The $100K Communication Skill Most Entrepreneurs Avoid

People don't lose in business because of bad strategy. They literally lose because they don't ever say what they actually want. So this turns into like dragging out negotiations. They sugarcoat a lot of things in their expectations. They avoid clarity. I'm about to give you a word track that is going to change your life. Can I share what would make this a win for me? Having a couple of these sentences as you move forward is going to change the game for you. And we're back with another episode of He Said, she Said.

Guys, we're gonna talk about candor today, like delivering the hard message. But before we do, you have to know this. Coming up over the next few weeks, we're doing a couple of really special things centered around our now super popular mastermind called the Mentor Collective Mastermind, which is for businesses, 50 to $500,000 a year in revenue. So here's what's coming up. Lori and I are going to get some of our friends together to do a huge three day challenge around being your best self in business. This is the year with some of the headwinds where we all need to take it up a notch and we all need to find some shortcuts to stay in the game better and we all need to pivot a little bit quicker. We're going to spend three days totally free making sure that you guys are equipped this year. We feel like it's our give back this year. We haven't done one of these in ages, but we feel like it's what the market needs right now. At the same time, we're going to do our annual offering into Mentor Collective at a rate that is the best rate it'll be all year by far. So if you've been on the sidelines watching, you're going to actually want to pay attention next few weeks and we're going to make sure that this is the best opportunity for you to get into Mentor Collective this year, which will only do a couple of times during this year. So for all of that, whether it's the free challenge or whether it's because you've been sitting on the sidelines for a mentor collective and you want to get the best deal possible, make sure you go right now, hit pause and go to loriharder.com forward/waitlist and put yourself on a waitlist. That's how you get all the info again. Loriharder.com forward slash waitlist. Hit pause, go over to Lorihutter.com forward slash waitlist. Put yourself on there. It'll take you less than five seconds. And then come back to this episode because we're are about to talk about candor.

Okay, so today we're talking about kind candor. How fast can you say what you really need? Because most people don't lose in business because of bad strategy. They literally lose because they don't ever say what they actually want. So this turns into like, dragging out negotiations. They sugarcoat a lot of things in their expectations. They avoid clarity. They literally waste so much time, and they end up resentful, underpaid, or stuck in the the wrong deal. So we're going to talk about how fast you can kindly say what you truly need.

Yeah, guys, this has become a super par for me, right? So I've always used candor. I've always been very direct, except now I've been able to use kind candor. I've worked on that muscle. And this, I am not kidding you, has made my business life and my personal life a hundred times better. I'll give you example. This weekend I did a major automobile transaction and I got the best deal on the planet because I was very canderous, but also very kind. And they wanted to find a way to make the deal work for me that they wouldn't make for other people. I'm doing a large real estate transaction right now, negotiation. And I've been very candorous and very firm, but also very kind, which keeps them in the negotiation and starts to build up reciprocity in your favor. It's like a superpower. I had to provide an employee this past week with a different role and a reduction in role. And those can be tough conversations, except I did it very canderous, but also very kind, and it went fantastic. So I'm telling you, you've got to be able to learn what Gary Vee has always talked about, this kind candor. And you have to build this as a muscle. You don't get to maybe do it. You don't get to kind of do it. If you're going anyplace special or if you want better results in your financial life, then you have to build this muscle of kind candor.

Okay, so I'm going to give you guys a little bit of framework. But first, let's start with what candor definition is. It's clear truth delivered with care. It' not like, oh, I gotta give you the harsh truth. It's not passive politeness. It's literally truth with kindness at the same exact time. So Gary Vaynerchuk talks about this a lot, calling it that's from him. Kind candor. So he says, truth delivered in a way that keeps the relationship intact. This is exactly what Chris just said. He's delivering truth while really putting himself in. In the other person's shoes to say, how would I feel on the other side of this? So true. Candor is not rude. Delayed truth is what actually hurts people. Because if you think about the conversations that you've started that you're like, oh, God, now we're so far down the road, and I have not said what is actually true to me. I've danced around it, I've sugarcoated it, that now that even. Even if I come and say the truth, it's going to feel like it's so out of left field because it's taken me so long to get here. Now, it doesn't mean that you're not going to deliver truth. It just means let's not start conversations from that place. We want to be clear from the top. And honestly, the right people are going to appreciate this more than I can possibly tell you.

Yeah. Here's what happens when you're not clear right from the top. People build stories. I don't know if you've heard this term before, but it basically means that if you don't tell people right from the top what your intention is or what the outcome you want is, they build a story or they fill in their own evidence around what they think it is because you're delaying it or you're being ambiguous or you're not being clear. And so they build their own evidence. Oh, maybe they want this, maybe they want that. Maybe they're trying to screw me. Maybe they're trying to hurt me because they're taking so long to get to the message. So when you lead with the message in a direct but kind way, they can't build a story, which then doesn't cause the negotiation to start going in the wrong direction and anger to present itself where it never had to present itself in the first place.

