Get Good Negotiation Training or Else! Andres Lares

Wes Schaeffer (00:01.644)
I'm gonna do my best Comedy Central. Andres Lez. A-ron? Cause you know, I will never roll those words. Andres? Lares? Decent? All right. All the way from Venezuela through Canada to Baltimore. Welcome to The Sales Podcast, man, how the heck are you?

Andres Lares (00:12.929)
That was perfect.

Andres Lares (00:17.796)
Pretty good. Pretty good.

Andres Lares (00:27.255)
Great, how you doing?

Wes Schaeffer (00:28.628)
I'm good. I love that. Those guys, Key and Peele, I'm so bombed. They need to do a reunion tour like every year.

That whole AA run. anyway, so what is happening, man? You are the CEO at SNI, Shapiro Negotiations Institute. So I wanted to ask right off the bat, did you buy that company or what happened? Why is it not the Andres Negotiations Institute?

Andres Lares (00:53.857)
Allen and I? It mainly, you know, just doesn't have the same ring. That's all. That's the only reason. No, we, so it is a 30 year old company. I took over about eight years ago now. So it was founded by a guy by the name of Ron Shapiro. So he was particularly known in the sports world. He was a baseball agent, but he did a bunch of other stuff. So was a civil rights attorney and he had a very kind of large regional law firm here. So he did a lot of things. He was an author.

So he wrote the book actually kind of behind me, The Power of Nice. And that kind of launched his negotiation institute. And what's interesting about him and kind of an evolution that I find particularly unique is that, you when I think of most people think of sports agents, they don't think of the warm and fuzzies. You know, it's not the that's not the first most people get exactly, you know, Jerry Maguire and all the others that we see on TV.

Wes Schaeffer (01:41.368)
Show me the money!

Andres Lares (01:47.137)
First of all, I've had the good fortune of working for three and they were all incredible people, good at what they do, cared about their clients, just good people. that is good. the second is so Ron, you know, he started this book called, he wrote this book called The Power of Nice and he started the Institute. And not only did he write the book The Power of Nice, but his first clients, when he wrote it as an active agent, were the owners of teams that were having their companies outside of sports. He was training them. So their relationship was so strong and there was so much respect built there.

And so I think for me, that's what's so special. That is proof that, you you can be aggressive and you can maximize your objectives, but you got to think about the other side, right? There, it's got to be a collaborative approach to some extent and not, you know, there's some scenarios where it's not, that's anyways, that's the, that's the long story long. And then eight years ago, so after being here for about seven years, I took over the partner, Jeff Cochran, and then fast forward a few years later, we wrote a book called Persuade in 2021. And, and here we are today.

That's a little bit of how we got here.

Wes Schaeffer (02:49.144)
Nice. I, I remember hearing this story and I think it was about a Japanese CEO and I'd have to Google it or chat GPT it, they were structuring like this mega deal and he like backed off a little bit, you know, and the others were like, well, why'd you do that? Basically he left some meat on the bone. He could have, he could have struck a harder deal. He's like, you know, I want goodwill, right? I want.

I want to do business with these people again, you know? And so, I mean, that was the gist of it. It's like, okay, I'm not crazy. it's so, maybe I'm weird being in sales. Like I was always money motivated because I want to be paid according to my worth, right? Not just time in service, you know, that's what kind of bummed me out with the military. It's like, you could save the world as a Lieutenant. Doesn't matter. You're to be two years as a second Lieutenant and then two more years, the first Lieutenant. And then you're like,

five or six years as the captain, doesn't matter. Right. And so, and I get it, you need some experience, but, but it's like, I don't really give a shit how much money I have. I mean, once you have enough, you have enough. But it is how we keep score, you know? And so I'll, I'll leave meat on the bone.

Andres Lares (04:04.173)
Now, some people keep score, right? Not everyone keeps score that way, there is a, that's one of the things too that I've kind of learned is, you know, it's, there's a right way to do it. Right. And what's incredible is I'd say over time, and there's a lot of articles when I started doing this, but 15 years ago, there's still a lot of articles that say, oh, good guys finish last. you know, you got like, there's a bunch of companies that teach people really hardball how to negotiate and Mark, for example, is known for this, right?

Wes Schaeffer (04:30.306)
Yeah.

Andres Lares (04:32.685)
You look at the relationship they have with their suppliers. We've worked with a bunch of their suppliers and it's not a good one. But the moment that the supplier has any opportunity, they will gouge Walmart at every possible, with everything they have because they know that they're waiting for that opportunity. And so, you know, is that a healthy relationship? Is that the way you want to run your business long-term? And again, Walmart's an incredibly run company. It's incredibly efficient. But that's worth something. Your reputation's worth something. You know, the good wheels worth something.

