Winning the No
- Grant Wiese
- Apr 20
- 7 min read
SW Financial Literacy
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Winning the No
The Skill that Saves Deals
"I don’t like bankers, and I don’t trust them either."
Ouch, not exactly a great way to start the conversation. Especially when I was really needing this call to go well.
I’m talking to the dad of a farmer. The dad has never farmed before or even liked the farm. He grew up in the city and married a farm girl. Their son is back taking over his father-in-law’s/grandpa’s operation. The son is trying to grow and is needing some financial support or backing to get the financing he needs to continue surging forward with his operation. He is in growth mode, but has come under some hard times. He doesn’t meet all of the standard lending criteria anymore and is needing some backing, which is where dad steps in.
Dad is a wealthy individual and willing to help sign some documents to keep his son farming and moving forward. But as I stated in the intro, dad (Bill) has a rough track record with bankers. Bill believes nothing they say is honest, and they are only there to look out for themselves. If they can collect on you, they will. While I’m needing Bill to sign a few documents to complete this particular transaction for the son, we really can’t go forward without his signature. Hence the pickle I'm in.
When Bill picked up the phone, he was expecting to hear from me and was not happy about it. Everything about the phone call made it obvious that he’d rather be anywhere but here, and I was not going to get my way. He immediately launched an attack outlining how his attorneys reviewed the documents and he would not be signing them, as they are all wrong. This isn’t going to be easy.
What do I do? The son is really needing this completed and couldn't convince his own dad to sign.
First, Let Them Talk
I let him get all his grievances aired out. Then, I continued to ask questions about his grievances, asking clarifying questions to make sure that I completely understood his stance.
When Bill asked critical questions, I acknowledged that I am not the legal expert on these documents, but I can run them by a third party to get a second opinion and follow up the next day. I continued to ask if there’s anything else about the document that he does not like and what he would like to see in the language that would make him willing to go along with our established plan.
I stretched out the phone call even longer, making sure that Bill knew he had the floor and I was here to listen to him. I thanked him for his time and promise to follow up as soon as I had an update on his many requests. He was still disgruntled when we hung up the phone, and his tone barely changed throughout the conversation.
A few hours later, I noticed I had a voicemail from Bill. He left a brief message saying he found a family legal document that could help and was looking forward to explaining it to me.
The Next Day
I had a chance to talk to my legal expert, and it was verified that the dad of the farmer and his attorney were correct, we had made an error in preparing our document based on this situation. I quickly made a call back to Bill to explain the situation. Upon answering the phone, Bill sounded like he was in a much better mood than the day prior, but he still started out on the attack (I think that was his default nature after a lifetime working in corporate America).
He started to rehash all of the errors that we had on the document, and when he came up for air, I simply said, "You’re right". Bill didn't jump back in, so I continued, "I ran it past my legal advisor, and they agree with you. This was done incorrectly, and we are going to work to make the adjustments as fast as possible. In fact, we found another error in the documents, and I want to explain to you where that is and how it needs to be corrected."
Bill was taken aback, but after explaining the errors and omissions that we had, he said "That’s exactly right. I agree with that completely". In follow-up I replied, "Okay, now that we’ve made corrections to the obvious errors in this document, what else do you need to see that would make you comfortable with it?"
Bill continued to explain what he would like to see added to the document now that we had corrected the errors. The legacy and wealth that he had built up, he was hoping to pass down to future generations, and he did not want to compromise that with this type of document. He had a number of ideas which he felt could help protect him if we could add some additional language to the file.
Winning the No
What happened here? How did the conversation turn?
This wasn't an accident. There was a very specific approach I took to get to this point. Don't laugh at any of these actions or brush them aside as obvious information. It took me years to learn these skills and many reps in live situations to be capable of having small success rate in a heated conversation.
Positive Attitude: I went into the call with a positive attitude and smile on my face, believing a solution could be found. Your tone of voice is the first impression you are giving over the phone.
He Talks First: He is upset and isn't willing to listen to me anyways, so let them speak. Everyone values having their opinions heard.
Information Gathering: By letting him talk until he was hoarse, I knew every problem he had and could begin to identify places where we may find common ground.
Humble Pie: I made it known that I am not the expert, and he probably knows more about the topic than I do. I brought myself lower to build him up, and bought myself time to circle the wagons and come up with a plan.
Humble Pie 2: On our next call I let him know he was right. Not only was he right about the original point, but he was right on something else too. What in the world are we going to fight about if we are both on the same side of the argument?
Matching Jerseys: Now that we are on the same team, we started to brainstorm together new ideas that would be win-win for both parties. Together, we were looking for a compromise.
Back to Bill
After working with multiple generations of the family for some time now, I sincerely told Bill, "I see the connection between you and your son. You both have a great honor for the generations before you and want to protect the family name as much as possible. This was something that I have always admired about your son. I will take your recommendations and run them by my legal expert. As soon as I have an answer, I will let you know if this is something that we could add to make you feel more comfortable and help protect you position and legacy."
Sincere Compliment: Not a lie. All facts I truly felt and could appreciate about the family. I passed along an honest compliment.
Was there anything else that he would like to see on this document that would make him feel better? Bill didn’t think so. He felt that if we could get this language added, he may be willing to sign after reviewing with his attorneys again. I thanked him for his time and apologized for the inconvenience that we had created for him. I reminded him that any attorney fees that he accrued on his end were his own expense and not something that we would be able to cover. He acknowledged this, and we went our separate ways.
Clarifying Questions: Make sure there is nothing we missed and no unmentioned obstacles that could hold up the deal.
Apology & Gratitude: Saying 'Thank You' and apologizing are powerful words. It can make the other party uncomfortable and feel like they owe you when they were the ones on the attack. It creates good will that draws them into you.
My 1st Request: We are 9 tactful steps into the conversation, and I just made my FIRST REQUEST of them. After laying all this groundwork, I made sure they knew we weren't covering their fees. This went without a hiccup because of all 9 steps done before I finally made my own request of them.
This was never about me winning. It was always about win-win.
Conclusion
This is not a conversation that many of us have very often. Rarely are we in a situation where we need another party to do something which they absolutely insist they will not do (unless maybe we’re talking to a stubborn child, we rarely confront this in a non-relative adult).
I am by no means an expert with these types of conversations, but I do have reps with them.
One of my favorite things to do in these situations is to let them talk until their voice goes hoarse. Let them air out all of their grievances, and then I can successfully repeat those grievances back to them and acknowledge the concern that they have. After this, we can usually start on fairly equal footing. This is a wildly useful skill in all areas of life.
You may not come across it once a decade, but it could be the difference between getting a loan for your first purchase or not being able to bid at all. It could be the difference between picking up 2,000 acres from a landlord or not being able to grow for the next decade. There is value in understanding human nature, being able to recognize and show empathy, and being able to get along well with others.
In fact, some of the people that I respect the most and get along with the best, I’ve had these runs with. It is not the person that you are fighting against, it is only a situation that needs to be resolved. That’s it, nothing personal. If you can remove the detonator, the conversation becomes so much easier.
Make it a great day.
Grant
