Skills of the Successful: How to Establish & Elevate Your Career with Alex Dripchak

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Negotiate Anything is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 3 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made it the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm Kwame Christian and I'm the director of the American Negotiation Institute. We're growing and I want to introduce you to our new team members and new trainers. This will give you new and diverse perspectives on negotiation and conflict resolution. And that's why Shane Martin, our head of sales and partnerships, is going to serve as co host of the show from time to time. We're excited to continue to provide you with the best content that will help to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, our team conducts negotiation and conflict resolution trainings in the United States and abroad. Our trainings will give you the practical skills you need to resolve conflict and negotiate, lead and persuade with confidence. Click the link in the description below to learn more about how we can make your difficult conversations easier. Alex, thanks for joining us today.

Kwame, pleasure to be here. Looking forward to our discussion.

Likewise, my friend. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's a lot of different things, so I'll put it into two buckets, really. So first we kind of have the sales domain with my experience at Oracle and Mercer, and now I'm also an author and a contributor to different magazines and just getting involved in this really cool new AI platform that's this real time coaching that I'm helping build out the AI platform to recommend the best keywords and ways to handle different objections and questions. So a really cool solution there. Kind of like gong in real time, if you will. And on the other side of the house, I'm also a career readiness advisor, so I really focus on fixing that workforce readiness gap since students are just so ill equipped to really enter the workforce. So helping college students, freshmen through seniors, make that transition into their internships and their jobs and how to really safeguard their success, because I believe that if you start early enough, you can safeguard it.

That's great. Yes. And listeners, we are going to probably have Alex back on to talk more about that AI solution. I think that's really, really interesting.

A lot more to come there.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And with your course, you have some modules on negotiation too, right?

Yes, yes. So it's a 12 course program. We really start with career pathing, so trying to figure out what you want to do how to interview, how to speak, as well as write in the business. Best practices since academia is very different, but all the way through we have financial literacy and then we also have persuasion and negotiation. So some of the basics, including a lot of the paradigms from the grandfather, Dr. Robert Cialdini, who I saw you had on the podcast. Major kudos for you for that. If I'm speaking candidly. I saw it and I was like, oh, that's good. They're having some principals, someone come on and teach about Cialdini. And then I saw it and I'm like, oh wait, wait, wait, I gotta listen to all of this. This is great. Oh yeah. So we have a persuasion and negotiation, two little small introductory courses for students.

That is great. So everybody links to all of that in the description below. Make sure to check that out. And so Alex, let's chat about the book because the book is really an interesting angle on the profession. And so let's just start off with an overview and then we'll share with the audience some of really those key learnings that they can use in their negotiations and difficult conversations.

Yeah, absolutely. So the book is really this curation consolidation, really just focused in on 27 of the best selling relationship and sales books and some of the negotiation books as well that I'll talk about. And what I've done is I said, hey, wouldn't it be great if people just boiled down all the best insights from these books and put it into a skill format rather than a method or a process? So I said, hey, might as well do it yourself, right? So that's what I did is I kind of took these best practices, distilled them down to 200 to 600 word sections with action items at the end of how to implement it. And each skill will have a bold phrase that'll be another kind of action item of how to implement or the most key learning within that 500 word passage. So it's extremely bite sized, action oriented and it calls out a lot of the the different things to do based on Daniel Pink or Dr. Robert Cialdini and their insights too.

That's great. Yes, very smart move. Very smart move with that approach because again, people like that type of bite sized content where they can get exactly what they need and then move on and then implement it. Because I think that's the part that I like the most because you make it easily actionable for the readers too.

That's the biggest thing. I mean, a lot of times when I saw that disconnect a Lot of the articles that were short form that people really found valuable weren't being reproduced in books. So I'm like, how can I do this? Book meets blog meets list format that's going to engage with readers who wouldn't normally pick up a book.

That's great. And Alex, when we were chatting before, you said that there are a few principles that are specifically oriented towards negotiation and your approach to this is a little bit counterintuitive. So can you talk to the listeners about your negotiation specific tools from the book? Sure.

