Hot Roger and the Seven Stooges. Hot Roger was what? A pantomime dame. And the Seven Stooges were who? His accomplices. Exactly. And together they were part of one of the biggest heists in history. Why? Why not? Because we made it up. Today is the 28th of April and we're going to free ourselves from what we want. Right. And it's a conversation between Tantalus and Thirsties. You always get these ones for some reason. I do. So Tantalus says, highest power is...

And the theist is interrupts him and says no power if you desire nothing. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to paint a picture for you, please. It's the last day of the month. You've not put the work in, but you've got a discovery call. It's with a pretty big opportunity. If they say yes. Wow. Don't worry about this month's commission or next month's commission. You've not only hit target, you're probably getting promoted. Yeah. But it's the last day of the month. Last day of month.

There's some external pressure there. You're giving some power to the moment and it's starting to muddy the waters a little bit. Call gets a bit closer in time. Oh, body's feeling a bit shaky. A little bit of sweat going now. I'm feeling a little bit nervous, but that's a good thing. I'm feeling very nervous about it. I get on the call and suddenly, I don't know what's happened. I'm grabbing, I'm trying, I'm selling, I'm pushing. Why am I doing that?

because I've give power to the moment. I've not done the work. I've not given myself the choice. I've gone into the last discovery of the month. I've not hit my target. And why have I done that to myself? Tell me, You're attached to the outcome is definitely, definitely, definitely. You know, the worst example of this and it's happened from my time at We Have A Meeting, it's happened twice. And I can recount both situations, but someone got a call.

Love what you do. Want to work with you. Just here to like, just sort out the formalities. Process went out the window. Didn't hold a discovery. Went into pitch mode. Gave them everything they needed. Free consultant. Ghosted. Yeah, let's do it. Ghosted. Because I didn't follow the process. I thought it was too easy. And there is a phrase. There's no such thing as a free lunch. I think that when you're like, especially those calls where you go, this is bread and butter.

I know that we can smash this with a perfect fit for them. We're to be great for them. It's going to be the start of a beautiful relationship. You've got to go into those calls and it's the same feeling every single time. I'm just a vessel. I'm just a lazy river. I'm going to ask you questions the same way I do everybody, whether you're ready to work with me or whether you don't want to work with me. I'm just going to guide you and see where we end up. Exactly. Exactly. I've done it as well where I've

had a meeting with someone who's like, yeah, we really want to get you in. And then the next meeting is just the formality. It's just a couple of the simple, they get it. They know all the parts. So I'm like, okay, so he's kind of done the heavy lifting for me, this guy. I get on this call. These are the two decision makers. Nice to meet you. Doing the normal stuff. And it started off, you know, I asked the first kind of big question. And one of the newer guys on the call was like, it's, I was quite good. It's been like a therapy session and this, and then he's starting to open up. And then a few more questions later, he was like,

I don't get why you've just asking us so many hard questions because I've thrown the process out. Part of my process is saying to people, I'm probably going to have to ask you some hard questions. Is that okay? But I've not done it because I thought the other guy had done the lifting for me. Now is that the other guy's fault or is it my fault? It's my fault. Yeah. What can you control? What can I control? It's my fault. I went into it unprepared and I gave too much weight to what this gentleman might have done. And actually it went really bad. Yeah.

hit a point of the call where I was like, I think we just leave this here shall we? It just got to where it was so uncomfortable because I've not done the process. When we sit and have these conversations, what doesn't happen is we're not saying about all these amazing deals that we've closed. We talk about that because they're the lessons that we learn. I had one once and I remember like a bit of maybe call it ego flaring up and I booked an initial, there was an initial inbound, right, from one guy.

I turned up, the initial guy wasn't there, but his business partner was there, but didn't know why he was there. yeah. And it all just went out the window. And actually I know how to deal with a cold, start again, treat it like a cold call. And he was like very, pushing me to pitch. And I just said, I can't do this, right? I'm going to go. And on reflection, that call could have been handled so much better. Yeah. Yeah. I've had ones for people to try and hijack it as well, cause that's often a bit of feedback and questions we get asked. I'll try and do the approach and people try and hijack it.

I remember saying to a guy once, he was like, yeah, yeah, get what you're trying to do. Just tell me about this and tell me about that. I went, you know, I think if I can't probably get through the call in the way that I need to, I'm probably going to do you a bit of a disservice. I tell you what, you sound like you're in a good spot. Let's just leave it there. And he went, you know what's that? Now I'm impressed. Yeah, it's cheesy. It is cheesy though. But when he went, now I'm impressed. It all relaxed and he let me do my bit. So.

Be prepared to walk away. one of your biggest strengths in negotiation. can walk away. You can walk away at any time. And I think that especially if you're selling to high D CEOs and personalities, don't wink at me when I said high D. They do appreciate when you give it back a bit. Yeah. Hey, and you're known to give it back a bit. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zack Thompson. Remember you would die. Nikita's rolling pin.