In any negotiation, your presentation is key. The way you dress, the way you accessorize, the way you speak…even the way you make eye contact or cross your legs or fold your arms can help you make or emphasize your point in a meaningful way.
And it’s not just what you’re putting out that can set the tone in a negotiation, it’s what you’re taking in…everything you’re taking in. When I enter a room for an important meeting, all five senses are firing.
SIGHT: I take in the scene, and make a mental note of everything that might lend insight about the person or people I’m negotiating with. If I’m in someone else’s office, that means checking out how it’s decorated, noting what personal items or professional honors are on display, seeing if the room is neat and professional. If the person I’m meeting with is trying to make a statement with his or her surroundings, I want to make sure I “hear” it. If I’m the one hosting the meeting, I put myself in the other person’s shoes and imagine them doing the same thing. I want to know what my digs say about me before I invite someone onto my turf.
SOUND: Noise level matters. Is there music playing in the background? Are we meeting in a crowded space where I’m going to need to raise my voice to be heard? What about if it’s too quiet? Don’t know about you, but I’m not a big fan of hearing myself think—though I do often wish I could hear what the other guy is thinking!
TOUCH: This won’t apply in every situation, but it was all-important when most of my time was spent in and around fashion. I don’t mean this in a creepy kind of way. What I mean is, fashion’s a very tactile industry, it’s often all about the feel of a fabric against your skin, which is why a lot of our meetings would start in a showroom where I’d spend some time touching the goods on display. The same goes in technology and certain types of product design; you want to be able to play with whatever item you’re talking about—you know, take it out for a test run.
SMELL: I don’t want to sound gross or juvenile, but sometimes I step into a room and there’s a funky odor I just can’t ignore. It gets in my nose and then it gets in my head and I start to think, How the hell can this person not notice this smell? Of course, on the opposite end are those times when you’re struck by a soothing scent like lavender or citrus or eucalyptus or anything that’s supposed to help you relax or create a certain mood. When I’m in someone else’s office and I notice they’ve taken the time to create a special environment in this way, it signals to me that I’m dealing with someone thoughtful, who’s set on being focused and present.
TASTE: This one comes into play when you’re meeting over drinks, or a meal, and the other person is doing the ordering. Do they show consideration by asking about your dietary restrictions or preferences? Do they order the cheapest thing on the menu, or the most expensive? Or maybe you’re meeting over a conference table and you’re taking a bite of one of the pastries they’ve left out for you. Is that donut stale? Does the coffee taste like it was brewed last week? You can learn a lot about someone by the way they care for and feed their guests, so even if I’m not hungry I’ll check out the spread.
A lot of times, we’ve got all this information coming at us, all at once, before we even shake hands with the other person. So there’s a lot going on. When I was just starting out, I would take in all these sensations without even thinking about them, but the powershift comes in knowing how what I’m seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting might come into play in the negotiation ahead. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, but I want to be prepared.
Okay, so let’s say we’ve seen what there is to see, heard what there is to hear…the scene is set, and now it’s time to get down to business. Here is where all the little signals and personality quirks we put out into the world can work for us or against us.
Take the time to pay close attention to the other party’s behavior. For example, if they are speaking fast or at a high volume, that probably means they’re overly enthusiastic, maybe a little too eager to do a deal.
On the flip side, when people are hesitant or uncertain, they will speak slowly, often at a low volume, and it could indicate that you’re dealing with a reluctant customer—what the people on Capitol Hill these days might call a “hostile witness.”
I try to be aware of these behaviors whenever I sit down with someone, because they can tell me a lot about the other person’s enthusiasm or uncertainty, whatever the case may be. Research conducted by Albert Mehrabian shows that only 7 percent of what we communicate has to do with what we say. I’ll tell you what makes up the other 93 percent later on, but for now I want you to start paying attention to things like whether or not the other person’s arms are crossed, which can be an indication that they’re closed off to what I’m saying—or if they’re leaning in as I speak, which can be an indication that they’re especially interested in what I’m saying. Don’t just take my word for it, though. In a study conducted by Inc. of over two thousand negotiations, reporters found that no successful deal was made in any of the negotiations where one or both parties crossed their arms and legs.
