Wiseguy's Guide to Getting What You Want by Michael Franzese: (6/10)

Quote from Ali Scarlett on January 25, 2022, 2:26 am

Wiseguy's Guide to Getting What You Want by Michael Franzese: Summary & Review

Wiseguy's Guide to Getting What You Want is a 3-module online course on negotiation and communication in which Michael Franzese, the course instructor, teaches how to get what you want in life by making others an offer they can’t refuse.

 

Bullet Summary

 

• Gather as much information as you can before the negotiation begins
• Work on yourself to build a collaborative negotiation style
• Address objections before the other side can pose them

 

Full Summary

 

About The Author: Michael Franzese was a soldier and caporegime in the Colombo organized crime family — one of New York’s most violent and feared families — for 25 years of his life. Now, he uses his unique life experiences to help corporate executives, professional and student-athletes, at-risk youths, and church audiences. 

 

Module #1: Mindset

 

Lesson #1: Deciding to Negotiate

 

Franzese: “So, there's a lot of different circumstances that you may go through. Sometimes they're going to be unpleasant, sometimes they're going to be to your advantage. And, it's very important that going in [to the negotiation], you have a certain mindset going in and saying [to yourself], ‘This is what I'm going to accomplish.’

 Sometimes you have to compromise. Sometimes you got to out not win. And, sometimes you got to be willing to get off the table and just walk away.”

 

More of an introductory lesson, Franzese says that we enter into a negotiation for different reasons. Sometimes we're called into a negotiation and, as a result, we're sort of forced into it.

Other times, we're the ones calling the negotiation so we can gain an advantage.

 

Lesson #2: Overcoming Fear

 

Franzese: “...I think the fear that people have comes from intimidation. Who am I sitting down with? You know, are they more of an imposing figure than me? Are they going to try to control the situation? You can never enter into a new negotiation with fear. You can't do that because you're giving yourself a big disadvantage at that point. So, walking in, you got to have the mindset that, you know what? We're on equal terms. I'm prepared. I know what it is that I want to come out with, and I'm going to just firmly hold my ground.”

 

Note: While this may be true in some cases, oftentimes, the fears that one has in a negotiation are common fears that can be found in most general social interactions such as the fear of failure, fear of negative judgment, or fear of being assertive (see “common social fears”).

 

Lesson #3: Pride and Ego Have No Place In the Negotiation

 

Franzese has a saying, “Leave your pride and ego at the door.”

 

Franzese: “So pride and ego have no place in a negotiation now. You could carry yourself, well, you know, you don't want to let somebody abuse you in the negotiation. But pride and ego, they want to enter into it. And if they do, you're probably going to come out a loser.”

 

Lesson #4: Style

 

Here, Franzese is really referring to “frames.” 

He mentions that John Gotti had an “I win, you lose” negotiation style (a competitive frame). And, he had a more win-win negotiation style (a collaborative frame).

 

Franzese: “You know, I walk in. I state my case. I always feel that having a successful negotiation is when both parties walked out feeling that they won in some way…I'm not really an aggressive guy when I sit down with somebody. I let people talk. That's kind of my style…You know, a negotiation style that I don't recommend that will not be successful to you is if you're combative. If I lose, you're going to lose. If I don't gain, you're [not] going to gain [either].” 

 

So, Franzese mentions the combative and collaborative negotiation styles. 

But, here, Franzese also introduces a third style: the accommodating style. It’s the win-lose negotiation style where you settle for whatever the other side hands you.

Aim for a collaborative negotiation style.

 

Lesson #5: Conduct

 

Rules of conduct:

• Don’t be disrespectful, loud, or boisterous. (Let the other person do that.)
• Be assertive yet respectful.
• Look the part — even dress the part going in. (Let your opponent respect you.)

 

Lesson #6: How to Read the Room

 

When going into a room to make a pitch, look around the room and do your best to get a good understanding of what each person’s role is.

Here, Franzese recommends practicing this by doing your best to read any room you go into.

 

Franzese: “Every time you go anywhere, you go into a restaurant, try to read the person that you're dealing with. Read the waiter, the maitre d’, or the hostess. Now, you know, it's a crowded place. You know, I want a good table. Can I slip this guy a $10 bill…or is he the guy who can do it? You kind of get a feel for it. How do you do it? I make a joke. Say something nice. ‘Gee, I'd love to get a good table.’

Whatever it is, it's something that you're going to develop innately if you are observant of it, if you are cognizant of it, every time you walk into a room, you're going to an auto dealership, you're going to buy a car, you sit with the salesman, you start to read the salesman. Can I maneuver this guy a little bit? Can I really get some money off? Maybe he's not the right guy I should use, let me go to the next salesman. Every time you go into a room anywhere.”

 

Lesson #7: Nonverbal Skills

 

Franzese shares a fun story about the importance of how you present yourself.

