John of Built to Sell:

William Ury, welcome to Built to Sell Radio.

William Ury:

Oh, it’s my pleasure, John.

John of Built to Sell:

You know, your new book, Possible, How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict, struck my attention because of the word conflict. And here’s what our listeners are feeling, I think, right now and are about to experience. And that is when they go to sell their company, they feel like it’s a battle between us and them, right?

Because for entrepreneurs, they want to maximize the value of their company and get as much of that cash up front. And they know the buyer, whether it’s a strategic buyer or a private equity group, they want to do exactly the opposite, right? They want to pay the lowest and they want to pay the least amount of cash up front and get the owner to kind of earn their future in an earn out or some structure. And so most of our listeners are coming at this as though like this is us versus them. This is like, you know, either I win and he loses or vice versa.

What correction might you share with our listeners? Is that the right way to think about negotiation as you go into it?

William Ury:

Well, it’s one aspect of the negotiation. It’s the aspect of claiming value, you know, like, OK, we’re going to claim, you know, more for me means less for you. There are other aspects, too.

I can only imagine in that situation, which are, you know, your company is going to be in someone else’s hands. Are you going to continue working with the company? Are you going to continue that relationship? Do you care about how much they how they treat your company? It’s your baby that you built.

Do you want them just to, you know, so it’s like there are other issues besides just who gets what. And if you just bring the issue of who’s going to if the question is who’s going to win. You know, is it just going to be you or the other side? It’s either or. To some extent, it might be asking like asking the question, who’s winning this marriage?

You know, if you ask that question, your marriage may be in some trouble. But, you know, obviously, there is an aspect of of how do we divide the pie. But there might be an issue, too, of can we expand the pie so there’s more for both of us? And particularly if there’s any kind of ongoing relationship or if you care about what happens to your company afterwards, if it’s just the money, then obviously it’s more like just how do we divide the pie? But but you need to think about before you sell.

What do you really want here? What are your interests? What are your concerns? What are your needs? What do you want to do with your life?

You know, and really, really think it through, because you’re oftentimes we think we know what we want. It’s just easy money. But what’s behind the money? What do you want the money for to really kind of think it through? The more you think through what you really want, the more likely you are to be able to get it.

John of Built to Sell:

Yeah, it’s it’s a great point. I’m reminded of of the old Warren Buffett sort of negotiation tactic, which is he focuses on one page, right? Like I want to get all of the my deal points out in one page and and I and I want the you know, I want to I want to get to agreement with the other side on my one page that’s written in plain spoken English, you know, and then I’ll pass it on to the lawyers. And when you said like, what kind of relationship do you want to have with the new owners? Like are you going to work there, for example?

One of the things I’ve seen sellers entrepreneurs do is keep things with their counterparts in the negotiation superficial to begin with, and and pass the role of bad cop off to their lawyer. And I’d be curious to know your thoughts on that. So to say in a different way, you know, they’re trying to protect their relationship with the with the other side by keeping things sort of warm and collegial, knowing that behind the scenes, they’re, you know, asking their lawyer to play hard ass. What’s your sense of that as a style?

William Ury:

Well, I think there’s something to be said for that, because you want the relationship is going to be obviously really important, especially.

And so you want to protect that relationship. And the lawyer can play the bad guy, or at least I mean, whether it’s a lawyer, you also want to think of someone who’s got a who understands the finances of it and can sell it best. And you know, like, for example, when I’m selling a book, for example, you know, I want to keep a good relationship with a publisher. I may not want to get into, you know, kind of, you know, you know, OK, this is my demand. This is yours and whatever.

And so I understand that. But I use I use an agent, for example, even though I’m, you know, supposedly a negotiator. I use the agent precisely to do that, to shelter the relationship with the publisher, but also because the agent actually knows the market and knows the knows the what sells and whatever. It’s better than I do. And also because when you know, it’s a little bit like selling a book, I can imagine you’re selling your baby.

