NEGOTIATIONS EXPERTISE WITH FOTINI ICONOMOPOULOS | E037 PODCAST

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ABOUT THE GUEST

Fotini Iconomopoulos is a highly regarded expert in negotiation and communication, known for her ability to empower individuals and organizations to achieve their goals. With a background in the consumer packaged goods industry and extensive experience in consulting, Fotini has helped Fortune 500 companies enhance their profitability and competitive edge. She founded Forward Focusing, a consulting firm dedicated to strategic forward-thinking and achieving commercial objectives for clients across various industries including retail, tech, and finance​.

Fotini is also a celebrated speaker, frequently addressing topics such as negotiation, leadership, and conflict management. She teaches MBA Negotiations at the Schulich School of Business at York University and is a guest lecturer at other leading institutions. Her work extends to philanthropic efforts, particularly in supporting women and disadvantaged groups through initiatives like Up With Women and the Network of Executive Women.

Her book, Say Less, Get More, provides readers with actionable strategies for successful negotiations, drawing from her extensive experience and practical insights. Fotini's contributions to the field have been recognized with accolades such as the Greek America Foundation's Top 40 Under 40 award and a nomination for the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award.

Fotini’s Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/fotiniicon
Fotini’s LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fotiniiconomopoulos/
Fotini’s Twitter (X):
https://x.com/fotiniicon
Fotini’s Website:
https://fotiniicon.com/
Fotini’s Book:
https://fotiniicon.com/the-book/
Fotini’s YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYiIq5wiR03JNF_avv40pXw/featured

George Stroumboulis sits down with Fotini Iconomopoulos in Toronto, Canada on the Invigorate Your Business Podcast to talk about all things negotiations, communication, advice for personal development, book writing and so much more.

“So it’s very rare that people will come to you and ask you to write a book, unless you’re a celebrity. That just doesn’t happen. So I had a very unique experience and most of the time people are writing book proposals and trying to shop them around to publishers.”
— Fotini Iconomopoulos

MEDIA RELATED TO THE EPISODE

George Stroumboulis sits down with Fotini Iconomopoulos in Toronto, Canada on the Invigorate Your Business Podcast to talk about all things negotiations, communication, advice for personal development, book writing and so much more.

George Stroumboulis sits down with Fotini Iconomopoulos in Toronto, Canada on the Invigorate Your Business Podcast to talk about all things negotiations, communication, advice for personal development, book writing and so much more.

George Stroumboulis sits down with Fotini Iconomopoulos in Toronto, Canada on the Invigorate Your Business Podcast to talk about all things negotiations, communication, advice for personal development, book writing and so much more.

George Stroumboulis sits down with Fotini Iconomopoulos in Toronto, Canada on the Invigorate Your Business Podcast to talk about all things negotiations, communication, advice for personal development, book writing and so much more.

George Stroumboulis sits down with Fotini Iconomopoulos in Toronto, Canada on the Invigorate Your Business Podcast to talk about all things negotiations, communication, advice for personal development, book writing and so much more.

George Stroumboulis sits down with Fotini Iconomopoulos in Toronto, Canada on the Invigorate Your Business Podcast to talk about all things negotiations, communication, advice for personal development, book writing and so much more.

ABOUT THE “INVIGORATE YOUR BUSINESS” PODCAST

The Invigorate Your Business with George Stroumboulis podcast features casual conversations and personal interviews with business leaders in their respective fields of expertise. Crossing several industry types and personal backgrounds, George sits down with inspiring people to discuss their business, how they got into that business, their path to the top of their game and the trials and tribulations experienced along the way. We want you to get inspired, motivated, and then apply any advice to your personal and professional lives. If there is at least one piece of advice that resonates with you after listening, then this podcast is a success. New episodes weekly. Stream our show on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, Amazon and all other platforms.

ABOUT GEORGE STROUMBOULIS

George Stroumboulis is an entrepreneur to the core, having launched several ventures across multiple industries and international markets. He has held senior-level positions at progressive companies and government institutions, both domestically and internationally, building an extensive portfolio of business know-how over the years and driving profit-generating results. George’s ability to drive real change has landed him in several media outlets, including the front page of the Wall Street Journal. George was born in Toronto, Canada to his Greek immigrant parents. Family first. Flying over 300,000 miles a year around the world puts into perspective how important family is to George’s mental and emotional development. With all this travel to global destinations, the longest he stays even in the most far-out destination is 3 days or less - a personal rule he lives by to make sure he is present and involved in family life with his wife and three daughters. To read about George’s global travels, stay connected with his blog section.

FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT

George Stroumboulis - Host: 00:00

Welcome to another episode of Invigorate your Business with George Stroumboulis. Today I sit down with Fotini Iconomopoulos. She is an international negotiations expert. She is an author, she is a speaker and a strategist. She has been published in every imaginable publication around the world. She's been featured on television programs, morning talk shows, for her advice, for her expertise in the arena of negotiation. She is a powerhouse. We're going to cover a lot of topics. We're going to get some powerful advice from her as well. So enjoy this episode starting now.

00:36

My name is George Stroumboulis and I'm extremely passionate about traveling the world, meeting new people and learning about new businesses. Join me as I sit down with other entrepreneurs to learn about their journeys. This episode of Invigorate your Business starts now. We're going to get it started. We're in Toronto, Canada, hometown, amazing city sitting here with a powerhouse, author, speaker, negotiations expert, childhood friend, all-around great person.

01:11

Fotini Iconomopoulos. Thank you for sitting down with me, very excited to just go into everything. We obviously have background work and childhood right, but professionally you've been just exploding. Over the years I've seen just everything that you're doing. We've talked personally about it, seeing you from the corporate world working for brands like L'Oreal and Smuckers yes, smuckers and then negotiating with clients like Walmart, and then going to work for a negotiations company, and then starting your own firm and just seeing that and then, while doing this, becoming a very well-known, reputable speaker in the space right, talking to different industries, different walks of life and tying in the art of negotiation. So it's incredible what you've been able to do. Thank you for sitting down with me and welcome.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 02:04

Well, thank you. It's so bizarre to be sitting with someone who knows so much of my history Too much. I think you're good at keeping things that need to be kept in the vault.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 02:14

Yes, that's true, that's true.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 02:16

But it is really weird to be doing these types of conversations that I do all the time, but with someone who knows so much of the backstory and has watched the entire evolution Entire, start to finish.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 02:26

Yeah, and we keep seeing it and we're going to get into this. But you also have an amazing book. I've seen before this book even came out I experienced it with my company just how you approach negotiations right and I know it's a big term, I think it's more communication right Like you are a communications expert, and even stuff that we've learned that you've talked about has helped me in my business with my team right and negotiating and discussing and just really understanding that people have a background and how do you leverage that to get what you need and just kind of making sure everybody wins. That's something that you know resonated with me. So just talk to me in general how do you go from where you work corporate wise to becoming a negotiations expert?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 03:11

I mean? The easy answer is it was lazy. My entire career has been very passive. It's been people going. We think you should do this.

03:18

So I was recruited out of my MBA. L'oreal recruited me and it was great. And then this other company recruited me and then I was being trained to be a more effective negotiator. So this training company came in and said you should really be doing what we do. And I was like, yeah, sure, okay, someday when I have more experience. And it took them a year of convincing me to come on board and join them. And I joined them for a long time and then my clients went why aren't you doing this thing on your own? When I quit that job because it wasn't serving me anymore, the clients are the ones that convinced me to do something.

03:44

I had no intention of becoming self-employed, but it was. I was working with some very big clients that I'm bound by NDAs about. So some of the biggest companies in the world that I can't tell you that I worked with were going when are you going to come back and work with us? And I'd say, but I don't work for, I'll do this until I have to get a real job. And lo and behold, 10 years later, it's a real job. I can admit it after being again invited to can you come teach at your alma mater and teach MBA negotiations? Okay, harper Collins rang and said we saw a video of you online. We think you have a book in you. And I was like all right, so I've never chased it. I just feel like I put myself in positions where I enjoy what I'm doing. I light up doing what I'm doing and people see that and clearly I'm delivering some value because they keep inviting me back and they keep sharing that with other folks.

04:37

So I've never really had to actively market myself in anything. It's just been doing the things that are really cool to do, saying yes to stuff that sounds really cool, and it just keeps leading to even better things.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 04:47

Yeah, it's incredible. Did you even think being on TV getting on stage sharing this message? And it's always tailored for each audience. It's not the same message to everybody, it's tailored for each industry. Did you even see that? Were you manifesting that back in the day, like when the book came up? Did you ever say I'm going to write a book?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 05:09

I'm going to be a professor, I'm going to teach, or like everything. Just kind of, the answer to all of that is no. Like I had clients saying to me what are you going to write a book? I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. It was just kind of one of those things where, until it was in front of me, I never dreamed it up. I didn't know you could get paid to be on those stages. Like whenever I went to conferences and stuff, it was, you know, the VPs of our company and that kind of thing. So I never saw anybody entertaining on stage and teaching at the same time. So until a client said, hey, can you come speak at our national sales meeting, I was like, yeah, okay, I can do that. I mean, I do this stuff in the classroom in a room full of people all the time. Why wouldn't I full of people? Just, none of these things were even. There was no iota of it on my brain it was. Until I was exposed to it I didn't know it was an opportunity for me, wow.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 05:49

But you said that like, yeah, I speak in boardrooms and everything, why not do it on stage? That's a big jump right. To sit here and talk to 10, 15 executives is one thing. You still have to be sharp, you need to know your numbers, you need to know everything. I understand that. But to take that and go on stage hundreds of people and not just hundreds of people like executives, leaders across the board, not just here in Toronto, across the country, you know, across the United States you've done stuff internationally that's not an easy jump.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 06:19

But yet I was practicing with those muscles from the time I was a kid.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 06:22

Yeah.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 06:23

So I mean, you know, I was the lead in the school musicals. I was doing speech competitions as a kid. I remember my godfather and my dad showing up to my speech competitions when I was at you know, the regional championships or something like that. I represented our church down in the States. I was representing Canada at a speech competition when I was 15. This stuff was easy for me. That didn't give me anxiety, like public speaking never gave me anxiety the way it did others. Stepping on a stage to sing in a musical and all that kind of stuff never gave me anxiety. That was stuff that brought me joy, that lit me up the same way, you know, sports can light someone else up. That just really worked for me. So now all of a sudden I get to marry these skills I already had with the knowledge bank that I was developing and sharing it in just a new outlet for me.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 07:03

Yeah, absolutely. So when you get on stage let's just talk about that. How does that you get on stage? You're obviously prepared, right? You always walk in there and you know what you're going to talk about. Is a lot of it interactive, like when you're.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 07:16

So I try to make it as interactive as possible, in the sense that number one, I know who's in my audience, so I have a download call with a client to go tell me about the people in the audience, like what, what, what's keeping them up at night, what's their day-to-day like, so that I can put myself in their shoes. So I might have a speech that's 80% prepared, but then and I can pick and choose, which principles do I think? Cause I have a big library in my head of which are the ones that I think are going to be most the dots for them, of these principles that I'm teaching, and how is it affecting their lives? So when I can reference something about their daily lives, when I can connect with them in a way that helps them to understand, I see you, that is good. What's going to be far more compelling than me just talking at them and just lecturing at them all the time.