 

Franzese: “You know, I can tell you back in the day when I was a caporegime in the family and I lived out on Long Island, so many people would come to me and present deals to me all the time. Different propositions. So often that I had to resort to — I actually bought a club, it was a lounge, a restaurant. And every Monday night, if anybody wanted to make a proposition or, you know, try to sell me something or get me involved in a deal, they'd come and see me on that Monday night. We actually would maybe hold court, whatever you might call it. And immediately, when somebody walked into that back room and sat down, if they weren't dressed properly, if they didn't look the part, to me it was disrespectful.

You know, you come in to talk to me about something that's important to you. I really don't need you. You want to make an impression on me. And you come in dressed like that? And then I'm sitting there, you know, I'm watching you and you look kind of bored. You sit back in the chair, you know, your arms are folded...No, right off the bat, I don't even want to hear what you have to say at that point. The way you present yourself is very important. Other people came in the room. I saw that they were important. They didn't have to be dressed in a suit and tie. But I saw that they knew that they were coming to meet somebody, you know, in order to get something that they wanted out of me.”

 

And, on how to prepare yourself for developing those nonverbal skills:

 

Franzese: “How do you prepare yourself for developing nonverbal skills? You know, to me, a lot of it is common sense.

Really, if you're going in to secure an office job or an office position, you don't go in there with shorts and a T-shirt and flip flops, you know, and your hair all messed up. You don't do that. You know, you just dress according to the position that you want to achieve.”

 

Note: Attire and fashion sense aren't really “nonverbal skills”. They're more along the lines of external social currencies that can be valuable to others when they’re developed well. Though, if you consider that how you dress does nonverbally communicate information about you, then we can say there is some technical leeway in calling attire a “nonverbal skill”.

 

Nonverbal communication skills to develop:

• “You know, when you're sitting down with somebody, you make eye contact. Very, very important. I don't like when I'm speaking to somebody and they look down, they're not looking me in the eye. That's like, you don't have confidence in yourself, you know, and that's a very telling sign.” — Michael Franzese
• “Don't be talking to somebody with your hand on your chin or your cheek like that, you know, keep yourself up, be dignified in your conversation and look important.” — Michael Franzese

 

Module #2: Strategy Preparation

 

Lesson #1: Identify What You Want

 

Franzese says there are two elements to strategy preparation:

1. Identifying your optimum result.
2. Identifying your fallback position.

The optimum result is what you want when you walk into the room. It’s what you’re going to try to gain and achieve. 

You're going to prepare for that, but you have to have a fallback position because you may not get everything you want. So, the fallback position is what you’re going to settle for. 

Franzese says you need to prepare for both because it’s how effective negotiators go into negotiations with both barrels loaded.

 

Franzese: “Know what your optimum want is and know what you're going to settle for. And if you can't get either, you got to be prepared to walk away and then maybe come back another time.” 

 

Lesson #2: Know Who You’re Dealing With

 

Franzese: “I can't say it enough. Knowing who you're going to be dealing with, knowing who's on the other side of the table, doing your research, finding out as much about the individual, about the company, whoever it is that you're dealing with, you've got to do your homework, know the guy that's sitting on the other side of the table. It's extremely important, there's information out there.”

 

This is also where Franzese emphasizes that it’s important to know the personality of the person you’ll be dealing with. (And, plan how you’re going to navigate their personality to reach a win-win deal.)

He mentions that there will be negotiations where you won't have enough time to fully prepare and gather the information that you need. In those cases, simply go in and present yourself as best you can. 

But, any time you can prepare and know the personality of your counterpart or any information on the company you're dealing with, it will put you at an advantage.

 

Lesson #3: Resources

 

As you're preparing for your negotiation, it’s important to decide whether or not you need any resources or tools to further strengthen your position and persuade your counterpart.

Potential resources you can use:

• An expert: maybe your negotiation is in something that you're not too versed in, so you can bring in an expert to try to bolster your position.
• A lawyer: maybe there's some legal element of the deal that you're presenting and you want a lawyer to come in to express or explain the legality of it.
• An accountant: maybe you're not that great at expressing the economics of a deal.
• A visual aid: maybe a PowerPoint presentation, a visual presentation, videos, or webinars because they say a picture is worth a thousand words. (Maybe you could also use photographs or a pamphlet — anything that you can put in front of the other side that can help support your position.)
• A nice, detailed letter: a letter that really expresses everything. Sometimes you may not be the right person to really talk through a deal. So, if you're better at writing information down than verbally expressing it, you can leave a detailed letter with your counterpart. That way, after the meeting, they have something to look at again.

Franzese also mentions that there are cases where bringing resources or materials are a poor strategy depending on the personality of your counterpart.