You built this thing. It’s not just money. It’s like it’s it’s your love. It’s a labor of love. You built it.

You’ve invested in it. You’ve got people investing in it. There’s emotion in it. And there’s emotion in it. If the other side says, well, I’m not going to pay for it.

You’re going to take it personally. Right. And so so just to just to kind of separate, distinguish those two things of the relationship and the monetary back and forth. I find it useful to use an agent and I can see why why someone who’s selling their business might find it equally useful to have an agent with them working closely with them so that they can focus on the relationship and someone else can focus on the some of the the back and forth that actually could actually generate some emotions.

John of Built to Sell:

Yeah, I love this concept in the world of selling a business.

That agent is called an M&A professional. And they are there to do exactly what you described to create a marketplace and also sometimes be the bad cop and protect or insulate the owner. One of the ongoing sort of debates, I think, among our audience is, should I tell my agent my bottom line? So the person negotiating for you and of course, this case of a book, do you say to them, look, I won’t take a penny less than X for an advance. You go get me the best deal you can.

Or do you do you let them go without sort of saying your bottom line?

William Ury:

Well, here’s the thing. The first negotiation prior to the negotiation, that is your negotiation with your agents. That is also a negotiation. And you have to understand that they might actually have an interest, for example, that they have an interest in having a deal rather than, you know, they may see things differently than you.

You know, they may want to sell it quickly and take their time or whatever. So you may have slightly different incentives in that situation. Understanding those upfront and developing a relationship of confidence, finding the right agent, someone you can trust. So, yeah, if you can trust them, you know, you really feel you have that, yeah, you can tell them a little bit about your bottom line. If you don’t feel like you can really, you know, you don’t have that degree of trust with them, then at least be aware that when they bring back an offer to you, you know, that they actually they have different incentives than you do.

They want to sell quickly.

John of Built to Sell:

Yeah. Well, well said. It’s a, you know, it’s a great piece of advice knowing and finding someone that you really deeply trust. You know, there’s a concept in Possible that I would love to have you elaborate on.

And it kind of goes to this whole philosophical approach to negotiation at a high level. And the concept I’m talking about, I think it was chapter two or three, I can’t recall, this notion of a victory speech and writing it in advance. Can you describe that story, like how you came up with that idea and what it might mean for our audience?

William Ury:

Well, yeah, it’s a thought experiment. And because oftentimes you’re facing a situation which seems difficult.

It’s like you’re going to sell your business. I mean, it’s difficult. You don’t know how you’re going to get there. You don’t see how you get from here to there. But I find if you do this thought experiment of imagining yourself there already, you know, I like to climb mountains, imagine yourself on top of the mountain already.

And then think about how you got there. It actually is easier to get from there to here. And then you can find your way back from here to there. So it’s kind of working backwards. And so as a thought experiment, I like when I’m facing a difficult negotiation.

You know, in the book, I gave one where, you know, I was trying to figure out how, you know, Kim Jong Un, the dictator of North Korea, Donald Trump, the new president of the United States back in 2017, there was a risk of war. You know, what were their victory speeches? I like to write out. Imagine that the other side does exactly what you want them to do. The seller gives you the exact offer you want, right?

Now imagine, imagine that they have to go back to the people they care about. Their private equity, you know, investors, their board of directors, whoever it is, they’ve got to go back and justify why they said yes to you. Think about what their victory speech is, because it has to be a victory for them. They’re going to have to say, here are my three key talking points. This is why this is great for us.

It’s going to do A, B and C. Now imagine for a moment that they’re going to get some pushback. They’re going to get some really tough questions, you know, like, well, what about this? And did you give too much money? And why don’t you do that? Think about what the best answers they could deliver and then see your job having written the other side’s victory speech, starting from the end, working backwards.

See your job as helping them deliver that victory speech. Your job is to give them the ammunition, the arguments that they’re going to need to be able to persuade their constituents, the people they care about, about why it’s a victory for them to accept your proposal.

