Why Being an FBI Negotiator Won't Help You in Marketing
Not all skills are transferrable--even when activities may seem similar on the surface.
“Never Split the Difference”
is Chris Voss’ advice after a career as an FBI hostage negotiator.
And if you’re negotiating to bring 2 IT hostages back from Iran, it’s probably a great strategy.
But that’s not always true.
In this post, I’m going to argue why—in marketing—you should split the difference and take a partial win.
Voss’ Perspective
Voss talks about how to manage the conversation when you’re in a room (or on the phone) with someone you’re negotiating with.
He argues that normal day-to-day, in-person interactions can be improved by understanding negotiation techniques.
But that’s where his book focuses—In-person1 , live interactions between natural people.
And that’s important because most of his techniques rely on unconscious human-to-human relationships
Of his 5 ‘calculated empathy’ techniques, 3 of them require modulating your physical presence.
Active listening: Talk slowly and calmly to show that you care about how the other person feels.
Using the right tone: Use a light and encouraging voice as your default tone
Reflecting back: Repeat the last three words that the person has said in your next sentence.
Most Marketing Isn’t Done Live & In Person
Usually,2 marketing is consumed asynchronously from it’s production. (e.g. you see a billboard any time after it’s been created).
But conversations happen synchronously. You both have to be present (physically or otherwise) at the same time to make it happen.
This sounds obvious. (And it is)
But the difference in medium between the two means that they shouldn’t share the same techniques.
“The medium is the message” fits perfectly here: The same words, when spoken calmly, are meaningfully different than if they were read from a paper.
Voss advises you to develop a friendly back-and-forth during a negotiation.
But most marketing3 is done in a publisher-subcriber model.4
There is a much more naturally adversarial relationship between marketer:customer than peer:peer.
How To Negotiate in Marketing
If ‘never split the difference’ isn’t the right approach in marketing, what should we do?
I bought a water filter recently and have been getting a deluge of follow-up emails from the company, Boroux.
Generally, their products are interesting to me and I do want to know if a sale comes up on filter media.
I’m an engaged, prospective customer.
But I don’t want to get 4+ emails / week that clutter up my inbox.
Recently, I received a 3rd email in one week.
I got mad. I clicked into the email.
I scrolled to the bottom, frenetically searched for the ‘unsubscribe’ link. I mashed the button.
When it pulled up the email list page, I angrily clicked “Unsubscribe All” at the bottom of the screen.
Good Riddance!
…But as soon as I clicked “Update”, I knew that was wrong.
I did actually want to know about special offers.
Dang it…
I went back to the page, re-signed up for that email list, and clicked “update” again.
Results
By offering more than a yes/no option, Boroux kept their email list larger5, kept me informed, and kept me happy.
This was a win:win situation.
By creating a choice architecture where I felt like they had made some concessions, but not totally disengaging, Boroux split the difference, but won the negotiation.
Conclusion
Give a little: Design choices for your customers that let them feel like they’re in control, but use that reciprocal design to keep engagement where you’d otherwise lose it.
Imagine your customer as a water heater: a pressure release valve lets the tank vent—ha!—but still keeps the water where you want it.
Instead of ‘Never Split the Difference’, a better marketing tagline might be:
Give Where You Must, For You Must Give
🎇For fellow Americans, enjoy the holiday weekend for the 248th celebration of our great nation. We’ll be back with a full post next week. 🎆
or on a phone
But word-of-mouth is—by definition—synchronous. See JM’s article for more info
Technically a good business will give and get on all 4 P’s of marketing (price, product, place, promotion) based on customer responses—but that’s a long-term, customer-aggregated process.
The human emotions that are evoked during a fast-paced back and forth are nowhere near the same as noticing a product now has a new feature you requested.
Kind of—I mean that marketing departments output campaigns consistently and only some of each are seen by each customer—not necessarily in any pattern that resembles a conversation
Having a strong customer list is great for increasing your valuation as well.