Steal this FBI negotiator trick to get people to say YES

From this point forward, I don't ever want you to ever say to anybody ever again, have you got a few minutes? Cold call. Sales call. Your significant other. One of the things that's going to feel very awkward to you, which has made one of the biggest differences that we've coached. I never try to get anybody to say yes. The problem with yes is if you try to get me to say yes, I'm always going to be worried about what the hook is. If I'm concerned about where the hook is, my brain is clouded. What you want is their own focused attention. So how do you switch? "Have you got a few minutes to talk?" cause somebody to say yes. How do you switch that? Do you not have time to talk? You're on the right track. Is now a bad time to talk? So if I've learned that saying no protects me, then my reaction to "Is now a bad time to talk?" is and protected. I'm going to focus. Essentially, what he's saying is that yes feels very unsafe for us to say and the more you can get your prospects to say no, the better off you are. This sounds counterintuitive because we think that our job when we're selling is to get a yes, but actually, it's really just to get a decision. Someone's gonna feel safer saying no than they will to say yes. What the opening line is, is just to hook someone's attention. It's not to trick them into anything. It's to get them to listen to you long enough so that they can decide whether what you have to offer is even worth it. And the opening works really well.