 Well, thank you, Oren. We have Oren Klopp in studio today. He's the author of Pitch Anything, which Johnny and I had the joy to read. And a lot of parallels between what we teach from a social skill standpoint to what's going on in the boardroom, which is pretty exciting because I know for a lot of our listeners and also our clients who come through the program, they think it's really two different playing fields. You've got to be a certain way in the boardroom and a certain way socially. And you kind of break through that in understanding some of these frames that work in both settings. We're going to delve even deeper into that. You have a new book coming out, The User's Guide to Power. You're an investor, a venture capitalist who's raised more than $2 billion with your novel approach to understanding the prehistoric part of our brain, the crock brain as you call it. We'll delve into that a little bit as well. And we're going to talk about how it applies to your sales pitch, raising money over $2 million a week, getting a raise, and your ability to crack the code as a deal closer. You are a power frame guy. We're going to define what we mean by that. And we had an episode, I think it was about almost three months now, about mental models and frameworks and how frame comes into play with our understanding of the world and also how we present ourselves to others. So we're going to break down frames for those of you who are listening who maybe are unfamiliar with that concept entirely. And then we're going to talk a little bit about what's changed since pitch anything came out. We had a great little back and forth here about some trends you're noticing in terms of pitches. You're really tapped into the VC world. So everyone who has great ideas, you're pitching. You're going to want to tune into this episode. So thank you for joining us. We have a few questions here and be careful. Thanking it because I got 50 minutes here. You might be you might not be so appreciative by the time I leave. We heard we have three hours, right? There's no out. So we're going to keep going. But let's delve first into this understanding of the brain, because I think for a lot of us, especially when we're thinking about having to impress other people when a deal, we go right into analysis, right? We got to come up with all the facts, all the data, all the figures, the PowerPoint slides to make that deal work. And you have a totally different approach to it. I do. I do. And it's funny. Other people are starting to think this way as well. So I read this book, Sapiens, right? Yeah, good. You guys read that. And he makes the point in which I ran into quite a few years ago of how do you access the mind of a human, right? And how do you touch someone's soul? Well, when they cut people over open, there's no mind. You can't find a mind like you dig in. There's a brain, there's blood vessels and there's all these systems. And when they cut people over the open, there's no soul. They can't find it no matter where they look. So I met a cognitive psychologist. I hired him. And he said, look, you don't understand how the brain works. And I go, I started psychology. My mom's a clinical psychologist. My friend's a sociologist. I read every book. I've, you know, got $100 million of sales in my past. He goes, you don't understand how the mind works. You have the brain works. I go, I understand it. You know, you have psychology and people want what they can't have. And there's time constraints. And there are all these things that persuade people. You don't understand how the brain works. So then I stopped talking. I started listening, which is hard to do, as you all know. He said, look, information, I'm a cognitive psychologist. I only care about how information and I don't care about emotions and feelings. And if you love somebody or hate somebody like cognitive psychologists just care about how information moves through the brain and what it does when it's in there and how pieces of information are broken up, reassembled, come out the confusion that that creates and the opportunities that creates for clarity and persuasion. But how does information move through the brain? So information moves through the brain through a couple large pieces that exist. So so as human beings developed, the brain didn't, you know, grow like a strawberry, right, like a small strawberry or like a squirrel, small squirrel, then a medium sized squirrel and then a large squirrel. That's not how the brain developed. It developed as a very primitive tool to keep a organism alive, right? And so as we became homo erectus and we fell out of the trees and in the in Africans are running through the savannah and the part of the brain that really kept us alive and was most dominant was the crocodile brain. And that's sort of back behind in the nape of your neck. And that's the brainstem. And it really, to simplify it, the crock brain really only cares about a very limited number of things. It meets you and you start going Oh, the ROI on this project and the RIR is 18% and the downside protection is is, you know, there's no way you can lose your money. And the upside is 2x on your money within three years and we're a SaaS application that is a new kind of dating app for grandmothers and squirrels, whatever it is. And then so the the actual physical part of the mind of the other person that's listening to you is thinking, huh, here's something that's moving and making noise, right? Is this something I should eat? Is this something I should fuck? Is this something I should kill? Right? I got to answer with those three questions. And that's the first part of the brain. The process is anything you're saying. So it only the you've got to get past that part of the mind, right? And to get information and your attention past that part of the brain, there's thinking very simple things. This should I eat this? Should I mate with it? Should I kill it? And so you got to move your information past that very aggressive part of the brain in up into the midbrain is the next place where this information physically gets to and in the midbrain and only cares really about social status. Are you somebody that can help me move up in society to where things are easier to get? Or can you sanction me like a police officer? Or do you have to do what I say? And can I sanction you? And unless that other person believes you appear to them or you're more or you're higher up the social hierarchy, the dominance hierarchy than them, they won't pay attention to you and they feel like they have power over you. So it's very interesting when somebody thinks they have power over you or they're better than you or they're higher in the dominance hierarchy than you. A few things happen. They're their ability to focus narrows, right? So they don't see things broadly. Their appreciation of you is literally skin deep. They can only see you at a very surface level. And more importantly, they take risky behaviors around you and with you because they feel like they're in a powerful position. They see you narrowly. They only see you at a surface level and they behave and they load up on risk around you. So maybe that means they're looking at their phone or taking phone calls or not paying attention at all. So until they believe you're up here or you're superior to them in the social hierarchy, they can't pay any attention to you. So you got to get past the midbrain and only then you get to the neocortex. And the neocortex is the part of brain that really can appreciate the things that you're saying about your idea, your project, yourself, whatever it is. And so that's how information moves to the brain. Until you understand that, you can't organize your persuasion, your ideas, the things you want to say correctly because you're trying to get right into the neocortex and the neocortex does not want to hear about the things that you've got to say immediately. You have to earn your way up to that part of the brain. You know, it was interesting upon reading that in your book. The first thing I was thinking about was some studies that I saw that if you put a mouse in a new environment before that mouse eats, drinks, sleeps, does anything else, it has to go around the whole room and investigate it until it feels safe to do those other things. So until that brain feels safe in that environment where you're pitching and throwing all these ideas out, it has to feel good of who you are, what's going on and quell that part of it, all those questions that it's dealing with. Yes. So you're that mouse in a way because you go to a meeting and what do you do? You talk about fucking skiing, fishing in Florida, vacation. Did you see the Super Bowl? Did you watch the playoff game? Right? Oh, it sure is hot. It's sure it's cold. Can you believe these politicians? So the reason you're seeking rapport in this way, of course, is to find a safe space to then for that social acceptance to where you can start to give your pitch or presentation, sell your ideas. So that you'll see that in other people looking for safety before they start to even feel like they can sell or pitch whatever it is. We crave that feeling of safety and that is this crock brain looking to be calm before information can move past it. Absolutely. And one of the things Johnny and I were talking about is, you know, how did you get to this point? You talked about hiring a cognitive psychologist. So how do you determine that, you know what, I need some help speaking to these people on that primitive level? Or was that totally outside of your reality until he started breaking this down for you? Yeah, I think it's really interesting because I work in a universe of deals and not, although we do help startups, you know, largely you ever think about it, you see like such and such office buildings sold for $200 million in downtown Los Angeles or in midtown Manhattan. Such building is worth $600 million. $600 million. How is it worth exactly $600 million? It's such a like round number because when you start dealing with round numbers, it's like, OK, you know, the number is $592 million. Just we'll offer you $600 million. It doesn't really matter. So in the deals that I work in, like there is money to throw at things. And all the guys I work with, they just if they have a problem, they just throw money at it. They don't go to life hacker, deal hacker, hacker net, hacker net, you know, how to get a phone bill, AT&T cheaper. There's no coupons. You know, it's like, oh, we need to be in Sacramento at three o'clock, right? There's no Southwest flight. OK, charter a plane. Oh, it's $24,000. OK, but we need to be there. Like it's no fun spending $24,000, but we also need to be there. And so when you're in the deal business, you're constantly just throwing money at problems. I mean, I just if you just come to our office and look around like, you know, I'll order when I get an iPhone, I'll order like five iPhone X's right at the same time. I lose a phone. I can't go to the AT&T store. I've got to go in a drawer and grab another phone, fire it up and keep moving. Like, you know, so we just, you know, at that level or, you know, those little phone chargers that are one hundred and twenty two dollars to battery chargers or like 50 at a time and leave them everywhere because you never find just throw money at problems. So we were working on a big deal that was a couple hundred million dollars and, you know, success in that deal for us would have been five, six million dollars in in rip or or spiff or whatever you want to call it. And we didn't feel confident that we knew the motivation of the buyers, you know, the guys we were pitching to and that's, you know, always want to know what motivates them. And so I was like, OK, you know, we did, we hired some research on them and we, you know, spent some time and calling around and we just couldn't really figure them out. I'm like, OK, I'll hire a cognitive psychologist and show him the scenario and maybe he can teach us, you know, and so I called up. It was a University of