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Mastering the Art of Negotiation: Strategies, Insights, and Real-World Solutions
Explore the art of negotiation with a distinguished group of professionals in this Negotiation Skills Training Webinar – Kuwait. Today, we’re joined by Darren A. Smith, a seasoned expert in negotiation strategies and the founder of the innovative Sticky Learning methodology. Darren will guide us through some of the most effective techniques for achieving success in high-stakes negotiations, drawing from his extensive experience.
Also joining us are Suha Isaac SCV, a dynamic facilitator and partner in bringing this invaluable knowledge to Kuwait, where she has been instrumental in fostering leadership and strategic negotiation skills across various sectors. Suha will share insights into how negotiation principles can be applied in the unique context of Kuwait’s culture, especially for leaders in banking, education, and investment.
Additionally, we are joined by professionals like Farrah, Yousif, Hamad, and others, who will share their personal challenges and experiences with negotiation, providing real-world examples to enrich our discussion.
This session promises to be interactive and insightful, offering practical strategies that can be applied immediately. Darren will dive into the sticky learning approach, demonstrating how repetitive learning over time leads to meaningful behavioural change and long-lasting negotiation skills.
You Can Read the Full Kantar Market Share Transcript Below:
Darren A Smith:
Hello and welcome.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yeah. Hello everyone? Yes. Hello, hammed. Hello, Farrah. Hello, Yusef.
Yousif:
Hello. Hello. Hello everyone.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Hi, hammed. Thank you for joining.
Yousif:
Thank you.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yeah, we’re just gonna wait couple of morning, couple of minutes until um, we have more people because they’re joining. And we are gonna start in two minutes maybe, Darren.
Darren A Smith:
We’ll just see who else attends and then we’ll begin.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Okay, great.
Suha Isaac SCV:
And of course, I know it’s very difficult for people to join after working hours unless they’re really interested in having some insight and a new, uh, let’s say a new view about, uh, any topics that will be discussed in these kind of webinars. And, uh, I assume some of the people, I, I assume they have their, uh, I think their, their, uh, kids, uh, going to exams in this period of the time. And many people, let’s say busy with starting, uh, preparing for their Christmas leave. So we’re, we we’re hitting the ground before the 20th of December when everybody actually will be switched off. .
Darren A Smith:
Makes sense.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Good. Yeah. Good, good. So the, the mic is yours. Can, uh, Darren, when you want us to start?
Darren A Smith:
Okay. Well, let’s, um, see if we’ve got a few more people coming. This will be a very interactive webinar, so if you would like to come on camera, and if you would like to join in, I’d love to see your faces and we can chat about what challenges you have and how I can help. Hi. Good.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yeah, how you,
Yousif:
Hi, how are you?
Darren A Smith:
Hello. I’m good. Good. I’m good. Farrah. Hello? Uh, you are on mute just in case you
Farah:
. Oh, sorry. I just said hi. Hi. Uh,
Darren A Smith:
I did some lip reading and I think I guessed. Uh, let’s see if Hamed will join us. Can we coax him out? Hamed, do you fancy join us? Okay. And we’ve got, uh, someone else coming in. Okay. So bear with us while we just grab the late comers. Um, if you could, um, grab a piece of paper and a pen, it would be great. Um, just be some questions.
Farah:
Okay.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Okay. I think we have, um, SIA Hussein, thank you for joining us. And I think he, you want to start?
Darren A Smith:
It’s all right. We’ve got Hamed coming back, so I’ve just, uh,
Suha Isaac SCV:
Okay.
Darren A Smith:
Admitting, um, and we’ve got another person, so bear with me.
Farah:
Mm-hmm.
Darren A Smith:
No, gone again. Okay, good. We have some tech problems. Let me just see. Uh, they were here then they’ve got over scratch. Okay. I
Suha Isaac SCV:
See. Yeah. Okay.
Darren A Smith:
It’s four minutes past. Uh, is everyone all right if we start?
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yeah, I think we will. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. Good. So thank you everyone for being here on time and, uh, um, I honestly having a webinar, um, it’s very new, let’s say concept on the, on the Kuwaiti culture, specifically the, the working culture that we need to, um, invest in our, let’s say, save time or time with our families just to gain some knowledge. And sometimes people think if the knowledge is a free, so it’s worthless, but that’s the contradict. We’re trying to giving you some very, uh, precious, informative, uh, knowledge, which will drag you, of course, to continue and pursue your, um, digging more into these kind of subjects. So negotiation is very attractive and very, uh, let’s say, let’s, let’s say it’s very vague sometimes because people think, uh, the negotiation is just, let’s say I can read a book and I can negotiate with any kind of clients I have, or partner or family or even our kids or whatever.