John of Built to Sell:

It’s such a good point because no private equity partner is going to want to go back to their partnership and say, yeah, we just paid for price for this business and we paid the top end of the multiple range. That’s not the speech they want to give to their board member. But at the same time, obviously, the seller wants that.

So finding out how that partner, the private equity group could make the case to their board, to the victory speech to their board. Out of interest, what was the victory speech in the 2017 Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un example? What was the victory speech he drafted?

William Ury:

Yeah. Well, for Trump, he had to be able to say, I got the best deal ever.

This was the biggest deal ever, historically. Something that Obama couldn’t do, Bush couldn’t do, Clinton couldn’t do, I could do. He really prides himself as a champion dealmaker. So that had to be number one. Number two was, I kept America safe.

Those missiles that Kim is testing, the ICBMs to get to the US, whatever, they’re not going to get here. I kept America safe. And the third is, he really cares about this, and I didn’t spend a penny. Those were the kind of, as I understood it, the kind of the three priorities, that victory speech. Putting myself in Kim’s shoes was harder because no one knew anything about Kim at that time.

I mean, he was a new quantity, a new leader, or whatever it is. And it was harder to find out. And so to do that, I went on the web and I said, does anyone know? This is the kind of thing you face. Who knows something about the other side?

What do they really want? And the only person I could find who knew anything about Kim was a retired American basketball player by the name of Dennis Rodman, who had actually met Kim, because Kim turned out was a fan of the Chicago Bulls championship teams in the mid-90s. And so then I made it my job, which is often the case, what you have to do is you have to track this information down. I made it my job to try and meet with Rodman. And that wasn’t easy.

It’s kind of the seven degrees of separation and all that. But eventually, I met with him. I got a meeting. I went to a friend of a friend of a friend. I went out to LA to have pizza with him.

He wasn’t there. The whole long story. But in the end, when I did get to meet with him and he was kind of saying, why do you need to talk to me? And he’s got a bad name. And, you know, you had to kind of go through you have to go through this to kind of figure out.

I said, but you’re the only one who knows Kim. There might be a nuclear war here. We need to stop this. What can you tell me about him and his psychology and what he wants? And he said, well, you know, I held his baby in my arms.

I went out drinking with him. And one day he told me what his dream was. He said his dream was one day to walk down Fifth Avenue with Dennis Rodman, go to Madison Square Garden and watch the New York Knicks play the Chicago Bulls. Well, bingo, I thought, I mean, that’s how do we make that dream come true? You know, in other words, it showed that he was maybe willing to engage with the West, that even though he was very hostile, there was a secret kind of love affair going on there.

That gave me enough to think about what his victory speech might be and then to work with my colleagues to think about, OK, how do we get these two leaders together? How do we bring them together so that they don’t go to war, but they each can claim victory to their respective constituencies? And that’s I think that’s the job that you face when you’re selling your company, which is you got to figure out what the other side really wants. What do they really care about? What’s their dream?

And then think about how you can have their dream align with yours, which is selling your business in a good way.

John of Built to Sell:

Am I correct? When I read Possible, I interpreted that story, 2017, to be theoretical. What I’m hearing you say is, no, you were actually in the room.

William Ury:

Is that right?

Well, I didn’t. You were actually brokering that deal. Is that right? Well, well, I didn’t want to. Actually, one of the things about doing this work is you got to be very careful what you take any credit for.

But I did engage, and I went many times to Washington. I went many times to South Korea. My colleagues went to North Korea. We were engaged in trying to facilitate and help make that possible.

John of Built to Sell:

Got it.

And how do you get that job out of it? I know you worked at Harvard, and you’re obviously a very famous author. But how do you get hired to do that? Does somebody call you up and say, hey, we need help?

William Ury:

Well, sometimes that happens.