San Diego and I go, I need to hire a cognitive psychologist. I didn't say cognitive, just a psychologist. And they're like, we're not rent a psychologist. I'm like, I really it's business and academic like everyone has a price. This is not like Airbnb for psychologists where this is the University of California system. I need to talk to a psychologist and they're like, so so I explained and they go, look, can't really hire a session, but you can sponsor a lab. I don't get how much is that? They're like, it's $10,000. I mean, OK, fine. So we write a check, sponsor a lab and it was like an eye movement lab, nothing that we needed. But at least, you know, I got in a room, you know, the next couple of days with a guy that I wanted to talk to and I explained all the problem and he goes, look, you need a therapist, right? Not a cognitive psychologist. That's how we got into all this. He goes, you know, at least for the time that we're together. Let me explain to you how the brain works and that's how we fell into this whole situation. And you talk about this phrase, neurofinance, I've never come across it previously. Sure. It's novel to my mind. Can you break it down for our listeners so that they understand what it is that you're talking about? Yeah, so I think I can break it down quite simply when people pitch finance deals, right, you've got a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet has some assumptions and those assumptions, you know, you apply math in base 10 in an Excel spreadsheet and you come up with some kind of projection and that projection is typically how we're going to make money in the future. And this is a very you fall into the analyst frame. And the analyst frame triggers all kinds of neurology and things in the brain when you talk about facts, details, information and uncertainty. And generally that creates fear. Our brains were never designed to do complex math. And so when I think about the neuro, the neurology of finance, it boils down to people want what they can't have, people chase that, which moves away from them and people only value that which they pay for. And you can read Kahaneman and all this Nobel Prize, you know, finance stuff, but it just boils down to that. So yes, you have to communicate numbers, you have to communicate pro forma and assumptions and IRR and what's likely to happen in the future. And exit strategies and all that. But it for me, it has to be in context of people want what they can't have, people chase that, which moves away from them and they only value that which they pay for. And that's the neurology of finance. If you want people to buy what you have. And then after they're buying you, then the pro forma is the spreadsheets come out, they're doing their diligence. But as you say in the book, during the pitch, that is going to blog you down and that's not going to get you the deal. So yeah, I think ultimately what people miss is they you first have to create wanting and then you can provide the details that make that desire feel more certain, right? So we call it confirmatory diligence. So for most people come in, they have a spreadsheet, they have a PDF, they have press clippings, they have a PowerPoint, they have a demo and they have user experiences and they have rankings, you know, by some and all that stuff. I said that's fine. But to me, that is confirmatory diligence. That is not compelling. It is it provides certainty, but it's not compelling. So that's the first thing I do in a deal is basically throw out everything that they have because it doesn't create wanting and it's not compelling. So we say, what is compelling in a pitch? And then once people say, I'm compelled or I want it, then you layer in the stuff that provides certainty that tips them over the edge. And outside of the cognitive psychologists that you hired, it seems like hiring outside experts, mentorship played a big role in you getting to this king deal maker. You know, where did this all start? Yeah, doing deals as a kid, running a lemonade stand. What was going on? No, no, I mean, I was like this, you know, like a lot of the guys, you deal within yourselves, although age, I don't want to put words in your mouth. I mean, I was a computer geek. This is not where it all started. My dad was a college professor. We had computers growing up. You know, the I played some sports, but mainly I was in the computer lab. The girls were not like, hey, what's orange doing this weekend? Do you have orange number? Like that was not the problem. And and so I really viewed these social environments, both business, although when you're young, you don't have much business, but the social environments is confusing as like a black box, right? Like you shoot in one red marble and two blue marbles would shoot out. Right? Another time you should have red marble and three yellow marbles would come out. And then you, you know, press this button and nothing would happen. It's like a black couldn't understand how the black box of social interaction works. So I started looking for blueprints. And then years down the road, I met my partner that I worked with it with for quite a few years. And he was a natural. He had no interest in teaching. Hey, you know, I go, hey Russ, why did you do that? You know, drove around Bentley living in a mansion, you know, came out every once in a while for meetings. We spoke once a day by phone, but he would do these amazing things. I'm like, why did we do that? I'll never forget. We went to a meeting with Virgin and to meet Branson at his virgin headquarters here in Santa Monica. And I got in there and some assistant came out and I gave the assistant my card, right? And Russ literally took the card out of the assistant's hand and threw it in my face and goes, never do that. Amazing. Right? Never do that again. You know, I was obviously supplicating in some way that he didn't approve of or wasn't in his system. But he didn't explain to me why I just got my own card thrown in my face, like, you know, a poker card style. And and so he had, I mean, the lessons I learned with him were brutal. We had a 30 million dollar airplane parked at Palomar Airport and I would drive down from LA and, you know, I'd leave three hours early, but you know how traffic is. So so one day I'm six minutes away. I call him, I'm like, Russ, I'm six minutes away. He's like wheels up at eight o'clock. I mean, it's our plane, right? There's nobody else on it, but you and I were flying to San Francisco, right? Is it, you know, it's an airplane that's got 18 seats on it. And and so I'm like, I'll be there as I'm pulling up at 801. The plane is taken off. I have to drive to the airport and find a Southwest flight to San Francisco. I get there and miss the meeting. But just a million of these these stories, we drove his Bentley to a meeting. We got just two minutes before the meeting. We were at the Mondrian. He pulls our own sunset. He goes, I switch with me, right? Because I just want to jump out and go to the meeting and you can valet the car, right? So we pull up the meeting and the gas thing goes ding, right? As we pull up, he goes, go fill out the gas and then valet it. So, you know, sunset boulevard getting it like, so I felt you know, as a hundred gallon tank or something that I did that valet run to the meeting meetings over like 25 minutes long. He's like, come on, seven times driving all the way back to saying, I mean, a million of these brutal stories. But he was genius. And so to your question, I just sort of had to reverse engineer everything that he was doing. And it took him so effective, you know, just created an empire. And I would just take notes after notes and like, why did Russ do that? And I would try it and it wouldn't. So something that's interesting that happened, you know, that learned through him, man, he was such as humor. He was so good with humor. And he would immediately, when we got on a call, sort of insult the billionaires or guys managing billions of dollars. It doesn't seem like you can get to a call on time. I was like, I'll never forget this. And never forget this. So we were doing a deal, working on a deal with a big group control billions of dollars, their terms are going back and forth. And Russ replied with a three words, all caps in the subject line, lose my number. Oh, I was like, I cannot fathom what is happening. Like my brain couldn't process it. You know, they said like, when, when Columbus came into ships, the Indians like couldn't see the ships ever heard this myth. Yeah. You know, they were just like it because they just couldn't understand what was happening. Like my brain couldn't process that in the middle of a deal, like we're a respected finance firm working on a $40 million deal that our leader, just in all caps, lose my number. But then they came back around and go, oh, we're so sorry, right? We didn't mean it. Well, we capitulate on all the terms. Let's just get the deal done. And so I would see these things. And matter of fact, if I go through his emails, I don't think he rarely would write an email with more than 15 words in it. Right. And most of those were all caps. And half of those were swear words. And yet, yeah, but he did it exactly the right way at the right time. And he would use humor and be very self deprecating. But at the same time, he would be insulting people exactly the right moment. And I start to see a pattern emerge from him. And I started trying these things. And every once a while, like the ball would go through the uprights and go, oh my God, I think I just scored six points. I've had no points in my life ever. And I just kicked, you know, a field goal. I just got six points in. And so slowly, I started seeing this pattern emerge. And now I still work with him. And I'm better than him in many. I mean, he just asked funny that we're having this conversation. He just called me yesterday and said, Hey, can you help me on this deal? So student becomes the grasshopper. One of the things I'm here and I'm curious about, and we're going to be speaking about frames in a bit. But my curiosity for your partner Russ, and then this rubbing off on you, was he a very disciplined man in other areas of his life so that if things didn't go in his way and were business like, well, I'm not chasing that because I wouldn't do that in my regular life. I'm certainly not going to do it here. So that's a good question. His I mean, that's where I learned from him eradicate neediness. Never behave like you need it. Right. And he would kill deals. He would kill deals and say just that's not acceptable to us. We're not going to do that. If those are your terms, we're out. And you know, we always have some flexibility. I'm like, Russ, you know, that's a $500,000 fee for me. I don't have a lot of many $500,000 stacked up. Like I want that fee. Why do you kill that deal? Well, he didn't explain it to me. But in the end, I learned the by not being needy, you convert so many more transactions, and you do lose some. Right. So the ones that you lose feel like you could have won. But if you put them in context of all the other ones that went through, because you control the frame, you were not acting needy, and you maintain discipline. You'll see the ones you lost either were supposed to be lost, weren't going to be good partners anyway, or you lost it out of out of good process. So good process is not being needed. You're going to lose a date, you're going to lose a girlfriend, you're going to lose a deal. Yeah, it's an investor, you're going to lose a buyer or customer every once in a while. But the number that you tip in, yeah, they're far of a long game, yeah, long game, right? It's understanding that there's more deals. And this is a lifetime that I'm going to be working towards when there's an integrity to that two of what I will and will not do in order to get that deal or get the girl or whatever that may be. So I'd like to, do you guys know Mark from Seelfit? Yeah, yeah. So Mark's actually my neighbor, like literally, it's funny, he, he moved into the office right next