Suha Isaac SCV:
So negotiation, it’s a little bit, uh, um, uh, there’s a methodology and there’s so many schools. Darren has one of very, uh, very, uh, interesting school of, uh, delivering this kind of knowledge called the sticky learning for that time. Uh, let’s say partnering with Darren to bring these kind of, uh, methodologies to Kuwait, to empower our leaders and our, uh, let’s say our experts in banking, education and investment, other kind of sectors, how they will negotiate, um, specifically in gaining, uh, the deal. There is a book written by Trump called The Deal, and this is how this guy or Trump reached the presidency. The deal, uh, I, I’m, I’m honestly ordering the book and I’m gonna read it because this is how people negotiate. It’s all based on negotiation. So I’ll leave the floor for Mr. Darren to introduce, to introduce himself and what is the sticky learning methodology that he come up with regarding the negotiations. So, Darren, please go ahead.
Darren A Smith:
Thank you. I’m gonna start with a question ’cause I don’t like talking about myself. The question for everyone here is, what one problem would you like to solve in negotiation? And let me see if I can help you in the next 30 minutes. Now I’ve got a whole agenda of things, but if you could put in the chat or tell me what one thing do you wanna solve? Farrah, please.
Farah:
Um, I think especially as a woman, I think there’s a gender aspect to it. So I kind of wanna get what I want without seeming too pushy. ’cause I think that pulls pushing men, especially who are sometimes usually your manager away when you’re being too pushy.
Darren A Smith:
Oh, lovely question. Gender aspect. Alright, so I’m gonna talk a bit about push and pull in a little while. That’s the bit I’d like you to look out for, which I think will help. Okay. Someone else, what’s the one thing you’d like to solve so you get some value from the time you’re spending here? Ef. Just ’cause you are here. Oh. Oh, Ahmed, go on. Ahmed, what’s yours? He jumped in.
Ahmed:
Yes. Hello. Mr. D and Mrs.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yes. Hello.
Ahmed:
Hi. Uh, actually one very frequent problem B is working in risk management is in, in many, in many ways, uh, finding a middle ground. Uh, and when we propose a solution for certain risk situations, uh, we find it difficult to mediate sometimes between different parties. I mean, just to reach a middle ground between different, uh, sides of the, of the argument. So that’s, that’s something that I’m frequently faced with.
Darren A Smith:
Okay. I think I understand what you’re saying, Ahmed. I’ve written it down. Let me see if we can crack something here together. We also have about 10 minutes at the end for q and a. Um, who else would like to share, uh, one thing they’d like to solve in negotiation skills? Yu it’s just ’cause you’re in my eye line.
Yousif:
Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi. Then, um, uh, actually, uh, if we want to talking about the, uh, uh, uh, communication, how we, how we make the communication easy for the another parties. Okay. So, uh, for example, if we want, if we want to give any solutions about something that we have in our works, how we are summarize it and give it an easy way, easy idea or easy uh, uh, thinking.
Darren A Smith:
Lovely, lovely question. Alright, we’ll just ask one more person, see if they’ve got something and then we’ll move on. One more person. What do you have that you’d like to solve here today? Okay, we have no takers. Oh,
Darren A Smith:
Hamad. Go on.
Hamad:
Um, I’m always being afraid that I get outsmarted and being rejected. For example, I’m the head of customer service, so I always, I’m always in demand for something for my people and my managers always being, you know, outsmart me in something and then they reject it.
Darren A Smith:
Mm. Okay. I’m keen to know more. I’m not sure I can get it. Just tell me another 20 seconds on that so I can understand it a bit better. Please. Maybe an example,
Hamad:
Uh, for example, I always wanna expand my teams. I want some help from, I want some help for, uh, uh, increasing my head count, you know? Yeah. They always got something to reject me, like, improve your sales. Then we’ll talk, do this and then we’ll talk.
Darren A Smith:
Okay. Okay. I might have something for you, Hamad.
Hamad:
Alright. Okay.
Darren A Smith:
I may do right. We’ve got about 30 minutes together. So is everyone ready to rock and roll? Cool. Fabulous. Alright. First thing I’m going to do is let’s talk about sticky learning. Not us promoting ourselves, but in terms of why don’t we achieve behavioral change after training. What are your thoughts? Why is it we go on training and do nothing differently afterwards? Go on Farrah. Habits.