08:00

And then, when they're sitting in that audience, I try to do exercises with them so that they feel they're connecting with me, whether it's something as simple as, like you know, raise a hand, or asking them a question and asking them to answer it and write it down. So it's almost feeling like we're having a conversation and it's not just someone talking over you. That's the feeling I want people to have. So it felt like they got something out of it personally, as opposed to sometimes we get in there we just hear a whole bunch of content and we have to figure, okay, which of these things is finally going to work for me. If they can walk out feeling like it connected the dots for them and what I'm saying and how this connects to their real life, and it's something actionable that they can implement immediately, then I've done my job.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 08:34

Yeah, absolutely we had. We worked with you right before COVID right Flew down to New York. We had our our uh, small executive team which was from operations, from production, from warehousing. We had a cross section from our team and it was a crash course, right, because we were limited on time and you presented and you gave us a lot of real, like just tangible skill set when you're negotiating. And at the time we were working with a big coworking space and we were trying to nail a contract and there was stuff that genuinely we were able to sit there with my business partner and apply you know the next day, and then I would see a couple other individuals after. You know, one of them's like man, she's a boss and I it was just it was very well received.

09:18

But seeing you present and trying to separate childhood friendship to wow she really is impressive, like how you communicate. But then you were tying in different exercises where you're sitting there and applying it to your business, even though that was a crash course, it was so well-received, right and seeing that. And then from there you go, you launch your book, you're doing all this stuff, go back to the stage. Let's just talk about when you're on there. Have you ever had any situations where you're like I didn't prepare enough, I could do better. Here Are you. Are you evaluating in real time?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 09:52

I am yeah, and you totally are. I would say my worst stage experience which the audience wouldn't ever know it was worst because my bar is very high was coming out of COVID. I was doing a lot of virtual presentations and I actually really enjoyed them because I found ways, because people are like, oh God, virtual, I have to sit here and listen to someone for an hour, and even the clients are like how do you get them to not tune out and start doing other things on their computer. But I find ways to keep it engaging, to use the chat to force people to think about things, and so I actually really enjoyed it. But I also enjoyed it because I had so many crutches. I could see my entire speech. I had post-it notes around me, like people didn't see what was on the other side of the camera, so I didn't have to prepare as hard for that as I would on stage where you don't have any cue cards and things like that. That's not how I speak and there are other people who sit at a podium. That is not my thing. I'm moving around the stage. I'm sweating by the end of it because there's so much energy. It's like a workout.

10:43

But I my first gig after covid, when my very first in-person conference was the worst gig I ever did and it was because I was like I know this, I've done it, so I wrote it. I wrote a new speech during the pandemic so that I was using it and doing it virtually over and over again. I thought I knew it really well and I thought I wasn't using my crutches at home. Turned out I was because that clock said 60 minutes, because you have a little shot clock at the bottom and I was like, uh, I'm only approaching 45 minutes and I'm done all my content. I thought I had 60 minutes, but I forgot entire chunks of it.

11:13

So I didn't prepare as well as I had. I hadn't and I was scrambling on stage to go okay, what other bits do I have that I can perform for them right now? So in my head I'm just coming up with like greatest hits kind of thing to add on to the tail end of this. So they didn't know because it was still useful, but in my world I didn't take them on the same journey that I would have had I prepared more effectively and that was a big awakening for me. So that was, I believe, I want to say early 2022,. The rest of 2022 was gangbusters, like it was. It kicked me into gear. It was like going back to the gym and getting in shape again, kind of thing. And every gig after that just got better and better because I put a new energy behind preparing so that in 2023, I went on this cross country tour um, for the art of leadership tour, and I have never prepared so well for a gig in my life to the point where I felt like I was on fire.

12:05

I felt like I could see every face in the audience and I was connecting with every person in the audience and my stories were resonating and it meant it was less mental energy to remember what I was going to say and more energy that I could put into the telling of the stories and connecting with the audience. So that bad experience in 2022 really made me level up for the rest of what was coming after.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 12:27

Well, you're very fortunate. If that's your worst experience and it was basically internal, you knew because you were 15 minutes short. That's impressive, right. And to come out of that, so when you're presenting and you see all this, how do you keep coming up with fresh material, how do you keep staying relevant, like if you're talking to a room of insurance executives and then you're talking to a women's leadership group and you're talking, how do you tailor that?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 12:52

Yeah, so it's not so much about fresh material as it is relevant material. Okay, and I think that's the key word there. How do you make it relevant for those folks? Because I was yesterday. I was with a group of women scientists at a center of addiction and mental health. They do not do sales negotiations, there's no numbers being thrown across the table, but they are negotiating for help on a grant. They're negotiating for their voice to be heard. In a room. Before that I was with a bunch of nurses, anesthesiologists, who are negotiating in the operating room with your surgeon about the safety of the patient, and so on. Those are much higher stakes negotiations of the billion dollar deals that I'm dealing with in boardrooms, and so it's just about going okay. Which are the principles? There's going to be some similarities in every single one of those negotiations. Which are the principles that are going to be most valuable for this group? And most of the time, it's a lot of the same ones, because it's managing conflict on a daily basis. So how do you get your message heard? How do you get them to feel acknowledged? Those are the same principles that are going to work everywhere, but it's helping give people the context in terms of how to use them.

13:51

One of my favorite things about the stage, though, is I always try to reserve. When they give me enough time, I try to reserve going. Okay, I'm going to give you, let's say, 30 minutes to 45 minutes of keynoting, and then the next 15 is going to be Q&A. So, because that solidifies it in their brain and I am one of the like I don't know everybody's as comfortable, but I love doing Q&As so even podcasts and stuff like that I always tell people you don't need to prep me in advance, I don't need to see the questions in advance. I think there's some magic that happens in my brain when I haven't seen those questions, and so I light up, and my friends have told me in audiences are like oh my God, you were totally lighting up when the Q and a started. It's like a new smile comes on my face.

14:27

That's your zone, right there Like yeah, I feel like I'm in the zone because I can go. When they give me a scenario, a context, a specific question, I go oh yes, here's how I can help you connect. Remember that thing I said earlier. Here's how it works for that scenario. And it brings me such joy and satisfaction to know I finished the story, Like I completed the circle for them, and they can finally make that specific connection. So that for me is the differentiator. No matter what industry I'm in, I can connect that material for them. And if I have the chance to do it in their words, answering their specific questions, I just think there's some magic that happens there.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 15:00

Yeah, and you put yourself out there a lot Like social media. You utilize it a lot, right, and that hey ask me your questions, it doesn't matter, it doesn't have to be a boardroom or a large conference room. It could be the mother or the husband or whatever asking a question on I'm trying to negotiate better, better airfare tickets, Like I always see that. I love that you connect with people like that because, like you said, negotiation making sure you achieve what you want. It applies to all different industries, to everything you're excellent at doing that. Talk to me about your book. Say less, get more. Obviously, I'm a fan and I support friends, right, so that's one side of it. But the big thing was I truly believe in what you do. It really has helped me in my business. When we were exposed to it.

15:45

I remember when this first came out, everyone in my company got it. You were awesome Message for everyone. You personally knew everyone in my company when we did it, but it's been incredible. It's a very easy read in that it makes sense. It's broken down with the examples and everything. We enjoyed it. The feedback has been great. Talk to me about the book specifically going to the point to even write a book, right? How does that industry even work? Like, just walk us down that path.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 16:13

I've learned a lot about the book industry. I could imagine.

16:15

I'm not sure I would do things the same way, but I'm grateful that they unraveled the way that they did. I don't know that I ever written. I would have written one if Harper Collins hadn't come knocking. So they literally emailed me and said actually had a friend email me saying I just shared your information with my editor over at Harper Collins. I hope that's okay. And then I got an email from Harper Collins later that day going so-and-so gave me your information. We saw a video of you online and we know you. We've heard your name a few times before. We'd love to have a conversation.

16:40

So I went into the Harper Collins office and then they said we think you have a book in you. I said I'm flattered, but why? There's a million negotiation books out there. I've read a lot of them. And they said we just think you have a voice that people need to hear. And and that resonated with me because I'd read so many books and there's some really great ones out there and most of the time I'm picking and choosing pieces that work for me, because a lot of the time and now you know I told you my worst stage experience, but I've had way worse work experiences when I show up to a room full of people who do not want to be there. Their bosses force them to be there. They look at a young woman I was less than 30 when I started doing this and they looked at me and they literally said the words what are you going to teach me, little girl? So I've walked into a lot of those rooms and I'd gotten advice from people who don't look like me and say just say this. And it didn't work, it backfired. And so when you're reading books written by people who don't look or sound like you, you have to pick and choose the ones that are going to work and that are not going to work.

17:32

And I knew from experience that not everything worked. I worked in an organization where I was the youngest, by at least 15 years. I was the only woman on this global team doing what I did. I didn't have a posh English accent like everybody else, and so when I would walk into these rooms these guys who I learned from, who I shadowed and so on, what worked for them was not working for me. The same script I tell stories in the book, the same script was just not working for me. And when I told them that they didn't get it. And I had a similar experience Even when I was working for L'Oreal. One of my friends was the highest paid account manager there, so when my promotion was coming up, he coached me through that negotiation. I was in my early twenties and I said exactly what he said, what he told me he said in his negotiation, and it backfired and I was like he's like I'm so sorry, I don't understand it. I did exactly the same thing. I'm like it came from you and it didn't come from me.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 18:22

But what do you mean? Is that because of age? Is that because of sex, Like what? What is it?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 18:25

All of the above. So there is a lot of bias in negotiation. And so I experienced it. And then I started to read about it and I was like, validated, because there's a lot of bias. There's there's gender bias massively, there's color bias, there's age bias. So we know women in the all of these biases because we experienced them so much.

18:42

People with privilege don't experience it quite as much, and if all the books out there are written by people with privilege, they're going to have some blind spots about those little things. So when I, you know, I read stuff from some of the really big name bestseller guys who say something like use your late night FM DJ voice, I'm like that inauthenticity is not going to fly with me, or use this phrase, and I'm like that would never work coming from me. And so my goal was and this is something that I think Harper Collins really hit on was to use a voice that's going to be applicable for everybody. And so the analogy I use in the book and that I use in my everyday life is it's the on-ramp versus the stairs.

19:16

Those of us who are able-bodied, who are privileged enough to be able-bodied, can use the stairs every single day, but there's a few people who are going to be left out. The on-ramp, however, is going to work for everybody. We can walk it, people can roll it, and so on. So how could I make this book the one that's going to be useful for everybody, so no one feels left out of it? So I factored in some of the bias that I experienced. I factored in the bias that I read about, I factored in some of the other things that have come across my desk over the years, and my hope was that it's also not biased for people who are in a boardroom right. So I have examples of negotiating with kids.

