Summary of Business Lunch Podcast Episode: Business Lunch: 3 Negotiating Lessons from Burgundy, Nazis & Walls
Podcast: Business Lunch
3 min. read
— Description —
Learn how to protect your negotiating points by constructing false walls and cooperating with your opponent Discover the power of controlling the frame and achieving your objectives within their rules.
Business Lunch: 3 Negotiating Lessons from Burgundy, Nazis & Walls
Table of contents
Key Takeaways
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If you have an absolute secret you don’t want your negotiating opponent to discover, construct several “false walls” that you can allow them to “breakthrough”
- Breaching the “false walls” gives them the pleasure of getting something, which will help you to protect your most precious negotiating points
- “When faced with an opponent who has superior leverage, cooperate with them, and work collaboratively to find out what they really want” – Roland Frasier
-
Realize that you likely won’t be able to get everything that you want
- However, if you pay attention to what your opponent wants, then you can control the frame by “printing the label” on each negotiating point to achieve your objectives within the terms of their rules
Intro
- Host: Roland Frasier (@RolandFrasier) is an investor, business mentor, and podcaster
Negotiating Experience
- Roland was a corporate lawyer for 12 years
- He has founded, scaled, or sold 24 different 7 to 9 figure businesses ranging from consumer products to industrial machine manufacturing companies with adjusted sales ranging from $3 million to $337 million
Lesson #1: Construct “False Walls”
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During World War II, after the Nazis occupied France, they would steal large quantities of wine from winemakers
- The winemakers built multiple false walls to hide the most expensive wine from the Nazis
- So even if the Nazis discovered one false wall and stole the wine, the best wine was hidden by one or two more false walls
- The winemakers built multiple false walls to hide the most expensive wine from the Nazis
-
If you have an absolute secret you don’t want your negotiating opponent to discover, construct several “false walls” that you can allow them to “breakthrough”
- Breaching the “false walls” gives them the pleasure of getting something, which will help you to protect your most precious negotiating points
Lesson #2: Collaborate & Infiltrate
- “When faced with an opponent who has superior leverage, cooperate with them, and work collaboratively to find out what they really want” – Roland Frasier
- Ask questions to better understand what the other person desires
Lesson #3: “Print the Label”
- The French literally printed a new label with a new premium wine designation (Premiere Cru) to protect the wine from appropriation
-
Realize that you likely won’t be able to get everything that you want
- However, if you pay attention to what your opponent wants, then you can control the frame by “printing the label” on each negotiating point to achieve your objectives within the terms of their rules