So I'll address some of the ones that people might have heard before. I don't want to go down a tangent here or a rabbit hole on things that people have heard on many of your other great podcast episodes, but I think so one of the things I talk about a lot is negotiating to objectives and not asks if you're making a concession, doing it with so with a stipulation. And all these center really on being a part of their team. So it's not this kind of combative situation where you, you feel like you have to conquer them or win them, but it's really the situation where I think that when I heard you talk about it in your TEDx, you were talking about compassionate curiosity and I love that phrase, by the way, Kwame. So when I was just thinking about that, it was really okay, how do I get on their team? And so what I do is a lot of times is I'll say okay, in order to build the best case for you, here's what I'm gonna need. So you're asking for this whatever discount. So okay, let me help you build that best case. Let me prep you. And I know you're also a lawyer, so it's kind of like prepar for a deposition or preparing your client for court. So it's really okay. Are you referenceable? And the more things you can offer within that section, a use case, a testimonial, a reference, a live video, or agreeing to a certain number of calls about your experience with potential future clients that's immensely valuable. So you're referenceable. Are you looking at this for a longer period of time? That's another big element. So looking at the time frame of the solution. So there are a number of different things to really implore and employee, I should say. So that's kind of what I talk about in the book as well. And how do you really make sure that you're getting the best deal for them and they feel really like you're on their team. So you're listening for them.

This is great. So let's recap some of these key learnings. I really like the idea of conceptualizing it as on your team because we've thought about this for decades as collaborative negotiation. So you think about the Harvard Program on negotiation. You have Roger Fisher and William Ury with getting to. Yes. They were the people who really promoted this collaborative negotiation technique. Right. That approach, that mindset. And I like that term collaborative, but how often do we use that in day to day parlance? But when you think about children on the playground, you're on my team, I'm on your team. That type of stuff, that's terminology that we are familiar with. And I think it makes it so much clearer what we're actually trying to do. So it's not me versus you. I'm actually on your team. So you need to tell me what you need in order for me to be a good teammate to you. I think that I've never heard anybody describe it that way, but even in my years of doing this, that just took my ability to understand what I'm trying to do in this conversation to a new level. So I really like that terminology, Alex.

Yeah, thanks, Kwame. And I think you've hit the nail on the head in a number of different regards. And I love that book reference. There's a number of great negotiation books out there. But getting to yeses, one of the ones that tops my list.

Absolutely. And then helping them to get the best deal. Again, we often go through this in a. In a completely self centered type of way. I describe it as egocentric persuasion. So we think about it completely from our perspective. What do I need? What do I want? And I'm going to frame it in that way. And then you're completely missing the boat when you're talking about helping them get the best deal. Again, it's harkens back to another concept called the acceptance speech test. And so what they say is, you're supposed.

I'm sorry, I missed that last part. What test?

Oh, yeah. So it's called the acceptance speech test. And so with the acceptance speech test, what they say is, you want to frame your deal in a way that is so overwhelmingly positive that the other party can take what you said verbatim and take it back to their stakeholders and say it like that and say, this is a win for us because blank. And so, Alex, when you're actually having these negotiations, are you using the terms on your team and helping you to get the best deal? Are you actually saying that or are you just keeping that in the back of your mind and understand that that's your approach?

Yeah. So I think wording is extremely important as well, that they feel like they're being heard. So I will use some specific phrases, of course, but I think what it really is going to get back down to is suspending your agenda. I think is one of the things we've been talking about and making sure that they feel like they're coming first. So to give you one example, and this kind of gets down to meeting effectiveness rather than negotiation and kind of gets into the segue a little bit about my counterintuitive thinking, but it's. I'll give you. I'll share a story with you. So we were sitting at a finalist meeting, talking about all the things they asked for, all the different accolades, and the reasons why we were the best partner. And our buyer was just coming out of another meeting, was triple booked, so had a cancel, was kind of frantic as far as figuring things out. And I finally just kind of interrupted the discussion, just tossed the deck to the side and just said, hey, we know you have a lot going on. You know, what's going to make you feel most comfortable with us? What fires do you need to address and put out right now? How can we really help be on your team, and how can we showcase that in today's discussion to make sure you feel most confident and most, I guess you could say, ready to go with our partnership? So that was something that I feel like is really important when you're talking about suspending your agenda and focusing in on them to be a part of their team.