to mine in our complex. And actually, I put a post out and all these Navy SEALs sort of like ran into our office and started combing through our stuff and everything. And I'm like, what are you guys doing in here? You know, their Navy SEAL training. They had printed out something confidential to our printer. Oh no, because they print on the wrong network. And so we weren't supposed to read it and everybody's scrubbing our office down. Commando style. But the reason I bring up Mark is he runs his workouts and they're brutal, you know, the Seelfit workouts or Kokoro, it's an, you know, they're for you. Right. And so you have integrity reps. Yeah, they can't watch you the whole time. You know, you're doing push ups or pull ups and of course they're coming by like, Hey motherfucker, you call that a pull up, right? But they can't watch you the whole time. And so they have a thing called an integrity rep. And that's where you have to do it for yourself, you know, and that they're not supposed to be watching you the whole time. And I think that's the same thing in neediness is you have to have that integrity to yourself of never acting needy because neediness kills deals. And I thought about it. And maybe this is scientific, maybe it's not. But if you think back 150,000 250,000 years ago during the early formations of society, so you didn't have anything, right? You had a woman or a man, a dog, a little bit of food, you know, that might last the rest of the day, maybe a little piece of cave, you know, protect you from the weather and two leaves and a stick, like those are the things you own. So when maybe a tool, you know, like a hatchet or something, but there was no surplus at all of food, of women, of meat, of mates. And that so when somebody came up to you and they needed something that created fear, because you didn't have anything to give them. So any kind of neediness creates a fear response. And certainly in a deal, I mean, it just goes with it. If you've ever been in a deal, if you've been in the deal business for more than five minutes, if somebody says, hey, we really need this deal, or we need this transaction, or I need this sale, or I need to get this done, there is an immediate surge of power within you. And you go, oh, you need this. Very interesting. And you start to dig in your heels and slow things out. So neediness slows down deals, kills deals, and you have to eradicate it. And there's a huge discipline around that, because when you really want to deal, you want to commission, it really does matter when you're manager or your boss or your partner is putting pressure on you to to close an investment to close a deal. You know, you're getting pushed, and it's emotional and you do need it. So the big question around pitch anything is, how do you when you need something, and you want something, and you want to sell what it is you have, do dealmaking in a way that says I don't need you. And if you don't behave in the way that's acceptable to me, or you don't do the things that I like, I'll walk away. And those are the, you know, those are the twin forces that are fighting in every deal. You can't act nady. You can't seem like you need it. You can't sell. You can't be pitchy. But on the same time, you need to close deals. And that's what pitch anything really is about is how to manage those twin forces that can pull you apart. Well, one of the things you mentioned in the book is that that money is everywhere and it can be found anywhere. And what's difficult for somebody who may be starting out is building a frame in which and cultivating abundance from scarcity, which takes time. And even in you were mentioning in one of the later stories of the book where you had left, you were down to about 1000 bucks in your accounting and which was causing you to project some eating is that you hadn't seen in a while that was coming back because of your situation. And it's obviously it's important to to not only cultivate that, but lean into it. What for young guys starting out to be able to cultivate that abundance? What do you recommend? Yeah. So first of all, I like to name things. So I think it's a pretty common. I didn't invent it, but there's the prize frame. Right. So that's a name. So first of all, this this sense of who's the most important person in a relationship creates the prize frame. One person is the prize. And one person is the supplicant. Right. And so it's funny because I laugh at all this win-win and these negotiation books. And I just read a negotiation book. I mean, they're great for hostage standoffs. Right. Like, OK, I need to get these six people back and maybe I'll get four of them. And, you know, we got to pay a quarter million dollars a person or whatever. Yeah, the negotiation is for when there's real there's something on the table. But when you're you're making a deal, the other party doesn't have to work. You're not doing a sure exchange. You're not negotiating. So the prize frame is not about win-win. There is every deal. It cannot be the economics are perfect. So there is a winner and there is a loser, even in deals that appear to be, you know, fair and and meaningful. Right. And so that in social relationships, in deals, there's there's one person who is the most important and one person who is the supplicant who is trying to get in the deal. And we're all wired to feel like the investor or the buyer is the prize that I'm trying to win the crackerjack prize. That's where it comes from. Right. I want dig in this box and win the prize. I want to perform. I went in the prize American Idol. Right. I sing for the judges. The investor we frame up in our mind as the person who will judge our performance and what it is we have against the other contestants in order to give us something. Right. And so I feel like we need to break that frame and frame ourselves as the prize. I'm the person that the buyer is lucky to be spending time with. I'm deciding if the buyer can get in my deal. I'm deciding whether to take the investor or not. So how do you organize that in your mind. Well. For my the way I feel about it and the way I go and I organize the prize frame is that money is a commodity. I can get it anywhere. And so if all the buyer can give me as money and I can get money anywhere. The opportunity is to buy my product to work with me to invest in my deal. I'm the thing that money needs deals and money needs products to buy. And so I'm the thing that the buyer prizes highly. I know more about my subject and my business than anyone. We work harder at it than anyone. If they go with the competition they're not going to get as good a product and service as working with us. I'm fun to work with. I'm fair if something needs to be done on a Sunday night. I'm there. You know I'm fortunate I would love to do. Don't stop when I'm tired or stop when I'm done sometimes I bid things incorrectly. I still finish the work. And so the buyer and investors incredibly lucky to be working with me. We have the best product. I know this better than anyone else. And the only thing they can give me is money and I can get money anywhere. And so that organizes in my mind that I'm the prize and they need to be doing things to prove that they're worthy of working with me. And so so then you go well that seems you know maybe for you you're establishing everything but what young people have to realize is that if you take a bad investor or you take a bad customer it's worse than having no customer or no investor at all. They can ruin your life. Thank you. They can completely ruin your life. So it's true. You do have to test. You do have to interrogate. You do have to prove out the customer that he's going to pay on time that if he's going to order large volumes and he's going to be there two years from now you know today in most businesses you lose money you know on a transaction even in the car business you know on the first transaction you make money over time with that customer. You choose a bad customer. Right. And you only last two or three months. You know you have the potential to lose money. So we do have to commoditize the buyer and recognize that our time our product our ability is the prize in the relationship. And some of our listeners are now are going well wait a second I'm not in a deal business I don't really understand why social skills podcast we're talking about this but these frames that you're talking about are the same thing that we do when we're pitching ourselves to the opposite sex or we're pitching ourselves to friends we talk about power and status but motivation of not being lonely of having someone to marry having friends in my life is also a very powerful motivator and the frames that you talk about in the book you know starting first with that fun right your mentor taught you that having a sense of humor even in a room where there's billions of dollars on the line and there are people with higher status your ability to come in and inject humor breaks that tension starts to build a little bit of trust starts to win them over even if it's slight and in teaching this for over a decade now that is the exact same frame we talk about when we're socializing people are out to have a good time people want and expect a good time and if you come supplicating needy trying to get fun from someone else well they're not interested yeah yeah and so yeah how I think it applies to every social situation is when when you come in and are asking for anything emotion when you're asking for your validation when you're asking for money it makes you lower on the dominance hierarchy so some ways I think about it like this and this is in the new book as well if you go back 250 300,000 years into forming societies you were born and you had two jobs to live to the age of 13 to 15 that was job one right and people around you tried to help you do that and that was not a sure thing right your second job was to procreate and have an offspring so so to to expand the gene pool right after that you were completely useless to society and the thing you would be given to do would be either as a as a soldier or as a workman right and so 25% of the male population was cleared off the bottom of the society every year it was the bottom of the social food chain of the social ladder of the dominance hierarchy was the worst place to be and so it we started to form in our minds the urgency for moving up the social hierarchy the dominance hierarchy because the bottom of the dire dominance hierarchy what meant almost certain death misery death disease decrepitness stress short life hunger did I leave anything out they recovered that you know this is not where the food was this is not where the women was as this very miserable there was an autonomy is a miserable existence at the bottom of the food chain so what you started working on immediately and this became the highest order of business for a human being was to move up the social hierarchy so anybody who seems like they will bring you down or are lower than you you did not want to coordinate with or collaborate with you were trying to move up the social hierarchy right and if somebody appeared to be slightly below you or below you you wanted to stay clear of them in your line your way up the social ladder and so when you come in and you act meaty or you feel like you're going to take energy you're going to take emotion or you don't have things to give or you don't have relationships to offer or you don't have things to to give and benefit then you appear to be low on the dominant hierarchy and people want to steer clear of you as they claw climb scratch up the the social ladder to the top where things are easy where the women are where the food is where the money is in the second frame that we talk about after sort of breaking that ice and having some fun is challenging so when we're socializing a lot of us try to seek rapport immediately right you talked about example is small talk in walking to the boardroom what's the same when we're out socializing and meeting people we want to instantly find