19:47

I have examples of negotiating in boardrooms. I have examples of some of the really crazy corporate stuff that are. I have, like these anonymous companies that I can't tell you who they are, even though I really want to. I have all of these different examples so that it hopefully applies to every walk of life.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 20:07

One of the working titles we were going to come up with was from boardroom to bedroom, but it sounded a little too cheeky and I didn't really want to go there.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 20:11

Sales would have been 3x. So it was that element of how do we make this useful for everybody. How do we use language that's not too overly academic, because I read those books too. That's going to make it an easy read. That's going to have markers in the middle of it to remind you of the things that you just read.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 20:24

I love that.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 20:25

Borrowing from the academic world where I saw that in textbooks and that was really useful for my students. So I wanted to make sure that was an element that I included. There's all of these little and stories, lots of stories, like the epilogue. I was almost done the book. It took a year of writing. It was awful. I think anybody who's ever read a book will tell you it is awful and it's also the most rewarding thing at the same time.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 20:44

And no chat GBT for everyone listening. No, there was no chat GBT.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 20:49

So it took me a year of writing in coffee shops on the weekends, on airplanes during the week. So I was working full time like crazy, like racking up air miles. And it was before Wi-Fi was on planes too, so it was actually a great time to tune out and just focus. But a great time to tune out and just focus, but it took a year of doing that, of evenings and weekends, and finally I finished it. And it was just.

21:08

It wasn't totally complete, and I felt like I needed to include some more of the downsides, like some of my own failures or what happens when it doesn't work out, because not everything's always going to be perfect. And the epilogue became this huge piece of the book too, because I started sharing more and more of my stories in there as well, and it wasn't just okay, everything is perfect. But even the ones that went badly, something good came out of it all, because I went through the act of negotiating versus never knowing, versus sitting on the sidelines, versus being perceived as somebody who is weak or doesn't know how to advocate for themselves. So my hope is that people will attempt it and advocate for themselves, and even if it goes badly, I've given them the tools to have a safety net, so they're not going to damage relationships along the way. They may not get what they want a hundred percent of the time, but they're going to get a lot of the time and the ones that don't work out, there's no damage done.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 21:56

Exactly.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 21:56

That was, that was the real goal, because people will refrain. They fear damaging relationships, they fear looking stupid, so they just don't try at all. But I can give you ways to try it without failing.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 22:06

Yes, and it appeals to, like you said before everyone everything's a negotiation, everything's a discussion. It's all about communication. I want to hear just the business side of it. So you write this amazing book. How does the business side work of books?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 22:23

Yeah. So I had a very backwards experience. So it's very rare that people will come to you and ask you to write a book, unless you're a celebrity. That just doesn't happen. So I had a very unique experience and most of the time people are writing book proposals and trying to shop them around to publishers. So I didn't even have an agent because they didn't need one. Agents are there to help you negotiate. Now this is what I do. So I I it was when I'm getting the offer.

22:48

It was too late in the game to even get an agent, and because I know how to negotiate, I just needed to know the knowledge that the agents would have, and so I know how to negotiate. I just needed to know the knowledge that the agents would have, and so I was given the advice, which I'm really grateful for, to get an entertainment lawyer who is going to have this knowledge bank, who's seen a lot of contracts and stuff like that. Before I started talking to other people who had gone through that weird process that I was unfamiliar with, who told me about other publishing houses and what their contracts were like and all of that kind of stuff. So that, theoretically, what I should have done is. I should have said well, if you're interested, then all of these other guys should be interested.

23:17

I should be shopping myself around, but my friends had already done that, so I knew people in that world who'd already done it and they're like here's what I liked about these guys, and here's what I liked about these guys. And I was just sold on the team who approached me, because some is a wonderful human being and I can't imagine getting started in this without her, and so I didn't need to do that piece of the project. And then I signed the deal with HarperCollins and you pretty much signed your life away. But what people don't recognize is, unless you are that celebrity who's getting million dollar advances and people like me do not get million dollar advances the onus is on you to do the marketing.

23:56

So even though theoretically you have this big publishing house behind you, they don't have much to offer you because they're, they've been trimmed down and trimmed down, and trimmed down and their budgets go to the Michelle Obamas. Their budgets go to, you know, those salacious biographies and stuff like that. They don't go to people like me and they don't go to most people in general. So every author I know and I'm very grateful to now have a really cool network of them Everybody had warned me you need to start marketing early, and I don't think I started marketing early enough. So the marketing really does fall on your shoulders making sure people know it's coming, making sure people you're you're getting as much PR as possible out of it, maybe even hiring PR companies. So I did briefly hire a PR company down in the States because I already had PR in Canada, like I had been on every show in Canada.

24:40

Multiple times before I even had a book deal. So it was just a regular thing to go have a conversation with. You know the Canadian talk shows and the morning shows and all that kind of stuff. But because in the States the corporate giants knew me behind closed doors and I couldn't tell people that I was working with them in the media world, they didn't know me quite as well. So I did hire somebody to help me down there to open up some doors and that's how I got on like business insider and CNN and things like that.

25:02

So that's a lot of work and I'd say that's a full-time job in itself and I didn't dedicate nearly enough time to it that I should have.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 25:11

You're still paying bills and doing conferences, yeah.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 25:14

And then, on top of that, you're literally the machine behind the book. Every author you know is the machine behind the book, and I have met so many people since mine came out to and watch their journeys, cause I think there might be a book too in me. I just don't know what it is yet.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 25:25

Well, that was going to be one of my.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 25:27

Of course there is mentally preparing myself, not just for the content, which I'm still sorting through in my own brain. But what is that process going to look like this time? Because I'm going to clean up the process and it's going to start a lot earlier and it's it's just going to have so many more elements to it and it might not be with a big publisher. It actually might be hybrid, because now there's so many ways to publish a book so you can go with the what we call the big publishers, like literally print on demand. Everybody can, anybody can put a book out on Amazon, and maybe it's good quality, maybe it's not new. There's so many more choices and decisions to make about even the quality of the paper and the colors and all of that kind of stuff. And now there's this new universe that has really picked up speed in hybrid publishing. So it's kind of a la carte, so you don't have to do the behind the scenes stuff of figuring out the Amazon things. You have people who know all the things that the major publishing houses do, but now you get to choose.

26:19

Oh, do you need this much marketing help? Do you need this much editorial help? Do you need this much? And you can spend as little or as much as you want on it. The more you spend, obviously, the better return you're going to get on it in terms of things getting out the door. In terms of profitability, like published authors make a pittance on the actual royalties per book. Most of the income from a book comes from the advance upfront, so most authors will be given a sum of money and then, as you sell books, the amount of this advance it's chipped away because per book you make such an amount.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 26:51

So you're paying it back theoretically.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 26:53

So most authors don't actually out earn their advance, so it's very rare that you get another check. So you're paying it back Theoretically. So most authors don't actually out-earn their advance, so it's very rare that you get another check.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 26:58

So you're in debt forever, until that's gone. You're not really in debt.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 27:00

It's yours. They're advancing it to you knowing that there's never going to be a payback to that advance. The expectation or the hope is that you're going to earn it all and then someday you're going. Lot of even celebrity authors don't exceed those million dollar advances and that's kind of known as part of the formula going in because you make such a teeny amount per book, a tiny percentage per book, Whereas if you go hybrid, yes, you're spending money upfront to get your book published but you're making way more per book. So those very tiny numbers of percentages become massive percentages. So if you have faith in yourself, for example, that you could sell like 5,000 books, you could spend a hefty amount on that upfront fee and make it all back and then some. So it's about knowing the numbers. You really need to understand what are those numbers, what is your faith in? How many of those books you're going to move Like? We've sold well over 10,000 copies and that's kind of the marker in my universe that's the marker of a bestseller.

27:52

That's what I'm told. So that's great, especially in a small market like Canada. So again, cross-border stuff became even more complicated because I'm supported in Canada but it's a distribution system in the US and if you've got great connections and stuff and you've got the support of a great distribution network, then it's easier. But most of these books move because I'm on stage and people in my audiences are the ones that are buying them. They don't know who I am. They're not seeking me out as an author, because most people don't know who I am until they meet me. But when I get on stage I even remember during the virtual launch of it I was doing these virtual keynotes and in the chat I'd be seeing people sharing the link. I just bought her book and then 10 more people and then 50 more people and it's great to see it's resonating with them.

28:30

But that's where the fan base comes from for me and that's why authors like me don't get massive advances. They don't get the millions. If they know an author is going to have a huge fan base, the advance can go up because they have more faith in that as well. So it's a very interesting business because you can choose how much control you have over it. But when you sign with a publisher a big publisher you you lose a lot of control. Even for me. I can't get this book for free. I pay the group rate that everybody else. If I want to buy some books, I get the same discount that my audience members get when they buy you know, hundreds of copies of the book for everybody, so it's not like I'm getting it for free. So if I want to send everybody a book, it's going to cost me 10 bucks a book to be able to do that.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 29:09

I see stuff you don't know, like the insight you just gave us now on how this works. What is the benefit of going with a big publisher other than, hey, I'm published with this company Because you can self-publish, you go to your venue, you impress everybody and you have a great social media following right. Like I feel it's truly a community.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 29:28

It's small but mighty.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 29:30

But it's a community, though. It's supportive. It's everything. You come out with your next book here. It is Like here's all the content there.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 29:37

So the benefit of going with a big publisher is if, when you don't know the ropes, like me, it's a great way to learn on someone else's dime. So it didn't cost me anything to write this book. Now I did use the advance for PR and for some other stuff and actually get a website up, because I was kind of going incognito all these years in my business. For 10 years I almost didn't have a website. It was just word of mouth of like big person moves from big company. I'm working with one client right now. This is the third company I've worked with her at. She just keeps bouncing into these executive roles and saying we need to get our team ready for this next negotiation.

30:08

That's great, but I needed to become a bit more polished in terms of my exposure out there and stuff like that as well, in order to attract the right people who are going to buy the book. So there's the benefit of the fact that the publisher has the network. They have the distribution channels, they have all that stuff. Are they going to support you or do you have to fight for that kind of support? That's another factor to think about. Now. For me, the whole marketing story of saying they approached me is huge. That's super valuable from my brand.

30:36

It's so impressive and I make sure everybody knows that.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 30:39

Of course, and they should right. Is that why you got the tattoo here?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 30:44

But that, that for me, is the big value. A lot of authors want to do it because of the ego and the credibility piece of it. And there's some credibility to say, harper Collins or random house or any of those folks published it. But I'm not convinced these days that consumers know or care who published your book. And it used to be back in the day when you were self-published. It was a ratty looking book. Back then it wasn't great quality and so when you saw it on shelf or you held it in your hands, you're like what is this? It looks like I pasted it together in my garage, kind of thing. That's not the case today. So the quality has gone up significantly.

31:13

The ability to turn stuff out has changed a lot the, the a la carte ability to do things in that hybrid way.