As someone who’s sat on the Shark Tank panel for the past eleven years, I’ve learned a little bit about how some of my fellow Sharks change their tone or their body language when they get excited about a deal—and about the ways some of our wannabe entrepreneurs signal their commitment or enthusiasm as well. Of course, the way things are set up on the show, it’s not like this is a natural negotiating environment. There are dozens of people hanging around, more than a dozen cameras pointed at you, harsh studio lights meant to pick up every blemish or out-of-place hair. Plus, there’s a script everyone’s meant to follow as we get going. The deal is, the entrepreneurs are supposed to talk for the first two minutes. They’ve rehearsed that part of their pitch into the ground, even run it by the producers, but after that the gloves come off and we’re back and forth and all over the place, depending on how the Sharks take the bait…or don’t. Plus, almost every pitch begins the same way: The entrepreneur makes that long walk to the panel and greets the Sharks and starts to tell their story. What you see on the air is a heavily edited version of the pitch, so it might seem like we run through each one in ten or fifteen minutes, but in some cases the unedited pitch can run to an hour or two, or longer.
What’s interesting here is that the crew is usually setting the shot for a couple minutes before the pitch actually begins—getting the lighting just right, or setting the stage. This can be an awkward few moments for the entrepreneurs, before they’re technically “on” and the cameras are running, but I use that time to begin forming an opinion about each presenter. You have to realize, we’re not supposed to speak to them, and they’re not supposed to speak to us—but still, there are some interesting tells. If their hands are in their pockets, or they’re shifting about nervously, I can see that they’re uncomfortable, maybe underconfident. I get that—it’s an intimidating room, an intimidating setup. And yet sometimes, entrepreneurs might be self-aware enough to know that all eyes are on them, so they’ll look to smooth things over by turning to the panel and saying something like, “Whoa, so this is pretty awkward, huh?”
A line like that, a gesture like that, it always goes into the plus column for me, because I believe it shows a certain purity, a strength of character. It tells me that this person is genuine, someone I might want to do business with, and it’s a big contrast with the people who come onto the show in what they think is a kind of power stance. They’re all business, super-serious. Their hands will be by their sides, their feet will be open, and they’ll just look straight at us Sharks while all this busy work production-type stuff is going on. Now, to give these people the benefit of the doubt, it’s possible they’re just nervous and this is how they handle their nerves, so I try not to hold it against them or let it shape my opinion before the pitch even begins—but at the same time, they don’t earn any points with me the way they might if they tried to defuse the tension in the room by acknowledging it in a simple, human way.
One thing it helps to remember is that the people who come on the show feel like they already know us—but for the Sharks on the panel, we don’t know the first thing about the entrepreneurs about to pitch. We don’t even get a fact sheet or backgrounder on them. What that means is that most of them have an idea in their heads of which Shark might offer the best fit, or who might be the most receptive to a deal. That’s kind of what happened with Charlynda Scales, when she came on to pitch her special sauce thinking I’d respond on a personal level to her story and it worked out that I wasn’t even scheduled to be on the panel that day. What you’ll see a lot of the time is entrepreneurs subconsciously catering their pitch to a specific Shark. Maybe they’ll be turned in such a way that they’re mostly facing Robert at one end of the panel, or Mark at the other. Maybe they’ll make eye contact with Lori, if they’re talking about an innovative product they believe is in her wheelhouse. Maybe they’ll lean in toward Barbara, if it’s a play meant for her—and I suppose there are even some occasions when someone will target Kevin on a pitch, so they’ll look directly at him.
Now, the way the show is set up, it’s not just a Shark-versus-entrepreneur dynamic—there’s also a Shark-versus-Shark dynamic that comes into play. I’ve learned over the years to study my fellow Sharks and get a good read on their level of interest before anyone makes an offer or bows out of a deal. With Robert, he’ll tend to cross his legs in a way that leaves him open to the room when he’s interested in a deal—and he’ll cross them the other way if he’s not. Also, he has this thing he does after he asks a question on a deal he’s not keen on pursuing. He’ll ask the question and then immediately close this portfolio notebook he always has with him on the set. Sometimes he’ll even drop the book to his side as he asks the question—never a good sign for the entrepreneur, but sometimes a good sign for me if it’s a deal I’m interested in and I’m worried about having to go up against Robert with my offer.
When Mark wants in on a deal, he’s got this habit of leaning back in his chair, with his legs spread wide—like he’s putting it out there that he’s relaxed, and welcoming, and ready to take this on. When a pitch is not for him, you’ll see him sit up a little straighter.