that rapport so we can feel like we're in and now we're safe and everything is good but that actually works against you you start supplicating you start chasing other people's value their attention their approval their acceptance and all of a sudden the other person's like you know what you're pulling me down the social dominant hierarchy here I'm moving in the opposite direction of where I want to be yeah well you can you can also feel the neediness of them pulling from you of out seeking this rapport which puts you in a bad position and the first thing you want to do and in that situation if it's socially at boardroom is get out yeah and I think we were talking in normal life as well I mean I have a problem because my family or my friends will be like oh you're framing me you're controlling me and and and somebody is hard to do it all the time and it's it's what they're detecting is I'm just naturally trying to add fun add value be insightful lift everybody up and and everything like that but I'm good at it because I have to do it professionally and I can sort of create the outcomes I want very naturally and so the the people closest to me will say you're you know you're you're framing me and yeah but I'm just I'm just trying to do the best for everyone I had that question because obviously the book has lots of examples of setting the power frame and challenging people in you know some would deem even like uncomfortably crazy like eating someone sandwich grabbing an apple from someone who's in the middle of enjoying it so obviously there's this this plethora of frames or plethora of power frame that we could work with but you know this in its nature in dealmaking is a little adversarial you know how do you deal with your spouse and your kids when you know obviously going for the power frame is not going to win you much favor in the household. Yeah so I mean I so one of my key topics is conflict all right and so I am constantly creating and solving conflict because you can't have any good you can't have a 30 second commercial that's good you can't have a three minute video you can't have a movie you can't have a TV show without generating conflict so it can be resolved. So I'll tie this back into humans as well. The whenever you hear about human conflict or you see people fighting or arguing or it draws our attention immediately. So if you hear two people are outside in the office you know fighting you don't care what you're doing you're doing you're in a million dollar Bitcoin trade you're like you know you gotta run outside and see what this fight is about right. The best shows generate conflict that then needs to be resolved. So humans are attracted to conflict and pay attention to it because it is a simulation for arguments and life situations that we want to learn about how people resolve conflict without having to be in it right because it was in the past again 200,000 years ago it was extremely dangerous to be in any kind of conflict with any other human right because the way we resolved conflict is by killing each other 25% of the entire male male population as I said was wiped off the face of the earth every single year that time. So anytime you saw conflict you will immediately rush to and see how those people resolved it as a sort of simulation engine so you would know when you got into a similar kind of conflict how you could get out of it. So conflict attracts us immediately and creates attention. So when I see people come in and pitch deals as young people old people medium people the the the thing that's missing is tension it's right the deal is sweet saccharine sticky everything's beautiful. It's Nirvana nothing is going to go bad. It's a perfect product for the perfect market for the perfect people with the perfectly terrible non-existent competition at the perfect price point with huge margins and it's all idealistic right. And so that's sweet. And then when you there's no tension and so if you think about any joke any story that you have has three steps to it right. It's got set up path to pay off and pay off whenever you look at a path to pay off and a joke in a movie in a TV show that is about creating tension right. So payoff or satisfaction is about resolving tension. Any deal that you propose any relationship that you start to enter has got to have some tension so it can be resolved for satisfaction. That is why you know if you're watching a movie and a guy goes up to the bar and he says to a you know says to a woman hey can I buy you a drink. Oh that's a beautiful dress. You know what are you doing in town. And and the woman responds. Oh hi my name is Susan. Nice to meet you. Anybody who's ever been in a bar goes that doesn't happen right. Except to Brad Pitt or whatever maybe not even to Brett like that's not how it works right. So so if there's nothing no conflict no tension nothing to resolve then humans don't have anything to do in a relationship and in a deal in a relationship there has to be some tension some conflict now you know that can be take can't be taken as aggressive or mean or you know deprecating or or cruel but it gives something to discuss right. So so whenever you see a relationship that hasn't worked out ask yourself you know was there a setup. Sure was there a conflict and then was a conflict resolved and I bet the conflict was missing. So with your spouse and kids you're constantly setting conflict and waiting for the resolution. I do yes it is one of the criticisms of my personality is that I create conflict around the house so we can have fun and resolve it and yes for sure. So what's an example of a recent conflict that maybe you've gotten you in a little hot water. Well I mean I think we talked about earlier so you know I built this monster truck for our four year old and I remember it came around the corner of it was it was his birthday it was three and and I had somebody drive it up and I got come on guys come outside the monster truck drove around the corner and it showed up and my wife then three year old looking at it and three year olds going nuts right and he's so happy and my wife looks at it and she looks at me and she goes that better be a rental and but you know keeping her on her toes. Well I think a lot of people hear conflict and immediately they go oh yeah I have to avoid that right that's the last thing I want it goes back to the supplicative frame that that proceeds through deal making through meeting someone for the first time whether it's flirting or even trying to win friends right we want to prove ourselves to them we want to be agreeable by nature we have to avoid conflict but the best deal makers the best charismatic people person uses conflict to their advantage they can mix up conflict and use it in a way to create attention create that tension that everyone feels that allows them to move things forward. So I'll give you a little tool that that I use with so I've quite a lot of friends who are very wealthy they don't have a lot of time and I like to stay in touch with them and that you know really have time to hear about my little boy and he you know he's ice skating he's he's in hockey we had a birthday party it was father's day he made me waffles like they have their own kids and their own lives and so but we'd like to touch base and so I always use one upmanship with them because it's fast it's high conflict it's fun it's high stakes and so I will call and this is great I will call my friends who are in finance or specialist cake decorators right I saw this on Orange County choppers doesn't right because they'd be like the real motorcycle manufacturer like welders and would criticize Orange County guys as cake decorators like you just order parts and bolt them on so so I love that and so you know I call like my guy who buys hotels and office buildings and I go oh how's cake decorating like yeah you buy it you know you put a new entrance way in and then you sell it cake decorating like I'm doing real business right and so they know you're not really insulting them but it's high so so start calling your friends and your business associates you just want to do a quick check in and say how's cake decorating right and they'll be a sort of a little bit irked and they'll come back with something that they're always respond right that tension gets filled so like I have to keep touch with three or four hundred guys who are all worth more than fifty million dollars and they really don't care what I'm doing my accomplishment and that I'm keeping a dream journal or have a vision board or launch a website or doing a blog or I got a new camp like you know they're doing their own things like you know so I'll go oh hey are you still flying around that hawker for right like I saw him flying overhead but it's so hard to see those like even when they're flying low but I squinted I thought anyway what's what do you what are you up to you know or I'll just go you know how's that cabana and Malibu right whatever it is they're doing I just try and minimize it and tweak them and I think you do that with your good friends anyway naturally but that engages them shortly they remember you it's a big spark cake decorating it's it's funny we were talking about this earlier this morning at the gym and there's two parts to this like for one a lot of this communication is being lost nowadays with all the tech and we're losing the nuance and you know you might have to send a winky face or or the smiling emoji just for them to get it but to me this is that the mad men of being in the office of being able to give each other shit and understand it that this is all part of that game and we're we're losing that nuance with all the technology that we're communicating with now which can be difficult the other thing we're talking about today was that when somebody is learning this trick or trying to bring that into their personality and use it they they tended the pendulum swings from not having it to now working with and find themselves getting bounced out of a lot of places or having a hard time applying it because they've got nuance is a difficult thing to to learn so I right I find people the folks who work for me I have to train them to be maybe the word is not more aggressive but to be use this more familiar form of communication with our guys we're trying to sell or with our new clients that they're not familiar with right it's so you do this with your friends or you do this with your buddy from college but the you know the account that could bring you $100,000 commission yes sir thank you very much please really appreciate it we'll get right back to you thank you for coming to call today really appreciate you coming in all this sort of supplicating behavior right and so what I try and teach them as here's a good one that that we use quite effectively right so if we have a call set with a potential new client and they could be worth a couple million bucks and you know as they always do because they think they're so important they'll dial in at 10.04 right and so I'll go hey guys what are you here for the 10.04 call right the 10 o'clock call started a while ago but so you're here for the 10.04 call is that right and and they'll react to it and they'll recognize so the way to understand what you can and can do is the moral authority frame the way to introduce conflict or tension is when you frame somebody or their actions or behavior outside the norm when you occupy the social center norm straight down the fairway straight line things the way it's always done the normal behavior coming to a call on time coming to a meeting and bringing somebody coffee you know going to going somewhere for dinner and bringing them a bottle of wine and we have social norms we have business norms you know coming to a meeting prepared of having your laptop you know powered up and there's just there's a million things that are normal and the way to jump on somebody is when they're doing slight something outside the norm right and then they completely understand it's fair game and they come back all yeah