Wes Schaeffer (05:00.312)
Sure.

Andres Lares (05:01.901)
When times get tough, it sure is nice to be able to call Wes and know you can count on Wes for a favor. Be the first one to get that supply to, know, whatever it is, that's sure worth something, I think, to me and I think to others.

Wes Schaeffer (05:13.688)
do. And it doesn't mean you don't charge what you're worth, right? But it's like, and I tell people all the time, you know, if I'm, if I'm dealing with a larger company, you know, I may charge 20 or $30,000 for something that I would do for seven grand for a small business, you know, but some of it is positioning, you know, the larger company may not take me if I come in too small. And it's also, it's like,

If I like the smaller company and they just truly do need the help and it's, and I'm going to like the project and you know, I'll pull some things back. And so it's not the exact same, but it's pretty close, you know, like I'll do it. You know, I think a lot of people, you're too small for me. Like run away, you know, you're not worth my time. Like, and I get it. I mean, I've always worked with smaller businesses, so I'm going to, maybe I'm too nice to them, but.

Andres Lares (06:08.077)
It's a business value based offering too, right? mean, the same thing that you do for a big business, you're multiplying it by 100. And for a small business, you're multiplying by three. So to some extent, that also does make sense too, right? Every now and then, we're pretty competitively priced in our space. But every now and then we get someone says, walk me through the pricing model, because that's not what this should cost. What do you mean by should cost? Because I can tell you, if you want to tie it to ROI,

Wes Schaeffer (06:11.138)
Well, for sure.

Andres Lares (06:34.861)
and I get a bonus or we reduce the price a little if you don't get it, I'll do that and we'll get a nice hefty bonus at the end. We'll track some KPI. Well, no, no, no, I was just kind of asking, okay, that's what I thought. mean, I'm going to give you a four to one ROI. Okay, I'll take 30, 40 % of that if you want to put some skin in the game. And so I think that's part of it is the value, right? The bigger the company, a couple of good decisions where you're able to, every salesperson gets 1 % better margin on their deals.

Wes Schaeffer (06:47.244)
Yeah.

Andres Lares (07:03.969)
means a lot of money potentially versus, you know, for salespeople in a 15 person company, it's just less dollars and cents.

Wes Schaeffer (07:05.932)
Right, right.

Wes Schaeffer (07:11.694)
Yeah, for sure. But yeah, and it, you know, the funny thing is it's when the student is ready, the teacher really does appear, you know, and I try to tell people this and cause they'll, especially I'm dealing with like an industry. Maybe I haven't worked in before. How good are you? What's your experience with this? I'm like, are you a human? Well, oh yeah. Do you sell to humans? Oh yeah. I can help you.

Yeah, sometimes you need that, that expert with 30 years experience in the industry. But it's like a lot of times I tell them you've gotten where you are by listening to those 30 year experts. And now you're at a crossroads, you know, things aren't quite working. It's time to bring somebody in from left field, you know, that has no sacred cows, you know, and get, we'll ask the dumb questions. cause then when they, they look at it with fresh eyes are like, yeah. Like, why are we doing it that way?

Andres Lares (08:10.017)
Sounds like we approached it similarly, because the other thing I say too is, if I'm helping your company, we're training your company. You are the subject matter expert in whatever it may be, In producing and selling semiconductors. Okay, great. But the reality is, I'm never going to be the expert you are, but I don't have to be. I know enough to be dangerous, but my real job is to help you with whatever it is, With discovery skills of your sales team or...

preparing or positioning in the marketplace or defending against being commoditized, whatever it is. And so that is business, that's people, that's strategy. And there's a lot of similarities, like you said, from all over. And so as long as you've got the expertise that I can tap into for your industry and your market and your competitors, and I can tap into that pretty quickly, it's, like you said, it's the combination that's powerful. And if you're just kind of thinking about only the way your industry has done it, I think you're...

You know you shoot yourself in the foot really. You're leaving a lot of potential opportunities just left.

Wes Schaeffer (09:11.682)
Yeah, it's, always see one of two things like either just a total utter lack of training and people are just left to their own devices. You know, the inmates are running the asylum or it's too structured. You know, you got your Miller Hyman pink and blue sheets and whatever, and you know, fill out 87 fields in your CRM before you can advance the deal and then, you know, your salespeople are beat down or they

like everything is scripted down. It's just my gosh and like neither one's good. Like let's find that happy medium.