31:19

And these hybrid publishers have come a long way and they have marketing expertise. They're not when you're with a publishing house who says this is our marketing department and it's teeny tiny, or yeah, you'll get a publicist and basically it's an email with the name of the publisher and maybe that'll get more traction than your own personal email. But now you can pay for that stuff. You can pay for the, you know the cover art for the marketer. For the, you can even pay to have your stuff in the airport. Now, harpercollins can choose or not choose to pay to have my stuff sitting in the airport kiosks, whereas if you're self publishing or hybrid publishing, you can choose to spend that money. You can say you know, 10 grand is a good use of cash because I know I'm going to sell this many more books or get it into this many more hands. You get to decide that ROI. When you're working with a big publisher, you're handing that decision to them, but there's a cost to deciding that so it's really about managing.

32:05

You know, how much mental load am I willing to take on, how much credibility do I really need, and so on and so forth. And then measuring that ROI.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 32:12

You should be so proud that they approached you. They saw a clip. That's a big deal because everyone wants to do something. 10,000 plus books sold. That's incredible. I always try to put, when I hear numbers or views or whatever it's like. Imagine them in a room or in a stadium. That's half a Scotiabank arena. Has paid money holding this and has read your advice. They about you. That's incredible, it's it's still mind-blowing to me it's bizarre.

32:37

Yeah, 10th, like incredible, and I hope it reaches 100 and more. Right? So, from from a question standpoint, you've been on every talk show here in canada. You've been in published in magazines, newspapers, everything. What's the most common question that you always get asked across the board? Because you get asked from different walks of life oh, teach me how to do this. You know what's the biggest question or questions that you get in the misconception when it comes to negotiation, because when I hear negotiation early on, you're like okay, it's aggressive, someone's going to win something, someone's going to lose something, like there's often negativity associated with associated with it.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 33:17

Yes, there is a negative connotation associated with the word negotiation. People assume it's going to be very combative, and there are some of those, but more commonly it actually has the opportunity to be collaborative. There's still going to be the occasional combative thing, and that's often why people pay me big bucks to come into boardrooms and help them deal with those things, but most of the stuff that we deal with on a day-to-day basis is doesn't have to feel so win, lose. It actually might be win, lose. You're going to be winning, perhaps more than the other party, but they don't have to feel like they lost, and so there's ways to manage the psychology behind it.

33:48

These days, I read far more about psychology than I do about specifically negotiation books that are coming out, because it's about how do people make decisions, how do people feel? If my job was to just run the numbers, I'd be out of a job because AI can do that Right. But we do not make decisions based on spreadsheets. We do it based on emotion, and AI still gives me job security because it has not figured out the human emotion thing and so we will do things to spite ourselves just because they pushed our buttons in the wrong way, and so we will do things to spite ourselves just because they pushed our buttons in the wrong way. So we don't. We're ruled more by our emotions than we are by our logic, and that is why you need to understand people when it comes to negotiation, and one of the things that people tell me is they the reason they fear negotiation.

34:26

In fact, I ask questions when I run workshops and I can't remember if I do it with you, but I've been doing it for years now. I go around the room and I ask people what is your biggest fear about negotiating? Cause there's always one. It doesn't matter if you're the, you know, the most experienced president, ceo, all of that kind of stuff. Everybody has a fear. There's two things that come up. One is I don't want to look stupid, I don't want to leave something on the table, because our egos are fragile, and the overriding one is I don't want to damage a relationship. So the questions that come up as a result of that fear are what happens if they get mad at me? What happens if they renege the offer? What happens if I piss them off? That is the fear that's driving these most common questions for me, and so people are holding back because they worry about damaging relationships. And my whole point is to go you actually don't have to be damaging them. In fact, you could be building relationships by advocating for yourself in a way that people respect you. You could actually be gaining their respect and some likability in the process. So I always tell people, especially my students, like when I get MBA students reaching out to me about salary negotiations all the time they're so fearful. Many of them are so fearful of negotiating these rates because they're like what if I lose the job? What if they take it back?

35:33

And if you are doing things in a cooperative way, if you are doing things in a way that makes you curious and empathetic and are approaching it in a problem-solving technique, as opposed to, maybe, the old school way of banging your fist on the table? Some of those archaic bestsellers that tell you the art of they're not so great because they don't apply today in this universe. That just doesn't work. But there are ways to approach it so that worst case, they say no, we can't afford it, but they're not going to renege it because you're not being a jerk and they still want to find a way to work with you, and they may even feel bad that they can't meet all of your demands, but you'll find something.

36:08

Maybe it's not now, maybe it's in the future, and so the big question is how do I make sure I don't damage those relationships? And so the big question is, how do I make sure I don't damage those relationships? And the answers are really simple in the book. It's just about not trying to be something you're not. It's not about being inauthentic and puffing out your chest and doing the things that, archaically, we've been told are negotiation, which is why we get these combative images that come to mind. It's about being curious. It's about treating it like a problem solving opportunity. It's about putting yourself in the other person's shoes to go. What would be holding them back? How can we work around that problem together? How can I treat it as a questioning, problem-solving opportunity instead of an offensive or tactical one? And there's so many easy ways to do that.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 36:45

Total side note just came to me. Have you ever thought about politics in the future?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 36:49

I have been approached many times about politics. That is not a circus I want to get into. It would be mentally exhausting.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 36:54

You should be lobbying for governments, and lobbying maybe is not the word but senior advising to governments.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 37:01

I mean that would be. The only way you could ever convince me to go into politics is to work behind the scenes. But watching the way politics work is so distasteful to me because it's really just an ego war.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 37:14

In every country, country right like it's just it's a shit show any place I've ever been to.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 37:18

It's just more of the. I would never run for anything, not in a million years um too many skeletons in the closet.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 37:24

Is that what it is? I've been so open it's really just the.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 37:30

The circus of it, like the, the ego show is just not my thing, and there are some people who are great at overcoming that and getting into being in the right positions, but there's too many of those other things that you have to step over to get there. But behind the scenes maybe I could be convinced. But I get so much joy out of what have I, what I do. The reward would have to be so good, and I don't mean monetary reward, but I'd have to feel really good about what I'm doing and right now there's so many other outlets where I get that, that intrinsic joy.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 37:56

Absolutely. There's so many different areas. We could go Fees in general, right when it. When it comes to pricing, whether it's you know your salary, trying to secure a purchase order, trying to get a quote, how do you handle your fees in general? So, oh, work for us, give us a discount. How do you work that psychologically? How do you make sure you get the fees that you deserve and you approach that in general?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 38:28

So I mean I always reevaluate my fees every year to go okay, how busy am I? If I'm so in demand that I'm too busy, then clearly I'm not charging enough, because if I have the ability to say yes to everything, then that's a different story. But if I have to turn stuff down, then maybe I should be getting paid more for my time. It's supply and demand, right. So there's the elements of supply and demand, of what other people in my arena are getting paid and so on. So I look at that kind of stuff to determine what are the appropriate fees and I'm always reevaluating to go where should that be? I also, I'm always looking at it with the lens of are they getting more than what they paid for? Because the last thing I want to do is get on stage and people go. That was okay, um. But I want them to feel like, wow, we totally got our value out of that woman, like I want them to feel really good about the investment they've made with me.

39:05

Otherwise, I'm not doing a very good job and I'm not going to get invited or referred or my whole business has been word of mouth. So if that word is meh, then it's not going to get me very far, and so, based on all of that, I have a fee that I think is appropriate and I will tell people, you know, first thing I ask is what are you looking to get? Because sometimes they want me to do a keynote, sometimes they think they want a keynote, but they actually want a half day of training. Sometimes they say they want an amount of training, but it's actually they want consulting on a live negotiation, and there's a different way of working for all of those. So sometimes it's a certain chunk of time, sometimes it's, you know, a big lead up of research and all of that other kind of stuff, and so I price accordingly.

39:43

People don't pay for my time. They pay for my experience, and I think that's something people really need to understand. You're not paying for one hour of my time when I go on stage. You're paying for the fact that I have been inside these boardrooms that you have never been in and I've seen all of these things and I've written the book and I've done the research and I've been doing this for 15 years. That's what you are paying for, not that one hour.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 40:01

Yes.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 40:01

The fact that I can get on stage for that one hour is because I've done all of these things Because you've done that.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 40:11

Do you feel like you could place where you're like I'm really lacking here, on the negotiation side? Or, based on your portfolio of experience over the years and working for these big brands and dealing with the Walmarts or the world and so on? Could you have more experience Like is that ever a negative where people are like well, we feel like you don't have enough?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 40:28

No one has ever told me you don't have enough. But I personally feel like I need to keep growing, and so I know my experience in the past has been extremely valuable and it'll continue to be valuable. Those experiences are going to be immensely valuable for years to come. But there's other things where I feel like I need to keep learning and growing. So even if I've done you know, I get hired a lot for things like price increases.

40:49

So a supplier that has to go negotiate with global massive retailer will call me in and say how do we do this? They're going to be pissed off at us. How do we get them to approve this? And I walk them through the power dynamics and we work on all these things. So it's a repeated negotiation.

41:02

I've done many times with a bunch of different companies, but I just did another one recently and one of them was asking me they're like well, how do you deal with this new little nugget, this new variable that's come into the mix, this new dynamic? Maybe it's a more condensed market because there was another acquisition and that changes the power dynamics significantly. The strategy probably won't change much, but there's going to be some minutia, there's going to be some delicate arena that I need to address so that I'm staying on top of these things as well. And it's almost like you know, if you're an athlete, if you're a pro level athlete, you don't stop training. You could say I've acquired these skills, I know how to dribble a ball, I know how to shoot a basket, but you're still going to keep doing it under new conditions. You're still going to be doing it to grow your skills even more, to get even faster. You don't ever become complacent, because I think complacency is death.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 41:47

Yes.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 41:48

Now that doesn't mean I'm I'm going crazy all the time either, cause I'm quite comfortable in having accumulated a certain amount of experience, but there's still like I'm not going to have the immense growth that I did in the last decade, but I think there's still elements of growth that I could and should be doing. So it's about keeping my finger on the pulse of what are trends, what are new psychological findings that were happening. How can I weave those into things to make life easier for other people? So I'm always reading, I'm always listening, I'm always researching, I'm always having conversations with folks, even though I don't do much consulting these days because I'm on the road so much it's very hard to weave those two things into my schedule. They're just not always compatible.

42:22

I still manage to squeeze in some stuff all the time, or I'm catching up with a former client who's filling me in on how things are going, and I'm still listening to. These are the things that I need to be aware of. These are the new wrinkles that we need to iron out. That, for me, is really important to make sure I stay relevant and to make sure I don't become the stale dinosaur of some of those books that have been on the bestseller list for a really long time.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 42:41

Yeah, and to hear someone who's at the top of their game speaking you know people are listening around the world to what you have to say and learning from that and still hearing you say that you still want to learn, you still want to do better Like that's encouraging, where you don't hear that quite often, when someone's at their top, top of the game, it's like no, I'm good, I'm the expert, now Let me just roll. That's encouraging. We should always want to learn more.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 43:02

Yeah, I mean, and I don't suffer from imposter syndrome the way I used to because I think everybody does to a degree.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 43:12

I wanted to ask you, have that?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 43:14

For sure I did. Yeah, for sure I did. I mean, there was definitely times where it wasn't I wouldn't say it's as prevalent as it has been for other people, because it certainly never held me back, but I there was times where I've been in that room go. How in the hell did I get in here? But then I see them getting value out of it and they go and I'm like oh, this is why I'm here. It might take me a minute to get there, but I had one client, a really huge company down in Ohio, who I had worked with in Canada before.