yeah we're sorry we'll do it better next time so literally you want a billionaire to say sorry to you within two minutes of meeting with you right say really you couldn't find a parking spot right you want us to do a hundred million dollar deal with you and you couldn't find a parking spot right we're not encouraged and it's a way of being collegial fun it's behavior we have with your friends but you have to frame the behavior as being outside the norm and then you can get away with almost anything so I think it's funny to a lot of people you know when they get called out for doing something that's outside the norm or that being late even with Jesse came he was stuck in traffic he was late he felt so bad he's like I owe you guys any time we're going to hang out and it's it's it's great to always have that in your your pocket it's certainly going to be an edge up in that boardroom I was here early today we heard did a meditation tape we had to wake you up actually so incredible you're morning afternoon coffee I've got all this accoutrement for resetting because my I live someone in finance is somewhat stressful life but I have these resets I can only imagine but if I'd come late I would have said who sets a meeting in Los Angeles at four o'clock right next time I do anything with you it's 11 o'clock or no time right so I mean that's that's fair like it's a horrible time to to so that frameworks both ways because now you're kind of pushing back on the other person I think this is where when people listen to this is like I I could do this with Johnny Johnny's my friend right I can bust his chops all day I know that he's still going to like me but when I'm meeting someone for the first time when there's a deal on the line there's hundreds of millions of dollars I can't bust that guy's chops but this combination of the fun challenging frame that we talk about on the social side is that exact same thing and you talk later in the book about frame stacking and how when you can get good at stacking these frames together for sure you can be very effective in the deal room and we say socially I think for for people listening the big one is the power frame which is everybody's experience that it's the guy who barely responds to the highlights of your deal or your presentation or that your your interaction sort of grunts or really just wants information we just want the information we all deal with that you know a lot of times the analysts a lot of times of the investors it can be the CEO of a company and so they're sort of lording over you and they're not giving to me sort of normal reciprocation in the relationship that to me is that is the power frame they are feel and are exhibiting behavior that says they're more important than you they're not participating in in the conversation so you may present them a great feature of your software that makes most people go ah that's amazing and they may say nothing or go please continue you know so that's the power frame and so you it sort of leaves you two choices if you don't know what you're doing and that is to just become the supplicant and fall into oh yes I'll continue you know so you get that point or will continue do you have any questions you know and and keep with the presentation and fall into the person trying to impress them and the other thing people fall into is coming up directly in combat with it sort of like power frame to power frame and and saying something like hey you know it's important that we get feedback on this item before we can continue right and then they'll say you could do what you want I have another 15 minutes right and standing your hands like your feet on fire if you want but you got 15 minutes to do it then I got a jet right and so that's how the the power frame would come back and you would just be in argumentation my sense of the way to deal with or combat or overcome or break the power frame is through the expert frame right and that is when you when you have an expertise that somebody needs and doesn't have then they will they don't have any power or control over you and so when you combine that with the ability to move forward discussing your expertise without needing their appreciation without needing their acceptance without needing their sort of social cues that you're doing well then you will bring them over to your side when you're the expert in what you do nobody nobody really knows the one thing that you do better than then whatever it is then you do and you don't for a while need them to display attention to you then you can overcome the power frame so you think about there's the prize frame there's the power frame there's the expert frame there's the analyst frame and these are all things that I've named but you can name these scenarios yourself and you can't really deal with it until you name and sort of saying hey that was a tough sale that's not a name right that's just a a label of challenge right that was a one that was a five that was that was a 10 but give names to these situations then you can start to figure out socially how to deal with them and when it comes to the power frame and you're in a situation in the boardroom like that you know we talk about stronger frame dissolves a weaker one yeah and when people hear that they think again I got to bash this person with my power frame and we got to fight over how many minutes we have left in our calendar and who's more important and then nothing happens yeah and in those situations when you're in that deal room one how quickly are you assessing what the frame is who's these who these characters are and two is there something that you do religiously to set that frame before the other person can set the power frame is that something that comes to mind of like I got to be there first so I think that in a room where there's multiple players on their side and if it's one of you or you know a group to a group or you presenting to a group without answer that is you have to find a peer on their side that's so that the peer is someone that you can have open direct collaborative high stakes sometimes in conflict sometimes in agreement conversation right so you have to organize their group into classical dominance hierarchy positions so they will have typically at least in the deals I am in they will have a CEO they will have the business development guy they will have the lawyer they will have some woman you have no idea who she is right and then they'll have a couple analysts and so you have to think about how to treat and organize all these people to really your benefit so the CEO you will be you will have deference to right that's the way to treat him the you find a peer and you will have direct high conflict high stakes conversation with it with the analysts you will not be dismissive of them but you will be complimentary of them because they're going to be trying to disprove the things you're saying and you'll be complimentary of them of the person you don't know who they are you know you'll be sort of testing and trying to figure out who they are and with the lawyers you'll be trying to reframe them be somewhat dismissive of them oh you brought the lawyers that's awesome I love lawyers anytime I want to spend $450,000 in like a week to get a two page document I already have I call in the lawyers I'm so glad you're here yeah right CEO terrific that you're here I know you're running a company right and will freely even anytime I promise I will not negotiate hard against your awesome team here so if you have other things to do I totally understand I promise I won't take advantage of the team right so so deference to them and not take them on with the peer you know say hey I looked at you know I looked at your LinkedIn you know I would pick on something there it looks like you've been in business development here for three years right is there you know you couldn't bring the five year guy where's he right or I just have to work with you I've been doing this for ten years now I got a three year guy that I'm working I'll try and help you along with this right and and so that is that's the high tension right with the analysts hey I'm glad you guys are here right you're going to find things that I say that are not right right and and absolutely I'm not going to argue with you right you're going to poke holes in the spreadsheet you're going to poke holes in our numbers you're going to poke holes in my market data and I'm you're the smartest you know I'm looking at you guys first of all like just impeccably you're on the smartest guys you went to good schools I did not go to a good school I don't have these analytical skills and I defer to you the things that you're going to point out I agree we have done wrong we will try to fix and no disagreement and by the way I'll have my analysts you know meet up with you when they have an hour or two hours and you guys can focus on the the books and the numbers so that's how you start to organize all those people ahead of time so they don't interrupt you or disrupt the meeting and you've got to in essence pigeonhole them and put them into place that's how I would control a room just walking into it there was something interesting there I wanted to point out and I don't know if it was just something you were just saying as you were going through this or there was a particular reason but I if there is I think I might be able to see it but when it was the business developed guy you chose to fuck with him a bet but you built up the the analysts a bet that's right was there so was there a reason why those guys so they can only make themselves look good by poking holes in your numbers your presentation the things you say disproving your facts and so they in fact the analysts or the junior people are going to make themselves look good to their boss by finding holes in your logic or finding something right so when you say hey guys you're going to find things in this presentation that I've done wrong there you're going to poke holes in our numbers and you're going to find things that are probably categorically incorrect I agree with you you're way smarter than we are you know this stuff you know you're highly analytical we're for this first meeting we're trying to give you the general gist of what we're doing but I promise you by the end of the deal we will do what you say and we'll be in alignment with you on the numbers and we agree with you and you're sort of taking the frame their control away right it deflates their excitement to define those holes well what's funny about that in socially when we'll get one of the questions we get asked a lot a guy will usually if it comes to like he's out maybe he's interested in a certain girl in a group he's like well how do I let her know and and and deal with her friends who are trying to maybe get me away or or mess with me we always say is is compliment the friends and give her a hard time to the one that you're interested in so that their guard is now coming down and he's all right but yet she's still trying to figure out why you're messing with her yeah I agree I mean we had a CEO that for no reason you know at a coffee shop he would berate the barista yeah what do you mean you don't have cinnamon to what's the sport you know they already you know it's 24 year old kid working at a coffee shop obviously doesn't want to be there you know it looks like a cool guy and he's doing it to make money or put himself to college or maybe at a kid or whatever what where's the sport in attacking that guy right and so it's the same thing with the analysts it's you know treat the younger guys with deference give them credit for what they're good at ahead of time and tell them that they're right so lawyers will do this right those if they have a you know a rough client they'll say you look at my client right and you're gonna say you know this is the M&M song opening right you're gonna look at my client he's gonna say he's a derelict you know that he that he you know lives in a trailer park that he's a drunk that he's a sometimes drug user