Andres Lares (09:49.965)
Yeah, well, I guess it's good to familiar happen because they even bought a couple times, right? That was now it's corn fairy, I think. They keep, yeah, they keep getting gobbled up and that's a but you're right that I mean, that's the happy medium that I think people are looking for more now is also so it's not just kind of the the flavor that we're selling, but it's also that you are looking for that. It's like I want some processes because you want some common language and you want to process that everyone follows. But even we think about this all the time, so it's funny bring this up so.

Wes Schaeffer (09:57.628)
I don't even know. Thank goodness.

Andres Lares (10:19.851)
I launched a Salesforce app a few years ago and thought, this is going be brilliant. No, you know, it's the most common CRM that our clients have. is not even close to 50%, but it's the most common. So I thought I'd start there and roll it. And I thought I felt so good about myself, which was because I thought it was going to integrate what we did in there exactly where they play. It was never being used. And I just couldn't figure it out. And so then I decided to guinea pig with one of the clients that we had, a really good client that's kind of willing to test stuff and

So said, listen, let's just, let's remove this app that we put in. And instead we're going to do something different because your main pain points were some of it were discovered, had the managing calls. The others like there's not enough good information in the CRM. We did the exact opposite. We actually took away like 30 or 40 % of the fields that they had to enter in their CRM system. And you will not be surprised to find out that their salespeople started using it. had a lot more. Right. And so all of a sudden now you went from not having good data because you know, it's what you, what you get out is what you put in.

Wes Schaeffer (11:17.24)
Yeah.

Andres Lares (11:17.613)
and all of a sudden they're more willing to, right? If I only have to fill in five or six forms, and then the next step after that was going to be some automation where we can help fill them out formally. The transcripts of the call can go right in and you don't have to put the notes in all that kind of stuff using technology. And all of a sudden, you you cut the time they're spending in CRM system from like an hour a day to 10 minutes a day. You've got happy salespeople that, you know, are motivated to get a lot more deals done. And so, you know, that's, and it's simple, but I got to be the first to admit it, right? I was excited about it.

Wes Schaeffer (11:36.973)
Right.

Wes Schaeffer (11:41.784)
Yeah.

Andres Lares (11:47.263)
know, an interesting application that would build based on what they did and all the stuff we would accomplish. But it just, at the same time, you got to kind of take the easiest route in the masses is going to be the one that typically it'll take.

Wes Schaeffer (11:59.814)
Yeah, well, it's like in marketing, know, do you want a hundred people 10 % sold or do you want 10 people a hundred percent sold? You know, so do you do you want, you know, a hundred fields 10 % filled out, you know, or 10 fields a hundred percent? All right, let's let's boil this down to the core things. But it's like I get it, you know, the bigger the company, the more you need clearly defined steps. I mean, because you're

You're doing your forecasting and you're purchasing and inventory control. I mean, it's big business and it's big expenses. And can you hit deadlines when big orders come in and whatever? So there's got to be definitive stages. was fortunate enough, Dell rolled out salesforce.com in 2007 and I knew a guy there and I brought a team of five for 10 months and we helped train them.

three or four months during the summer on the rollout and then two of us stuck around for like seven more months for all new hires and And that was the first time I really understood like the need like for these stages and like what is the definable Documentable thing. Why is this deal going from 10 to 20 percent? Why is it going from 50 to 80 percent? You know because you're trying to take the

the objective, the subjective stuff out of the equation, right? Cause like, I know you're a sandbag or you say, 30%. Well, that's probably 90, but you know, Mary over there, she's always optimistic. She says 99%. I know it's probably 75. So a manager's in there massaging. So I get it. like the more, like you got to balance it, right? How can you be objective with a little subjectivity, but not overly, you know, not too onerous. Like, is that possible?

for a big company.

Andres Lares (13:56.321)
Well, it's interesting. One thing that we did, we tested internally and ended up actually kind of advising a couple of companies that did it. And this is almost like outside of our normal work, but we tested for us and it was that we would track the probability of close for a year or two for every salesperson. And then the data would tell you, right? You'd look and it's like, the 30 percenters, they came in at 30 % and they closed at 15 % for somebody, but the 30 percenters closed at 60 % for someone else.

And exactly, it's like that example you said, Sam was saying bagging them because he wanted to exceed expectation and Michelle was doing the opposite or vice versa. so when you get to that, and so then it's your job to kind of educate on that is, hey, let's define these a little bit more, right? Like what's considered an oper- what's in the negotiation phase? What's proposal set mean? I mean, okay, but you send the proposal, does that mean they have to receive it? Like what's negotiation mean? Are you really talking about dollars? And they just respond and said, got it.