43:39

And then this guy went down to the Ohio office and he said I'd really like for you to come in and consult with my team on this. I said but you're smart, you get it. Like, I've trained you, I've seen you in action. You don't need my help. And he was trust me, fotini, we need your help down here. And I was so intimidated because it's this huge company full of people that I admire. I knew some of the people in the room and I'm like but they're all freaking smart, like I watched them use the skills that I teach. What could I possibly add in this room? And I almost said that to the client. He's like I don't want to have to convince you that you're going to be valuable in this room. Trust me when I tell you you are. And he was a lovely client Again.

44:13

That's why we kept in touch for so many years. So he had to convince me basically to go in that room. And after two days of sitting actually not even two days of sitting in the room leading up to that I did a series of phone calls of like scoping calls to go. You know what are everybody's perspectives. So when I walk in I'm not going in blind. And after just those calls I went. I can see it right, there's still a hurdle to get over, but the hurdle is getting shorter and shorter and shorter with experience, but it's still there.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 44:44

But it's still there. Yeah, Do you?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 44:45

you had mentioned before real life or in life, examples where you're consulting right, Negotiation behind the scenes.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 44:48

What's the soonest like? What's an example of the fastest? You've been brought into a situation that's happening in real time and they need to negotiate and get it out the door. Because is their onboarding that takes X weeks or months, and I'm just curious.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest:

45:01

So it's happened to me. I remember now it's happened super fast, within days, but usually it's because I have some history with that client and so it's very easy for me to jump in. But I remember one client, probably about 12 years ago, and they brought me in. They said we have this price increase we're going to do and this new launch that we're doing and it's this very convoluted deal that they were going to try and push through and they were really struggling with a massive global retailer and so they brought me in I think it was February and the thing needed to be done in May and I was like you probably should have called me in like two years ago.

45:35

It was that monumental to them and it was going to take that much momentum to come in, and so we managed to get in a conference room in Kenosha, wisconsin. We flew everybody into one central location and spent five days in a boardroom there and managed to turn it around and got their objective met and all the things that they wanted to do. They got through the price increase, the new launch, all of those things. But it took a lot, like we were. We signed the contract in the following week, we were all flying to Kenosha Wow, and it took a long time to in the room with them because I didn't have the time to do the research and all that kind of stuff. So we're sort of researching in the room and working as we went, whereas usually you know clients will call me in and I'll do the onboarding stuff, I will learn. You know, everybody, everybody, I'll have eight hours of phone calls just moving from one executive to the next because somebody in in finance is going to tell me something really different from someone in sales and someone in marketing doesn't even hear the stuff these guys are saying, and so sometimes I'm just the conduit and I'm helping them connect their own internal dots because they have such silos up. But I can't do that unless I've done the research going in.

46:38

So I talked in the book about um about one of my clients who brought me in and I worked with them for six months and we were working on power dynamics and literally crafting the the script for every coffee meeting the executive had with the other executive and that sweet, sweet person needed to meet with that sweet, sweet person.

46:56

And I remember even like being in my bathtub on a Tuesday night at 7 PM and getting a call from this executive VP who was calling me frantically going. I don't think I can say that thing that I'm supposed to say tomorrow and I'm talking her off a ledge and coaching her because she needed to go in for this really important meeting. So this was like six months of that kind of work. And then it was 18 months later, so a full two years from day one, that I started working with them and I only needed to work with them for six months and then they carried on the rest themselves and it was two years later. I was sitting on a beach in Bali and I'm reading the headlines and I see this big, monumental negotiation and splashed across headlines Cause that's how big it was Like these are the things that I can't talk about.

47:33

And um, and I emailed the president right away and said congratulations on closing the deal. That's really wonderful, and he was like you know, fortini, we never would have been able to do it without you, come on. And I'm still good friends with some of those folks in the executive boardroom and it's an amazing friendship because we bonded over this very intense moment in their careers, because it was the biggest negotiation in their company. But it was six months of intensive work, two years out from the deadline of what they were facing. But the higher the stakes, the earlier that preparation needs to start.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 48:01

Well, and so I wanted to ask you about success. Right, how do you measure success in your world? There's different avenues. You have the one-on-one behind the scene boardrooms. You have the onstage conferences. Right, you have this side. So when you're presenting to a group, how do you measure success? When you're done your 60 minute keynote, that interaction, how do you know that it was a successful event? Like are there KPIs? Is it feedback? Is it a spike in your responses? What is it?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 48:30

It's really tough to find quantitative measures for my type of work when you're doing consulting stuff. Sometimes it can be quantitatively measured Like we need to hit this number, we need to increase the prices by this much, and if they get that price increase, they achieve it or they don't achieve it. That's success. But most of the time it's not that cut and dry Because people are like, oh, you should do profit sharing type of stuff. But I'm like it's not always measurable. Back to me, though, I did have a client years ago. It was have a client years ago.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 49:00

It was a logistics company who said look, how would you feel about making more money? I'm like tell me more?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 49:02

Yeah, got my attention. Rather than just paying you your fee, what if we paid you X percent of your fee? And then, if we hit this hurdle we need to hit, we pay you 10% more. And I was like, well, that's interesting. And we got into a conversation about how do we make sure this hurdle is, how do we isolate this variable? And because it's logistics, is it because of gas prices? Is it because of negotiation training? Is it because of demand has gone up because there was some drought of fruit in california and they now need to bring them from florida. Like how do we know? It's the me factor and not all these other things.

49:30

It was really me doing them a favor so that it wasn't so that they could measure properly as well. Um, and they said, well, we have some and they they showed me some really cool ways that they whittled everything down and so on, and they said, if we see a half a percentage of profit increase, that's over $60 million, just like that for us. So if we can meet that half a percent hurdle, then we'd be willing to pay you more. And then we negotiated about how much of my fee they pay upfront and what that percentage more was. And that was a really cool negotiation because it was really meant to be as collaborative as possible.

49:58

Where I went, I'm going to guarantee you that amount of percentage increase. But if we don't do it based on this two-day training, then I'm going to come back and I'm going to work with your team again until we get there, because that's how confident I was in my skill set and what I could see. Like you can't commit to something like that without doing the research and knowing what am I getting myself into. But I went in, sat in their office for a day and sat on the phone and listened to the calls, right next to somebody who was having these one minute negotiations with truck drivers and stuff like that. I listened to all of their calls and I made notes and I was like, oh, this is an easy win, and this is an easy win and I could totally see how I could impact this group. So that was one of the only quantitative ones that I've been doing. But when it comes to the speaking, the biggest piece of feedback I have is stage side leads.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 50:38

Okay.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 50:39

So last year I did a gig in Toronto with 3000 people in the audience 3000.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 50:45

Is that the largest crowd you've ever presented to? I think so.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 50:48

If not, it's close. I'm pretty sure it's the largest, so that was at the convention center. There's not a lot of rooms that fit that many people. The next stage is auditoriums which are like, uh, like um, like uh what's the word? Like the Scotiabank.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 50:59

Center and stuff like that.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest:

51:00

That's the next stage. There's kind of nothing in between 3,000 is humongous.

George Stroumboulis - Host:

51:05

That's a big crowd, yeah.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest:

51:06

Yeah, it's great and it was wonderful. It was a wonderful experience and it was part of a tour that I was doing and I've been doing so much work in Toronto this year because of that gig last June that I'm not traveling as much. I may actually lose my status on your Canada, so that you'll be flying private.

51:23

So that is a measure of success in that you know they. When I ask people how did you find out about me? Oh, we saw you. A friend of ours was in that audience.

51:30

So when word of mouth spreads like that from one event, you know it was a home run and so one of the big measures of stage side leads. But even before that, it is what it looks on the faces. How many people are waiting to talk to you after it's done? And not everybody wants to talk to you because sometimes they're rushing off to something else. Sometimes I was just told yesterday you're so approachable, which is lovely for me to hear.

51:52

But there's that element how many messages am I getting from people afterwards? How much are people sharing it? Like it really has a lot of qualitative looks on faces. Sometimes you're on stage, you're like I can totally see their faces. They're in with me, they're on the edge of their seats and you're like I'm doing it. This is great. Sometimes it's crickets and I think it's gone terribly. And then I get phone calls after that going hey, we saw you at this thing, we'd love to bring you in. I'm like, really I had no idea y'all liked me because it was like crickets in that room, so it's very hard to measure that kind of stuff, but usually it's the word of mouth stuff.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 52:23

It's the word of mouth. Yeah, it's been going well. I mean, that's incredible to be presenting in front of 3000 people and then you just get more business from that. There's a few things. I want to ask Advice. There's the negotiation side details. Talk to me advice on just presenting, whether it's on stage, whether it's in a meeting, whether it's in a job interview. What are some things that people should be doing, should not be doing just from communication, from body language, from anything Like how would you consult someone?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 52:54

So I always tell people how you show up matters. If you are somebody who is looking like this and biting your nails and drumming your fingers on the table and so on, when people see that, they don't see you as credible. If you are looking like you have self-doubt, then I'm going to doubt you too. So how you physically show up when we talk about body language, when you're taking up more space, when you look relaxed, when you look poised and it's not always relaxed Maybe you want to be passionate, it's not relaxed. Um, maybe you want to look like you're really eager and that's cool too. Depends on the circumstances. But how you show up that context, whatever it is, do you look like you deserve to be there? Do you look like you are credible? Those are the questions I want people to ask themselves. So usually that means taking it more physical space. Usually being small means you're not going to get very far. People are going to see you as small.

53:39

Um, those are the little teeny things that we can do, and and you know, there's lots of tricks that, like power poses Dr Amy Cuddy introduced us to power poses, so the the wonder woman pose and the V for Victor these things take up more physical space. We know not only are they communicating to somebody that I deserve to be here, I'm credible, I'm worthy, I am authoritative and so on, but there's also psychology behind. The more you do this and tell others that, the more your brain will catch up to what your body is telling others, so you can actually psych yourself up instead of psyching yourself out, having an inner monologue before you go in there Again. Do you deserve to be there? Of course you do.

54:14

You're on the meeting invitation, like I speak to audiences all the time where we're sitting at a table like this, a giant boardroom, and so there's chairs lined up against the table but then there's a perimeter of chairs around the room because there's not enough for everybody to sit at the table. And I see people who will go and choose. It's usually women who will go and choose the seat at the wall instead of at the table and I'm like why aren't you physically taking a seat at the table? This is not a figurative thing, this is literally why aren't you taking a seat at the table?

