935. 7 Ways To Make Negotiations Easier.

Negotiation isn’t just for sales—it’s a life skill. Whether you’re closing a deal, navigating a tough conversation, or trying to influence the outcome, with the help of Molly Fletcher, this episode gives you the seven mental fuels you need to show up strong.

Learn how to reduce the mental load, bounce back faster, and stay in control no matter what comes your way. If you want to make negotiations easier on yourself—not for yourself—this episode is your playbook.

Let's get it. 

Transcript

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All right. 3, 2, 1. Let's get it. Today I'm reading out of Molly Fletcher's book, a Winner's Guide to Negotiating How Conversation Gets Deals Done, and there's a line in there that I really like. She said, There's never an easy negotiation, but you can make it easier on yourself. And I really like that she said, on yourself, not for yourself, but on yourself. Because see, that distinction really matters. See, when you're trying to make it easier for yourself, you're hoping things just fall into place. You want a smooth road, you think that logic's gonna be enough, and you assume that the customer will say yes because it's the right thing to do because you just have good intentions. But sales and also life don't work that way. Negotiation is uncomfortable. It's uncertain. It's not gonna be clean. It's not gonna be convenient, but when you make it easier on yourself, you're preparing for the unexpected. You're getting mentally tough. You're conditioning yourself to deal with the pressure, and you're fueling your brain. For what's ahead, and that's what Molly Fletcher calls mental fuel. And that's what I wanna talk about today because sales, it's not the most physically demanding job, but it is mentally exhausting. You're gonna fail more than you succeed. You're gonna lose more deals than you close. But the wins, the wins make it all worth it. And they more than make up for the losses if you're using the right fuel. So let me talk about your mental fuel mix today, because if you want to keep showing up with clarity. With confidence, with control, bro, you gotta check not only your fuel, but also your fuel mixture. So mental fuel number one is resilience. I'm glad she kicked off with this one. Resilience is your ability to get stretched and still bounce back to form. I see it happen all the time. Salespeople they start off strong, but they emotionally get hijacked. They get a string of rejections, string of bad customers, and they end up crumbling. It's like they're, they're stretched out collars on a cheap shirt, man. You know, one, when you pull it, it never comes back to shape. That's what. Salespeople who lack resilience. That's what they look like, the best ones. They're like that dry fit. You could pull on them, you could stretch'em, you could test them, and those good salespeople are gonna bounce right back. That's resilience. I tell my salespeople all the time, don't let 10% of the customers ruin 90% of your month. The 10% of those nasty customers who don't appreciate anything that you do, you're not for them. Don't carry their energy into your next opportunity. You gotta recover fast. Fletcher even asked one of the top golf coaches in the world. What separates the elite from the rest? And he said they have the ability to recover quickly from adversity. And that's it. That's what good salespeople have a short-term memory loss. They take the lesson and they move on. It's like a quarterback studying the game film in between drives. They get off to the side, they sit on the bench, they make the quick mental corrections and do their back in the game. Mental fuel number two, openness. Bro, you never know. And if you never know, you never know. A deal that looks dead, comes back to life. It is like the Lazarus in biblical, in biblical terms. Lazarus was dead and he came alive. Sometimes that's what your deals look like. But then also, man, a sure deal. How many sure deals? Yeah, it should be a deal today. They ghost you. It falls apart. So if you never know, you gotta stay open. Simon Sinek says that he loves talking to people in finance. He said, because when they're doing well, they think they're a genius. And when they're not doing well, they blame it on the market conditions. And Sinek said, you can't mix logic. You can't have it both ways. You're either lucky or unlucky, stupid, or a genius. So he said, the only thing that you can do is say I work hard and I'm just lucky. That's it. You're not a genius, and not everything is outside of your control. Work hard. Stay open. Rock on and this ties into mental fuel number three, vision. I tell my salespeople, play the round, not the hole. And I use this in golf terms because when you play the hole, you have one bad customer blows up, but then you blow the whole round of golf. But when you play the round, when you understand that, look, you had a blow up hole. You had a blow up moment. Okay. Things didn't come. It was supposed to be a sure thing fell apart. Alright? Play the round. Not the hole. you still have 24 more days in this month. Play that whole round. Don't throw away the day. Because of a bad moment. Don't throw away your month because of a bad moment.'cause the ball didn't bounce your way. Vision is what keeps you focused on where you're headed, not where you stumbled. Don't get head faked on that. Don't count how many days you have left. You gotta just do some. Quick math. How many days do you have more? I don't like to say left. Left. How many days left is a scarcity mentality. How many days? More? That's abundance. So how many days do you have more? You calculate where