What's that mean? think that's so, you know, the smaller the company, the less important it is, especially when you're public though, we've got some, you know, lots of our clients are kind of fortune 500, 5,000. So they're, you know, the forecasting is huge, right? It's forecasting that goes into public statements. I think it goes into share pricing. I mean, it's, it has a huge impact. So I think there it's got to be really a science, but I think in the smaller companies, I almost feel like that's more about driving.

that, okay, what do I do with these people to increase the probabilities? Okay, even if Wes is a little bit off, it's almost more around, okay, but how do I get Wes to close 10 % more of his deals rather than to be 10 % more accurate? Because the value of the former is more than the latter, I think, in a private company.

Wes Schaeffer (15:31.67)
Right. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's crazy though. It's, I see this, you know, I've told the story. I bought the domain name, the sales whisperer and trademarked it. I bought, but I bought the URL in 2006. I was watching the dog whisperer he said, I, I rehabilitate dogs and I train their owners. And I thought I rehabilitate.

salespeople and train their managers. You know, cause it's like, from my experience in corporate America, I never really had sales training. had product training, you know, I had marketing come in and give us some hype. but like pure sales training, like so little. And my managers, I don't think I ever had a sales manager that had sales management training. You know, they were

Either promote it from within or brought over, you know, somebody knew somebody brought him over, made him the VP of a region or something. No real experience in doing that. Just suddenly they're the boss and P and L and approving expenses and grilling us on our Excel spreadsheets. You know, I'm like, what value does this guy bring to my life? And it was like, rarely was there any value that a sales manager added added value to my life.

Andres Lares (16:50.018)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Schaeffer (16:57.23)
So that's why I ended up being on my own. If I had better managers, if I had better leadership, I'd probably have spent 30 years in the Air Force, but even there I didn't have good leadership. is it, leadership, are you seeing dire circumstances out there? it, is it a desert for leadership?

Andres Lares (17:15.937)
Well, it's interesting. Your story, I I remember we did a study for this. So we are really a B2B company where we stick specifically to that. But we'll do studies that kind of go a little bit up past that. And so we have gotten a lot of interviews about negotiating salaries. That's B2C. We don't like formally work in that, but it's a negotiating space. deal with it. We did a short study on that a while back. And it was incredible that we found convincingly.

was that essentially the biggest reason why people leave isn't the salary, is the general compensation, it is their boss. And typically the close second, or the second with a bunch of others nearby is your colleagues. So it's funny that, so part of it is yeah, negotiating compensation is important and it's critical because especially early on in your career, it to add up over time.

Wes Schaeffer (18:10.125)
Yep.

Andres Lares (18:10.537)
It is the I mean, you know, and so your story I think is the one of many where good leadership means you stay longer, right? If you had an incredible leader, you would have stayed at the company. You would have been valued, felt valid. You would have been promoted. You would have had a bigger impact. You know, and so and but I would say this. It is not surprising to say that you didn't have great leaders and also to say that your leaders weren't trained and that you didn't get much training. There is a heck of a correlation we've seen like.

Wes Schaeffer (18:16.237)
Yep.

yeah.

Andres Lares (18:37.453)
I'll just say we work with a lot of the best performing companies, which is ironic to me. When I got here, I thought we're helping the companies that are already performing the best. You know why? It's because they're the ones looking for every edge and they're thinking about seeing their people. They see their people as real assets that they invest in long-term. And so what's interesting is we work with the ones that already perform. As much as I want to give myself a pat in the back and say, man, we work with like, it's almost the star of every industry, but that is not a coincidence. They're the ones that invest long-term and invest in leadership training.

Not just negotiation training, is what we do in influence training, but all the tangential soft skills. So it's no surprise. And they also have by far the longest tenure. It's crazy. mean, in rooms with people 20 years, 25 years in the same company. And in 2025, that does not happen anymore.

Wes Schaeffer (19:12.407)
Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (19:25.166)
Well, it's like the old adage, know, you're so lean and fit. Why do you keep going to the gym?

What? You hear what you just said? Like the top ones double down on good training. You know, and people just don't get it. But hey, that's why, you know, like top salespeople, I heard the statistic a long time ago and I forget it exactly, but it was like the top 4 % of salespeople make like 10 times or 40 times the money. And I was like, what?

Andres Lares (19:41.441)
Yeah, it's that simple.

Wes Schaeffer (20:03.054)
Like when you think about it, and I use the analogy all the time, like in golf, you know, the man just had the masters, right? So if you're like one quarter of one stroke better per day over four days, you win the masters and you know, $1.6 million and your name on the trophy and blah, blah. But second place still gets about $800,000. So not too bad, you know, but in sales.