Farah:
Habits are hard to break
Darren A Smith:
And hard to form. Okay. So when I was at school, we did double maths every week with Mr. Clifford. I hated him. I hate maths, but we did it every week for about five years. Alright? So we did that and it was repetition, repetition, repetition, learning, learning, learning. And then I go and join a company as I did at 20. And suddenly I can learn Time management on a single day doesn’t work. So we take everything we know about education, which is repetition, and then we go to corporate, we go on a one day training course, nothing changes afterwards, and we’re all surprised. That blows my mind the change from education to corporate. So what, what we talk here about a sticky learning is doing training like we did driving. Now, how many lessons do you think the average person takes to learn to drive any answers? It’s only a bit of fun.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Maybe two. Two or three.
Farah:
Okay.
Darren A Smith:
Alright. Well, here in the UK we do 30 lessons.
Yousif:
I, I I I think more five more than five
Darren A Smith:
Okay. Now maybe we can’t drive here, but we do 30 lessons. So what that’s called in learning terms is space repetition. We do a lesson, wait a week, we do another lesson, a bit like me learning maths at school. So when we learn something, it has to be over a period of time. And what we are trying to do is pro and poke our brain with virtual classrooms face to face. And we even have things like coaching cards where we give these to people to help them learn. But it has to be over a period of about six weeks.
Farah:
Okay?
Darren A Smith:
Now, a German psychologist called Herman Ebbing house found the forgetting curve. How much do you think we forget of what we have learn in 30 days? What percentage do you think we forget? Who’s got an answer?
Farah:
80%.
Darren A Smith:
Oh, you’re close. Farrah. Now it’s more like 95%. Now one next question. When do you think Herman discovered this? What year? Recently?
Suha Isaac SCV:
Maybe the twenties or thirties.
Darren A Smith:
Okay, so he discovered this in the late 1850s. And still today with the forgetting curve, as part of our learning understanding, we still do one day training courses. What we need to do is repetition over time. Now, Herman discovered two things. One that we forget an awful lot over time, but we didn’t need research to understand that we know that. But two, he said, we forget what we’ve learned unless, what, what was the second conclusion? We forget it unless we
Farah:
Go back, practice it at .
Darren A Smith:
You and you and Herman were like this. Yes, you’re absolutely right, . So he discovered these two things. We’ve gotta practice it. So if I was going to, um, learn to drive and I was in a corporate, they’d send me on a one day training course and then say, Darren, at five o’clock, at the end of the day, you can go and drive. You can’t. So we have to do a program repetition lessons over time. Okay, second question. How do we ensure that we change behaviors after a training course
Yousif:
By practice? I think,
Darren A Smith:
Okay, now partly it’s a trick question. We need to change our behaviors during training so that we change them enough that after when the trainer and the other people have gone, we’re still doing it. So that’s why we need a program of sticky learning, a training program over six weeks. First we need to learn it. Second, we need to retain it, and third we need to use it. And then we go round the same loop. So we’ve gotta learn, retain it and use it. And on our programs, we teach people how to mind map and why they forget and how to forget and how to use things like the mnemonics to keep the training in our head. Who knows what a mnemonic is?
Farah:
It’s like a device used to remember, like a monic device can be letters or like, let’s say a riddle that you used to remember something
Darren A Smith:
Brilliant. So we encourage the learner to create mnemonics, a metaphors and analogies to help it stick in their heads. The one I remember from school for the four points of the compass, my school was a bit strange, is NTI elephant squirted water. And that stuck in my head for too many years. So when we teach you negotiation skills, we’re asking you to come up with your own mnemonics because you need to retain it before you can use it. Alright, shall we talk negotiation skills? Okay, let’s do that for a moment. I, I’m gonna come back to some of the questions before we move on to that. Mm-hmm . Um, Hamad, you talked about being outsmarted and including headcount as an example. Do you remember?
Hamad:
Yeah.
Darren A Smith:
So what I think might help you is what we call the conditional agreement. So what I believe from your short sentences is happening at the moment is your boss is saying, well how many, if you go and do that, we’ll have a chat. If you go and do that, we’ll have a chat. And they just keep pushing as we would say, the can down the road. And you are a bit like a donkey and a carrot. You’re forever chasing the carrot. Would that be fair? Maybe?
Suha Isaac SCV:
Hmm. Hamed is that situation, uh, explaining your way of, uh, uh, getting the deal with your manager?
Hamad:
I mean, somehow? Yes.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yeah. Okay. It’s a conditional thing. They call it conditional agreement. Yeah.