54:40

Like well, I'm not the most senior person in the room and stuff, so I don't know if I deserve to be there. I'm like were you on the invitation? If you were on the invitation, you deserve to be there. Now, the other thing is if, let's say, the table, if you were sitting in the back, you wouldn't be in a position for anybody to notice you. But now you are in a position of power, you have something that is valuable and you get to stand up and say, hey, I came early and got this seat. I'm happy to give it up today. I'm sure somebody can give it up next time you take my seat. And now you just gave them something that's valuable. So now they're noticing that, oh, you do show up early, you are somebody who is here and is worthy and so on. And they noticed you, they know who you are. They also now feel indebted to you, and that's huge because there's a reciprocity in our subconscious brain. There's a social norm that we have and I think this is the norm everywhere I've ever been to in the world. I've never read anything to the contrary that says it doesn't exist in some country.

55:37

But there's this element of reciprocity when you do something for someone. They want to do something for you. They may not consciously recognize they want to do it, but they might go. Yeah, you know what? They did something nice for me. So when I have the opportunity, it might be in two minutes and two years and in two months I'm going to do something nice for them. So now, maybe the CEO knows your name and we'll mention you or invite you or whatever. They'll be more open to taking your call because they go. Oh yeah, you're the one I want to invite you in.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 56:02

Well, what was that statement you said that was actually important? Is that, uh, I'll give you my seat. Maybe next time someone else can. What's that?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 56:09

So that one I'm really particular with, because it's not okay for you just to be constantly be the one giving things up, right? I don't want you to be seen as the weakling that's always going to give it up because, let's say, there's 10 people around the table and it's always you doing it. Then they're going to. There's going to be an expectation that we can just push you around, and I don't want anybody to have that expectation. And so I will say something to the effect of encouraging others to do it next time, or establishing that I'm not going to be taken advantage of without being aggressive about it, by saying you know, hey, I got here early, I'm happy to give up my seat this time. Next time somebody else can do it. Um, maybe it's just throwing that in, but it's just even that saying this time, as opposed to assuming it's every time like. I still remember being and this goes along with this confidence and how you present I was working for an organization where I was the most senior woman in the entire company, which was ridiculous at under 30.

57:01

And, um, I was in a room, I was on this executive team in New York city where I was the same as everybody else. It was my peer group and my boss, who was the only more senior person in the room, said hey, Fotini, can you take notes on this? Can you take minutes, since you're good at it? And I was like no, I can't, and like people were taking about it's all men and me.

57:22

No, I can't, because what's going to happen when I'm not here and if I'm the one taking minutes and I can't participate and be using my active brain in this conversation because I'm so busy keeping track of what you guys do? So I'm going to recommend we have we take turns and who takes minutes, because we're all peers and so who'd like to go first?

George Stroumboulis - Host: 57:39

That's amazing.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 57:40

Right, I'm not going to be put in a small place, I'm not going to be aggressive about it, I'm not going to be rude about it. So, instead of you know saying, how dare you treat me like a secretary and there's nothing wrong with being a secretary if that's what you want to be, but that was not my role Absolutely going well, if I'm taking minutes, how am I going to participate? And if I'm the one who's so good at taking minutes and you guys don't develop that skillset, what happens when I'm out with a client and can't make this meeting and I can't see what's going on? It's just challenging them right back in a productive way, in a collaborative way.

58:08

Again, this is one of the tools in the book. It's about asking questions instead of banging your fist on the table. You can get to the same place without being perceived as aggressive. You can be assertive without being aggressive. So those little things in terms of how you show up, how you demonstrate that you deserve to be in that room, it's not about being arrogant, it's about being confident, and there's a fine line between those two.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 58:27

There is a fine line. This feedback is incredible. What do you do when you're you're faking that confidence. You're going into a meeting you know you're not as important or carry enough weight as the person across that you're negotiating with, or if you're going for that job interview, you're physically not larger in creating a presence or that whole. Fake it till you make it you can filter through the bullshit. What advice do you have for those people going in there? Is it just trial and error? You have to build up your resume. How do you coach that?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 58:57

So there's two things. One of it is practice makes progress. So just get used to being in those rooms and it won't be quite as daunting when you are in them. But the more important thing is what is your purpose for being in that room? There's a reason why they called you in to be there. You know, one of the things that I talk about when I do consulting with clients is we talk about role play who's going to do what in that room?

59:15

And sometimes someone's going to be a speaker, and sometimes someone's going to be a figures person and writing everything down, and sometimes someone's going to be an observer, and oftentimes that observer whose whose job is to say nothing, is to just pay attention to what's happening in that room and who's responding to what and how did they react to it and what does that mean, and so on, that can be the most important role in the room. So it might be a very junior person who's doing that, but that person has a purpose to being in that room. Just because they're not speaking, just because they're not running numbers, doesn't mean they're just sitting there idly twiddling their thumbs. They have a purpose for being in that room. And when you know your purpose. When you can deliver something, then you have a lot more confidence. So, even if you're the junior person in the room, no-transcript, but they chose you.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:00:07

Yeah.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:00:07

Why remind yourself of that? Give yourself that pep talk. I might not be the biggest person in the room, but people tell me I have a presence when I show up, I'm five, five on a good day.

01:00:16

I'm wearing heels today, but even so, I'm still shorter than you in this chair. You take up more space in the chair than I do, but it doesn't matter because of the way I am perceived as how I show up, right, I'm perceived as if I walk in like I'm six feet tall. Because of how I show up, because of the tone of my voice, because I'm not wavering in my voice, I'm not gravelly in my voice, I'm not like trailing off, right. I talked to one of my nieces all the time and she trails off. I go, evie, you need to speak up. I can't hear you.

01:00:42

Um, you know, it's those little things that I want to coach especially young girls into doing to make sure that their voice is heard physically as well as figuratively. There's these things that you can do, but it really starts with that pep talk in your brain. So Amy Cuddy coined the phrase don't fake it till you make it, fake it till you become it Right. So this power posting it convinces your brain. There's another study that I love talking about from the stage, where they told people in a 2013 Harvard study, they had people sing in front of a group. Now, I'm no stranger to a microphone, but it does cause a lot of stress for people. Um, and so what they did is they? They told them, before you go on stage, they gave three different groups three different sets of instructions. So they told the first group I want you to tell yourself, regardless of how you're feeling, I want you to tell yourself I am anxious. And they told the second group, I want you to tell yourself I am excited. And they told the third group nothing at all. That was our control group, and what ended up happening is, according to a computer that measured each singer's volume and pitch, the group that told themselves I am excited outperformed the other two groups. Now some might think it's coincidence. There was better singers in that group, but according to the computer, they also did the same thing on a math test and a speech test.

01:01:48

That's not coincidence, right? That is telling your brain to psych yourself up instead of psyching yourself out. Give yourself a purpose for being there. Remember even things like mentorship. Mentors love giving wisdom, but there's this element of reverse mentorship. There's stuff they don't know that's happening at the ground level. If you're in the C-suite, you don't know what's happening at the ground level, you are now a source of information for that person in the C-suite. You are now a source of a guide for the next generation that's coming in, because they don't get that generation the boomers, the Gen Xers, the millennials. They don't know what the Gen Zs are thinking. So if you're in that group, you can educate them. You now have a purpose for being in that room, but it really requires the mental piece before anything else.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:02:27

Absolutely Pause. That resonated with me when we did your workshop is the whole pause button, and I've factored that in because I feel I'm the type of guy I hate when there's quiet.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:02:40

I hate when there's a pause in conversation.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:02:41

And oftentimes I used to just fill it up with space and a lot. Most of it's just 80% bullshit when you just try to fill it up. So part of that was just just pause. Think about it. It's okay to say let me get back to you. Talk to me about the power of pause.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:02:55

So we don't pause because we're trying to soothe. It's uncomfortable, it's awkward, but the more comfortable you get with that discomfort, the more confident you're actually going to look. And so a lot of people make the false assumption that if I'm not saying something, I'm going to look stupid, and so that drives a lot of our behavior. This anxiety of I'm going to look stupid. It's the same fear that I talked about earlier that drives so much of us feeling the silence. Or maybe I'm soothing myself, but I might also be trying to soothe you because I don't want you to be uncomfortable in this pause, so let me just keep thinking and talking at the same time, and that can get us into trouble, so that can make us look even more stupid. We say things we regret. You have those moments where you go oh God, why did I do that or why did I say that, but you can look far more poised.

01:03:33

So part of this perception is managing perceptions by just shutting up for a second and by owning that pause by saying I need a moment to think about that, or you gave me a really great question. I want to make sure I give you an answer that's not going to be false or that's not going to cause concern. Let me think about that for a second. Or I need to think through what the consequences are of those numbers, or do I even have the right numbers? Give me a second for that. Whatever it is, you can just say I need a moment, and now you own that moment and think of how confident it looks If you could say give me a moment. You're not asking can I have a minute? It's give me a minute. I'm in charge of this moment. You are now not going to intrude on this space that I've created. I'm doing it politely.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:04:12

Does it show weakness or that you're not prepared? If you do that too much, like, aren't you the person that has the answers? Why do you always need to pause, Like? That's what I've struggled with sometimes?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:04:21

But if you can say to somebody, I want to give you the best answer, don't you think they're going to be more pleased versus let me think and talk at the same time Sure.

01:04:29

I want to give you something that I know is going to be thoughtful, no-transcript the time, and until they see it, they don't believe it. Just that you might be freaking out on the inside. And I've done this. I remember one of the very first times I ran a workshop by myself. I had a C-level executive from Walmart. I was training him and I had a junior account manager from some supplier company, because it was a mix of companies. It was an open workshop, so super senior Walmart guy that this person would never interact with on another occasion, like this junior person would never cross paths with him. And I have them conducting a negotiation, a five minute negotiation, and I'm videotaping it. And this young girl looks so quiet and so poised. She's just staring, she's just sitting there. He's talking and talking and getting aggressive and leaning forward and doing all these things and she's just sitting back in her chair and just looking at him saying nothing, and he's talking himself out of a deal. He's just giving her proposal after proposal A senior executive.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:05:36

Yeah, this is.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:05:37

C-suite guy, he became one of the presidents of Walmart.

01:05:44

He's no longer in that position, so this is the level of seniority she took his position. Is that what happened? She never worked for that company. But um, so he's talking himself out of a deal, just giving away value and dropping his price, and dropping his price, and dropping his price. And then finally I give him the five second warning, last few seconds, and she says okay, and as soon as I turn off the video camera she falls apart. She's like, oh my God, like she was. No one knew it in her head. She was the most nervous person on the in the universe. She was like mentally going, I just don't know what to say.

01:06:11

She was collective and calm, but she looked so outwardly, she looked so calm. Everyone's like you're a freaking rock star, but they didn't see. When I showed the video in the classroom afterwards, they didn't see what happened after I turned off the camera and I pulled her aside and go do you realize what you just did? You shook down the C-level executive of one of the biggest companies on the planet. That's what you're capable of, but even in the moment she didn't think she was capable of it. But because she played this role of, I don't know what to say, so I'm just going to say nothing.

