Danilo 0:00

I want to talk about a thing that is kind of scary for a lot of people. It's still scary for me plenty of times, which is what happens when you want something and somebody else might want something else.

Landon 0:12

The tension or the friction between those two end states, right? Negotiating your way to that outcome or that end is scary because in some ways you're both putting yourself out there as well as the thing that you want. And I think you've got a good kind of anecdote around this.

Danilo 0:28

Negotiation negotiation's, scary because. People are afraid they're gonna do it wrong, but I think there's some basic stuff here that is pretty quickly learnable, and this is one I picked up from Chris Voss, a really famous FBI, former negotiator who just gets up there and teaches everyone from you and me to CEOs how to get what they want from a situation. There's this idea that Chris has called labeling, you've gotta name the thing that's in the conversation, because if you don't name it, they're going to give it their own label and maybe their label is the wrong label. When I was interviewing here at PostHog, I was really excited because I saw an opportunity to do really career defining work. What I wanted was the job, and there's a lot of reasons to want the job. And if you're hiring, the thing that you don't want is to hire a person because they really want the money. Obviously, everybody's gotta get paid, but if you're at a given place just for the money, you could be anywhere to get that money. But I had this buzz of energy in every conversation, and I wanted to be super clear. That that buzz was excitement for PostHog specifically. I would label 'em like, look, I'm obviously very excited and I'm excited because I think there's an opportunity to do something here I've never gotten to do. And so what I really want at the end of this conversation is for you to feel. Really excited to wanna put me through to the next round. What do you need to hear from me for that to happen? And my favorite bit on this was James. Uh, one of our co-founders just laughed at this point, and he just started giving me advice. He's just like, all right, look, here's what you need to do. I'd love for you to happen. Here's what you gotta know about the next round. And I walked in much more informed because I labeled the energy and I made it really clear what I wanted, and that made it easy for all of us, to be honest.

Landon 2:22

So transparency and honesty. Labeling is another way to talk about being transparent about what the thing is, being honest about what the thing is. You labeling it is giving it the best name or the best understanding that you have about what the thing is. And I think sometimes there's a fear in negotiation that. If you label it or if you're honest or if you're transparent, the other person is gonna take advantage of you.

Danilo 2:46

And I don't think it has to work that way. Ideally, a negotiation is just playing jazz. I want this, you want that? How do we both get what we want? How do we both get to win? How do we give you what you need without getting to, uh, a place of expense? For me, that's the kind of ideal state. Now, in a sales context, you've got a lot of people coming at you. And they kind of want a, a one-sided deal maybe? Is that a thing that comes up a lot?

Landon 3:17

It does. Um, I, I think post hog tends to select for people who are less likely. To be that way just because of how we do sales and the way that we engage. But I've seen it here and I've seen it at my, my previous jobs. And what I will tell you is even when you don't have that beautiful collaborative way of selling where we are both on the same page and we both want the same thing, even when someone comes to you and wants to be adversarial and wants to kind of come at you and, and try and win at your expense or, or really turn this into them winning and you losing. Being honest and being transparent doesn't hurt you in that circumstance. This actually still helps you even in those situations where you feel like the person is being, um, maybe aggressive or trying to take advantage of you or just coming at you in the wrong way to, to try and take that sale, both on the sales side and on a purchasing side. I think.

Danilo 4:11

So if you're in a situation where you feel like somebody's pushing for something that isn't realistic and isn't good, how does transparency help?

Landon 4:23

Let me give you a post hog specific example and then let me give you an anti example. So one of the things we see most often in this realm is around discounting and pricing. Um, because people are so used to the horrible way that software as a service is sold and the horrible way that they've had to deal with other software vendors. When we give them a price and then we show them exactly what our discounting is, it's public on our website. They come back and go, okay, that's nice, but like, is that really the good

Danilo 4:53

What's the real

Landon 4:54

give me, yeah. So, okay. That, that's, that's okay. But like, clearly you can do better. And sometimes it's more friendly, like, uh, hey, are you sure this is the best? Or sometimes it's a, nah, I know you can do better. I know, you're just like lying to me basically. And, and the beauty of, of this circumstance is you can be completely transparent and go, Hey, uh. All our pricing is on the website. All of our discounting is on the website. Uh, it is what it is. It's, it's out there for you to see. I I can't tell you anything else. Right? You're, they're asking you to tell them something different and, and you can't. And, and then the beauty of that is if they really try and push, well, don't you wanna make the sale? Don't you need to make your quota? Aren't you gonna lose out on money? You can even be more transparent because our handbook is all on online. Anyone can go with a handbook and see how we sell and I can go, you know what, there are no quota accelerators. Um, there, there's no impetus for me to push through a bad deal to try and hit my, my metrics or my numbers. There's no end of quarter rushing to get stuff in. We just don't work that way. And so there's a beauty in just being able to be completely honest and completely open and say, we don't work that way. And if, if that doesn't work for you, that's okay. Like maybe we're not the right fit.

Danilo 6:04

We don't work that way. I think hits on a really important idea for.

Landon 6:10

I.

Danilo 6:11

Generally succeeding in a negotiation. And I think just having a peaceful life, there's getting really clear on the parameters where you're willing to flex and the parameters where you aren't. And h how, how do you set that up? Like, like what is the process for getting really clear on where you will and won't move?

Landon 6:32

Let's pull it back to what you said at the beginning. Labeling things, Hey, here are some things that we absolutely will do for you. Here are some things we can't do for you. And we try and be again, upfront and transparent about what that is. So for example, if you want post hog to do the most amazing product analytics and feature flagging and AB testing, we can do all that stuff, right? We do that really well. If you want post hog to be a real time a PM monitor that gives you second by second rate monitoring of how your APIs are doing. That's probably not the right, right

Danilo 7:06

We, we don't do that. We just we're, that's not where we're at.