Darren A Smith:
So what we would do in negotiation terms is we’d say, boss, what you want me to do is this, this, and this. I understand that if I get these three done, are we agreeing to this, this, and this? And we’re trying to get the agreement made up front so that you can then go back and say, I’ve done these three things, now it’s your turn to do these three things. Otherwise they, I’m going to forever kick the can down the road. Does that make sense?
Hamad:
Yes.
Darren A Smith:
Yeah. Okay. Uh, Yusef, I’d like to come back to your question, which was around different communication. Often in negotiation when we are negotiating with our opponent, we are talking German and they’re hearing French. Alright? Now, broadly there are four ways of communicating. There are facts, form feelings and future to take one model called Ned Herman’s model. We need to communicate however they understand. I’ll give you an example. I’ve got a friend who is fabulous at pub quizzes. We go to the pub, he does a quiz, he retains everything. He’s a fact-based guy. If I’m negotiating with him and I’m summarizing where we are, I need to put it in facts.
Yousif:
Oh, okay.
Darren A Smith:
I’ve got another friend who’s a feelings person, the type of person that when you walk in the room, they touch your elbow, they give you a hug, they’re a feelings type person. Talking to them about facts is not going to float their boats. They’ll be hearing French and you are talking in German.
Yousif:
Oh, okay. So
Darren A Smith:
We’re trying, sorry, go on.
Yousif:
Yeah. So, so, so that’s mean maybe it’s, it’s it’s uh, different from person to to person.
Darren A Smith:
Yes. Yes.
Yousif:
Ah, okay. Okay. And the,
Darren A Smith:
And one of the arts of negotiation is understanding your component and trying to communicate in a way to them that they understand. Are they a facts person, a feelings person, a future person, or a form which is structure person. Alright. Does that make sense?
Yousif:
Yes, it’s clear. Cool. Thank you so much.
Darren A Smith:
Alright. Uh, I’m gonna come to Ahmed. Ahmed, you still here?
Ahmed:
Yes. Yes sir. Alright,
Darren A Smith:
Cool. Thank you. You talked about middle ground, so I’m gonna share with you my opinion and it’s just my opinion, negotiation and haggling. Now this question for everyone, but particularly it’s for you Ahmed, what’s the difference between those two negotiating and haggling?
Ahmed:
Um, I mean, I’m just guessing. I mean, I, I’d say one of them would be more personal, more aggressive, uh, haggling as opposed to negotiating
Darren A Smith:
Sort of. So I’ll give you an example. I went on holiday two, I beat her last year. And I mean at the market and there’s handbags and there’s Roy Bon sunglasses. I’m sure they’re supposed to be supposed to be RayBan, but hey, they’re only three euros. Now what we typically do there is we haggle. Haggle is a valid form of resolving a conflict. And Ahmed, you and I are haggling over these sunglasses. Where do you start? You are trying to sell me these sunglasses. What’s the price you might start at?
Yousif:
You mean having to go lower with the price, right?
Darren A Smith:
Yes.
Ahmed:
I mean, if I’m the seller, you mean I, I’d I’d, I’d go higher than three if that’s, that’s for sure. So maybe I’ll start with something around 10.
Darren A Smith:
Brilliant. So Ahmed, you start with 10. What, where would I then start?
Ahmed:
I mean, I’d say lower than three. .
Darren A Smith:
Farrah’s at one. Okay, so you are at 10. And what typically happens?
Ahmed:
Middle ground,
Darren A Smith:
Brilliant, we meet in the middle ground. Haggling is a valid form of resolving a conflict. But here’s the bit that’s controversial. It is not negotiating, haggling, negotiating different. Most people think they’re negotiating when they’re haggling. They’re not. They’re two different disciplines, two different skills with two different ways of approaching it. Alright, so haggle great, negotiating great, but they’re not the same and they’re both valid. What’s the main difference between when I’m haggling and when I’m negotiating? Let’s try someone else.
Yousif:
Yeah, sir. But I have only question about the haggling and the negotiation. Which one is the best for using or it’s depends on the situation.
Darren A Smith:
Brilliant. You’ve answered it depends on the situation. So typically we haggle when we are buying Roy Bon sunglasses. All right? Okay. Now the difference is that haggling is normally on one thing price and we meet in the middle. Negotiation is a much more, much more of an art form. It’s much more of a skill. It is much more complex. Negotiating has many, many variables. Haggling normally has one. Alright, so except they’re both skills, they’re both valid. We’re talking about negotiating here, which is not haggling. So Armi, when you talk about meeting in the middle ground, you are handling, what I’d like to help you to is understand negotiation, which is not meeting in the middle ground. Sometimes you compromise, sometimes you don’t. There’s a fabulous conflict model called Thomas Kilman. Kilman created by two fabulous people who said that we have five behaviors when we com when we’re in conflict, it’s well worth looking that up. We just won’t have time to do it today. What you’re trying to do is understand which of those five behaviors you default to, to, and broadly, they’re avoiding competing, accommodating, compromising, collaborating. You default to one of those. Each one of them is valid, has an advantage and a disadvantage. The trick is to figure out which one you are and whether you can stretch to another one in different situations. I’m gonna pause there ’cause I’ve talked a lot. What questions do you have?
