Episode #457: Lisa Earle McLeod
Meet
Lisa Earle McLeod
Lisa Earle McLeod, author of Selling with Noble Purpose, is a global expert on purpose-driven business. She helps leaders boost competitive differentiation and engagement through her Noble Purpose methodology. Founder of McLeod & More, Inc., she has worked with top organizations, keynoted in 25 countries, and contributed to Harvard Business Review and Forbes. www.mcleodandmore.com.
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Most people–even most salespeople—walk into a negotiation focused on what they want. They’re thinking about numbers, margins, and commission. But that lens makes it easy to miss the real levers that move a deal forward.
Lisa Earle McLeod breaks down why effective negotiators don’t start with tactics—they start with the other person’s world. What do they care about? What are they under pressure to deliver? What does a win look like for them? By grounding the conversation in outcomes that matter to the buyer, salespeople can create more alignment, trust, and momentum.
Lisa shares how front-loading value and clarity early on often removes the need for drawn-out back-and-forths later. And when tension rises, the prep work you did—mapping out their goals, not just your own—is what keeps your lizard brain from hijacking the moment.
Negotiation becomes less about squeezing out a win, and more about making it easy for the other side to say yes.
Outline of This Episode
- (0:00) Introduction to Lisa Earle McLeod
- (02:57) How to Avoid Negotiating on Price
- (05:35) Trust-Based Negotiation Tactics
- (08:25) Why Negotiation Planning Matters
- (10:34) How to Avoid Manipulative Sales Tactics
- (13:49) Dealing With Aggressive Buyers
- (17:07) Real-World Negotiation Example
Why Starting With Tactics Gets You Stuck
Most people are trained to treat negotiations like chess—thinking several moves ahead, deploying clever phrases, aiming to “win.” But when you lead with tactics, you’re often working off assumptions about what the other person wants. And usually, those assumptions are wrong or too shallow.
Real traction happens when you stop focusing on what you’re going to say and start focusing on what the other person is trying to solve. When you do that, your tactics become a natural extension of something much more powerful: relevance.
The Other Person’s Goal Is the Starting Line
Every deal has two agendas. Most sellers only plan for one—their own. But Lisa makes it clear that the most successful negotiators flip that. They walk in with a grounded, specific understanding of what the buyer is under pressure to deliver.
This isn’t about being nice or agreeable. It’s about understanding what will make someone want to move forward. Whether it’s hitting a metric, avoiding a headache, or impressing their boss, that clarity becomes the anchor for the entire conversation.
Purpose Creates Calm When the Stakes Are High
It’s easy to lose your footing in a high-stakes deal. When something matters deeply—to your quota, your team, your future—it’s human to get tunnel vision. That’s where planning around purpose becomes your safety net.
Lisa explains how this prep work keeps you from defaulting to panic tactics. When you’ve already mapped out what matters to the other person, you’re less reactive and more focused. It becomes easier to hold your ground without posturing—and easier to walk away if things don’t line up.
Selling With Purpose Isn’t Soft—It’s Smart
There’s a myth that being purpose-driven means being passive. Lisa shuts that down. Laying your cards on the table, being transparent about what you’re hoping to achieve, and aligning that with the buyer’s goals isn’t soft. It’s efficient.
When both sides know exactly what’s on the line and why it matters, decisions get easier. And when that alignment is real, the deal tends to last longer, too.
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Learn More About Lisa Earle McLeod
What was a pivotal moment in your career that shaped your approach to negotiation, and how did it influence your strategy and tactics?
In my twenties my boss said “Everything in life and I mean everything from your spouse, to your job, to your kids, is a negotiation.” I thought I would hate to be married to you. I realize, there is a time to negotiate, but if you approach every single interaction that way, you will wind up with a very transactional life.
Can you share a specific negotiation tactic that has consistently helped you close deals more effectively? Please provide an example where it worked.
When negotiating, I always make a practice to ask what outcome they’re hoping for. I make a list of everything they want, I ask them why those things matter to them. This makes them feel heard and they relax. They often wind up taking things off the list themselves. People thinking asking them what they want is a weak more. It’s not, it’s the ultimate power move. You’re guiding the conversation, and you are becoming the person helping them instead of lording over them.
What is the most challenging negotiation you’ve ever faced, and what strategy or tactic helped you turn it into a win?
Many times, our contracts are turned over the purchasing, who only care about the bottom line price. Before I meet with purchasing, I I ask our buyer, who cares about the impact of our solution, to send an email describing why they bought, and saying – I want them to put their top people on our project, so don’t hard ball them on price and force them to put less resources on our job.
Often purchasing is oblivious that when they whittle the price down, you are substituting in cheaper people and tools.
What are your top three must-have tools, frameworks, or resources that sales professionals should use to improve their negotiation skills? Must have tools
– Lookup how your buyer gets evaluated by their org
– Be clear about the positive impact of your solution before you start negotiating
– Make sure your buyer has bought into the impact – don’t just repeat, ASK them, what positive impact will this have on your organization, if we implement successfully.
– Start your negotiation saying, let’s figure out how we can have the most impact on your and your org possible.
With buyer behaviors evolving and AI playing a larger role in sales, how do you see negotiation strategies and tactics changing in the future? What should sales professionals do to stay ahead?
USE AI TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER BETTER!! If you’re calling on an organization of any size, you should know their business objectives their biggest challenges, what success looks like for them beyond your product.
What’s are some simple but powerful negotiation tactics that most salespeople overlook?
Prove your value and don’t negotiate.
Just because they ask you to negotiate doesn’t mean you have to do it. My firm charges top tier fees. When someone asks us to negotiate, we say, We spend our time increasing the net positive impact for you. We don’t spend our time whittling down our price.
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