You know, if I got a four week sales cycle and you're one quarter of 1 % better than me each week, then over four weeks, now you're 1 % better and you win that deal. I get zero for coming in second place. you know, what's 100 % times zero? So it's just...

We've got to be at those 1%, you know, cause it's easy to say 1 % better every day. Like no, literally, you gotta be 1 % better in everything that you do or you get zero of the sale. Yeah. And I think people, they always think it's something big. got to change. Oh, we got to deploy AI everywhere.

Wes Schaeffer (21:16.472)
Maybe.

Maybe you just need a better email signature. Like what? I had a guy.

Andres Lares (21:24.557)
One extra outreach a day or it is interesting that I love that quote and a bunch of people said it, Tony Robinson said it a few times and we've done some work with and he'll say, you know, that people overestimate significantly what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do to lifetime. And I think that is such a perfect quote in the sense that like, you know, that idea of just like work on one thing a day or week or month, whatever, and actually do it. All those people are unbelievably successful.

Wes Schaeffer (21:40.194)
Right. Or even three to five years. Yeah.

Andres Lares (21:53.301)
And so that's in sales, that's in anything. But the problem is, you it's not hard to start, right? It's not hard to get, you know, write in the notepad the things you want to do. You know, today I'm going to work on this week, I'm going to work preparing better. Next week I'm to work on sending out more emails or making more phone calls, you know, whatever it is, right? Asking more questions in my conversations, whatever it is. But, you know, a day later, a week later, a month later, are you still doing it? And if you stick to it, I don't think there's anyone who ends up not being successful. I mean, it's just...

Wes Schaeffer (22:16.91)
there.

Andres Lares (22:22.797)
Because the cream will rise to the top eventually. There is a lot of that still. I not every single person in a high position is very, very capable and competent, but over time, typically, the cream will rise.

Wes Schaeffer (22:23.245)
No.

Wes Schaeffer (22:36.204)
I think I'm only going to start working with Jiu-Jitsu people. Because we understand the long road. You know, I started eight years ago and I was terrible. And it did not come easily to me. And, you know, I'll probably get my black belt the end of this year. Which is humbling. It's like, feel, I still feel like I don't know anything, but I have good instincts now.

But it's so hard every day, same warm up, same routine, same exercises, same drills, over and over and over. And it's hard because you're doing it with all your peers. So you're like, I still can't beat that guy or that guy still beats me on this move or I still can't get this move on that guy. But they're getting better too. Yeah, but the new guy comes in and we just wipe the floor with him. It's like, OK, I guess this stuff works.

Andres Lares (23:23.435)
Yeah, they're doing it with you. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (23:31.01)
You know, but you've got buddies that you're grinding it out with and you stick it out.

Andres Lares (23:36.567)
Well, that's the discipline there. We wanted our kids to do it. I did some when I was young, karate and then a little bit of jiu-jitsu. My parents were big on it and we didn't last too long, got a couple of belts, especially when I was really young. But I feel like I appreciate the discipline and the focus. And that's thing is I think it's like a lot of things that on the surface can seem brutal or like there's a shallowness that's perceived, but it's exact opposite.

You can get that in other plays like golf, for example. mean, golf's a great game for people who play golf. I mean, it's just you. I mean, there's golfers. You can tell a lot about golfers, right? There's golfers that are comparing themselves to everybody else. There's golfers that are comparing themselves and they never meet their own expectations. There's golfers just go out and play and have no pressure. And so, you know, I think those are things too. You realize that's mentality, that's focus. And any of those are fine, right? You could go and play.

and say, want to get better every day. Okay, well then what are you doing to get better? Are you hitting the range? Are you working on your strokes? Are you getting lessons? Are you recording your swing? And what are you doing to get better? Or you could just be a recreational golfer, but those are all the same things, right? It's like, is there a focus? Is there an intent? Is there a discipline to continue to do it? So training's a part of it, but it's got to come from within. That motivation has got to come from within.

Wes Schaeffer (24:54.606)
Well, you got to have somebody on the outside looking in, you know, they say you can't read a label from inside the bottle and everything I've ever wanted to get better at. got recorded and I remember my dad bought me golf lessons for my 23rd birthday. And, uh, and then I got stationed in Korea. So I took a train actually from Texas to Jacksonville, Florida, where he was before I got deployed. And, um, yeah, I don't even.