Suha Isaac SCV:
Me either I’m digesting . Yeah, because usually we have this kind of negotiation even with our, uh, let’s say, uh, top management or even with the clients. We are trying to find the middle of ground. However, the middle of ground is not very clear for both sides because each one has something. Uh, or to say far, can you mute yourself please? I think there is some. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Uh, for that we’re trying to reach a middle ground. This is what we call it, middle ground. Middle ground. And nobody’s winning after this kind of negotiation. So maybe how can we win after that? Kind of reaching at least a clear, um, value or a clear, let’s say, outcome of this negotiation if it’s happened. A negotiation. Maybe this is the next question. Hmm.
Darren A Smith:
So I’m gonna share this book. It’s not my book, unfortunately. A really good book by an F-B-I-F-B-I hostage negotiator. So this is really good. And it says never split the difference. Never meet in the middle ground. Fabulous book. Highly recommended. Alright, so how do you win? Let’s come back to preparing for a negotiation ’cause that’s where it begins. How do people, not you guys, maybe you guys, how do people tend to prepare for negotiations? Prepare
Yousif:
For me sir. Basically, I summarize what I want and first thing what I do, I put my target in my negotiation. Okay, what’s my target from this negotiation? This is number one. Number two, try my best to, for example, getting on the, uh, middle, uh, let’s say, uh, not 100% to get my target, but uh, with, I’m trying my best to get my high percentage from this negotiation or from what I needed from this negotiation.
Darren A Smith:
Fabulous. Good. Like that. Anyone else? Ahed. Looks like he’s coming in.
Yousif:
Uh,
Ahmed:
1, 1, 1 thing, I one thing I think is, is important is to determine my non-negotiables.
Darren A Smith:
Okay? That’s good. That’s good. Alright. Farrah, anything to add? Don’t have to just thought you might.
Suha Isaac SCV:
No, um, just
Farah:
Know if the person I’m asking whatever of is able to give me that, uh, whatever I wanna know. Like if I’m asking HR something that maybe only finance can get, like, you know who I’m asking. Know the person that I’m asking these demands from.
Darren A Smith:
Okay. Okay. Alright. Typically, most people have a think and they might write something down. The challenge with the preparation for negotiation is there’s no structure. Alright? A bit like building a house without a blueprint. What I’m gonna share with you is this, this now we’ll send it to you afterwards. This is what we call the square dance. I’ll show you it again in a moment. The square dance is one page, a simple template that encourages you to think of all the things you want to do in the negotiation, what you want, what you don’t want, and how you’re going to approach it. I’ll give you a couple of examples just because of time up here we’re asking ourselves what we wishing for and what we’re wishing for.
Darren A Smith:
Coming back to Yousef’s point is three things properly. What we’re asking ourselves here is what’s our walkaway, what’s our genuine, unless I get this, I’m gone. And then on the right and the left are what we call the grease of the negotiation engine. It’s the variables. This is where your negotiations get stuck because you don’t have enough in here or here. So if I come back to what we were talking about, Ahmed, I’m buying these Roy bonds from you and we are not haggling, we’re now negotiating. I’m going to introduce other variables. I might say, can I buy in cash? Could I buy three? ’cause I’ve got two other people here that might want them. And they’re the types of variables that go in here.
Darren A Smith:
Then in here we talk about tools and tactics. Now on our website, we’ll send you a link. There are 50 negotiation tools that you can use. Don’t try and learn them all. It’s just not worth it. But I would encourage you to add one, two, or three to your toolbox. Coming back to your question, Farrah, one I’d like to ask you to add is push and pull. It’s a very powerful influencing technique. Has anyone heard of it?
Yousif:
Yeah. Um, I think, uh, you should know when you start your negotiation, you should know when you will be, for example, aggressive or for, or, or as a slower, uh, person.