In this case, no. We’re entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs. We’re entrepreneurs of like, I was just really worried. I got my start working back in the days of the Cold War, trying to kind of working on a project at Harvard on how to reduce the risk of nuclear war. And so I felt a little bit like Rip Van Winkle, kind of woken up, well, now we’ve got another risk of nuclear war here with North Korea and the US.

Because even Trump, I mean, thought there was like a 50% chance of war. And a war that would be unfathomable, the first use of nuclear weapons is Hiroshima and Nagasaki, millions dead. Even in terms of the world economy, like a huge percentage of the world’s semiconductors are made in Seoul. That would be demolished. Samsung, all those companies.

So the consequences would be huge. And so I decided, OK, just like an entrepreneur, OK, how do we start? Where do we start from? And who knows? Who knows, Trump?

Who knows, Kim? How do we begin to even if we have the victory speeches, how do you build that access, that credibility, that trust that allows you behind the scenes to support and facilitate a different outcome than going to war? Such an interesting career.

John of Built to Sell:

And I’m so fascinated. Can I give you a couple scenarios that our audience deals with and just get your reaction?

You’ve got obviously a world of information and insight about negotiation, but maybe you haven’t sold companies. But I think you’ll be familiar with the kinds of situations. First situation is the other side in the case of selling a business will often attempt to get the business owner’s number on the table. So they’ll quietly or maybe over a drink or a lunch, they’ll quietly say, what do you want for it? And the reason they’re doing that, of course, is because they want the owner to go first to say their number.

And then they’ll put obviously a ceiling onto which they will never pay more. And we’ve got lots of examples of that. So how if you were kind of advising a business owner at a lunch or a dinner where the other side kind of asks them for their bottom line or what do they want for it? How would you coach them to kind of stick handle around that question?

William Ury:

Well, I wouldn’t give them the number.

I mean, first of all, the golden thing in negotiation is prepare, prepare, prepare. So before you even have that lunch or that dinner, you’ve got to prepare and maybe with your agent and think about it because anticipate that question and rehearse what’s going to be your response. But I think one way is I want the highest fair value for my business. I’ve really worked hard for it. I believe that this company has huge value.

They can do this and that. So in other words, you put it in terms of your interests and in terms of criteria. But I wouldn’t give them a number at that point because that’s going to put you in a yeah, that’s going to be their ceiling. And, you know, you may not even know at this point that negotiation is an exploration to find out what is the right value, right? What is the right value for this?

And you don’t want to start off by naming that number because maybe there’s actually more value than you even anticipated for your business. But you’ve got to explore that. It matters. Also, you want to go through that exploratory process before you get to the numbers. Impossible.

John of Built to Sell:

You refer to this thing called the circle of possibilities. Right. Can you just elaborate on that idea?

William Ury:

Yeah, it’s just like it’s the idea is so often we see conflicts, you know, they get enmeshed or whatever. It seems impossible.

It seems difficult. I like to like around it, there’s a circle of all the potential ways in which this can unfold. Some of them are negative, incidentally, you know, but a lot of them are positive possibilities. It’s like to really understand there’s a field of possibility around it of all the ways this could play out with a range of possible numbers there in terms of value. And there’s no reason to start off in the beginning by naming a number that just constrains that range for you.

John of Built to Sell:

Yeah, I love this concept because I think we do myopically focus on like, what’s the number and what’s the multiple? And I think, as you point out, there’s such a range of possible scenarios, including what’s going to happen to my employees? What about the location? What about the brand? And, you know, how am I going to get my money?

You know, there’s an old famous saying in M&A, I’m sure it probably exists in world peace as well, but it’s something along the lines of, you know, you name the price, I’ll set the terms. Right. Right. You can have whatever number you want. Like, I’m going to set the terms under which the deal is going to get paid out.

And I don’t know if you’ve heard anything similar.

William Ury:

No, no, well, you know, I don’t know what would be the equivalent in world peace. But, you know, it’s like there’s the old thing of like, you know, two kids quarreling about a pie, like, OK, you divide the pie and then I decide. I get first pick of which half I want, you know, and so so there is that because price and terms are both important. Right.

