Vanessa Van Edwards explains how liars unconsciously raise their pitch at the end of sentences, testing if you'll believe them. In a lab experiment, people spotted the lie by hearing this inflection. When you ask for numbers instead of stating them, you sound uncertain and invite negotiation.
So liars are subconsciously asking, do you believe me? Liars use the question inflection. Liars will use the question inflection because they're trying to assess if you believe them. So we did a little experiment in our lab where we had people do two truths and a lie. Almost always people asked the lying statement. So it sounds like this: my name is Vanessa Van Edwards, I just moved to California, I love dogs, my favorite food is cilantro. Cilantro is horrible. So that's how it sounds. You do not want to accidentally sound like a liar. And I do a lot of sales trainings, and I love listening to sales calls because I can always predict who's going to have the lowest close rate and the hardest pushbacks It's the people who ask their numbers. So they say, no, we'd love to work with you and the price of this service is $5,000. If you ask your numbers, you are begging people to negotiate with you. So if you are asking for a salary, a budget, a timeline, something, a boundary, you should not be asking, you should be stating it. So we'd love to work with you, the price of the service is $5,000. Totally different.
