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| photo: Michael Reeve (flickr) |
Don't expect courage. Expect bluff. Expect spiel.
Above all, don't expect truth. For the success of a real-estate deal, truth is irrelevant. What is relevant is to tell your target what they want to hear, whatever helps close the deal.
First, flatter your target. Smile. Caress. Speak the same language. Make yourself funny if needed. You experienced it, human vanity is a bottomless pit. Sometimes, you may even feel how you yourself revel in flattery from others.
When it comes to serving the bluff itself, above all, make it simple. Reduce issues to a single number: a price. Plain dollars. Health care? US-Europe defense alliance? WHO governance? Boil down any issue to a number of dollars. Then let your gut speak: is that what I want to do with so many dollars? Or do I want to keep the dollars? (normally, keep the dollars).
Then, exaggerate. Depending on what side of the bluff you are, describe the number as either huge or insignificant. Nothing in between.
Of course, make sure you use decoys. That can be a rival customer, a hare you pull out to expedite an urgent decision. This is real-estate agent 101. It can also be a strawman you put up to justify why the deal has failed, if that were to happen. Decoys make sure it is never your fault, so that you can come back later to the same targets with another potential deal, even bigger, even better than the last.
What remains is then simply to fill the void. Never stop talking. Repeat, rephrase, expand. It should be effortless. If you've been doing it for 50 years since starting out in business, it has become a second nature.
Many people get offended by your bluff. This is totally beyond the point.
Over those years in business, you have also been schooled by your lawyer about what you may say or not. You automatically include the required disclaimers as you speak. When stating anything controversial, you mechanically indicate that it is "what some believe" or "what many people think". You pepper your problematic sentences with "maybes" and "probablys", which automatically deactivate any lie that they may contain. And you make sure that your claims, if not demonstrable, are at least not falsifiable, in the Popperian sense: if you state that an action is a world's first, you may be disproved. But if you claim that your deal is the most important or the most beautiful, then you are invulnerable.
This is not rocket science. It is indeed but a minor art, it has been described in books. Many people get offended by your bluff and they totally miss the point. They may enrage, they may hassle you or hate you. This is of no importance whatsoever. They are simply not the target for this particular deal. You know it by heart: if someone doesn't buy your bluff, just ignore them and move on to the next receptive person, to the next juicy deal. Move on. Just move on.