And actually, they both determine value. You could have a high price, but if the terms are terrible, you know, the ultimate value. So so don’t get just locked in the number. That just is just a reminder of it’s there are a lot of factors that go into determining what makes a good deal for you. And you want to think those through carefully beforehand and not just get fixated on the price.

John of Built to Sell:

Yeah, well said. There is another concept that comes up a lot for founders as they approach the sale of their business, and it’s referred to as retraining. Again, I’m sure it’s something similar in world peace. But the idea is that you come to terms in the sale of a business, usually over what’s called a letter of intent. A letter of intent is not binding, you know, neither party or committed legally, but it puts pretty good detail around the term.

So what’s the sale price under how you’re going to get those cash and stocks versus, you know, currency? There’s a lot of detail that goes to a letter of intent. And then there’s this period where the seller has to sign away what’s called a no shop clause, which means that the buyer has 60 days of diligence during which or 90 days during which you cannot negotiate with anybody else. It’s an exclusivity period, effectively, right? So as you might imagine, the negotiation, the leverage in the negotiation goes from really the owner of the business having lots of leverage to the buyer of the business during this diligence window having tons of leverage.

And in many cases, the buyer uses that leverage to retrade. Sometimes it’s legitimate. They find something in diligence that they didn’t expect or wasn’t disclosed. But oftentimes it’s illegitimate, meaning they’re simply retrading because you’ve sort of gotten committed to the deal.

William Ury:

Yeah.

John of Built to Sell:

So what possible sort of coaching would you give an owner who really thinks they’re dealing with someone who’s trying to retrade illegitimately?

William Ury:

Well, the metaphor I like to use that kind of the foundation of successful negotiation is the ability to go to what I call the balcony. And the balcony is simply is imagining that you’re negotiating on a stage. Part of your mind goes to a mental and emotional balcony overlooking that stage. It’s a place of perspective, of calm, where you can kind of remember what your key interests are and then see the labyrinth, see your way through this labyrinth.

And so at that moment, if you do that, I mean, from the balcony, one of the things you really want to ask yourself always in the negotiation is, what’s my BATNA? And that’s a term that Roger Fisher and I coined back in getting the yes, which is, what is your best alternative to a negotiated agreement? Your BATNA. What’s your best plan B? If you are not able to make this particular sale, what are you going to do to satisfy your interests?

Are you going to keep building the business? Do you have another potential seller in mind? Or what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Understanding your BATNA is absolutely critical because BATNA actually is a key determinant of power.

You understand your BATNA, and then from the balcony perspective, you need to understand the other side’s BATNA. What are they going to do if they don’t buy your business, right? And every negotiation takes place within the limits of what each side sees as their BATNAs. Now, BATNAs are perceived as well as real, right? So in that situation that you just gave, the whole question of leverage is before you sign that particular term with the MOI, your BATNA is strong.

You’re saying, okay, if I don’t deal with you, I’ll deal with someone else, right? When you sign that in those 60-day period, your BATNA becomes less focused because you don’t have the alternative of trading it elsewhere, right? So in that moment, you’re going to be more vulnerable. From the balcony perspective, you can kind of see. And one of the things to do when you’re thinking that someone might be pulling that, like retraining that situation is name the game.

Like, okay, that’s the game. When you name the game from a balcony perspective, you neutralize its effect on you. You say, ah, I can see. That’s the tactic. I got it.

Okay. Okay, you see it as a play rather than taking it personally and saying, oh, I got to go with it. So just that ability to go to the balcony. And the thing is, if you’re selling your baby, it’s very easy for you. It’s hard for you to go to the balcony.

You take it so personally. You’ve got your expectations, your hopes. Oh, you’re doing it. You’ve been telling your friends you’re going to do this. And then suddenly there’s this chick.

So use your agent. Use your lawyer. Use your friends. Use your colleagues and say, hey, understand in this moment, I’m going to make decisions that maybe are not in my best interest. Make sure you consult with them.

