In this episode of The Confident Negotiator Podcast, we are joined by Erhan Imamoglu, a RED BEAR Senior Instructor based in Istanbul with over 20 years of experience in training negotiators across the globe. Erhan has coached more than 20,000 professionals, sharing his deep understanding of negotiation dynamics and strategies that can make a significant difference in any negotiation scenario.
During our conversation, Erhan dives into essential negotiation principles such as making strong demands, setting high targets, and mastering the technique of anchoring. He also explores the complexities of cross-cultural negotiations and emphasizes the importance of thorough preparation and planning. Whether you're looking to refine your skills or gain new insights, Erhan's practical advice and real-world examples are sure to elevate your negotiations.
Listen in to learn from Erhan’s extensive experience and discover strategies that can help you achieve better results in your negotiations.
Transcription of the Video:
Rob Cox: Hello everyone and welcome to The Confident Negotiator Podcast. I'm Rob Cox, and with me today is RED BEAR Senior Instructor, Erhan Imamoglu. Erhan, thank you so much for joining us today.
Erhan Imamoglu: Absolutely. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me, Rob.
Rob Cox: Erhan, you have trained over 20,000 professionals all over the world for over 20 years now. You've been training negotiators in different languages for RED BEAR all over the world for many years as well. I know everyone is excited to hear from you today. So let's dive right in. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you help RED BEAR customers become world-class negotiators.
Erhan Imamoglu: Okay, I'll do that, Rob. Well, let me just start out with how I started my corporate life and then transition into training and consulting. I started working for Pepsi-Cola International. That was in Istanbul, Turkey, but I had responsibilities in Greece, Portugal, and Azerbaijan. And I also had the opportunity to travel to, funny enough, Oakland, California quite frequently because there was some exchanges of ideas there. So we wanted to be able to also leverage that. So I was traveling back and forth to the U.S. And that lasted for about seven years. I was a business development manager at the start, then became a customer development director. And as I was transitioning out of Pepsi-Cola, I was offered a job to become a general manager for Azerbaijan. I said, "I don't want it. So I left the company." I then joined a very different industry, which is actually a wonderful industry for all of people who's interested in it, it's the hospitality industry.
I became a hotelier. I started working for Kempinski. Kempinski is a European chain, a luxury chain out of Germany. And I spent about six more years as a business development director and revenue manager. So this lasted in total, my corporate life was 30 years. Out of Kempinski, I decided to form my own company and I was really fascinated with teaching, consulting, and also helping people become better at their jobs. So this is happening somewhere around 2004. So in 2004 I left Kempinski, formed my own company, and ever since then I've been training people in fields of sales, procurement, negotiation, and leadership.
Negotiation is really dear to my heart primarily because I believe that it is probably one of those traits that if you really are able to master it, you generate a great deal of profit for your company, but also for yourself as well. Profit in the sense of not just monetary profit, but also from an individual point of view as well. So I really enjoy teaching negotiation and also enjoy teaching RED BEAR content. RED BEAR content I think is phenomenal and of the people who have gone through that is also backing me up on that comment. It is a great content to teach in negotiations.
Rob Cox: Excellent. Well, I know that the RED BEAR content is something that you're very, very passionate about, Erhan. So thank you again for talking about it today. One of the things that I wanted to hear from you about was about making demands. So making demands is incredibly important in negotiations. Why is making demands so difficult for some people and does it vary by culture?
Erhan Imamoglu: Well, that's a great question actually, Rob. I think in essence, making demands requires you to really be able to get your requirement or wants across the other person in a specific manner. And when we're in a negotiation state, it is very tense. It's not an easy state to be in because there's exchange of ideas, exchange of monetary stuff. So it's a tense environment. And when people are put into a tense situation, they tend to become more argumentative than really thinking about what I need to get across as a message. And most of us believe that we need to solve a problem. And that's what we're really attuned to, just solving a problem. And the best way to solve a problem is guess what? To explain. So we go into that mode of explaining our arguments, making sure that we get everything across, prove that we're right, et cetera.