I don't know. Is that the word? It's not deployed, stationed. We were the Air Force. We had it easy. But, um, I took, I got recorded and back then 1993. So it was funny. I did a recording session about a year ago with a local guy and I'm like, where's all the equipment? It's all iPhones now. Just he's got an app. But back then it was three cameras, one from above, one from, um, in front of you and one from behind. And I only took like five strokes.

And then the rest of the time he was drawn at like John Madden and gave me a VHS tape to take home. But it's like I got better because I could see it now. And I had somebody explain, where am I? Where should I be? How do I get there? What to look for? You know, when I was speaking, I took a class communis bond. I think it was called I went to L.A. and we'd give it a little talk. We'd record it. Give us the VHS. This is like, I don't know, early 2000s.

Andres Lares (26:00.843)
Yeah

Wes Schaeffer (26:23.064)
Go sit in a cubicle with headset on, watch ourselves. no. I hired a sales trainer, 2006. Back then had to buy software and it was hundreds of dollars connected to my physical phone on my desk and record it. And he'd listen to it and grill me on that. So.

Andres Lares (26:42.061)
Well, that's, you know what, it's necessarily not all of our training because it gets more expensive because none of it is the technology by the time, but one of our advanced negotiation classes, what we do is we have one facilitator that is a role player. So you and I would role play, grab the chip or take the iPhone over, whatever it is, over to the next room. We have a second facilitator then that gives you coaching while the next person rotates through. And it's funny because most people are like, oh, you know, people don't like to role play or they'll have lots of conversation about it.

And the second thing is like, they're like, you you're not going to be tough on them. And it's like, I laugh because it's the exact opposite of you'll think. Number one, if they don't like, I mean, do they want to get better or not? It's like, like in a role play, I we can make this comfortable for you because, you know, we're not assholes and we approach it. We're here to help you. Like our job is to help you negotiate better. So you make more commissions. That's it. There's nothing else here. We're not going to report this to your supervisors. We're here to make you better. So you make more money and you make more money for the company. That's it. And the second, though, is

Every single student we've ever had do this, and this is typically for the executive level, they are way tougher on themselves than we are. I mean, our coaching style is not, Wes, you screwed this up, you screwed that up. It's, hey, why'd you do this? Is that what you intended to do? Or tell me more about why you asked this question or why you went here. And, you know, they're smart enough. Again, these are executive senior level folks. They're smart enough to figure out like, wow, my body language is all really closed. I don't have to even point it out. You know, we can talk about it.

Now you may do that on purpose because you want to signal the other party that you're not happy with what they're saying, but if you just did that and you had no idea you were doing that, yeah, not great. you interrupted the person three times. Well, probably not the best thing to be doing as a salesperson, to be in the middle of a negotiation interrupting your potential client, especially when he just said, I don't feel like you're listening to me.

You know, and that kind of stuff. But you don't have to do But it is so powerful. They see themselves on camera. We give them a few pointers, ask a few questions, and they go back with this, like, conviction of really improving themselves. And, yeah, I absolutely agree. The power of video. But seeing yourself is so, so helpful. And then, of course, someone's got to give you pointers, right, in your golf swing or in these meetings. Like, you can't just, like, give the video to Wes and help him figure himself out for a golf swing, you know, like...

Wes Schaeffer (28:56.375)
Right.

Andres Lares (28:58.401)
That's why watching a YouTube video isn't as good as watching yourself with someone there who's a pro giving you a few pointers, right? So that's the difference.

Wes Schaeffer (29:04.002)
No. Well, we always make that joke. Somebody will come into class and jujitsu and do something silly. Like you just smash it. Go, you've been watching YouTube again. Like stop doing that. Until you go hands on, you don't know. Right. That's why, know, in the military, you know, said the more you bleed in training, the less you bleed in war. You know, are you willing to put in the reps?

and practice this and understand where you're coming from and all the potential gotchas, right? Like an attorney preparing a case, know, politicians, people don't realize like when they're preparing for a debate, you know, there's somebody harsh, you know, we've taught them before, you know, just named the new Pope, right? Well, the whole, the devil's advocate comes from the Catholic church, right? When they're nominating somebody to be a saint, somebody is assigned as the advocate of the devil and say, no.

Here's why this person is not a good person. Here's why that wasn't a miracle. Here's why they should not be considered. So mean, they're fighting, you know, cause they don't want to, they don't want to promote somebody that isn't good. it's like having some conflict, having an opponent, know, iron does sharpen iron. You know, do you, do you care enough about your job and your performance and your income, you know, to go hard and to be pushed and I don't.