Make sure that you yourself, if you can limit your own authority to make decisions and say, I can’t make that decision without consulting. Just make sure you limit that. So you give yourself that chance to go to the balcony. Because so many times in negotiation, I find we make decisions on the spot that we later come to regret because they are worse for us than our BATNA, than our best alternative to negotiated agreement. You always want to keep that in mind and say, it’s just 60 days.

I’ve got to keep your alternatives open because having a good BATNA gives you that confidence, that confidence to navigate through those tricky moments in the negotiation when suddenly you get surprised by a sudden demand where they want two bites at that apple.

John of Built to Sell:

Yeah, I think this is so good. I read about the balcony and I loved it as a concept because I do think that disassociated sense of yourself looking in on the negotiation is so powerful. Because emotions run really hot in this kind of negotiation. And it’s interesting because it’s one-sided.

Here’s what I mean. When you’re selling a company, it’s an emotional expression of you as a person. It’s how you serve customers, your brand, your promise. It’s all you. And on the other side, it’s very clinical.

It’s a private equity group. They don’t buy your business. They’ll buy another business. It’s just dollars and cents. It’s not emotional for them.

And so there’s this huge mismatch in emotional temperature where the owner, seller is highly emotive, very, very emotional about the experience, like giving away their baby, as you point out correctly. On the other side, it’s very clinical, almost mercenary.

William Ury:

Yeah. So the key thing is that before you negotiate with the other, the most important negotiation you have is with yourself. If we cannot influence ourselves, it’s going to be hard to influence the other.

And the single biggest obstacle to me getting what I want in a negotiation, particularly when something’s emotional, is not the difficult person on the other side of the table. It’s the difficult person on this side of the table. It’s me. It’s the person I look at in the mirror every morning. So negotiation turns out, particularly in these kinds of situations you’re describing, to be an inside game.

It’s an inside game first. It goes from the inside out, which is why there’s an old saying, when angry, you will make the best speech you will ever regret. You know, when you’re in a situation like that, you may make a preemptive concession that you shouldn’t be making. You may be saying, yes, because you’re so excited, or whatever it is, or you might react another way. So just understanding that that’s going to be the case, that there’s an asymmetry in the emotional stakes here.

Set it up so that you’ve got someone else who’s political. You know, maybe it’s your M&A negotiator, as you were saying. You know, understand, ask your friends, ask your spouse, ask people that, hey, restrain me. You know, like, I don’t know if you remember in the ancient Homer classic, Ulysses, Odysseus. Odysseus knows that he’s going to be tempted by these sirens who are coming.

These women, these angels are coming on his boat or whatever. And so he wants to hear their sounds. But he knows he’s going to do that. So he binds himself to the mast, and he instructs his crew, whatever you do, I’m going to be saying, free me, free me, free me. Do not free me.

Just keep me tied to that mast. And maybe the owner has to do the same thing. Tie me up to the mast. I’m going to be hearing all these sweet sounds of I want to do whatever. But whatever you do, do not take off those ropes until those 60 days are over.

John of Built to Sell:

I love the analogy, for sure. Another tactic, it’s sort of similar, but kind of different, that the buyer will use is an intimidation tactic. So they will, you know, talking about their BATNA, as an example, they’ll say, you know, we really like your company, William. I think it’s a great fit strategically for what we’re doing. But remember, we’re Google, or we’re Apple.

If you don’t want to sell to us, that’s fine. We’ll go out and compete with you. How do you like the sound of that? So accept our offer, because it’s the best you’re going to get. And if you turn it down, we’re going to go compete with you.

William Ury:

Well, there you go. So the first thing you do is hear that, go to the balcony. Because name the game. The game is, it’s kind of a threat. And name the game.

And by naming the game, saying, OK, I understand. This is how the game gets played. They’re naming that. Neutralize its effect on you. Because by naming it, you say, OK, this is why it’s so useful before the negotiation.