01:06:37

It worked so well for her and so now she has that experience to give her the confidence to go oh, this actually worked. So now I'm going to positive reinforcement. I'm going to do this over and over again. So if you own that presence, if you don't look like you're falling apart, that fake it till you become it becomes a reality Absolutely, and that, for me, was one of the most powerful examples I've ever seen. I'm so glad I was in that room at that time.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:06:58

That's incredible. Part of this last segment, I want to talk about cultures. When it comes to negotiation, right, there's different cultures are known or have generalization or certain traits on negotiating. When I'm in Asia, china, they're masters at pause and silence and there's obviously a language barrier. Yeah, but there's. You know, working over there, where again I've I've improved myself over the years on, they're quiet. They don't like what I'm saying. Let me say something. Let me say something. How do you coach through different cultures or is it the same type of characteristics across the board?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:07:32

So I would say I would replace the word culture with context.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:07:35

Okay.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:07:36

So you need to know the context of what you're getting yourself into and that context might be different geographically. That context might be different even within the same geography with a different person, and so, like, when I'm teaching MBA classes, most of my MBA classes are a mix of international students. I have a lot of students from India and a lot of students from China, and in India there's a certain type of negotiation that's extremely common when you go to markets and stuff like that. We don't go to the market in Canada and negotiate the way. This happens over in other parts of the world and you and I are used to it because we see it in Greece. This is very common outside of countries like Canada and the US and maybe in certain contexts even in, like, if you go to a flea market or something like that, there might be some room, but we don't do it nearly here in terms of frequency as is done in other parts of the world.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:08:17

The price is the price here and that's it Right, yes or?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:08:19

people are too afraid to do it because it's just not common. Like we learned by osmosis because we watched our parents doing it and our grandparents doing it and everybody else, it was a normal thing for us, so it wouldn't be so weird for us to do it. But everybody that I grew up room in Canada, like us, and you're sitting across from someone who is from India who you know has done that in the past you don't know if they've assimilated to the Canadian culture. So are they going to behave like they did when they were in that context or are they going to behave and assimilate to this context? So you really need to understand who's sitting across from you right now. So culture is an element of context. It's one piece of data that we have to decide. How am I going to handle this particular situation? Even down in the US, like I find negotiating in the Northeast very different from negotiating in the South, everybody in the South is very polite, so you never actually hear the word no, but they're telling you no.

01:09:13

So, you need to know what does no actually look like in the South. It's a very different context with the same people with the same culture theoretically, but there's micro cultures, even in the states. So we have to understand the context and take their culture, their background, their dna and all that kind of stuff into account, but marry it with all of the other things that are also going on in that space and in their experience. They have a very different, different experience than you. No matter what, you and I have different experiences, even though we had similar upbringings. We still have different experiences that led us here, so you might approach things differently than I would. I need to stop and think what is the context he's coming from so that I can approach appropriately.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:09:52

Yeah. So context, not culture, is what last question I have for you advice. You're obviously an expert. Talk to me just about relationship advice. When it comes to communication, whether it's with a spouse, a friend, you know what. What are common things that you always hear on? You know, my husband or my wife or my boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever it is. What's something that you always hear? That some advice the listeners could take away today and not piss off their significant other.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:10:19

Well, one of the funniest things that I ever heard was so I give out these little cards that have a pause button on them to remind people, because not only do you look more poised, but it gives your brain a chance to not be reactive, right? So there's two reasons to say less. One is so you look more credible, but the other is to allow your brain a chance to do the best. It's best work, because if we're being reactive, we're probably not doing our best work. So I give these little pause cards as a reminder and stickers and stuff like that, and people, years later, still tell me that they have it in their wallet and on their screensaver and whatever it is, and it's great, it's a nice visual reminder to make it sticky. And one of my students told me he goes yeah, I have them all over the place, I even have one on my nightstand. I go why your nightstand? And he goes now, I don't get into arguments with my wife and it's really as simple as that.

01:11:08

If you can pause your brain to not react, to not be defensive, if you can pause and even take it a step further and put yourself in their shoes, why would they be saying that right now, when I deal with really difficult people and it's being able to pause myself and go. This isn't about me. This is about them and their experience. What experience led them to this? Why would they be saying this right now, if you can pause to create that level of empathy and remember, empathy is not agreement. Just because I'm seeing where you're coming from doesn't mean I'm going to agree with what you said. I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from so I can approach in a slightly different way.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:11:39

You're acknowledging what they're saying.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:11:41

Yes, that word, acknowledgement, is incredibly important. People want to feel acknowledged. That's all it comes down to. So if you're negotiating with your little kid and they say I want to go jump out of the tree and be Superman in my costume, you can tell them you're not going to do that and they're going to be upset. You can tell them you're not going to do that and they're going to be upset. But you can also say I know it really sucks that we can't jump out of trees like that because we're going to break our legs and so on, and all of a sudden the heaving, crying starts to calm down because they feel acknowledged. You understand me right. So the result is not going to change. I'm still not going to let you jump out of a tree, but that acknowledgement sometimes is all people need. It's that sigh of relief.

01:12:15

I know it really sucks when we can't do that. I know it's really difficult to hear these types of things. Now, it's not a you know. It doesn't save you from everything. It doesn't save all of the drama, but it can reduce a lot of the drama. So give yourself a chance to come up with what is the best solution. What are the best choices of words here, before I say something I'm going to regret and then pause to think where are they coming from? Why is this coming up? Oftentimes, we can understand. There's actually some subtext here. There's something that I need to address. This is a symptom of a much bigger problem, and so when you can pause to tune into that, that's a very powerful thing.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:12:48

Yeah, and everyone has a story right. Everyone's struggling with something, everyone's fighting something. You know, the older I get, I try to do it more. It's tough A lot of times if you're heated or for whatever, and you want to respond and you know it's, it's a challenge, but it's something, even with kids, having kids and trying to do that, not slap them in the head with a slipper.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:13:09

Yeah.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:13:10

It turned out Okay. You know, do you follow a lot of your advice Like is it easy for you to implement it in your life?

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:13:21

It's easier, but I would never say it's easy, because pausing sounds like the simplest thing in the world, but it is the hardest thing to do, and so the closer I am to something, the more connected. The more heated I am about something, the more difficult that is for me. But because I've practiced it so much, it is something that I can tune into a lot faster than perhaps I would have in the past. I do think it's improved my personal relationships, certainly with people like my dad, because we used to get into a lot of fights when I was growing up. But I have a different approach now. I have more patience now because I can train myself to go just take a breath for a teeny or when I'm. You know, texting is a big thing now in our universe that didn't exist when we were kids. So you want to hit, send right away, take a moment to take a moment before you send an email, take a breath, maybe sleep on it.

01:14:02

I do that a lot and that's easy for me to do now, to be able to take that pause.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:14:06

Cause you want to respond in the moment.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:14:07

Prove your point, do whatever, yeah, when I'm really fired up, but I take the time to tune to, to turn down, even just now. Before we came here today, I was, I was ghost texting for a friend.

01:14:21

So her and her ex-husband have a lot of conflict. She sends me the text messages, I resend them and I help her to craft the appropriate messaging and I'm like take this, think about it, marinate it on it for a second. I'm going into a meeting, don't send anything right away. We also knew he's on a plane right now. It's best to give him this message after he gets off the plane, because he's going to stew there on the plane for a really long time. So how do we manage that conflict? A lot of it has to do with just pausing and thinking things through before you hit send really quickly.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:14:42

It's great advice.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:14:43

I'm going to get a pause button tattooed on my forearm, just to remember, I thought about it.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:14:47

That's dedication to Fotini. You're amazing. I appreciate you sitting down. I want to be able to do this. You were when I wanted to launch this podcast. You were on my top to get in front of, because you're doing amazing things. We have a great friendship and I only want to do these things in person. So, finally, our schedule is linked up. So thank you so much. We're going to share all your links, Anything else you want to share with the listeners where they could find you, where we could buy this. Let's talk about that.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:15:14

So, fortunately, the book is everywhere. Your favorite retailer that all the major retailers have them, which is pretty cool. Amazon does as well. If you've read it, if you could leave it a review, I would be incredibly grateful because that's what tells other people to want to read it as well. Um, so the book is everywhere. I mean, on my website you can find all my details. I share a lot more on Instagram than I do on LinkedIn, but I'm getting better at sharing more on LinkedIn again. But I also have a gift for all of your listeners. So if you go on my website to fotiniiconcom slash quiz, I shortened the name so people don't get it wrong. Perfect.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:15:42

Yes.

Fotini Iconomopoulos - Guest: 01:15:42

So fotiniiconcom slash quiz, you can learn your personal negotiation style. So what is your autopilot mode? What are some of the pros and what are some of the watchouts for that? So the more aware you are, the easier it is to access that pause button.

George Stroumboulis - Host: 01:15:54

That's amazing. We'll get the link up there and I'll make sure everybody gets that filled out. Wonderful, you're amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you, my friend. Thanks for listening to this episode of Invigorate your Business with George Stroumboulis. Please hit the subscribe and like buttons and follow me on all the main podcast streaming channels. Also, please share your comments when you can. I appreciate your help in expanding this network to a worldwide audience. Until next time, stay invigorated.

CONTENTS OF THIS VIDEO

00:00:00 Fotini Iconomopoulos is a Negotiations Expert

00:06:30 Becoming a Speaker & Coach

00:07:30 Tailoring Relevant Material for Audiences

00:10:00 Worst Presentation Experience Ever

00:13:51 Negotiating Success and Inclusivity

00:15:15 She Write a Book Called Say Less Get More

00:22:15 Navigating the Business Side of Publishing

00:26:30 Navigating Traditional vs. Hybrid Publishing

00:33:48 Navigating Fees and Relationship Building

00:34:10 Why People Fear Negotiation

00:38:00 Charge Proper Fees for Public Speaking

00:40:11 Continuous Growth and Learning in Negotiation

00:44:45 Measuring Success in Real-Time Negotiations

00:51:26 Maximizing Presentation Success

00:56:00 Not Letting Your Boss Push You Around

01:01:01 Enhancing Negotiation Skills Across Cultures

01:08:28 Understanding Context and Relationship Communication

HOW TO BECOME AN EXPERT AT NEGOTIATING

Becoming an expert negotiator requires a combination of theoretical knowledge, practical experience, and continuous self-improvement. Here are the key steps to mastering the art of negotiation:

1. Understand the Fundamentals

Learn the Basics: Start with foundational knowledge. Understand key concepts such as BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement), and the difference between integrative and distributive negotiation . Read Authoritative Books: Some essential readings include "Getting to Yes" by Roger Fisher and William Ury, "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss, and "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini.

2. Develop Core Skills

Active Listening: Cultivate the ability to listen more than you speak. Understanding the other party's needs and concerns is critical. Emotional Intelligence: Manage your emotions and recognize others' emotions to navigate negotiations effectively. Effective Communication: Clearly articulate your points, ask open-ended questions, and use body language that reinforces your words .