right that he has 17 felonies on his record that he came to court late today right and you're gonna look at all these things and you're gonna see that right and we admit to it freely I'm gonna show you another side of him that you may not be able to see at face value you know whatever so you want to for for those analysts you you want to give them deference and raise them up a little bit and you'll treat everybody in everybody in the room has a position and archetype and you have to think about it so you've got you know again the CEO business development you got the lawyers you got the analysts you got the unknown concillary you have the secretary and it's funny that's how I got my book deal with pitch anything because I walked in to the publisher and they very very obviously the the lead editor of large New York publisher is matronly she's older she had just has the look of a view of New York educated New York educated published academic journals you could just feel the difference between the editor you know and all the other young people in the room and I walked in and I say you know I point to her I go thank you so much for sending up the appointment the you know your emails have been great you're one of the best admins you know that we've ever had and I can't wait to meet the person in charge because you know for as good as you are the editor must be terrific when when do we get to meet her right and she got all fluffed and the the young people got all you know tittering and everything and they're like he's doing it he's doing it and and so it you know created fun for everybody so you don't want to fall into you want to you know we say you don't want to fall into the frames that are preset for you where you're supplicating to the leaders you are combative with the analysts right the lawyers are interrupting you and you allow them interrupts you want to get all this set up correctly to work for your deal or you know that's just it when when we break those patterns we stand out everyone that you talk to in that meeting the analysts came that morning knowing that I'm going to poke some holes in this I can't wait to show the CEO how on top of this deal I am and you just not only manage to set the frame for everyone else but all that gusto is gone right now they're ready to be entertained they're ready to pay closer attention to deal so so that's I think you know huge subject for me is you in a deal or in a business presentation your job is infotainment deliver the information but you need to give some information put in a FedEx packet mail it to them that's how you get information to someone or attach it to an email people come to meetings to learn get real insight meet new interesting people hear novel ideas and advance their relationships and their knowledge of the world and be entertained and so I think of these presentations as a performance and so they should if you if you think about a comedian the best comedians you see you feel like you just strolled on stage he's just off the cuff riffing off this material but if you watch him practice right oh we've seen Jim Jeffrey's two years before some of his stuff made air and that he was working on so a lot of time and care goes into that whole show right right I mean it's you know what the secret of great comedy is ask me what's the secret of great comedy timing gotcha so so so you know this is a performance and that's why I try and teach people is that buyers want information in the order that the questions come up in their mind that is your presentation not the things that you want to say it is when you know what order to say things and how to manage the frame then then they don't ask questions like people will say hey what do you do when somebody asks a question in the middle of a presentation and you know I was recently asked and I'm like I I don't know why don't I know I should know this because I haven't been asked a question in a middle of presentation in 10 years it just doesn't happen because I give first of all you know a couple things going on one is I view it as a performance sure absolutely every time I give it it gets better I think about how to make it more and so that's one it's a performance when I'm giving people the information answering the questions that come up in their mind in the order that those questions pop up I'm raising the questions that are the obvious skepticism I'm not waiting for the end where they go oh so well is this even legal to do you know if it's if it's there's an obvious question that you know you're going to get I'm putting that up front and say I know what you're going I know what you're thinking is this even legal right we had that question as well so we went out and we you know we got attorneys and we you know we spent six months figuring it out turns out it's not legal in Florida right but in California we're out where we are you can actually do it you know whatever it is so the presentation of performance you're asking the questions that pop up in the mind of the buyer the investor that you know as they as they come up and you're managing these frames that we've been talking about and that's what makes a great pitch presentation whatever you want to call it in in what we teach of the art of charm the frames fun challenging and the last one is is leader because at this point you got him opened up everyone's feeling a little comfortable laughing now you've stood up for yourself you've pushed back in a playful way but you let them know that hey I have a backbone I'm not suppelative then there's always this what do we do next and a lot of us don't step into that tension and say well I'm going to actually tell you what to do next I'm going to make sure that we actually take that next step do you find that it's the same when you're pitching deals so I think it's more prominent or accentuated it's a bigger problem because you give the pitch typically you get all your information out all you give out all your objective information so people give out all their objective information out because it's the easy stuff like we know what our product does right we know how it works we know that Microsoft says it's great we know our performance you know we can show the demo so all the objective information comes out then the subjective information comes out that's the nuance people say it's great I know will work for you here's the you know here's a reference and this is all the things that add that we're trying to trying to stoke desire but then you get to the point where you're done all your objective information all all your rapport is done your networking people we know in common oh you like skiing I like skiing you fish in Florida fish in Florida oh your sister went to UCLA my sister went to UCSD maybe they know like all that stuff is out and you've given out all your objective information and use all your subjective formulas and nuances but so then you get to a point where you go so what do you think is this something you'd be interested in do you have any questions and that is exactly the problem that transition is when the buyer takes over and he goes no no questions really appreciate you presenting very interested we you know we have to do something like this we're really excited about meeting you you seem to be like one of the best pricing seems really fair once you send us all the information and we'll talk amongst ourselves I talk to my wife we'll talk to our partner we'll go to committee we'll talk to the board right and we'll get back to you and then they disappear and now you're chasing them again you know and so that is the problem that when you get to the end of your presentation no matter how well you've done it if you don't know how to continue it then you're hosed because buyers just want to they have all the information they need they've largely know the price they don't need you anymore and they just and they're tired and they have other things to do they just want to go away and so basically they're saying thanks appreciate the information and so the question is what do you do at that point that doesn't transfer all the power over to them and they just go thanks we need to go we've seen it happen so many times when it comes to getting a job networking getting a date where you know the guy will do all this work get the girl interested or or get somebody interested in going to meet for coffee to work together and all the entertainment's been done all the information is given and then it comes down to so so if you want to hang out sometime when you can give me your number and I'll give you a ring yeah yeah just like why are you going to do all that work and then and give that person the ball you have to lead and it's absolutely questions at that point it's clear statements alright so I'll be check in I'm going to be sending over the contract next week we'll get things signed up alright we're going to be grabbing coffee next week Tuesday looks like we're both clear one of the things that I've always said about that is you've done all this work where there is rejection going to be all the way through that and they haven't done it so push through that last bit of where that rejection could be they haven't done it yet so what makes you think they're going to do it at that point I made a really nice video never meet in coffee shops because my understanding you know from your world never meet for coffee because what is going to you know on a date what is going to happen at a coffee shop yeah you know nothing is going to happen at three in the afternoon at Starbucks I guarantee you right things happen at like 1030 at night right in your apartment but not but but and for business you know in all seriousness like these are the worst possible environment for a real presentation to happen or picture trying to move something for there's all kinds of people walking around you're sitting in these tiny little like a midget chairs you know kids chairs there's if you're in an area that the buyer and investor this happens all the time when I used to do coffee shop meetings somebody will come up and go oh hey Frank and they'll just talk to that guy for 10 minutes and you're sitting there not knowing what to do because they have a better relationship and then they go oh I only have five minutes I mean these coffee shop environments are terrible for business presentations you know not bad get get to meet you and get you know get to know you for a business guy there and not bad but they're they're bad environments but so so what do you guys recommend and we'll compare and contrast our methods so give a presentation right all the objective information out all the subjective information out you've given all the compelling stuff and then where do you go from there yeah to my point of that fun challenging the leader steps in and now you're making clear directive statements that allow the other person to know very clearly what the next steps are yeah because once they are excited most of us just need to know okay well what can I do next how can I take that action and it's the same thing in sales as you talked about right with a poor salesman is like how do I handle these objections a smart salesman has already covered the objections at the start of the call so that the end of the call there are no objections to go over so it's the same across all of those lines in in our mind in the way that we frame things for our clients so I'm more aggressive with it and this is a script that I would give you which is so listen AJ I like you it seems like this would be a perfect fit this deal matter of fact I'm from meeting you in the conversation I'm really interested in the possibility of us working together but if you gave me a check right now I'd hand it back to you I don't know enough about you how do you behave in a deal you know what other deals have you done what has happened when those deals have gone sideways you show up you know trying to help the deal do you put the jack boot on the neck of the company what of your you know do you really understand what