So that makes it difficult to just get across a concise, strong demand, which is, "I want to end this session at 5 P.M.," for example. This is a strong, concise demand. Now, not many people do that. What people tend to do is, "I have an appointment today and that's why I have to make sure that I get to that appointment. And for that reason, would you be able to end the session today at 5 P.M.?" Once you leak that information out, a skillful negotiator will capture that and will use it to their benefit. "So tell me about where you're going to go after this session? So why are you going there? What's going to happen there?" So all of a sudden you find yourself providing information. And if you're on the sales side, for example, procurement people do this quite well in terms of uncovering information.
Again, if you're a procurement person, dealing with a skillful salesperson tends to also give a lot of way. The idea here is making demands in a tense environment is indeed difficult because it is counterintuitive. Now, does it vary by culture? Absolutely. In some cultures especially if you go more to the east of the globe, you will find people who are trying to explain more. As you move more to the west, people tend to explain less. Having said that, it is also individual. So the person, depending on the style of communication that they have, tend to sometimes go overboard and explain and explain and explain to just to get point across. So in a nutshell, making demands is not easy and it's a tense environment. The thing that we need to think about is what do we want to really ask for from the other side? If we can really master that, I think then we can get a concise message across.
Rob Cox: Excellent. A strong, concise demand made with a lot of personal power, too. Excellent.
Erhan Imamoglu: Absolutely.
Rob Cox: So Erhan, thank you for that. Another RED BEAR principle I wanted to talk to you about was setting high targets. So that's another important one of our principles. You not only teach this principle professionally, but you've also used it personally. Can you give us an example of how setting or not setting a high target has affected you in real life?
Erhan Imamoglu: Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Now, setting high targets is a very interesting aspect. It's also, again, another counter-intuitive behavior. And it is fundamental, but most of us, when we are in a negotiation state, again, we tend to become exceptionally reasonable. We love to be reasonable. And the reason why we want to be reasonable is that we don't want to really cause a lot of tension again. Now, in my previous life when I was in a corporate world working for Pepsi-Cola, I had one instance where I didn't really set a high target. So I'll just share that with you. I think that'll probably make more sense for all of those out there listening. And it's an interesting story actually. It's about my relationship with my general manager. So my general manager, his name was Albert Manzoni. One day he called me up and said, "I need to have a performance review with you. And it's going to be on the 2nd of February of 1997." I remember it like yesterday. Okay. It was really an interesting situation. That's why I remember it so well.
And he tells me, "Prepare and come to that performance review prepared." And I say, "Okay, fine." Now just to give you a background, at that point in time I was driving a Toyota Corolla. I was earning a substantial good amount of money because I was working for a corporate company and it was a global company that was paying well. And my title was business development manager, and I was enjoying that title as well. Most of my friends out of college didn't get that opportunity as I did. So I was really advantageous in that sense. So I wasn't really looking for anything. And for that performance review, I put together the numbers and I went across and knocked on his door on the 2nd of February of 1997. So he let me in. I went in and I started walking towards a meeting table at the end of this room. He had a large humongous room.
So I go there in the middle, he just stops me and says, "No, no, no, I want you to go and sit at the leather couch." Now you can imagine that that didn't really resonate too well with me primarily because I was planning to have a meeting with him. But now he says that, "Go and sit at the leather couch." And the leather couch may not mean too well. So I was concerned with that. So anyway, I go and sit at the letter couch. He makes me wait for about 15 minutes, comes across and sits across from me and says a couple of things. And then I say, "Shall I start the performance review? Because I have numbers, so let's get it over with. I don't want to take up your time." And then he says, "No, no, I have a message to deliver to you."
