Welcome to the Negotiation Club Podcast with Philip Brown. The Negotiation Club is the only community focused solely on enhancing your negotiation skills training through practice with others. Today on the podcast, we're talking to special guest Fred about a unique framework for asking questions that he likes to call Ted, the tell, explain, describe technique. Here's Philip and Fred. Hi and welcome back to the Negotiation Club Podcast. This is where we want to talk about different techniques, different tactics, different skills using negotiations and try and pick them from people out there who have actually had to deal with this in real world scenarios. Now, I've actually got a very good friend of mine, Fred, who's coming along to explain a little bit around his side of things as well. And Fred is actually more from the sales part of it. So let me introduce Fred. So Fred, it's good to see you here and do you want to quickly say who you are and what you do? Yeah, no, Simon Fred Pope's date, founder of Brindis, which is a sales training consultancy. I've been involved in sales training for 24 years, and I've been all around the world doing that, 36 different countries, 10,000 salespeople, massive privilege, honor to do that. And it's really helped me understand what the challenges salespeople have are, and that's led me to write two books around it. And third one, in the making. You're plugging it already. You're plugging it. I love it. You're plugging it. I've known you -- well, no, you can't -- what sales in it, that's what it's all about, isn't it? But listen, the reason why I wanted to have a quick chat with you as well, is perhaps there's a few elements that you can share with our audience, given the fact that really the audience is hopefully listening, because they want to practice some of this stuff as well. So I'll just talk about it. It's practice it. Now, when we were talking earlier, Fred, you were talking about basically the power and the use of questions when it comes to not just negotiations, but obviously any other kind of skill set as well. We tend to focus a lot on open and closed questions. They seem to be the premise. But what's your thoughts about questioning when it comes to negotiations, and how would you expand on that? Yeah. I mean, they're the perfect place to start, aren't they? And I'm being deliberate, being conscious that there are these two very different sorts of questions. One is going to give you a yes/no answer, which you sometimes want, so think, yeah, I do need a yes or no. That's why I'd ask a closed question. But no, I want to give it more information, or I want to help somebody to think. That's why we come at it from the world of sales. Questions to help people think, explore stuff, and so that's why I would ask an open question. Easy way to remember these is they begin with a W. What, why, when, where, who, well, how, as well, but that's got to be with you somewhere in there. Yeah, well, and those questions, you know, you can't say yes or no to them, thinking about why you would ask a question beginning with that, so that somebody gives you a better response and they're thinking, and also you can just ask for that. I remember probably a couple of years ago, actually, you were using a questioning technique, but it wasn't just one question. It was actually like two or three, it was Ted or tell or something, it had an acronym. What was that? Yeah, so, so when I think about it, it's like you've kind of got your open clothes, basically, fundamentals, but if you want to go a little bit deeper and really think about the type of questioning, a question to go deeper, a probing question is something like Ted, yeah, so tell me, explain, or describe. And so what I would train people quite often to do is if you ask an open question, you're going to get an answer, and almost without thinking, you know, practiced, tell me more about that. So rather than jump in, because those people always want to try and say stuff, tell me more about that, or explain what you mean, or describe exactly how that is. So again, the other party is talking more, giving you more information, but also thinking about the stuff that they're telling you. So if I get this right, I ask an open question, and obviously I'm listening to the answers, and I'm also preparing to use Ted, which is to literally say, oh, tell me more, or explain that. We heard each other, do you? You don't need to prepare. You can actually listen to what somebody's saying, because you know that when they finish, you're probably just going to say, tell me more. It's like, when you practice it enough, it's like an automatic thing. So that they tell you what it is, and then they tell you more about that and you get more information. So the kind of other techniques for it, I mean, silence is sometimes one of these techniques that's used at the end of a response request, and you stay silent to try and get them to actually explain more. But what we're doing here is we're using a prompt to get them to explain more. But it's the acronym I'm kind of interested in, Ted, which is asking that question, and then you are listening, but you're then using T-E-O-D to prompt some more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me, explain, describe just the way to remember that you're keeping the conversation going at this stage. If it's the right thing to do, and you want to keep the conversation going, you want to go a little bit deeper. You want to probe. Ted is a cracker. So when it comes to Ted as well, in the sense is that rather than every time somebody asks a question, you say, I'll tell me more, I'll tell me more, I'll tell me more. You've actually got three to pick from, so you can mix it up, so it's not an obvious, you're drawing more information out from them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're asking decent questions, I mean, you should be asking about stuff that people are interested anyway, when they want to talk about, and that's, as you say, sometimes silence, a nonverbal communication, they go really well together. I think they're questions, technically. Used in that sense, nodding, being very deliberate that you're making a note, that you're listening to them, that will make them speak more. If they're not responding to that, tell me more. Yeah. That's also, in a sense, active listening, isn't it? Those nonverbal responses, generally say, I'm actively listening to you, which if you just sit there, you don't have any response, you don't look as if you're doing anything at all. It doesn't look as if you're listening, and it puts people off talking anymore, it shuts them down. So all of that nonverbal motion, the nodding, everything else definitely works. But what I'm hearing here in a way, and the point is, is how can somebody practice this? And I'm just thinking, you can almost have TED written on the top of your page, purposely practice asking a question, and then literally pick one of those three and just try to engage in more elements to it, by just saying, explain that to me, describe this situation. That's coming from the previous question. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, yeah, that's how I'd practice that. The other thing that I would think about if we're talking about different sorts of question is to go with a hypothetical question, and again, it's a very easy language pattern, if, starts with if. And I like to make stuff super simple. So yeah, we've got the W words for open, we've got TED for probing, we've got if for hypothetical, and where the hypothetical question is great, it's, if people are getting stuck in a rut, if we want to sort of get them thinking about something from a different angle, then we can go hypothetical on it. So if we had a blank sheet of paper, how would you go about solving this? If you had unlimited budget, what would you do? If you were your boss's boss, what would be the way in which you would tackle this problem? So anything with it, which is kind of getting a bit fanciful, if you were Harry Potter and you got magic on, how would you solve this? You can, you can sort of get a bit silly with them, but again, you want to take people out of the way in which they're stuck thinking for looking for different ways in which we might be able to solve the problem. Now sales is about problem solving, equally negotiation, I mean, the problem we're trying to solve is that we want to agree, we can't quite get into it. Well, let's just try and come in for a complete different angle because we're getting stuck about terms of conditions, right, let's try and break out. Cowboys and butchers. If those weren't an issue. Cowboys and butchers, all right. So this takes, Cowboys and butchers are chasing me back years. You're taking me back to when I was at MG Rover, which is like 20 or years ago, we did, we did some exercises in there, which was exactly this, which is like the hypothetias, but it's almost like framing it slightly different to say your, say your, say you've got a problem with some sort, yeah, you got a, you know, you're trying to sell a cow, for argument's sake, all right, you're saying trying to sell a cow. So what you could do is instead of thinking, well, what's a cow to me, which is, okay, it's just a beast of burden, all right, what, what would it be for a cowboy, all right. Okay, well, what if you were a butcher, yeah, and suddenly your mind starts to go in different areas. What if you were a clown, you know, what if you were an accountant, you know, so what you're saying there, from the hypothetical perspective, I've typed, I maybe have taken it slightly different angle to that, but it's a problem solving activity, which is what would it be like if you were somebody else, or what would it be like if it was a different circumstance, something like it. So that's where the hypothetical comes into it. You take, yeah, oh, Fred, you do it every time you take, I mean, right, okay, so we've got Ted, which is a great way of drawing out more information in a questioning style. We've got the hypotheticals, which is exactly the same thing, but there's also another hypothetical, which is basically to consider yourself as a, in a totally different position or frame it in a different way, just to see if you can see something, again, an answer in a different way, is that? That's an excellent summary question, Phil, explain more to me. Which is the other sort of question that we'd use, isn't it? Yeah, summary question at the right time to make sure that we're on the same page and to capture any bits that you think maybe the other person's missed that and that was quite useful. I want to just surface it, yeah, the summary is another thing that we would most certainly train and get people to practice. So, I mean, thinking about the practicing, like you said, it's like, would you practice a question against W, follow it up with one of the TD questions. After somebody's spoken and you've asked them to tell, then you've asked them to describe, give a summary of what they've said, tick, tick, tick, okay, practice over, you've achieved what you were trying to do there, which was use these different questioning tools and just get better at managing the conversation, constantly, deliberately, by those, and you could have ended up saying about like six words, objective achieved. Yeah. Probably a little bit more, actually, because you're going to ask a bit more idea of question. Yeah. Are you trying to make me talk? No, I'm trying to think, I was, I was, you've got genuinely, yeah, it's totally negotiation ploy this one. Yeah, I'll shut up and let you know, it's like, because I, you know, when we do practicing, I talk about summary as being an important activity, but the whole point about questions and you know, this is within negotiation context is that these are all techniques and skills and tactics. You don't have to be in a negotiation to practice either. I mean, you literally do not need to be in a negotiation to practice it, but being able to apply it in a negotiation can be super powerful. Yeah, there are things which, if you are practiced enough, if you're good enough at them, and that usually comes from practice, they're there and you can, you can, you can fall back on them. Yeah. And again, I think sometimes if you're under pressure a little bit, chucking a question into give yourself that thinking space, help them think, so you're doing something kind, you're doing something decent, you're getting information, and maybe taking the pressure off yourself a little bit, our questions are brilliant. Yeah, it's just made me realize that I need to practice these podcast things because it's just really weird. Oh, well, right, okay, well, listen Fred, I did want to just pick your brains on this sort of information gathering and questioning side of things as well. Paul, I need to think about when it comes to practicing, TED, hypothetical questions, summarizing side of things as well. That could keep us entertained for months, just trying to, trying to get all of those rights as well. All right, then. It can. Should we, should we finish with the rhyme? Oh God. Should we finish with the rhyme? Sorry. Yeah, let's put your wrap up. Well, you, you know, the, you know, the, the how, what, what ones that you wrote in the elephant's child? Go on. Yeah. It's in the elephant's child, isn't it? I keep six honest serving men who taught me all I knew, their names are what and where and why and why and then how and who really is absolutely brilliant. Yeah. It's easy to remember the W's, but that what way, where, who, how, you know, it's been around a long time, of course, yeah, when we just, but I think the way he, he, he describes it in that with this little elephant going around learning about the world. I'll, well, okay, let's just close this up. Okay. I want to have one technique that I'm going to take out this podcast that I want my members to practice, which would it be? TED. TED. Okay, so tell me, for practice said, tell me, explain, describe and add that to the end of a question you've already asked. So you tried to draw more information out and make it natural. Yeah. You ask an open question, they give you some information. You get all excited once that your stuff, no, stop and go, my job here is to ask another question. I know what the language pattern is. Tell me all about that. Explain to me what you meant by that thing or describe how that actually works. Right. In that case, you've heard it here. So Fred says, Ted. All right. So with that in mind, plenty to practice here. Keep on doing it. Let us know how you get on, Fred. Let's say, Ted, let's say goodbye. Okay. See you. Bye. Goodbye. Bye bye. If you liked what you heard today, check out the negotiation clubs.com, where you can find professional development courses, join negotiation club communities, purchase negotiation practice cards, get a private consultation, and more. Until next time, thanks for joining us and happy negotiating. [MUSIC] (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