an early stage company needs in terms of time frame what are your time frames you know who are your associations what you know what deals have you been in they've gone bad and then gone good I just tell me about yourself I don't know enough about you to say I'm ready to spend the next three years with you as my customer you as my investor and so that challenge they just set the buyer frame now you're the buyer they have to sell to you they're in the lower value position so if you give crappy presentation supplicate have everything out of order not sure where you are winging it take a long time and have no knowledge of frames and then you do that as perfectly as they can be done as it can be done they'll say what what are you talking about you're annoying me right now right absolutely if you give a performance yeah it's done within 15 or 20 minutes you answer the questions that are in their mind in the order they're having them the big idea how things are changing what the problem is what your solution is what it is specifically how it works what the key assumptions are what the pro forma or the upside is with the downside protection is what the team is and a little bit about other people to use it or who thinks you're going to do all of that correctly in 15 minutes and you manage the frames and you give a professional presentation that communicates I'm in the hand I'm in the hands of a professional and then you say to the buyer or the person you're working with but I just don't know enough about you then you have challenged them to the quality of your presentation to present back to you and they don't have a presentation to give so they start fumbling around starting to come up you know it's almost like a one of these dance offs right right now they got to figure out reasons that you should work with them and they weren't prepared it's to come up to your level it's to come up to your story 11 storytelling level that you've established they want to you've lowered it in that micro environment you've lowered their social status to below you you are a great storyteller you've got all your you it's funny you laugh they cry you got all the information the right order you know you told a few jokes at the right time you gave them new information they're like why you're an incredible storyteller this is great information and they have been lowered a little bit in social status when you lower somebody in social status the number thing they want to do the number one thing they want to do is get it back right and so now they're going to try and tell their story at the same quality that you told yours but they won't be able to because you practice you've organized it you know the frames you know all the information it's unfair and they'll start fumbling around and in trying to organize a story winging it on the fly it won't be as good as you can actually help them tell their story and allow them to get their social status back to be appear with you that is the thing that really creates a you know the end of your presentation somebody is saying coming in trying to work with you instead of saying I just can leave thanks for the information so we covered a lot of ground on the actual pitch setting the frames and all the parallels between socialization and winning the deal and you talk in the book a lot about your preparation right in order to even be ready to give that amazing performance there's a lot of preparation that goes into it you know a lot of our listeners they're not closing hundred million dollar deals just yet but they want to get in the door they want to pitch their idea they have this great idea that they need funding for what are your tips to them to get that pitch meeting and is there something that you do first and do you believe in the elevator pitch even I mean the elevator pitch is a little weird in the way it's in all the old books I would say today the way to get the meeting is certainly two things context and winter is coming winter is coming we've you know everybody knows from Game of Thrones so something is changing really dynamically in your world right and you have to leave behind or stop doing some activities and prepare for this huge change because companies that are prepared and adopt it are going to get you know fall behind and be laggards in their industry and companies get this right are going to be the leaders for the next years to come winter is coming so if you don't have that what winter is you need it the second thing is context right if somebody so I have a pretty good media footprint if I go out to dinner somebody will walk up and say please sign my girlfriend's boobs or whatever but and so I'm recognized all over the world and you know just I get a lot of people every day emailing me coming up to me talking to me and I just I don't have enough time to give everybody a shirt if somebody comes up and says hey I read on your blog you know what you said about the dominance hierarchy I know your book is dropping in the spring of 2019 I pre-ordered it and I really love what you said a minute 20 in your art of charm broadcast right that's so much context like I know that it's not they're not coming home they're not going to waste my time you know there's some relevance there and then they go I jumped on your website and I saw that you're not in G.P.R.A. compliant and that you know there's there's a 250 millisecond load time which is like five times too slow to get I'll bet your response rates on your website and signups would double if you could fix those two things yeah then I'm in yeah there you go I don't even know I don't even know I'm being sold right I just fall into that go really how do we because there's context and winter is coming something is changing so matter of fact the better way to do that would be 250 so the new standard that Google is ranking on see an SEO is 50 millisecond response time anybody who's got a 250 millisecond response is five times too slow for the new standard and those sites are going to fall to page 10 of Google in one day and anybody who's at 49 milliseconds like a high frequency trader is going to be the leader in their niche for the next two years and then I'm just there's nothing I can do I'm just gonna boy how do we work together right the guy who pitched you they certainly could have used that yeah I've not to throw you under the bus but I did a wicked reports demo and I was actually waiting for you know the simple benefits to me personally just start showing me someone else's dashboard all these figures and numbers and as somebody runs the company I'm like I don't need to see someone else's dashboard I just want to know what are the problems that I have and how are you going to fix them in a very straightforward way and then tell me the price tell me how I actually make this happen 45 minutes no price he at the end of the goes hey if you have any questions just go ahead and email me I'm like who gives a presentation expecting there to be questions at the end of it you just wasted my time and now I don't trust your software yeah so I think you know this this falls into a lot of the you know the training that salespeople have that might be in the manuals or sales managers is sort of this feature benefits type selling so if you think about it a feature is something that's objective and a benefit is something that's subjective that's opinion right and so what happens is when you do feature benefits you say you know whatever this microphone it has this incredibly phone sound absorbing phone that means that your listeners will enjoy the presentation better it's got this articulating arm and the arm means that it can be positioned perfectly for anybody's voice that means your show will be sound better to audiences and you'll have more downloads right and you know as I'm saying this you might feel like frustration mounting the electronics in the microphone are noise deadening so it doesn't pick up the noise canceling so all the movement of coffee cups and everything like that and again that means you'll get more downloads and it'll sound better and people will like your show better right so the the problem with this is we're bound I don't know what the product is before you're asking me essentially to buy it so it's much of when we reorganize presentations tell the buyer in without any editorial or color or you know emphasis what it is buyers want to know what it is then tell them why what it is is good for them the value and then ask them to buy when you're going feature benefit feature benefit feature benefit the benefit is subjective which is you're trying to get somebody to believe something that is not a fact that means you're selling them right give all the features then give all the benefits roll that into a value proposition and say what are we gonna do I like it yeah and so I think there's just ways that are outdated that are in all the books and if you think alike because because the books were the books were built in a time where sales person people you know and Dan pink and everybody talks about this there was a symmetry the sales person actually had information that you had to put up with a bunch of crap from a sales person because they had information about the product you just couldn't get you couldn't go to the review side you can hop online and pull up all the other competition out there so there was a lot more trust placed in the salesman I think about it like this you know if you had a pencil salesman you go this pencil is the best pencil in the world it draws a line unbroken two miles long and the buyers are like oh I don't know like two miles it seems like sure as hell I'm not gonna drive down to the county library look that shit up I didn't have to believe him or not right today they're like oh no according to google you know the longest line drawn by a pencil is three miles long by the number two pencil company right so they're fact checking you they come knowing information so uh... there's much higher expectations on the quality and the conciseness of the information because I already know it and so people can come to buy your stuff or do a deal with you knowing more about your stuff in some ways than you do you know it's funny I think one of the greatest most well-known sales movies of all times is glengary glen ross and that whole alex ball went up front and of course then after that you get just to see all these different types of pictures you get to see uh... jack lemon being very supplicative in fact it's so supplicative you're cringing into screen at all his moves um... you're you're watching albachino be slick uh... messing with the guy getting in the lab getting him to open up body language wise uh... and all those different sales pictures are in there as well the uh... I would recommend to everybody go to google and type in alpachino soundboard oh yeah it's great it's it's there's two of them they're amazing you can basically construct the greatest sales page you have no supplicating every response to a buyer's question can be driven by the alpachino soundboard so if you want to get involved with the stuff and go how do i not say please thank you all time not supplicate to a buyer this is great alpachino soundboard so all the salesmen saleswomen go to the soundboard we're big on body language we believe that it's a huge part of communication I know the studies vary and the numbers get thrown around a lot but outside the studies we know the importance of body language when it comes to the pitch how aware of you how aware are you of your body language and the body language in the room so this is tricky uh... i uh... become a nap i mean i have people come up after my presentation and say that was amazing can you teach me the body language and now what do you guys know roger love yeah you should have him on here he's awesome okay yeah he's amazing uh... somebody doing a conference with roger he's a voice coach yeah if you get past this contact and we get asked for voice coach a lot too he's he's terrific so he's he showed me a lot uh... so for