3. Practice, Practice, Practice

Role-Playing: Engage in mock negotiations with peers or mentors to practice different scenarios and strategies. Real-Life Negotiations: Take every opportunity to negotiate in daily life, whether it's for a better price on a purchase or negotiating job responsibilities at work. Feedback and Reflection: After each negotiation, analyze what went well and what could be improved. Seek feedback from others to gain different perspectives.

4. Expand Your Knowledge

Formal Education: Consider taking courses or certifications in negotiation. Many business schools and online platforms like Coursera and edX offer specialized programs. Stay Updated: Keep abreast of the latest research and trends in negotiation by reading journals, attending workshops, and joining professional organizations.

5. Master Advanced Techniques

Preparation: Thoroughly prepare for each negotiation. Understand the context, gather relevant information, and anticipate the other party’s arguments. Building Rapport: Develop a connection with the other party. This can lead to more collaborative negotiations and better outcomes. Strategic Concessions: Learn when and how to make concessions that don’t compromise your key interests but help in moving the negotiation forward .

6. Specialize and Diversify

Industry Knowledge: Gain expertise in the specific industry or field where you are negotiating. This helps in understanding the unique dynamics and leverage points. Cross-Cultural Competence: Develop the ability to negotiate across different cultures by understanding and respecting cultural differences and adapting your approach accordingly.

7. Learn from Experts

Mentorship: Find mentors who are skilled negotiators and can provide guidance, feedback, and support. Case Studies: Study successful negotiations and analyze what strategies and tactics were used.

8. Leverage Technology

Digital Tools: Utilize negotiation software and apps that can help in preparation, analysis, and simulation. Online Platforms: Engage in online communities and forums dedicated to negotiation to exchange ideas and strategies with other professionals.

9. Ethical Negotiation

Integrity and Trust: Always negotiate with integrity and strive to build trust. Ethical negotiators are more likely to achieve sustainable and favorable outcomes.

By systematically developing these skills and continuously seeking improvement, you can become an expert negotiator capable of achieving successful outcomes in various contexts.

MORE ABOUT FOTINI’S BOOK - SAY LESS GET MORE

Fotini Iconomopoulos's book, "Say Less, Get More: Unconventional Negotiation Techniques to Get What You Want," offers a fresh perspective on negotiation by debunking common myths and providing practical strategies tailored to different negotiation scenarios. Here's a brief overview of what the book covers:

  1. Assessing Situations: Learn how to determine where your negotiation falls on the spectrum and adjust your tactics accordingly.

  2. Understanding Counterparts: Develop an approach based on who you are negotiating with, their background, and their goals.

  3. Strategy Development: Identify your starting position, final outcome, and the strategy to get there.

  4. Process Management: Overcome obstacles, manage the process, and find common ground.

  5. Effective Communication: Discover what to say and when to say it, especially if you can’t reach a deal.

  6. Building Relationships: Foster excellent client relationships and networks to support long-term success.

Iconomopoulos combines her extensive experience in advising Fortune 500 companies and training executives with practical advice that is accessible to everyone—from new graduates to CEOs. The book aims to empower readers with the knowledge and confidence to get what they want in business and life​ (HarperCollins)​​ (Barnes & Noble)​.

For more information and to purchase the book, you can visit the HarperCollins website or major booksellers like Barnes & Noble.

ADVICE FOR HOW TO BETTER COMMUNICATE TO GET WHAT YOU WANT

Effective communication is crucial for getting what you want, whether in personal relationships, professional settings, or negotiations. Here are several strategies to enhance your communication skills to achieve your goals:

1. Active Listening

Engage Fully: Show that you are listening through non-verbal cues like nodding, maintaining eye contact, and leaning slightly forward. Reflect and Paraphrase: Repeat back what the other person has said to confirm understanding. This demonstrates that you are paying attention and values their perspective.

2. Clear and Concise Expression

Be Direct: Clearly articulate your needs and desires without ambiguity. Use simple and straightforward language. Stay on Topic: Avoid unnecessary details and stick to the main points to prevent confusion and ensure your message is understood.

3. Empathy and Understanding

Consider Their Perspective: Try to understand the other person's point of view and show empathy. This can help build rapport and trust. Acknowledge Feelings: Recognize and validate the emotions of others. This can defuse tension and create a more cooperative environment.

4. Non-Verbal Communication

Body Language: Use open and positive body language. Avoid crossing your arms or appearing closed off. Tone of Voice: Ensure your tone matches your message. A calm and confident tone can convey authority and sincerity.

5. Ask Open-Ended Questions

Encourage Dialogue: Use questions that require more than yes or no answers to encourage discussion and deeper understanding. Clarify and Probe: Ask follow-up questions to get more details and clarify points.

6. Preparation and Knowledge

Know Your Subject: Be well-informed about the topic you are discussing. This increases your credibility and persuasiveness. Anticipate Questions: Think about possible questions or objections and prepare your responses in advance.

7. Emotional Intelligence

Self-Regulation: Manage your emotions and stay calm, even if the conversation becomes heated. Awareness: Be aware of the emotional dynamics in the conversation and adjust your approach accordingly.

8. Build Trust and Rapport

Be Honest: Integrity and honesty foster trust and respect. Find Common Ground: Identify shared interests or goals to build a connection and facilitate agreement.

9. Practice Persuasion Techniques

Use Evidence: Support your arguments with facts, data, and logical reasoning. Storytelling: Use stories and anecdotes to illustrate your points and make your message more relatable and memorable.

10. Negotiate Effectively

BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement): Know your alternatives if the negotiation doesn’t go as planned. This gives you leverage. Seek Win-Win Solutions: Aim for outcomes that satisfy both parties, fostering long-term cooperation and relationships.

11. Adaptability

Be Flexible: Be open to adjusting your approach based on the flow of the conversation and the reactions of the other party. Read the Room: Pay attention to the mood and dynamics of the environment and adapt your communication style accordingly.

MORE ABOUT THE EPISODE

Mastering Negotiations and Public Speaking with Fotini Iconomopoulos: Strategies for Business Success

  • Empathy and Effective Communication for Success

  • Strategies for Resonating with Diverse Audiences

  • Publishing Wisdom and Negotiation Mastery

  • Engaging Presentations and Powerful Communication

Description

Unlock the secrets of top-tier negotiations and business success with our latest guest, Fotini Iconomopoulos, an acclaimed international negotiations expert, author, and speaker. You'll hear firsthand how she transitioned from corporate roles with powerhouses like L'Oreal and Smuckers to striking deals with giants such as Walmart. Fotini reveals her journey from the corporate world to founding her own firm and becoming a renowned speaker, highlighting the importance of effective communication and understanding diverse backgrounds for achieving win-win outcomes.

In this episode, Fotini shares invaluable strategies for delivering engaging presentations and resonating with diverse audiences. From the nuances of transitioning back to in-person events post-COVID to the energy felt during meticulously prepared speaking tours, she provides actionable tips that can elevate your public speaking game. You'll also gain insights into the delicate balance of preparing and adapting your content to ensure maximum impact and audience connection.

We also explore the often daunting world of publishing, where Fotini offers her hard-earned wisdom on everything from securing deals without an agent to comparing traditional versus hybrid publishing models. Learn about the business side of writing, the power of Q&A sessions, and the role of empathy in both negotiations and public speaking. Whether you're an aspiring author, speaker, or negotiator, Fotini's journey and advice offer a blueprint for continuous growth and success in your professional endeavors.

Blog Post

In the latest episode of "Invigorate Your Business," host George Stroumboulis sits down with Fotini Iconomopoulos, an international negotiations expert, author, and speaker, to delve into the art of mastering negotiations and public speaking for business success. The conversation kicks off with Fotini's remarkable journey from corporate roles with powerhouses like L'Oreal and Smuckers to striking deals with giants such as Walmart. Fotini reveals how her career transitioned from the corporate world to founding her own firm and becoming a renowned speaker, highlighting the significance of effective communication and understanding diverse backgrounds to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

Fotini's journey is a testament to the power of passion and authenticity. She shares how her career path has been shaped by seizing opportunities, which led her to unexpected ventures like teaching MBA negotiations and writing a book. Throughout the discussion, she emphasizes the importance of communication and understanding people's backgrounds in negotiations. This approach not only helps in achieving win-win outcomes but also in building lasting professional relationships. Her story is a powerful reminder that success often comes from following one's passion and being authentic in one's pursuits.

In the next segment, Fotini dives into the art of delivering compelling speeches and maintaining audience engagement. She explores strategies for tailoring content to resonate with listeners, incorporating interactive exercises, and ensuring speeches are actionable and relatable. Reflecting on her past experiences, she discusses the transition from virtual presentations to in-person events post-COVID, highlighting the importance of preparation. A personal anecdote about an underprepared in-person gig underscores the value of meticulous preparation, leading to improved performance and audience connection. Fotini's insights into the energy and connection felt during a well-prepared cross-country tour are invaluable for anyone looking to enhance their public speaking skills.

The episode also explores the dynamic world of public speaking and negotiation, emphasizing the unique power of Q&A sessions. Fotini shares her exhilarating experience of engaging directly with audiences, whether on stage or through social media. This interaction brings her joy and satisfaction as it allows her to make specific connections for individuals. She also discusses her journey of writing the book "Say Less, Get More," detailing the unexpected opportunity from Harper Collins and the challenges faced in conveying effective negotiation strategies as a young woman in male-dominated environments. This chapter highlights the importance of finding one's voice and adapting advice to suit personal contexts and experiences.

Fotini provides an in-depth look at the business side of writing and publishing a book, particularly from the perspective of someone who had an unconventional entry into the publishing world. She explores the initial steps of securing a publishing deal without an agent, the importance of hiring an entertainment lawyer, and the critical role of marketing in a book's success. The conversation highlights the responsibilities authors bear in promoting their own work, the various strategies for marketing, and the benefits of networking with other authors. Additionally, Fotini touches on the differences between traditional publishing and the emerging hybrid publishing model, which offers more customizable options for authors. Her lessons learned from the first book and considerations for a potential second book emphasize the need for an earlier and more comprehensive marketing strategy.

Navigating the intricacies of book publishing, Fotini compares the financial dynamics between traditional publishing and hybrid self-publishing. She discusses how traditional authors often rely heavily on advances, which are rarely out-earned, leaving them with minimal royalties per book sold. The conversation highlights the control and higher profit margins that come with hybrid publishing, where authors invest upfront but reap significant returns if their book sells well. The importance of understanding market numbers and having faith in one's ability to sell books is emphasized. Fotini also touches on the benefits of traditional publishers, such as their established distribution networks and credibility, which can be especially valuable for new authors learning the industry. Audience engagement and personal branding play crucial roles in a book's success, regardless of the publishing route chosen.

Fotini explores the importance of understanding human emotions in negotiations rather than relying solely on numbers. She discusses how fear of looking foolish or damaging relationships often holds people back from negotiating effectively. By adopting a curious and empathetic approach, and treating negotiations as problem-solving

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