One of the best books I’ve read this year is a book called “Never Split the Difference – Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on it” by Chris Foss.
Chris Foss was one of the FBI’s top hostage negotiators, and he relates some of the experiences that he went through, and also how he learned to become one of the best negotiators.
If you are interested in negotiating, it doesn’t matter what it’s for, whether it’s in business, or sales, or relationships… It could be with your wife, your husband, your children, or just about anyone… And Foss’s book will help you.
We all are going to need to negotiate at some point, and I think that some of the skills that you will learn from this book will be invaluable to you as you go forward.
So, I’ve given it a score of 4.8 out of 5. I give my books a kind of score out of 5. Foss earns a 4.8.
The only reason I didn’t give it 5 out of 5 was that the book is narrated by Michael Cramer, who is an excellent narrator, but some of the things in the book – they talk about tonality for example – and Chris, whom I’ve heard talk on his YouTube channel, has a great voice.
One of the tactics that he uses is called the late-night DJ voice, and although Michael does a great job of conveying that concept, I think it lacks just a little bit. So that’s the only reason I gave it 4.8 and not 5 out of 5.
Now, some of the things I liked most about it was that it’s a very practical book. It’s not a hypothetical book. It’s a framework to have just about any conversation. And Foss will teach you things: – How to summarize a conversation, how to paraphrase, how to label, and how labeling works in a conversation. He also covers mirroring someone’s conversation, minimal encouragements, effective pauses, and a whole other bunch of things.
Labelling is – and has been – one of my secret weapons I’ve taken into negotiations ever since I learned it. But whether it’s anchoring a conversation, or however you do it, or calibrating questions, this book will teach you how to do it all.
Luckily it’s also one of the books that is an easy read. It’s an easy listen, and there’s a lot of technical books I have to read that are really hard work.
This was one of the books I looked forward to every day: just trying to put in some time to listen to it. So whenever I went for a walk or anything else, I looked forward to listening to this book.
I consider to be educational, but it’s also a great, great read. So, I highly recommend it because I think that just about anybody can use the skills inside Foss’s book.
As I said, 4.8 out of 5: highly recommend!
If you need to help building revenue, scaling your business, or would like to talk to me about potential partnership in your venture, subscribe to my YouTube channel, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, and schedule your own complimentary strategy session with me at https://www.markmcrae.com/work-with-me/