So panic starts to settle in. What is the message? So all of a sudden he then says, "You know what? I just spoke about you to the BU president and we decided to convey a message to you. This is an important message and that's why I just want to make you sure that you feel relaxed and comfortable." So you can imagine the tension building up. And he says, "But now from today onwards, you will become our sales director." Wow. I was promoted, so I was exceptionally excited. I said, "Wow, that's exciting." He said, "Settle down, settle down. There's more to come." And he says, "So you'll get an Audi A4 from now on. You're not going to drive a Toyota Corolla. You're going to get an Audi A4." Wow. Imagine that now. And then he says, "Now there's more. Your salary will be increased by 11 percentage points."
So I was delighted. I left the room, I called my wife. I was celebrating. They gave me a big office space as well in the building. So I go and move into that big office space. And across from me is the marketing director's room. And the marketing director that day left the company. And that was awkward, and I saw the HR guy and said, "Why did he leave? Is it because of me and becoming promoted and stuff like that?" He said, "No, no, no. He just decided to leave." I then said, "Are you looking for someone else to replace him?" And he said, "Yeah, we have someone, but he's not here right now."
I then say, "Where is he? Is he joining the company?" "No, he left for the U.S., the president of Pepsi-Cola sent his private jet to pick him up for a one-on-one interview and purchased New York." "Purchased New York one-on-one interview with a private jet?" And he's the marketing director, right? "Yeah." He said, "He's the marketing director." So a couple of days later, the marketing director was hired. He came to the office with a humongous black Mercedes Benz. He took the office across from me and he became the marketing director. Now, to make a long story short, who do you think Albert had lunch with from that point onwards? Me or the marketing director? I asked you this question. Rob, who do you think?
Rob Cox: I'm assuming it was the marketing director.
Erhan Imamoglu: No, he had lunch with me. Why? Because I was reasonable. I was a nice guy. He loved me. He loved talking to me. I didn't ever challenge him because I accepted everything off the bat. The marketing director was a good negotiator. He got the car. He went to U.S. Private jet. I don't know if you've been on a private jet before, but I've never been on a private jet. So this guy gets on a private jet before I was there. So the important part here is that to negotiate by setting our target requires you to get off of your boundaries and move away from all of those restrictions that you put on yourself and really not be reasonable.
But think about how you can put a high anchor, so that you would be able to go into that conversation with the confidence and with the expectations of achieving more than you go for. Because let's not forget those who ask for more, tend to get more. In that conversation I asked for nothing, and I was happy with what was given to me. But when I saw what the marketing director got, well, that was too late. So that's what happened to me. I would never want anything like this to happen to anyone else.
Rob Cox: That's a great story, Erhan. So many great principles there. Thank you for telling it. I love that you remember the date, too.
Erhan Imamoglu: Oh, yeah, I never get that.
Rob Cox: That's funny. You mentioned a lot of great principles there. You talked about confidence. You also mentioned anchoring. I do want to talk to you about anchoring. What is anchoring and why do so many negotiators struggle with it, and does it vary by culture?
Erhan Imamoglu: Well, that's again a great question, Rob. Thank you for asking that. Anchoring is actually a simple phenomenon. It's human psychology. When there is uncertainty prevailing, what we human beings do are we seek a reference point. We want to be able to feel confident and comfortable with what we're going to be able to get. If you ever went to a Starbucks, for example, they have this tall, grande, and venti. The venti is the anchor. They know for a fact you're going to go for the grande, but you're not going to go for the tall because the tall doesn't sound too good, because it's small. You don't want to have something small. You want to have something probably larger than what you are looking for, et cetera. So there is uncertainty prevailing. You do not know how to decide the ounce of the tall, but you just make an assumption.