you need to be from where you are. You divide that by the number of days. Divide that by your closing ratio. Boom. That's how many customers you need. That's your vision. Go work it. Mental fuel number four, you gotta seek what's good. Find your do wells man. A lot of times I'll talk to salespeople like, yeah, I was like, bro, you did good on that deal. And he is like, I didn't even, I didn't even sell 'em. I'm like, not everything is gonna result in a sale. Hell, if you do everything statistically perfect and most times you're not gonna make the sale anyway. Here are the things that you did well? That's what you have to do on your own is find your do wells. What are the things that you actually did well? Maybe you kept your cool when you hit something unexpected. Maybe you went one step further when you mentally wanted to quit. Sales isn't about one big win. It's not from hello to congratulations. You gotta sell the steps. You gotta sell one step at a time. My sales manager told me that a long time ago. He said, marsh, don't worry about selling the car. Sell the step. Just sell one step at a time. If you focus on the step, the sale's gonna take care of itself. I can't make a customer buy. I can heavily influence it by focusing on the next step. Mental fuel number five, discipline. This goes without saying, discipline is a controlled code. Code of behavior. Behavior is how you conduct yourself. Especially when things aren't going your way. So with a controlled code of behavior, you can't control what's not controllable, but you can control what you got going on. Don't snap at customers. Don't lash out at coworkers. Don't take it out on your damn family. Stay the course with that vision calculation. Openness, you never know. Resilience. You stick to your process even when it sucks. See, you gotta suck in order to succeed. Think tight. Play loose. You gotta think tight. That's your process. Play loose. Don't be all rigid. Don't look like a old outta shape T-shirt number six, creativity, improvisation. And I'm gonna add one more curiosity. These are key man creativity. When, when you lack resources, you get resourceful, things are gonna fall apart. Things are not gonna go as planned. That's what improv is. You don't panic. You use what you got. You get curious. See, you get better, not with the customer. You get better in between the customers. When you're with a customer, you're fluid, you're curious, you're adaptable. And you just figure out, I love the metaphorical term to keep the ball balance. How can I keep the ball balancing? You're looking for other opportunities, other options. That's what we do as salespeople. We're just there to show your customers other ways of looking at it. That's what you're there to do. So you bring in different things, but you're not going to, if you're not curious, you're not creative and you don't improvise things. Look, tech is gonna fall apart. Handles are gonna come. I've had door handles fall off of my hand. You, you make light of it and you keep going, man. It's like live tv. You keep it rocking, keep the ball bouncing mine. Fuel number seven, gratitude, man. Gratitude. Sometimes we lose sight of this. We get so cynical. Not everybody can do what you do. Be proud of that. Don't lose sight of that. Yes, it's gonna be hard. If it was. If it wasn't hard, you would've never got the job. It's the people who could no longer, who no longer had the mental fuel. It's the people who could no longer hang in it. They didn't have the right fuel mixture. They said, you know what? I can't take this anymore. See, take it is the operative word. They took it on. They thought they were trying to make it easy for themselves. You can make it easier, on yourself by understanding. Negotiations are hard, they're messy, they're unclear. You never know. But with the right mixture and with that gratitude put in man. It's gonna be hard, but that's why you make the kind of money that you do. You're not as good as you think you are, but you're also not as bad as you think you are Either a, b, c man always be climbing. There's always room for growth. So let me ask you this. What's your mental fuel mixture look like today? It's one thing to have fuel. It's another thing, bro. You gotta have that bright mixture. Are you low on resilience? Are you lacking some discipline? Did you, you get kind of cynical. You forget your gratitude. This isn't about perfection, it's maintaining that awareness. Where you say, bro, I gotta tighten up a little bit of this game. Maybe you've let some things slide a little bit, and this is what I wanna bring to your awareness where you can look at all, what is this, seven of these, all seven of these, and say, man, I've gotten a little cynical. You know what, I'm not very open-minded. I'm not curious. I'm not creative, I don't have any improvisation. I don't have any vision. I'm just going there hoping I sell something Today. I lack the resilience. I'm kind of stretched outta shape. I'm just lost. It's all perspective, man. Where are you right now? Sales and life is a game of endless negotiations forever, and the most successful negotiators, they fuel their mind to handle anything. Basically, they make it easier on themselves. Not for yourself, but on yourself. Lemme tell you something, you deserve success, but you're not entitled to it. You gotta work at it every single day. Alright, thanks so much for sharing this episode. Who needs this? Who needs the right mental fuel mixture? Who's a little bit off, including you? Including me? That's why I'm bringing it to you 'cause I need it too. Alright. With that, keep it simple, keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.