Darren A Smith:
Okay? Okay. That’s slightly different to what I’m talking about. And you are right. You need to understand what tone you are gonna bring to the meeting. Push and pull is one of the simplest and most powerful influencing techniques about if, if you’re on a spectrum of push and pull. Here’s push. Push is, this is what’s in my head. This is what I’m thinking. This is my vision. This is where I want to go. Pull is let me understand what’s in your head. What are you thinking? What would you like? And the challenge is that on you are on this spectrum somewhere. You’re either a natural pusher or a natural puller. And that’s okay. Our challenge in negotiation is to be one or the other. According to where you are in the negotiation, you are either pulling information from them or pushing information.
Darren A Smith:
And with you, Farah, if you want to have more influence, then sometimes you’ll need to either be doing more push or more pull regardless of gender. It’s a powerful influencing technique that trumps gender, that trumps anything else most of the time. And bear with me as I do averages, women are more pulling and men are more pushing. So I would encourage the women more to push. And push is still very assertive. It’s not aggressive, it’s assertive in terms of this is my idea, this is what I am thinking, this is what I’d like us to do. So I’m encouraging women more to push a men to more pull, but that’s very generic. Okay, again, I’m gonna pause ’cause I’ve talked an awful lot. Farrah, did that make sense? It
Farah:
Yeah, it did. It did. Um, I think it’s just that sometimes again, it it’s very subtle. Like, like you’re saying, negotiating is very subtle. So sometimes, I don’t know, sometimes I don’t know what I’m asking for. Maybe that’s part of the preparation that I don’t know what to push and put ’cause I don’t know what’s on the table at times.
Darren A Smith:
Okay, well that, that’s fabulous. So let me follow up on that. Right now you are on a, you are in a negotiation and you don’t know what’s on the table. What question could you ask? Question for everyone? What question could Farah ask at that point in her negotiation?
Farah:
Maybe what’s in it for me
Darren A Smith:
Could be,
Farah:
Hmm,
Darren A Smith:
What else? I’m not looking for just one question. This is a varied amount.
Ahmed:
Yeah, I mean basically how, how can I get more of what I want?
Darren A Smith:
What’s available? What could you offer me? What’s on the table? Now you may get a no or nothing to all of those, but hey, let’s ask, who knows? So sometimes we just need to ask with a good open question. My belief is that a hundred percent of people understand the difference between open and closed questions. And a hundred percent of people use closed questions. I exaggerate. We understand open questions, we typically don’t use them. What does a good open question? Start with what one word,
Farah:
What
Darren A Smith:
Brilliant service. Got it. If we can just start our negotiat, sorry, if we can just start the questions in our negotiation with the word what the rest will flow. It’s what typically happens. And I see a lot of people that I trained over the last 20 years, they start their question with, whoa, can I have, it’s gone. And then what they do is add another question. ’cause they wanna fill the silence. By the time it’s done, they’ve asked three closed questions. The other person’s looking at them not knowing what the hell they’ve asked. They don’t really know. And it’s a waste of effort. Ask one good open question beginning with what? And then be quiet and
Yousif:
See what, so that mean that that that means sir, uh, even if we are want to make any question, we should choice the words before we are questioned. Yes. Is am I right?
Darren A Smith:
Yes, you are right. Unless you are in stage three, we haven’t done stages because of time. Stage three of the negotiation where you are summarizing, you’re asking closed questions in order to understand, is this what we have agreed? Is it in the blue color you want? Is it by Friday? You’re just closing it down to make sure you’ve got it right? That’s when we ask close questions right towards the end when we’re summarizing and closing. Okay, now I’m aware it’s 4 34. So what questions do you have or other things you would like to discuss here?
Ahmed:
Uh, yes.
Farah:
Sorry, I was wondering. Yeah, I was wondering if you could go over the square down worksheet, like explain how that thinking goes.
Darren A Smith:
Yeah,
Darren A Smith:
So you have a one page, a four template, and before your negotiation you are asking yourself a number of questions where you complete this template. What are my top three wishes? This price by this date and this color. They’re my top three. Now there’s lots of things you want, but your top three go here. What’s my walkaway? So these are variations of this. If this is a pound, then this is 80 pence. So I want a pound, but I will walk away at 79, I’ll accept 80 pence. Alright, so you put these here and here. They’re on a spectrum from wish to walkaway on the left and right. You are brainstorming things that you can give. So if you were buying a secondhand car, I could pay you in cash. I could get my brother along because he might want a car. He might give those sorts of things.