 

Franzese: “Donald Trump. You go into a meeting with a PowerPoint with Donald Trump. You probably got two minutes of his attention with that. He don't want to hear it. You know, there are some people you don't want to hear. They want you to be ready to present your case verbally. That's it. He's not going to look at resources, at letters, at photographs, at webinars, or anything like that.”

 

Lesson #4: Tactical Retreat

 

Franzese: “There are times you're in the room you're negotiating…And it's just not working out. It's just not going to happen at this point in time. Maybe it can happen…They just can't do it at that point in time. You can't get what you want. You can't get your optimum result, you can't get your fallback position.

So what do you do? Do you want to just make an enemy? You just want to cut it off. No. What you do is you say to yourself, 'You know what? Maybe this is not the right time.' Timing is everything in life, and sometimes it's just not the right time. So what do you do? You say, tactical retreat. We'll come back another day. Let me rethink this. Let's see how the market changes. Let's see how things change that maybe gives me an advantage the next time around.”

 

Module #3: Application

 

Lesson #1: Proposal

 

First, a recap:

 

Franzese: “OK, so now the big day is here, all the strategy, all the preparation, you're ready to go, this is it, you're ready to walk into the room. What's the first thing that you do? You read the room, right? Who's there? What's their role? You may not know it immediately, but you're conscious of it. And as you move along, you're going to try to identify that if you have to cater to one person or the other, you're ready to do that. You have your strategy. Your leverage. Everything that you've put into place. To this point, you're ready now to apply and execute. So what's the first thing that you do once you sit down?” 

 

Getting into the negotiation itself, Franzese recommends you waste no time. Here, he teaches you to take a direct approach and field your request right away. 

Franzese says that this direct, "let's get straight into it" approach will grab their attention because people’s attention spans are short.

 

Franzese: “They don't want to listen to you for two hours. They don't want you to build up to get to the point. You got to get to the point right away. So you've got three to five minutes, in my view, to really dazzle in, get their attention, really want them to be interested and hear what you have to say. So, first thing you do, you clearly lay out what you're there for. I want a salary raise. I have a brand new company. I want you to fund it. I want you to be my partner, whatever it is that you want in that room. You put it right out there.

And then for the next two to three minutes, you tell them why they should be interested in you.”

 

Note: Schmoozing over personal details before fielding your request has been shown to result in better deals (Morris, Nadler, Kurtzberg, & Thompson, 2002, p. 99). Personal information (for example, what’s happening in your life) is particularly effective because it’s a form of self-disclosure that builds rapport when done well (Worthy, Albert, & Gay, 1969). For more on this, see The Psychology of Negotiation.

 

Lesson #2: Price Anchoring (AKA: The “Neapolitan Exchange”)

 

Franzese: “Now we're going to get into something that I referred to as price anchoring or, really, in my terminology, it's called the Neapolitan exchange…My family is from Naples. I know a lot of Neapolitans. We're always bartering for something. We always ask for something high. Settle for something a little less. We always have a fallback position in just about every negotiation that you're going to be involved in.”

 

And, this is how Franzese breaks down anchoring (which he calls the Neapolitan exchange):

 

Franzese: “Let's say you're looking for a salary increase or a position where the salary range is from 90,000 a year to 50,000 a year. 

Well, you know, right off the bat, you're not going to go in and ask for 110,000. You're already out of the range, they’re not going to pay attention to you. 

But let's say you feel you're worth 90,000 a year, so you're going to ask for that, but you may not get it for various reasons. You might be qualified, but maybe there's other people that have been there longer and they had to work their way up for that and they don't want you to start at that number. 

So what are you willing to take? You have your fallback position. Maybe it's not 50. Maybe it's 65. But you're ready, you're prepared for that. 

So your optimum at 90,000, they're not willing to give you that. In exchange for that, you're willing to take 65,000. That's the Neapolitan exchange. 

So you always got to be prepared for a Plan B, a fallback position Neapolitan exchange.”

 

Note: Continuing from this example, rather than simply asking for a single anchor of $90,000, researchers found that you’ll get the highest salary when you use a bolstering range. Compared to a single anchor, ranges seem less rigid. So, you’ll be more likely to reach an agreement (and the agreement will also be higher). Therefore, a more effective request would be to make your optimum price and ask $90,000 to $100,000 (see "request a high precise range"). 

 

Lesson #3: Handling Objections

 

Here, Franzese recommends handling objections by frame stealing their objections to frame-block any of their attempts at disqualifying your offer as a fit (see the “accusations audit”).

Option one is to be direct with your counterpart and say, “Listen, if I was sitting in your place, these are the objections that I would have to everything that I've presented so far.” And, you can go through each potential objection they might have and answer them in advance, right upfront. You can tell them straight out.

Your other option is to be a bit more indirect about it. You can simply say you’d like to share some information with them about your company and in that information, answer what they might be thinking before they have a chance to ask those questions. 