Yep, that is the true cost of avoiding these conversations. It's just long and exhausting. Employees end up super confused about expectation. Then a bunch of resentment builds. It completely poisons partnerships. You guys, the longer you wait to say the truth, the more expensive it becomes. So let's talk about the candor speed principle. Candor speed principle. So leadership is measured by how fast you can kindly tell the truth. Leadership is measured by how fast you can kindly tell the truth. So when you're a beginner at this, you're not doing this. You're probably beating around the bush as much as possible. And intermediate leaders hint at truth, where advanced leaders truly state truth early, calmly and clearly. And I want to say the word calmly as one of the most important things here. We need you to allow yourself to come to a place of neutral. If you are not yet in a place of neutral and you're like, well, I need to do candor fast right now. It's kind candor that's going to just be asshole candor. You're going to need to wait and let yourself come to a place of neutral. A lot of times this can take one night's sleep and then you're going to do it the next day.

You know, asshole candor, I love that.

Yeah.

Is when people pound the table or they have to raise their voice a lot or they speak a lot faster. Right. And they're going to be more powerful than you and they think that is being not only canderous, but more powerful. And that's not the case. It is the person who can speak at the most intentional pace and be weirdly calm during a difficult negotiation that actually projects all of the power. And so if you're able to stay weirdly calm and keep a weirdly slower pace while delivering the truth up front, that's what shakes other people and makes them say, oh, this isn't somebody that's losing it or just trying to pound the table. This is somebody who is clear on what they want. And when someone is clear on what they want, it's pretty hard to move them off the ball.

Okay, so again, Gary Vee talks about kind candor. So let's give you the kind candor framework. And K is for. No, no, exactly what you need. So before any negotiation, you need to sit and clearly map out what must be true for this for you to feel good. What number do you need? What role do you want to have? What timeline? What boundary is a non negotiable?

This happened to me this weekend. I said I did a major car transaction. I knew exactly what I needed the trade difference between the two cars to be for me to do this deal. And I was rooted in it. And why is that important? Negotiation 101 is if you don't know exactly where you need to be. If that doesn't become a non negotiable for you internally, then you're going to get caught up in the excitement or you're going to get what's called negotiation fatigue. You're going to reach a point where like, oh, forget it. You know what? This has been going on too long. Fine, I'll take your deal or we'll meet in the middle or whatever. But when you absolutely know what you have to get out of it, that it almost becomes robotic, like, hey, listen, so and so. I really appreciate the effort you're making. This is not personal. I need to be at blank or I just don't see the value of coming in. Thank you for everything you've put into this. And you just say that word track over and over and over again until they wear down and say, well, I'm at the moment of truth. I'm either going to meet them at their number or we're not going to have any kind of transaction here.

Yep. If you don't know what you need, you're going to end up accepting someone else's version. And what's going to happen is you can't go back to your own version because you probably accepted less. So once you say yes to less, what's going to happen is you cannot negotiate back to what you actually wanted because in the moment, you said yes to something that seemed okay and maybe it was based out of fear. And like, true negotiation is staying grounded, like Chris just said. So the I in kind is invite clarity early. Here's a great example. I'm about to give you a word track that is going to change your life. Can I share what would make this a win for me? They're going to say yes. They're going to want to know you're not forcing it on them. They want all parties to win. And another thing you can say is, I'd love to put expectations on the table so we don't waste time immediately, both of these things. What does it do? It lowers defensiveness and keeps kindness. It's literally like, hey, I just want to be the person who keeps this going in a really good way. And those are two of the best lines that you could ever, ever open with in negotiation. So N is name the truth simply. So with the structure, you could say something like, what? I'm excited about what I need for this to work. What won't work for me. Short, calm, no over explaining. And the D is deliver with care. So this is tonality, you guys. This is tonality. And this is also language. Like, really check yourself while doing this, especially if you're in person. Like tone, warm voice, slow, grounded pace. Try not to get that like major emotional charge where you're. You're starting to feel yourself get defensive. So. And really going into negotiations, one of the most important thing is to assume positive intent on their end, even if you don't think that there is.

You can't have a kind negotiation without delivering the D. Okay.

Smiling this whole time. And I was like, I know he's about to make a d. A joke. Like, I literally know. So here you go.

Married a 14.

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Leadership in teams, you want clear expectations from day one. So speed of communication, performance standards, it really prevents like I didn't know, I didn't know what you wanted. Partnerships and relationships. When you stay silent, that completely builds resentment and it creates explosive conflict later. So candor early really is true kindness and it doesn't leave anyone feeling like there's betrayal at all. Okay, so that is the framework. You guys write that down and it's going to be such a beautiful script for you while you're or while you're creating these hard conversations or moving into the hard conversations while you're negotiating. I'm telling you, having a couple of these sentences as you move forward is going to change the game for you.

Yep.

Okay, so we would love to have you in the mentor collective. Like Chris said, we have a built for better challenge and it is so incredibly exciting. It is three days. If you are ready to make more income this year, if you're ready to have a team of advisors behind you, I'm telling you, this is the best mastermind out there. You will not have a question in your business. You will be able to get answers on demand. Have a team of incredible advisors and coaches for every single area of your business. You won't walk through your day frustrated anymore because you'll know exactly what to do. And every single thing that comes up, you're going to have people that are going to help you move through it. A team of experts that this is incredible. Especially if you are a solopreneur or a small team, you literally get to borrow ours essentially.

And we're going to make that team of experts that we put on salary for your benefit free for you for three days. You're going to be able to learn from them. Benefit from them, ask them questions about your business, et cetera. If you go to lorihutter.com forward/waitlist, that is lorihutter.com forward slash waitlist. It's kind of like that sample. You get the free sample. You realize you love it. Stick around if you do.

We're so excited, you guys, and we will see you next week. Bye, everyone.