Darren A Smith:
On this side, you are taking I’d like a free tank of petrol, an MOT free, a service free, and I’d like your dog, whatever the things are. So these sides of the square dance are the grease that keeps your negotiation moving forward. It stops you hitting stalemate. Alright? Then in the middle, the bit we often don’t do is prepare what tools are we going to use? What’s going to work with this person? Coming back to you, Seth’s point, we’re gonna put in the middle of here. This person’s a fact-based person, so let’s remind ourselves to try and talk in facts more. And also we’re gonna use the up and over tool, the Russian front. And if you then I, I’m just now intriguing you with tall names, alright? And you might pick two or three tools that will help you to win this negotiation. We are not gonna get to middle grand ed. We’re gonna get what we want because we prepared, because we’re structured. And by doing this, we end up walking into all the blind spots in practice before we do in real life. Because if we can walk into those blind spots in practice, we can solve them. So when we hit them in real life, we can keep going.
Darren A Smith:
We have a phrase here, which is to sweat in training so we don’t bleed in battle. Alright? We want sweat in training, we wanna sweat our preparation. Then ideally, if you and I are going into a negotiation, I might say, Farah, can you and I have 20 minutes? Can I work through this negotiation with you so that we can win this when I go into battle with Ahmed? Okay. Alright. Other questions?
Suha Isaac SCV:
I think Ahmed, uh, has a question. Please go ahead, Ahmed.
Ahmed:
Yeah. Uh, Mr. Mr. Smith, uh, this is something that Ms. Soha mentioned earlier in this session and it’s, and um, uh, and I’m sure there is a long detailed answer to to to this question, but, uh, uh, in your professional opinion, do you think Donald Trump is a good negotiator?
Darren A Smith:
Yes. , yes. Because he’s created such a profile and such a persona that you almost don’t want to negotiate with him. You almost accept whatever he says is the truth, even when it’s complete, not truth. And isn’t that really powerful that he’s won the negotiations before he starts negotiating because people are just scared of his profile? Donald Trump could say anything with confidence and we’d all go, yeah, I think he’s right.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yeah. But yeah, uh, that, that remind me of, uh, you know, sometimes when you deal with board member or something on that level, they have this kind of personality because the power of the, let’s say the position and whatever come with it, it’s give, give them this kind of pushy, let’s say they push their opinion and their decision and their direction, even if it’s not correct. But you, you don’t want to negotiate. So sometimes you take it and now here’s your, your smartness or how you will deal with this decision and how you plan with renegotiate and come back to them with your, let’s say opinion. If they’re a factorial people, you have to present facts. They are emotional, you have to present some kind of emotions. And we’ve been through this a whole day and sometimes we switching even our personalities, uh, with people with facts. We go with facts and charts and numbers, whatever. And with people with emotions, as Darren said, yes, we try to give them some sympathy or empathy just to be with them. And, um, that’s it. So sometimes it’s a, it’s a whole tricky, tricky game, honestly, the negotiation. So Ahmed, please, yeah, you have something to say.
Ahmed:
And that’s, uh, and I thank you for the, for, for, uh, and that, that insight, I mean, that’s something I definitely noticed following up on the US elections in the, uh, past few years. I mean, he speaks with, and he projects so much confidence and, uh, to the level of grandiosity, it’s not only, uh, confidence, uh, that uh, you know, it just makes you, uh, not to be intimidated, to challenge whatever he he’s saying. So that I think, I think is something that, uh, that definitely he’s, he’s he’s good at. Yeah. So it’s an interesting, let,
Darren A Smith:
Let me bring to life with an example. I’m selling you all this book, right? I’m gonna do it two ways. Spot the difference. This book is 4 99. I hope you buy it 4 99 for this book. You need to buy it. The book’s still 4 99, but you will have bought it from the second one, not the first one. It’s about the words we use the body language and the tone. If it has confidence, if we believe it, you’ll believe it. If you don’t believe it, they won’t believe it.
Suha Isaac SCV:
And this, uh, Darren came basically sometimes with the, with the, let’s say raise, uh, if we want some raise for salaries or some deals or something, we don’t know how to present these kind of, let’s say, um, what’s our, what’s our need? Uh, it’s a factorial thing. We need to present why we need it and what’s the impact on us and the organization. So sometimes this is where we stuck and most of the people, they don’t know how to negotiate an increment in their salary. If they’re in, let’s say, want an increase or let’s say if they want to have more benefits or if they want even to leave the organization, sometimes they, they stuck. We saw them, they stuck because they don’t have the word to say it or they don’t have, they don’t have the, uh, let’s say the technique. Let’s say,
Darren A Smith:
Well, in the last few minutes we’ve got, I’m gonna share one technique that will help you get the salary increase that you want. Would that be okay? There’s a very powerful, simple tool and it’s the most taught tool in the world for negotiation skills. I’d love to own it. It’s not mine, right? It’s called If you, then I, if you can increase my salary by 5%, then I will increase my productivity. When you this client make you this amount of more money, if you then I, the reason, the reason it’s powerful is it’s in two parts. It asks them what they’re gonna give and it tells them what you are gonna give. It’s a simple technique for making proposals in negotiations. So simple. Most people skip past it. It is super powerful.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Amazing. Good. I’m gonna use it. , definitely.