To rehearse. To go to the balcony, rehearse, and anticipate that they’re going to play that. Of course, they’re going to do that, right? So if you anticipate it, you name it. You say, OK, yeah, I know.

That’s the game, whatever. And you mitigate its emotional impact on you, going, oh, I’m going to lose the business, right? So you keep your cool. And you say, well, that’s interesting. You say, well, that’s interesting.

That’s interesting. And I understand that you’ve got that. You’ve got that possibility to do it. I also have my BATNA, which is, maybe you’re Google, but there’s also Meta. And there’s another tech company or whatever.

And I also have a BATNA. You have a BATNA. We both understand it. Now let’s look at what’s the fair value for this business. So you kind of acknowledge it.

You can even wink at them. You understand that that’s the game. You can kind of say, I understand you’ve got a good alternative. We also have an alternative, which kind of just levels the playing field emotionally a little bit. Now let’s focus on, is there a good deal here that’s good for you and good for us?

And just go back to the subject. Name it. Don’t react to it. Mitigate its effect on you. And then go back to the focus of the conversation, which is, what’s the right number?

What’s the right deal here that’s good for both sides?

John of Built to Sell:

Yeah, it’s a great point. I’ve got pages of notes. I want to end with one sort of personal reflection and maybe just have you react to it. I’ve watched a couple of your videos.

And from the moment the recording starts, you’re smiling. And we screwed up in getting this interview scheduled. And our producer got your wrong link. And you were 15 minutes late to start because we got to the wrong link. And instead of being angry with me and kind of whatever, you were smiling at me and thinking, oh, it’s no big deal.

Throughout this conversation, as much as I try to give you zingers or hardcore, your instant reaction, again, for those not looking at the video, is this just like infectious smile. Where does that come from? And how much of your negotiation skills come from just being positively disposed? Do you know what I’m asking?

William Ury:

Yeah, I do.

Well, I think it helps. Because conflicts, they can be irritating. It’s tough. It gets emotional. And the ability to meet animosity with curiosity.

In other words, the ability to just kind of like, well, that’s interesting. It’s like, for example, when they pull that tactic of citing their BATNA. Well, that’s interesting. It’s like, OK, I understand that. Let me just say this.

There’s so much in conflict. And in these kind of situations where I can only imagine if I put myself in the shoes of a business owner, like you’re selling your baby, all these things, so much stuff is at stake. You build up this for a long time. It’s so nerve wracking. It’s so thing that we tend to tense up and we tend to avoid conflict.

We avoid it, whatever. And what I’m just suggesting is maybe when you’ve got something really hard to do, like selling a company, the most important thing you can do first is relax. Because you’re not at your best when you’re tense. You’re not at your best when you’re highly agitated. You’re at your best when you’re relaxed, when you bring the spirit of play, which was probably the spirit that allowed you to create the company in the first place, that spirit of creativity and imagination.

And what I’m suggesting is you take those same qualities that allowed you to build your company of curiosity. Isn’t that interesting? Creativity. Let’s see if we can create a better deal here. Collaboration.

And bring it to these difficult negotiations when you’re selling your company. That’s the art of being a possible list.

John of Built to Sell:

I was going to say, it goes back to the title of the book. And the protagonist in the book, I think, is someone who’s a possible list, someone who can envision what’s possible. And if there’s ever an audience that you’re preaching to the choir, so to speak, with our audiences, it’s a group of entrepreneurs who have, in many cases, done exactly that.

Imagine what’s possible instead of what’s not and build companies from scratch. And so I think we’re speaking the same language. We’re on the same page, so to speak, because our audience are all, I think, possible lists. The book is called Possible. It’s a great book.

I would encourage everybody to pick it up now and right before selling a company. Read it again. This has been a real treat for me. Thank you for doing it.

William Ury:

Oh, it’s my great pleasure, John.

And I wish every one of you was listening to this. Much success in getting to yes.