I think that's a great example. A great example because it takes a lot of confidence to do that, too, Alex. Because being able to sit back and rely on your preparation in that situation, it just shows how much you've prepared. So you could say, okay, things aren't going exactly how I planned, but I need to let them know that they are the most important person in this room right now. I'm focused on them, and I'm empathetic and aware enough to recognize, hey, you have some different needs, right? Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable, and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more. And now back to the show.

Awareness is key. Yeah, Kwame. I mean, so that's one thing I think that people don't really focus in on enough is they have their structures, their frameworks, and even, you know, the different tools to leverage, which are important, but really taking accountability for what's going on in the room. Daniel Pink has a great example when he talks about mood maps and how to get the most out of your meeting. So what was it at the beginning? What was it after key information was presented on a scale of 1 to 10, what was it at the end? So looking at how they have developed with you, what are they coming back to? That's a big negotiation principle to figure out what they're focused on. And I don't want to say how to take advantage of vividness bias, but how to log roll. We were talking about a little bit within our negotiation class of how do you go across multiple points so everybody kind of gets what they're looking for? So maybe if they're so focused on price, you can focus more on the term. So how do you go across different points to make sure that everybody's working out? But that's something you're going to pick up on in the discussion. There's no framework that's really going to just guarantee success in that you have to be very observant in those meetings. And there's a number of different things I can go down with that for little examples, but I'll pause there for now since I've already shared it a lot.

Yeah, no, this is great. This is really great. And again, like you said, you have to essentially stay in the moment, be observant and flow. You have to kind of go with the flow and be able to recognize, okay, different tools, different tactics for different times based on what they are presenting. And it just shows how important practice and preparation are in these conversations. And I know the listeners have heard me say this a bunch of times, but I'm going to keep on saying it. If they go to our website, americannegotiationinstitute.comguide, you can get access to all of our free negotiation guides that'll help you to prepare for your most difficult conversation. So make sure you check that out and those are free. So the price point is pretty solid too. And so there's going to be a link in the description below too. So. But yeah, preparation, practice. And again, when you're practicing just negotiating by itself, having these difficult conversations by themselves, that's not enough. That's not true practice. You actually need to do it with the intent of getting better. You need to review your performance and ask yourself what you could have done better, what you did poorly, and how you can overcome those things too.

I love that. I really love that. I was actually listening to one of your other podcasts recently and I believe it was Gentleman Ron had said, take 100% of the responsibility and 0% of the blame. And that really jumped out at me because you have to constantly iterate and improve upon yourself. Nobody's an expert to where they can't learn anything more. I'm sure everybody can understand that there's always ways to improve. But when you have that mindset of okay, it's my responsibility to improve, and then you're not blaming yourself, so you're not wallowing in self pity or kind of miring yourself down in any negative thinking, you're really expanding your horizons. That's huge. And for me, at the end of the book I put down think more about shifting your discussion from was that good? To was that effective? So it's framing it from this subjective, kind of reflective in the past thinking to this objective, forward looking action where you're focused on self improvement.

That's deep. That is deep. Yeah. I think listeners out there, you should give this episode a five star review just for that quote. I think that's great.

I love it. Thanks, Kwame.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. This is really, really good. And you very casually dropped two very important negotiation terms. One I'm familiar with, another one I'm not. So I'm excited to learn. And so we have log rolling, which is a classic negotiation term, but also vividness bias. And so can you break down what those two things are for the listeners?