Darren A Smith:
Alright, now I’m just conscious,
Yousif:
Sorry, I’ll start from today to use it.
Darren A Smith:
Good, good, good.
Yousif:
I’ll start. I I’ll start from today to use it.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tomorrow and asking them
Darren A Smith:
Yusef, if you do, if you use it and you win an increase in salary, then I get half. Are we agreed?
Yousif:
Yeah, I’m agreed. Sure, sure. I’m agreed. ,
Darren A Smith:
I’ll send you my bank details. Alright, now I’m just conscious of your time. So I think I’ve answered all the questions you put to me at the start. Has everyone got an answer to this? Yeah, to their question. Alright, the last bit we are gonna do is I’m gonna show you this, which is our sticky learning negotiations skills program. It’s a six week program. Oh, sorry, inate starting next year. That is my only pitch. It’s 20 seconds. If you’re up for it, we’ll send you a link to register your interest. If you’re not, it was lovely to meet you anyway.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yeah, sounds good. Uh, of course we gonna host, uh, Shala. Darren is coming to, uh, Kuwait, uh, next year, um, on a personal level because we are, we are, we are partners and we’re friends for a long time. I learned a lot from Darren and I want to bring this knowledge honestly to the Kuwait community, to everyone in Kuwait. And, um, uh, so if you like to know more about the program, just email me or email Darren, you know, now where we are standing in LinkedIn. And of course most of you knows me, so maybe you can WhatsApp or email me. We can send you the details. And, uh, looking forward, of course, to, to have you, if you are interested in that, uh, program. It’s six weeks, however, not all of it will be attending. It’ll be a hybrid way of learning and coaching by Darren himself, not me, I’m just the godmother of the thing, , but Darren is the expert. Okay?
Suha Isaac SCV:
And, uh, hopefully we can gain, uh, Darren, one of his experiences, why I am interested about his knowledge. Of course, I’m using most of his, uh, coaching cards, planners only on myself and some of my coaching clients. And if you want any coaching session, please uh, contact me. We can use some of your tools to them so they can see. Um, uh, Darren, he’s been, uh, teaching in Saudi Arabia and uh, of course in new ae, and I think you’re with Aramco or sabic. I just, remind me, um, where did you, Aramco or where you have some training, uh, and coaching sessions, uh, in the Gulf region? You told me before I forgot.
Darren A Smith:
Yeah. Aramco, sorry. Yes, yes, I was correct, yes.
Suha Isaac SCV:
So yeah, Aramco. Yeah, because we, the pronunciation is different between the Arabic singer ,
Suha Isaac SCV:
Okay. With the Aramco and in, uh, UAE, he was with one of the biggest airlines companies there as a coach and mentor for their leaders to move ahead in their, their career. So the six weeks is the terminology of how we use it for building your leadership skills, how to do, uh, the next level of you moving, uh, let’s say up the ladder. And of course, if you are, let’s say, uh, in any kind of, uh, sector, even if you’re a mother or father, you need this kind of leadership, let’s say skills. And this is where coaching is coming, not just a training. Training is just transfer the knowledge coaching is different. It’s how we specifically Darren, guide you to move and take your hand through these kind of steps. It’s like, um, moving you through how you do negotiation. We have so many things into, into that, into that journey. If you see the brochure, it’s like a milk thing. We gonna try to feed you until you grow in shallow.
Darren A Smith:
Yeah. I love your metaphor. Nice mnemonic market. Yeah.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Yeah. Mnemonic. Yeah. . And, uh, we really appreciate your time. I know it’s, uh, Wednesday, going towards the weekend. And also, uh, Darren, I appreciate your time. It’s beyond your working hours, but thank you for being here with me. I just want, uh, to introduce you and of course to some of the experts in Kuwait. And uh, definitely it’s maybe the first time you will be coming to Kuwait and I’m very glad to have you here among us. Uh, so thank you. Anyone want to say anything before we close?
Attendees:
Thank you so much, Darren. Wonderful. It was amazing and wonderful. Thank you so. Appreciate. Thank you very much. Thanks. Bye.
Suha Isaac SCV:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Nice. And yeah, nice to meet you all. Thank you. Thank you.
Yousif:
Nice.
Darren A Smith:
Take care everyone. Have a good evening.