A lot of people aren't, know, how, how do you see it? Like if, you know, big fortune 5,000 company brings you in, you know, and there's 20 salespeople, 30 salespeople. great. Here comes this pointy headed dude. He doesn't know my business, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And they have to be there. You know, how do you, how do you handle that?

Andres Lares (30:48.013)
Yeah, well, there's a lot there. So first of all, I forget, I'll have to make sure to send this to Ron. We were talking about earlier, it was founded by Ron Shapiro. He is like the biggest believer and devil's advocate. He's had one forever. It's actually one of our partners to Michael Moss, this gentleman who's been with him forever. even when I came 15 years ago, he kind of wanted more support in a particular negotiation. It's because he wanted that. He wanted to be pushed to think differently and think about every angle when they were negotiating at the time, a pretty

pretty big player deal. you know, I think a couple things, you know, if we get hired by a company and we come in, so first of all, you know, we're, we've got a team, so we do, we train in seven languages, we're global, and we've got facilitators that are much better than me. And so, you know, am I capable of it? Yes, do I do it? But I think, well, I know that I think that we've got folks that are more skilled than I am.

And so one of that too is we don't send me unless we really need to, you so you got me, you're probably in trouble and we were very, very busy. But I think.

Wes Schaeffer (31:50.926)
That's like my shirt. If you see me running, run. Something bad's happening.

Andres Lares (31:53.889)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. I guess there's a whole bunch of more important clients than you're kidding, that is some of that, right? so, part of that is skill and experience. So I can tell you, probably my hardest job around this company, I got to think it was anything else even close is hiring facilitators. So in eight years, we've hired a few, right? As we expanded, we needed some more and we expanded a couple of languages too.

And I cannot tell you how many people I met with, I saw present, because the ability to have someone who's got negotiation experience, real negotiation experience, I carried the bag before, who's charismatic, who can teach, who can educate, because that is a skill, right? I mean, it's one thing to be good at it, but you'll educate. Who's coachable, because I got to coach them on the S &I ways, they're consistent with our folks. I mean, we want them to be themselves, whether they tell their own stories, we want them to tap into their experience, but they also got to follow some of our processes.

have all that together is a challenge. And so the nice part is, honestly, everything after that is almost easy. Like we'll send someone, they're like, oh, they've had people before and they don't like them because they haven't done it before. They don't understand the industry. And what I love is I feel very fortunate. I sent a lot of the feedback calls the first time we would do some work with clients, especially big ones. you know, knock on wood, it's 99.9 % of the time, they're like, wow, 10 minutes in, they have the room meeting on the palm of their hand. And I think there's a few things. They're, you know, typically they use humor.

or some other thing, you know, to kind of disarm. And then they do the homework. Well, you just said earlier caught my attention. You know, it's the devil's advocate of the preparation for, you know, politician to disperse speech. You know, they've thought through it before. They've had all the ifs and then buts and every potential different condition on something and what questions could come up. And so I find is, you know, we do discovery on our clients. We talk to sales leaders. We talk to salespeople. We, you know, we will do a questionnaire in advance of recent negotiations they're involved in. We do all of that.

Wes Schaeffer (33:24.12)
Yeah.

Andres Lares (33:49.229)
So what happens is it comes out pretty quick. If I'm presenting in front of you, Wes knows there's only one way I can know that much about your business, and that's if I put in the time. And so the credibility comes from that, and it's that simple. And that's another part that makes it hard to find these facilitators, because they also got to be willing to put in the time. People compensate them for it, you can't just show up and be like, you're not a rockstar. Hello, New York. It turns out you're actually in California. You know what I mean? It really can't happen.

Wes Schaeffer (34:06.595)
Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (34:16.918)
You should have talked to Shador Sanders, man. He, you know, maybe he'd have done better with the Giants. I don't think he put in the time.

Andres Lares (34:25.793)
Well, yeah, I mean, that it'll be interesting to see what happens later on, but perception definitely affects. mean, as a side note, because we do a lot of work in sports, it's incredible if you sit in a draft, the combined meetings, interviews, that type of thing, depending on which sport they happen at different times. But like all the top athletes are so trained, they all answer the same way. It's actually kind of comical. know, it's like teams trying to find really interesting ways that like kind of get catching off guard. They say something a little bit more authentic.

Wes Schaeffer (34:48.045)
yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (34:53.516)
Right. Right.

Andres Lares (34:54.741)
I was like, Wes, tell me the first time you put on skates. They ask and care, but it's like, they've been so trained, and I'm talking like PR folks, like their agent will hire, and so it's just all these button up response. I love hockey, and my first memories, actually a very interesting, it's like this very eloquent response, and you're like, I'm just trying to find out really who you are, but they all are, and so I don't think, I'm not sure, but it's probably not a situation where.

he got that training or followed that training, but it's incredible. mean, if you sit in, like you listen to the first top 10 in NHL, NFL, MLB, they all have very, you know.