One of Lori’s tells is she wraps her hair around her ears as she looks down to study her notes—almost like she’s slipping into studious mode.
Kevin is hard to read. He likes and dislikes everyone equally. In all these years I haven’t really been able to figure him out. A lot of times, it feels to me like he’s making an offer just to take a stab at things. He’s all about the money, and he always says as much, so I have never been able to catch him changing things up when the rest of us might be responding to a pitch in a personal way.
Barbara seems to tilt her head back a little bit when she’s open to pursuing a deal—her own version of a welcoming pose.
I started paying attention to this stuff in Season Two, after Mark joined the show, and it felt to me like I had to up my game a little bit. Those first couple years, I went at deals one-on-one, not really thinking if there was another Shark chasing the same deal. But I started to realize that this type of approach put me at a disadvantage, because a lot of times I’d find myself in a bidding war that didn’t really serve my interests.
Before I let my fellow Sharks off the hook, I want to spend some time sharing some of Mark Cuban’s insights on negotiating, because I think they’re relevant here. I’ve always thought that it had to be tough for a team owner to negotiate directly with a professional athlete. In the NFL or the NBA especially, you’re dealing with these outsized physical specimens who can really fill a room, and it can be an intimidating thing to try to use your leverage with one of those guys staring you down.
Of course, this observation doesn’t account for the fact that the athlete and the owner are almost never alone in a room banging out the terms of their next mega-deal—they’ve got their agents and general managers to deal with that. And it also ignores the fact that it could just as easily be the owner’s outsized wallet that stands as the most intimidating variable in this scenario. You never know what people are going to respond to, but it’s interesting to think about the ways size or position might influence a deal. That’s why you used to get this old- school advice about trying to set up your meetings on your turf—in your office, maybe, or in a favorite restaurant—so you can get a kind of home-field advantage, and why some bosses used to furnish their office so that their desk chairs were higher than the visitor chairs. In that type of setup, it’s all about the intimidation factor, but I never liked the idea of bullying someone into a deal. Manipulation isn’t really my style: I’d much rather bring someone around to my way of thinking on the strength of my ideas or the power of my personality.
I had a chance to ask Mark about this when he agreed to sit down with me for this book. As most readers know, Mark isn’t just one of the panelists on Shark Tank. He’s also a wildly successful tech entrepreneur, and the billionaire owner of NBA basketball team the Dallas Mavericks. I run with a crowd that’s big into basketball, which means I tag along to games from time to time, so when we started working together I was constantly pumping Mark with questions about the game and the unique place he seems to have made for himself within it. What a lot of people forget is that when Mark bought a majority stake in the Mavericks in January 2000 he was just forty-one years old—one of the youngest owners in the league. At first, he tells me, he was careful not to upset the culture or make any waves when he went to league meetings, but if you know Mark you’ll know that didn’t last very long.
“I stood out like a sore thumb,” he tells me of those first meetings with his fellow owners. “Everyone wore suits. They were very straitlaced. When I got there, it was a rubber-stamp meeting. There was an agenda, everyone voted yes, and they ended quickly. I remember asking the commissioner, David Stern, if we were allowed to ask questions, and I think he regrets to this day telling me that we could. From there, everything changed. What happens today is one hundred and eighty degrees from how it was when I got there.”
To hear Mark tell it, the NBA is a players’ league, meaning the power rests with the athletes on the court, not with the owners writing the checks. This is most apparent in negotiations with a franchise, name-above-the-title player. For most of Mark’s time as owner of the Mavericks, the team’s star was Dirk Nowitzki, the future Hall of Famer from Germany, who for the most part was able to dictate his terms whenever his contract came up. Part of the reason for this is the league’s collective bargaining agreement, which offers “max” slots for veteran superstar players, so in a lot of ways an owner like Mark has his hands tied when a top player is facing free agency—meaning that if you don’t pay a player the very top dollar amount allowed by the league, he can sign with another team for a slightly lesser amount that is also determined by the league. In other words, when sitting down to negotiate salaries, it’s on the owner to shift the power over to their side of the table, and in Mark’s case that means creating the kind of corporate culture that can serve as a magnet. He tells me that when he or his management team has been unable to set the right tone with employees it has come back to bite him, and when they get it right it has propelled them to the top of the industry.