Anchoring allows you to make an assumption at a high level. The other beauty of the anchoring part is that when you come down to another number, that number to the other party sounds exceptionally reasonable. To give you an example, I say, "My services are $1 million." And the guy comes to me, "Oh, that's too expensive." "Well, you know what? For this, we probably can do it for $550,000." All of a sudden, the $550,000 sounds, "Well, that's reasonable. You know what? We probably can work with that." Now, anchoring has this therefore psychological impact on the person who you're dealing with. Now, culture-wise, yes. If you go to the Nordics, for example, like Finland, Norway, the first number that comes out of your month is the number that you're going to reach an agreement with. So that is the culture. That is what is expected in Finland. If you go and say, "This pen is $10." That pen is $10, it's not going to be $9. But if you go to Asia, if you say, "This pen is $10." You're going to get it for a dollar.
Because they anchor you high. So cultural-wise, you need to recognize that there are different cultures who anchor substantially high, and sometimes even to this extent that you laugh them out of the room. But if you stay there, you can be able to get a good deal out of it. Now, overall, if you look at it, anchoring is a fundamental principle that needs to be mastered by all negotiators, and it is simple. It is simple psychology. And if anybody's interested in it, there's a lot of literature on this as well people can refer to. Harvard Business Review just came out with a new research on this topic of anchoring as well. So there's a lot out there that people can research, but anchoring is definitely an important principle.
Rob Cox: Excellent. Erhan, you've covered so many important RED BEAR principles today. Making demands, setting high targets. Just now with anchoring, and you got into cross-cultural negotiation there a little bit, just some of the generalities of some of the different cultures and how they negotiate. I want to wrap up here with planning. I know that planning is a very passionate subject for you. Why is planning so important in negotiations, and do you think the majority of negotiators take the time they need to properly prepare for a negotiation?
Erhan Imamoglu: Rob, if you want to differentiate yourself as a good negotiator, guess what? Planning is the key. Not many people plan for a negotiation, and if you plan for a negotiation, all of a sudden you have an advantage over the other person. Now planning is so important because, let me explain it this way. Daniel Kahneman came out with a book called Thinking, Fast and Slow. In that book, he refers to two parts of the brain, system one and system two. System one is basically fight or flight. It's intuitive, it's fast, it's effortless. It's like something like this. Two times two, everybody says four. No effort is required there. He also mentions system two, which is rational, logical, but requires a lot of effort, and it is slow. To give you an example, if I was to ask the audience here now, 18,123 multiplied by 17,013, they would say, "Give me a calculator."
That's system one, asking system two for help. Now, when system two kicks in, it brings in rationality, it brings in logic, planning and negotiation gets your system two into action. Otherwise, what happens if you negotiate with your system one brain, you either fight by proving your argument, trying to put all sorts of data in front of people, explain, blah, blah, blah, and become hostile at certain times, or you flee. You just say, okay, "I'll concede." You say what? "$10 for the pen? Okay, I can give it for $1." So you become flight. Do you want to get your system into action so that you become logical, rational, and be able to really predict and anticipate the move of other party? You do have to plan. But like I said, not many people do plan for a negotiation. Guess what? If you're one of those few that do plan, you will be successful. I can assure you of that.
Rob Cox: Excellent. I know that you teach a lot about planning in our RED BEAR workshops. Of course, we have RED BEAR Negotiation Planners where people can plan out their entire negotiations. I know you teach a lot about that, so thank you for that insight, Erhan. Erhan, you've covered again, so many topics today. Thank you so much for your time. You've been very generous with it. Is there anything else that you'd like to say before we wrap up?
Erhan Imamoglu: Well, simple. Life is all about negotiating. People go through sales trainings, leadership trainings, stress management trainings, all sorts of trainings. I have nothing against them. They should always go through those trainings. But if you have not gone through a proper, well-defined, structured, and proven methodology in negotiation, you will not be successful. That's all I have to say. And RED BEAR has wonderful content that will definitely ensure that you become a great negotiator.
Rob Cox: Excellent. Well, to bring it full circle Erhan, that was a strong and concise message, so thank you for that. Thank you again for your time. This has been The Confident Negotiator Podcast. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.
Erhan Imamoglu: Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Take care.
