The Godfather's bloody billion dollar negotiation strategy
Published: Tue, 01/19/21
It’s part of a series of calls John did called “The Scuttlebutt Tapes.”
And, in this tape, they talked about the book The Godfather.
Specifically, the part where a singer (probably based on Sinatra) went to the Godfather for help in getting a roll in an upcoming movie to save his sagging career. He knew if he got this part, his career would take off again, and if he didn’t it would flop.
The movie producer was one of the most powerful men in the world.
And, he told the actor and the Godfather no.
So what did the Godfather do?
Well, it turns out the producer had a horse he treasured over anything else.
And, he woke up one day to find the horse’s decapitated head in his bed.
Needless to say, the producer changed his mind after that…
The point of the story?
In the tape, Gary Halbert told the story to illustrate how the Godfather was, as he put it:
“a no limits guy”
But, there is much more to it than that.
The Godfather was tapping into an extremely potent principle of negotiation. A principle that - when used for good, not how the Godfather did it, of course - is the cornerstone of the late “World’s Most Feared Negotiator’s” (Jim Camp) system of negotiation.
And that principle is:
Vision.
As Jim taught, “Vision drives decision.”
It’s a principle that drove billion dollar negotiations for him.
That let him make more income selling water filters door-to-door early in his career than he did at his full time job as an airline pilot.
And, that often got him everything he wanted in his negotiations.
(And then some…)
More:
This principle is everywhere if you look for it.
Like in the movie 300 — about the Spartans who, with just 300 men, held off a Persian army of tens of thousands and rallied the nation to defend themselves (the entire movie is a story, building a vision, to motivate the Spartan army).
Or in the popular “A Christmas Carol” story.
Scrooge goes from miserly, crotchety, and downright evil… to becoming seemingly the most generous, loving, and caring man in England because of a VISION of what would happen if he didn’t change his wicked ways.
Or, for a more realistic example:
Take A-list copywriter Kim Krause Schwalm.
I talked about this (giving full credit to Mr. Camp, of course) during my training at Brian Kurtz’s Masterclass back in late 2018. And when we were riffing about things being taught later, she said how she uses vision to get her kids to avoid drugs by showing them Youtube videos of how horrific the lives of drug addicts are. Incidentally, Jim Camp used to say mothers were the best natural negotiators precisely because of things like this...
For a more startling example, take the country of Guatemala.
Back in the 1980’s, hardline Guatemalan political propagandists — to create distrust of Europeans — told villagers the tourists they saw taking pictures of them and their kids were plotting to capture, kill, dismember, and sell their organs on the black market. And this persuaded mobs of otherwise non-violent people to murder and dismember tourists on sight.
This obviously is a negative use of vision.
But, it still illustrates the point, which is:
Vision is everything.
Get this right, and you can charge almost anything you want for your products and services in many cases.
Get almost anything you want out of a negotiation.
And, avoid having to compromise or spill all your beans when seeking new clients.
Very powerful principle.
And, something Jim talks about over and over and over (and over) in the re-discovered old audios of a training he gave to his prestigious students. Michael Senoff recently got the rights to sell these audios for $97 (to get them directly from the Camp Estate would cost you $597).
And the deadline to get them is Friday 1/22 at midnight PST.
Here is my unruly affiliate link for your clicking pleasure:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com/camp
Ben Settle