Sure. So log rolling is really this concept of negotiating across multiple points. So instead of people just saying, hey, I need a, a bigger discount, and they're really kind of singularly focused on one item, it would be going across different items to figure out what is the best total package. If you really, if you, if you look at it that way. So it's not focusing on one element, it's, it's going across the whole totality of the proposal. And then I would say that's probably the short way of describing that there's obviously a lot more, but. And then with vividness bias, the way that I've kind of encaptured it and really taught it is that people will center sometimes on whatever the most important element is or whatever the shiniest tool is around them. So a lot of times that's price. So when people are so focused in on price, how do you leverage those other things like the length of a contract or the testimonial or different elements that can really benefit you? So those are kind of the two terms that I saw actually in Negotiation Genius, which is a fantastic book by two Harvard professors. But those are kind of two of the concepts that I think are most important.

That is a great book reference as well. It's that book essentially summarizes decades of Harvard methodology and improves upon it. That is a great read. So. Absolutely. Vividness bias and the log rolling, two very, very important techniques for us to really understand. And now with the time we have left, you have a bit of a counterintuitive approach to some of these negotiation principles and approaches. So tell us more about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess for something a little bit of a different thought. So I have 100 skills here in this book, and nine of them are dedicated to negotiation persuasion. Not exactly music, probably to everybody's ears here. Sorry, Kwame. But what I've really centered in on is this meeting effectiveness and this kind of preparation element. And it's really this focus on making sure that you are anticipating and alleviating to kind of do a little spin off of Dale Carnegie's know what they want and show them how to get it. But when you're really focused in on how to help them and getting out ahead of it, and you differentiate at every stage, not just asking the same discovery questions and kind of needs confirmation and doing the demo, but how do you really engage with them? How do you really enter from the right? Is this concept from Anthony Iarino and eat their lunch. But if you have this kind of continuum of left, it's like you're just prospecting. You're pitching your solutions and write as you are demonstrably impacting their life, where maybe you are helping them get promoted or you're helping their son or daughter get a job, or you're filling a key position that a recruiter would have charged 30, $40,000 for, but you have somebody in your network that can land there. So when you're adding the most value first and you're differentiating across every stage and being prepared and anticipating and alleviating their needs. You don't really need to negotiate as much or persuade as much down the line. So that's what I've learned. So I look back at my sales processes and when I started, even before the kind of prospecting or discovery stage, and every step of the way, we had differentiated and we were out ahead, we were winning at 15, 20, 25, 30% margins over our competition. And, you know, the negotiation table was like, hey, can you just, you know, for when you raise your rates, can you put in a cap at 3% versus 4%? It's like, sure. That's a relatively minor item. So, you know, become much more minor when you've really showcased your unique value proposition and your differentiation across the way.

Yes. I love this point, and I'll say this, Alex, too, because one of our friends, Jason Cutter, you'd like his episode. He was the person who first introduced that idea to us where he said, oh, you know, I think he went as far as to say that negotiation in sales is almost like a failure of the sales process. I was like, wait. I was like, jason, wait, you're coming on my podcast, Talk about Negotiation, to talk about how my skill set is irrelevant. But it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense because, like you said, anticipate and alleviate. You understand what they need, why they need it, and how your solution is the proper solution for it. And if you've done a good job of prospecting and vetting, whether or not this is a good prospect, if there's a feature fit, it should be minimal. And so the point that you're making, which is really important, is that it's not completely eliminating negotiation, but you are simplifying and minimizing the process because you've done a lot of the work that might have happened during the negotiation at another stage, which I think is preferable because their guard isn't up as much. You've already addressed that when you're in the problem solving portion of the conversation.

Right. I mean, when you start meeting people in their authentic selves rather than their kind of role with their guard up. As you were just saying, the game changes immensely when you shift from that person being a title or position or role to that person being John or Jane or whoever it is, you'll notice a big difference.

Yeah, that's important. And this isn't always easy to do, but it's easier because you've approached this in a way where you're actually on their team. Right.

