entrepreneur, it's very tough. It's not easy, right? I have already built from ground zero to this level, but I'm going to need you to help me go from this level to that level. Now you can go and choose to start from scratch on your own, and I know you're going to make it, but how about if you come from here and you help me get from here to there? I'm not saying it's going to be automatic success. However, I know with the skill that you have, we're going to come here a bit quicker. Cut. Long story short, we built a brand within the last three years during lockdown and up to now, our brand went from known at all to being known. And it was with the help of this individual. And guess what? The negotiation was in there. Okay, give me a sweat equity. You don't have to financially be involved in this. I'm going to keep mentoring you, but I need your sweat equity to say yes, to be committed and let's go and build this together. And today he owns a share in a business that we grew from zero that is not worth millions of millions of pounds. People just needs to understand not every single time. You have to have something financially cash wise to grow a business, to start a business, because you can actually look at things like sweat equity idea visions and people who can actually create maps and you can bring in these experts who actually help you scale a business. So the act of negotiation is something that entrepreneurs have to be embedded. It has to be something that you have to live with. You have to the part, you have to talk the part because you can actually negotiate yourself to massive wealth creation. It all depends on what you have on your mind.

Absolutely. And I love the fact that you're really hammering home the point that we don't need to focus just on the money. We have to expand our perspective and think about it in terms of value. Because if I think about it in terms of value now, I have several other options because we have a limited amount of cash, but we have less limits on the value we can provide. So like you said, your partner, he provided sweat equity that wasn't dollars and cents. Right. But that is value. In a collaborative negotiation, we can recognize we can trade on value. It doesn't always need to be dollars and cents. And for you obviously done a really great job of building relationships. You have this business partner, you've been with your wife for a long time now. You've talking about the need to negotiate everything. Like the podcast, negotiate anything. How do you do that in a way that doesn't feel transactional to the other side?

The way we want to see things as entrepreneurs, as business people, as even professionals in our careers. It's just that people say, okay, money doesn't buy you happiness. But yet everybody wake up in the morning, go to work to work for money whenever you want. To be honest on dishonest about it, life is very transactional at every given point in time. You're trying to get something from someone, and you're trying to take something from someone in relationship, you're trying to ask your child to do something, or your child is trying to take something from you. So whether we like it or not, whether monetary or otherwise, life is somehow very transactional. To be on your podcast, there must be a value that you've seen in me, all right? And, you know, if we can come to this podcast episode and have a chit chat, the audience are going to learn something from this conversation. So life is very transactional. So I think people have this mindset where we're actually trying to be politically correct at every given point in time and discredit everything that makes the life components of life. We become quite negative about things being transactional, whether we like it or not, at every given point in time, I'm trying to take something from you, and I'm trying to give something to you. So as long as we understand that is in a good way, not in a bad way, then it's all good. And it goes around being intentional about your life, about your existence, and ultimately being flexible. So for me, on a daily basis, I'm very transactional, all right? I'm very intentional, and I negotiate everything. And there's nothing wrong in that. And it's very important for entrepreneurs to understand there is nothing wrong in being transactional.

Yeah, no, this is good. This is really good. Because essentially what you're saying is with the right mindset, you can win, but you can also help people win through the process. Process and listeners. I want you to remember Daniel said, it's give and take. You're going to give something and then you're going to take something. It has to be reciprocal. And so it becomes really manipulative when you're just focused on taking. When you're just focused on the relationship, on getting, getting, getting, that's when it becomes really manipulative. That's when it becomes really problematic. And in fact, that's not even transactional, because in a transaction, we understand that there's some consideration given. On the other side, if it's transactional, the other person's getting something, right? So in order to negotiate effectively, you have to really genuinely care about what the other person wants and why they want it. And you have to genuinely care about what you can do to help them to get that thing. And I think for people who might say it's not transactional, I think it's more of a semantic type of argument. How are we defining transactional? Because I think there's only one relationship that we have in our lives where we could stop getting any value or benefit from the person, but we'll still stay in the relationship. And that's probably the relationship that we have with our kid. I am biologically contracted to make sure that you are good regardless of how much you're giving me or how little you're giving me. But think about any other relationship. Imagine we say, all right, the relationship's not transactional. Great, so let's remove that transactional element and you get nothing. But the other person just keeps on taking, taking, taking, taking, taking. That's when you realize that it is transactional. We might call it transactional from the business context, or we might call it mutually beneficial. But we have to understand that there is a give and take. And negotiation is the skill that we can use to do that more effectively in our relationships.

You basically hit the nail on the head like you basically spot on. And that's what this is all about. We just have to learn that setting skill that we need as entrepreneurs. That the best way to illustrate this more would be don't be shy to position Whatever service you provide or what service you're looking to expect from a business, it isn't give and take, because everything is give and take. The reason why you see a lot of businesses struggle a lot of the time is because they don't understand this massive gift. Give and take. You have to give and you have to take. In order for you to give something to someone, you have to first add value, all right? And the value again is transactional without being paid in cash or whether being paid in kind. And if you're able to put this into business, I mean, look, if you go back in history, I'm from originally born and bred in Nigeria. There's something called trade by butter in Nigeria. Trade by butter means that you like what I have and I willing to give it to you and I'm going to find something that you have, all right? And I like and we're going to exchange what you have for what I for what you want from me. And that was the way, especially way back, and this was exactly what happened. But a lot of people have seemed to forget history backwards. What used to happen before currency? Currency is just a piece of paper. Unless it's to use, then it's useless. So people just have to understand the importance of give and take. In order for you to get value, you have to give value. In order for you to be respected, you have to respect and it's as simple as that.

Exactly. Man, I love it. Spot on. I appreciate you, Daniel. This is really great. And before you go, let the listeners know about both books, your coaching the business and how they can get in touch with you.

Fantastic. Having had this conversation we just had about negotiation, I'm going to be writing a book about negotiation. I am going to be writing a book about negotiation. By the way, I'm a business coach. As I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, you can find me on social media, Instagram, Dr. Daniel Moses, Facebook, Dr. Daniel Moses and LinkedIn as well. Dr. Daniel Moses I have written two books. The first one is how to Get Started in Property With Little or no Money. And obviously this is a book that is very heavily implementable in the uk, but it doesn't mean you can't tweak it to applying what the book has to offer in the US or whatever you're listening from, whether it be in Africa, Canada, wherever that is, and as well as my second book coming out on the 15th of July, it's called the the Transitioning of the Ordinary to the Extraordinary. And the reason why I had to write that book is looking back at 22 years of my experience as an entrepreneur. I've went through a massive roller coaster of setbacks and there was things that I learned going through different challenges in my life, my business, my marriage, and how those allowed me to keep my sanity and still become the greatest version of myself. And I identified that as entrepreneurs, we're actively transitioning to becoming the greatest version of ourselves, which is the extraordinary part. So it's a great book that I've written around mindset around growth, around success, and exactly how I went through so many losses in my life and somehow what kept me going and how entrepreneurs, regardless of wherever you're going through in life and how you can use your pain, your struggles to keep you motivated to become the greatest version of yourself, which is the extraordinary part.

I love it. Thanks again for joining us today. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

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I'll catch you later.