example i used to do a lot of jesus-like movements both my hands were in synchronicity and so he showed me it doesn't really matter what you do with your hands as long as they're not in parallel because that makes you look like a politician it makes you look like a preacher and so these kinds so as long as your hand movements are uh... asymmetrical it comes across as natural powerful and then the other thing is i've let you know like you guys i've done three hundred and fifty maybe not podcast but we do a weekly hour give me a lot of time in front of the camera a lot of time for the microphone and they speak from stage so when i do presentations people are like who are you feel like they're getting a stage performance you know around conference table so i think i have it a little bit unique but i would say uh... the body so i'm not that aware of it people react to it and they like it uh... and and so that is about getting reps and about having somebody there whether it's roger loves a voice coach to cure your tics bad habits you know we talked about the podcasting guy that was constantly reaching for the microphone or anything so we all have them we have them with our clients we film them interacting socially with beautiful women that is intimidating and you know these things creep up subconsciously we're not even aware of them because we're worried about the other person thinks you see yourself on video start to pick up on these things as you i'm sure i've watched video yourself on stage you realize that you know some of these things i'm doing are not effective at all and making you look the opposite of what i'm trying to come across for sure for sure so uh... that that i'm very aware of it because it works for me really well so what about reading everyone else's body language i know you're setting the frame so if someone is closing themselves off and and looking disinterested are you trying to adjust their body language in any way so one of the disadvantages i have in my business is we're always pitching something different so i never really get to the point where i'm so much in control of myself that i can start to monitor other people i think about like rate if you go to race motorcycles in the first time you ever get on a race track like will spring with that performance motorcycle you go holy yeah i'm gonna die like every single minor variable is a major issue in your mind and then you know you go around the track and you maybe have done that for a year or two years and all the things that freaked you out the first time you set aside in your mind and you're only focusing on the really big variables that matter and so i think about it in that context at the reps every time you do a rep it takes one more variable and parks it in the subconscious and you're not aware of it and then eventually you know you're giving that picture giving that presentation or having that conversation in a way that you're not self-conscious you're you don't have to self-monitor all the things you're doing now you can start to be observant what other people are doing and uh... and and so i don't have the benefit of getting to that point in our presentations you know i deal comes to me i package it we go present it thirty times you know if finances and then it's behind us and we move on to the next one well you even mention it at the end of the book where it's okay now you read this throw it out and go out there and start pitching it's reps and we see it all the time people will come in i've read all the books listen to the podcast watch new videos online and it's like that all changes yeah the bootcamp is two hundred reps it's built into the bootcamp that you are getting those reps you get the feedback you need to make the major adjustments not the minor ones as you talked about that motorcyclists on the course right there's so many variables and you're worried about the minor ones that have no impact on your ability to stay on the motorcycle same thing socially we can get so in our head and so worried about things that don't matter and i'm glad you pointed that out to the listeners because one of the things that they are always hyper aware of is reading other people's body language and thinking they can get inside their mind based on the way they're sitting and science doesn't back that up there are times where i'm going to cross my arms because i'm cold and there are times i'm going to cross my arms because i'm just not interested in what you have to say i you know i have don't hit when you have a good presentation you have a good conversation pattern or blueprint or report that works on the human mind it basically works on most people or no people so i think about like rock bands right so so you go give a performance you don't go oh well now we're in miami so let's infuse a little bit of like rock music works because it fucking works absolutely right it brings something primal out in people when you also don't want to be reactive to where you are because that takes you off your game you want to be fully ready to roll stronger for themselves the weaker one do you want to be so and that that whole performance from top to bottom is mapped out so we reactive i'm reactive after the presentation in the post analysis you should have the great presentation capture speech to the people's imagination it's a performance you do it as well as it can be done yep and you live with the outcome let's talk about that outcome because you know that there are these two opposing forces we talked earlier about pricing right you want to frame yourself as a prize you want to win and with that there's failure you know you are not going to win every pitch as you said some of these times you got to go out and pitch 30 times before the deal closes sure how do you build up the tolerance for failure while keeping that pricing mindset for me it is knowing that we did we prepared did the best work possible and we gave i mean my four-year-old has books from Pete the cat do anybody here have kids no okay you got it and by the way never talk about kids and uh so when we fly the plane right if you go if you mention your kids or your wife people are like uh right if you go on bringing my girlfriend they're like oh great does he have any friends so but so so anyway you know our little boy for it has a book called Pete the cat and that thing finish up do your best right and that's all you can do yeah he tried his best and so i prepared i didn't wing it i really thought about what would be best for the other person and i brought my best material best performance and tried to help them authentically if that didn't work i did the best i could do right i'm not going to change my values my my value system my integrity or or uh beg or supplicate if it's not good enough then it's not going to i did my best i mean that's the way you have to internalize it i mean if you want to get metaphysical it's sort of you know i've had some down times in my life where you know that that's whenever you you know you don't pick up the metaphysical books when you're like no i just close a 50 million dollar deal i've bought my third Lamborghini and a helicopter right oh you're caught at that point right let me uh pick up a copy of ryan holliday's uh interpretation of esoph fables to learn about myself right it's just like oh my god i have 11 dollars you know where uh what do the stoics say you should he goes the enemy right better pick this up no my shitty business idea is the enemy um so but but at those times when i have looked at stoicism and asceticism it's sort of been um um you know get through the day uh you do your best during the day finish it up with you know poise and calm knowing you did what you could and i think it can't get any more fancy than that you can't get attached to the outcome if you did your best i'd love to wrap with i would think the biggest pitch of your life how did you meet your spouse and what was the pitch there is so i didn't know anything about this stuff uh and and she's amazing she's from belize okay right and uh she's beautiful a lot of people ask if are you miss belize she's amazing and she has a calm patient personality uh which is funny our little boy is half of her and half of me so he uh he plays hockey which is like the world's you know most one of the most aggressive sports you ever see he's very patient skates very nicely waits for the puck to come you know and then just shoots it in the goal and uh but but anyway uh she was a vendor to a company that i had invested in and she came in and i asked her name and you know got her phone number because i had her work phone number and she just resisted wanting to go out and i just kept chasing her and so that made her not want to go out and uh and then eventually and and this is a big subject and eventually we went out and i heard this a lot during that part of my life is oh you're different than i thought and to me that subject is like the various pieces of me weren't integrated so the how you talk to girls piece was different from the how you do business piece which is different from the how you hang out with your motorcycle buddies piece which is different from the uh you know how you hang out with your family piece and so people pick up on that and that has been the work that i've largely known is how do you integrate all these pieces so there isn't a you know the the sale the chamois guy and there isn't the nice guy and there isn't the angel and the wolf and the sorcerer and the storyteller and have all these different archetypes that are pieces of me but that's when people say hey um he seems inauthentic is you could still be a good person trying hard it's you've got all these they're picking up on all these different archetypes that are reactive right and so if somebody thinks that in the part of the sale they you need to be the storyteller to to tell all the pieces now you're the storyteller now you're going for the clothes and you're the angel so what do you think is it something you'd be interested in you have any questions i really you know it's been a great meeting then the objections or the questions come out now you're the wolf oh well you know we don't have budget let me tell you you know budget's not an issue so now you're the wolf right and uh and so when you are being reactive with different archetypes people um feel like you're inauthentic so with her you know i was you know super nice and hey do you want to go out it'd be really nice as to you but that's not who she saw when she came to see the office she saw somebody negotiating a vendor really hard and so it wasn't until we got to spend some time together that she said oh you're different from who i thought you were and that's that's a bad sign um and so uh that's that's how great here we met in Beverly Hills and uh first first date the Getty Museum that's if you're not going on a first date to either saddle ranch at 11 o'clock or the Getty Museum like you know something like that was sort of the only two those are your go-tos what else would you do right well thank you aran this has been awesome we covered a lot on framing and the overlap between pitching in the boardroom and also socializing and connecting with people people can go to pitch anything dot com to learn more about the book pitch anything as well as your new book that's coming out how can we find you on social media yeah so uh i think you know i'm instagram twitter but i would go i would go to pitch anything dot com and put your name in because there is a whole cascade because we set that funnel up or whatever you call it you know five or six years ago where you're supposed to give people like everything everything so they will like you and we haven't taken it down so you're supplicated at pitch anything dot com so that's how it needs to come down so you like get somebody to take it but right now if you put your name in there like a cascade of really like sign up world-class content will come to you and so for right now register there we're on twitter and however that all that works