Exactly. When you get back to not only Being aware of the room and kind of the objectives, but also when you get to that point, point of being a part of their team. There are two things that I really look for, and I talk about these in the book. So one was the double handshake. So I was really glad to see Robert Cialdini come out with new research with your head of Sales and Business development interview I just saw a month back. So he was talking about how handshakes really kind of cultivate this sense of trust and belonging and kind of commitment. So when you're fostering that. And I've been the recipient of the double handshake, so after we close, we do handshakes, we talk for a while, and then they go in for another handshake. And I look at my team, and I'm like, we won. And they're like, what do you mean we won? Like, we're nowhere near, like, the finish line. I'm like, nope, we won. I can just tell these little things like this, and just obviously a lot of other parts, too. But the double handshake was a huge one. So listen to Robert Cialdini's podcast. I'll do a little promotion for you, Kwame, and hear more about why handshakes are important. And then the other one is that inclusive we. So this is, again, getting back to being a part of their team. When they start asking, instead of asking, oh, when would you recommend this? Or when would we get started? When it's when would we get started? Or, you know, when we do this, when you start changing from the you to the we, it's like, all right, wow, we're making real progress here. We're part of the team already.

Absolutely. And it's so funny just how relationships are similar across different domains. Right. And so one of the things that they say in romantic relationships is you can tell when somebody is really feeling as though they're part of the relationship. They're together now is when they start to use we speech, referring to them as a cohesive unit versus me and you. You know, it's us. It's we. So this is really great because essentially, you're like that.

You can just tell how universally applicable these learnings are. It doesn't have to be in a. In a sales finalist meeting.

Exactly.

With your spouse.

Exact. So powerful. But it's one of those things where people pick up on that. Even if it's subconscious, they pick up on that, and it has an impact.

It's definitely there. And there are a lot of little things. As long as you know how to look for them and you document them in the moment. Because a lot of times your memory can play some false tricks on you when it becomes one, two, three, five, six months later. And then it's kind of like, when did they say that? When was it? After this was it we? So I would say that that's really important is once you get done with the meeting, make sure to document everything and talk about it with the rest of the team.

This is great. So, Alex, out of respect for time, want to start to bring this to a close, Unfortunately. But I know you'll be back. When you think about all of the things that people can do in negotiations, we've already talked about the things that we can do. Well, what would you say is the biggest mistake that people need to avoid in these difficult conversations?

Yeah, I would say one of the biggest things to avoid now, it's tricky because of way people are incentivized and just how our world works is trying not to push your agenda. When you really open up to listen to the other person and you open yourself up not only to listening to them, but to the active listening. So a reflexive listening, as Stephen Covey would talk about in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. When you have this opportunity to engage in a dialogue and a conversation, you're really building that sense of we, that togetherness that we've been talking about. And when you're not constantly pulling, pushing your agenda, people start treating you as a human being rather than as someone trying to pitch your solution, some kind of product peddler. So that's probably one of the key things, is if you can kind of shift that discussion from pushing your agenda to then refocusing and taking the lens of how to listen to them and how to actively listen and approach from what's going to benefit them most and what's going to offer them the most value and not necessarily what's going to deepen your pockets. That's the biggest item of learning, and it sounds easy. And a number of other people have said it on this podcast, as I'm sure. So I don't want to beat a horse to death here, but it is extremely important and it's extremely tricky.

Absolutely. I think that was a great spot to end, Alex. Really appreciate it. But before you go, make sure to let listeners know about your course and your book, too.

Yeah, sure. So OneHeartsAlessKills.com is where you can find the book and some of the other articles that go along with it and then commenceyourcareer.com we really are kind of working more with corporations and colleges now. But if there are some things you want to bounce ideas off for, how to prepare for an interview or how to better persuade and negotiate for some of these book expertise, happy to engage in a dialogue there.

Appreciate it. Thanks again, Alex.

Thanks again, Kwame. Looking forward to more sessions and tuning in even more.

Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.