MARK CUBAN, on finding a way to set the tone in a negotiation by creating a winning environment and a culture of inclusion: “The NBA is a star-driven league. That is why we are so popular globally, and why we are becoming more and more connected to pop culture and kids than any other pro sport. Fans know players from top to bottom of our rosters. So when a superstar like Dirk wants to negotiate, he truly has all the leverage. That said, it’s my job as owner, whether it’s Dirk or Luka Doncic or any other player, to make sure they want to stay part of the organization. The same applies to any of my companies. Turnover is always expensive. The happier our employees are, the less turnover there is and the better the results.”
Mark’s comments here remind me that setting a tone in a negotiation isn’t just about learning to read people’s body language and paying attention to the signals you’re putting out. It’s about creating a culture and a welcoming environment that people want to be a part of. That’s why you see a lot of entrepreneurs on Shark Tank lose their shit when Mark lets it be known that he wants to be in business with them, because people get that he’s a good and loyal and innovative partner. They gravitate toward him. It’s like there’s a force field surrounding him as he moves about the set, and people pick up on that because they know he’s not out there trying to take advantage of anybody. He might not be the most physically imposing presence in a room, but sometimes your reputation—your character—is more important than whether or not your chair is raised, or you cross your arms a certain way, or you raise your voice when you don’t get what you want.
That said, there are certain physical behaviors you’ll want to pay attention to if you expect to be taken seriously in a negotiation.
I’ll hit just a few of them here:
1. Look the other person in the eye.
Meaningful eye contact is important, but to my thinking it’s not nearly as important as what it tells me when someone is constantly avoiding it. My mother always taught me to look the other person in the eye when I was speaking, but you’d be amazed at how many people can’t follow this one basic rule. I know this is the kind of stuff that sometimes seems so obvious—but clearly it isn’t obvious to the person who isn’t doing it! There are some people who whether they realize this is what they’re doing or not only make eye contact with the highest-status or most senior person in the room. This is a mistake. The eye contact rule applies to everyone from the CEO to his or her assistant (and trust me, that assistant has influence!). In a related point, let me also state the obvious: Don’t be looking at your phone, or your watch, during an important meeting. Nothing says disinterest like people checking their devices like they’ve got someplace else they need to be or something else jockeying for their attention.
2. Perfect the “three bears” handshake—not too limp, not too hard, but just right.
Again, this might sound obvious, and you’ve definitely heard it before. But it’s worth repeating—that wet-noodle handshake can kill a deal before it even has a chance to happen. When you shake someone’s hand in greeting, there should be some muscle behind it…but don’t overdo it. If you just kind of hang there and let the other person do the shaking, you’ll come across as soft. But if you pump away like you’re trying to draw water, you’ll be seen as too aggressive. Try to land somewhere in the middle on this. And if you happen to be one of those people who suffer from sweaty palms, do yourself a favor and discreetly wipe your hand against your pant leg before shaking.
3. Speak in complete sentences.
No hemming and hawing, please. Give fully formed answers in response to all questions. Don’t know about you, but it bugs me when someone can’t quite seem to finish a thought. It tells me they can’t find the words, or don’t have the patience to try to make themselves understood. When I’m thinking about working with someone, I’m thinking about how they will represent me or my brand, and so of course I’m drawn to people who are thoughtful and articulate and able to communicate effectively. Of course, this matters less in the case of informal conversations, but in general, you want to show that you’re in the habit of thinking before you speak.
4. Let the other person speak in complete sentences.
Always remember that the person across the table is trying to make their case as well, so don’t interrupt. There should be a natural give-and-take to your negotiation, but that means giving the other person a chance to talk and taking the time to think things through before you open your mouth. As I mentioned earlier, there’s valuable information encoded in whatever the other person has to say, so don’t risk missing something important by insisting on being the one who dominates the conversation. Of course, the other reason you don’t want to cut someone off is because most of the important information you’re likely to hear will come at the end of someone’s pitch. People tend to build up to making their main point, so if you jump in too soon you might never hear it.
5. Be aware of your facial expressions.
I’m told I have a lousy poker face. Chances are you do, too. As a species we’re wired to wear our emotions on our faces, even though we’re rarely aware of it. So spend some time in front of a the mirror and see how your expressions signal your emotions. Even better, try this quick exercise: Set up your phone to record a brief video as you read aloud from the Twitter feed of someone who irritates the hell out of you. Then do the same thing as you read from the feed of someone you admire. Take a look at some of the subtle and not-so-subtle differences in your expression and see if you can do a better job of hiding your true feelings on a second pass.