Then, when you’re done, sit there, and say, “Do you have any questions?” Franzese says that, oftentimes, they’ll look at you and say, “You've answered just about everything.”

Note: As Lucio mentions himself, the accusations audit is not always and necessarily the most effective approach (see “accusations audit strategies”).

 

Real Life Applications

 

• Work on adopting a collaborative negotiation style

 

Franzese says that if your personality leads you to be more combative or overly-accomodating, it’s worth working on developing a more collaborative, win-win attitude to be more successful in your negotiations.

 

CONS

 

• Misses opportunities to share more information

 

Franzese says he believes that everything in life is a negotiation. And, that his negotiation course can be applied to almost anything that requires an exchange of ideas between two or more people.

Yet, just because something can be negotiated doesn’t mean it should be. (For example, it might not be the best use of your time to try and negotiate a couple of dollars off your groceries in a store where the prices are pretty much set already.)

So, in the very first lesson, titled “Deciding to Negotiate”, rather than using it as an introductory lesson, that could’ve been a great place to give students a little more value by sharing insight into when a negotiation is worth investing time and effort into.

 

• Sometimes feels less like a course and more like an overview

 

And, that’s due to the course not exploring the information it shares in greater detail. For example, Franzese says, “Mike Tyson, the baddest man on the planet, every time he walked down the aisle to get into the ring, he said, 'I was scared.' I was kind of shocked to hear that...But what did he do when he got into the ring? He transmitted that fear to his opponent, and that's how he was able to win.”

Unfortunately, the course doesn’t share how to transmit your fear to your opponent (or if that’s even a good idea outside of sports).

Then, Franzese says, “So you may be somebody that's easily intimidated. That's OK. There's nothing shameful about that. But your mindset has to be, you know what, when I get in that room, I'm going to be in control.”

In control of the situation or in control of yourself? A little more explanation could’ve shed some light.

 

• Gives the “what” but neglects the “how”

 

In the overcoming fear lesson, Franzese says you need the mindset that (1) you’re on equal terms with your counterpart, (2) you’re prepared, and (3) you know your desired outcome. And, (4) you’re willing to assertively negotiate for that outcome — you’re willing to hold your ground.

But, he doesn’t share how to adopt this attitude or these mindsets. 

It could've been valuable to see a few fair value social exchange beliefs or some beliefs of assertiveness to practice internalizing.

 

• A very, very short online course

 

No lesson in the "Mindset" module is longer than five minutes. And, each lesson in the following modules are less than ten minutes long.

Franzese says he designed the course this way on purpose because he wanted it to be consumed in 5-10 minute chunks per day.

But, it's resulted in a course that’s only 52 minutes and 35 seconds long in total.

And, personally, I would’ve preferred to pay more money and get more value than pay the current price and be left with so little information.

 

• Less of a course and more of a collection of stories from his former life

 

And, that might leave you wondering how to apply what he teaches in your own, lower-stakes negotiations.

Plus, since most lessons are less than five minutes long, these are quick, short stories that don’t go into detail on how he succeeded in his negotiations.

 

• Gives some misinformation 

 

In the lesson on how to conduct yourself, Franzese says, "...People don't get out of hand when they see the person they’re negotiating with is conducting himself in a right way.”

That’s not always the case. For example, in an everyday life negotiation situation, one could be negotiating with a rude, disrespectful customer who thinks they’re “always right”. The type of difficult personality that thinks they're entitled to what they're asking for and is frustrated you won’t compromise your boundaries. 

In any case like that, it’s all the more apparent that you’re only in charge of your own behavior and others are in charge of theirs. You cannot control whether or not the other side chooses to behave like an entitled turkey simply by "conducting yourself a right way".

 

PROS

 

• Fun, engaging mafia-life stories

 

The stories I hadn’t already heard from his interviews and YouTube channel were very fun to listen to. 

More than the excitement within the stories themselves, the location where he filmed these course videos is a more intimate setting than the studio he usually uses in his YouTube videos. So, it felt like Franzese told these stories with a more persuasive and attention-grabbing charisma (which was awesome to be a part of as a student).

 

Review

 

There were a few more cons I left out to avoid nitpicking. 

This wasn’t a bad course by any means. It's more that the overemphasis on sharing life stories rather than providing more practical strategies — coupled with the short course length — make it a poor investment of one’s time and effort compared to some of the other resources on the TPM “Best Of” list.

With that said though, many of the other students left comments underneath each lesson and seem to be enjoying it. So, in all fairness, maybe this course simply wasn’t a fit for me while the other students are getting tons of value from it.

As a final note, it seems like the Michael Franzese Team is still updating the course (after all, at the time of this review’s writing, the course was only released five days ago). So, maybe they’ll update and expand the content as they receive more feedback in the future.