Landon 7:10

there are other tools that do that really well. That's, that's not, uh, a service that we offer. And so the ability to label that and say, here's what we are and here's what we aren't, here's what we're not willing to do. And I think this is what leverages into that. The bad anecdote of, I've been in situations where. A company or an individual was so desperate to win a sale that they were willing to say or do anything to close that sale. And sometimes that meant agreeing to things that were impossible or likely impossible or would never make revenue for that individual or that company. And it always ends up coming back to bite them. They think in the moment that it's worth it, but it never ends up working out long term.

Danilo 7:55

This is, I think, the kind of failure mode of a sales driven software company, right? You give the sales team the power to define the roadmap, and now you're just building a bunch of stuff that met someone's quota instead of having a really coherent vision of what your product is. And so. How is it that we have guard railed against that here? How have you seen that done? Well, other places?

Landon 8:26

I think one of the things that we do really well is we are very clear about what we are trying to build, what our goals are, and we let our engineers define what that kind of product or success looks like within the parameters of the big picture, kind of business, business goals and, and business roadmap. And so there's no real circumstance where. Me as a salesperson coming in is going to like, pull the lever and ask for just a bunch of stuff to come out that may or may not fit that, um, quite the opposite. It gives me the ability to come and be. with people and say, here's what we're working on, here's what we're not working on. I, I can tell you what it is, I can tell you what it's not. Um, and, and I think part of that is just empowering engineers to, to own that and be engaged in that. Part of it is being willing to say no. And I think another part of it is being willing to win long-term as opposed to short-term. We want those long-term big picture. good relationships as opposed to the quick one year sale that goes bad almost immediately because we sold something we couldn't really deliver on.

Danilo 9:33

Yeah, and this, I think, gets into making negotiation in whatever context, in your personal life, in your professional life, in a corporate strategy. This, I think, is how you get to a place of sustainability, which is you think really hard before you enter the negotiation about the outcome that works best. For the long term, and that's really hard to do.

Landon 10:01

It's also not about manipulating the other person to doing what you want them to do. Coming back to your jazz analogy, it's about cooperating with them so that both of us can get what we want. And I think as soon as a negotiation turns into that manipulation tactic, similar to what we talked about last time, as soon as uh, your selling turns into trying to create a desire where there wasn't one or a need where there isn't one you, you've gone down the wrong path. It's the same thing here. When your negotiation turns into manipulating s. Someone into something that they don't want to do themselves. You've, you've gone down the wrong route, and that's never going to give you that long-term success or, or value that you'd expect.

Danilo 10:39

And this is one of the places where I think negotiation can be really scariest for people because at the point where your counterpart is trying to negotiate in this manipulative mode is trying to kind of crowbar you into something that isn't in your interest. It's really challenging sometimes to say, I don't like this and this doesn't fit for me.

Landon 11:03

I think the biggest blocker to that, the biggest thing that stops us from doing that is we get emotionally attached to the

Danilo 11:10

mm-hmm.

Landon 11:11

Um, you, you go into the car dealership and maybe you weren't that set on the car, but you see it. And the, the, the test drive really works for you and you love the color. It, it, it feels good and they come back to you with a number that's not what you thought and not what you saw on the website, not what you expected, but you're emotionally invested now and you can see yourself driving it. You can imagine your kids in it and you can think about all the great things that are gonna happen with it. I think your ability to disconnect your emotional investment to the thing that you are purchasing or selling is your ability. To come at this in a more, um, guarded way, more honest way and, and be able to at any point go, you know what, I'm not emotionally investment. If this works out, great. If not, I'll find something else. It's not a big deal.

Danilo 11:59

Well, and the more we talk through this, it really does seem as though preparation is the key to all of it. Because if we take the car analogy, that's a really clear one where you can say, okay, I know how much time I want to spend on this. To protect you from emotional investment. One of the things that they'll do at a car dealership is trying to wear you down in terms of your energy, in terms of your time. Now, you've, you've been at this for four hours or whatever, and you're just ready to sign whatever they put in front of you. But a thing you can absolutely do is ahead of time say, okay, I'm budgeting this many minutes today to do this, and if we are at a place where I still don't have the thing. In motion to my satisfaction, I will stand up and walk away. And if you know that and you start to stand up and walk away, you will be shocked at how quickly the car dealership suddenly starts moving on your behalf.

Landon 12:54

Yeah, and and I think being able to do that, being willing to do that, and also being in a position to do that. Right. I think you mentioned the beginning, your example of people looking for a job. Sometimes you're in that situation where you need a job and you don't have the luxury of doing that and calling that that bluff, so to speak, because you do really need that job. And so

Danilo 13:14

bill to pay.

Landon 13:15

part part of it is, um, making sure you don't put yourself behind the eight ball in that situation where you are stuck and they can take advantage of you or manipulate you in those situations. Like the ability to be able to honestly stand up and go, this isn't the right fit. I can go and do something else. Th that's the thing you want to preserve throughout this whole process.

Danilo 13:35

It all comes down to preparation. And so maybe the big lesson here is that if you think that you're going into a conversation in a more anxious place than you want to, maybe there's some preparation that you gotta do to set you up for you're to set yourself up for success and be really clear about what your goals and parameters are. And if you do that, maybe it's not gonna be quite so scary. Yeah.

Landon 14:01

Yeah, write 'em down. Uh, make a little checklist for yourself. Hit those spots. Where, to your point, once I've hit this prep point? No, I'm good. I'm, I'm out. I'm ready to do something else. Easy.

Danilo 14:14

That's it.