Wes Schaeffer (35:27.806)
yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (35:32.862)
I know it's like don't even give them an interview. Hey, you know, I'm just thankful to be here. You know, got such a great team. We really prepped hard and you know, it's not me. It's the guys and you know, we're just taking this day by day and you know.

Andres Lares (35:42.561)
Yeah. Yeah, every exactly. If there's 14 of those, choose six in the interview, right? We're taking it. I gave it 110 percent. You know, it's like the guys really it's not about me. It's about a team. You know, like coach saw some things. It's like this. You're not. What's the point? What's the point?

Wes Schaeffer (36:01.71)
I just watched a miracle, you know, and yeah, and dude, I don't think I've ever seen it. I've seen so many clips and I was 10 when it happened. I remember it happening, but man, that was a good movie and that coach, he was tough. Kurt Russell did a good job and all those dudes ended up being successful, you know, but he pushed them hard.

Andres Lares (36:04.193)
Yep. 1980 gold medal, yep.

Wes Schaeffer (36:30.772)
And I love that he wouldn't let them interview. Hey, coach, can we talk to the team? No. That was old school, man.

Andres Lares (36:39.373)
Well, whatever he did work, that was a pretty, uh, was a heck of a run and so good for the sport because, you know, and I think what's happening now again, so, you we're hockey fans. play hockey, my kids play hockey, especially one of them. And, uh, it's, you know, it's interesting to see it's like a good playoff run, the Canada, U S final for the four nations, the Olympics, you know, same for soccer, right? It's like, it gives exposure. And if you get, you know, if America does well in either of those.

Wes Schaeffer (36:42.094)
Dude.

Wes Schaeffer (36:45.772)
Wes Schaeffer (37:00.856)
Yeah.

Andres Lares (37:08.013)
It's just such good marketing. You can't beat all these crazy 4-3 overtime winners in the playoffs. Last minute winner in the four nations. So I hope it continues to grow the game.

Wes Schaeffer (37:15.138)
Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (37:22.35)
Well, and I loved his speech and I hope it's true. I mean, I assume it is, but I know they take a lot of, a lot of license in these movies, but you know, in the locker room before playing the Russians, you know, says, look, if we play these guys 10 times, they're probably going to win nine. You know, so he doesn't, wasn't sugarcoated cause you see all these teams, like you see some, you know, division two college, you know, they're going to play Notre Dame, you know, Alabama. We're going to take them. I think we got the team to beat them. It's like.

Andres Lares (37:28.951)
Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (37:52.438)
Okay, really? You know, so he's like, but he said, Hey, today is our, tonight's our night. You know, we have trained hard. We're going give them a look. They haven't seen before you're in shape, you know, get out there and just play your game. And so like, all right, I like that approach, you know, but, what you're saying about all these guys that are prepped. Yeah. I, in my training, I've always told people and I've got blog posts on it and talked about it, but you know, say our job in sales.

I mean, we're just trying to get to the truth and the truth may be, I can't help you, right? It's like, I'm not the right guy for you. And I do that a lot. I got to a lot of software and I'm, very basic. I'm not a programmer, but you know, so when people bring in ERPs and accounting and e-commerce, all this stuff, I'm like, stop. I'm not your guy. I know your guy. I'm going to introduce you to the guy and that guy is going to pay me for this introduction. So don't worry about it, but I'm not your guy.

You know, so it's like, I'm not getting in over my head, but I always tell people our job is to ask questions that the prospect can't answer. You know, because now I'm going to get the truth from them. Cause if they're expecting, if they're expecting it, I'm going to get this rehearsed answer. And I tell people all the time, it's just like, hi, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for asking. How's your week been going? You any plans to come into the weekend? You got any summer plans coming up?

Andres Lares (39:06.007)
Hmm?

Wes Schaeffer (39:19.978)
I mean, blah, blah. yeah, I just got a good team, good coach, you know, looking forward to the next day. So am I on the right track with that? You know, because I don't want to ask an oddball question. I got to ask something that gets them thinking. If I can't even ask a question that they can't answer, then I mean, I'm not I'm not bringing anything new to the table. You know, if chat GPT can answer it, why do they need me?

Andres Lares (39:41.375)
Yeah, I think that's. And that's definitely best practice, and I think you you see it in all these different places, right? So we talked about it in sports and athletes. Good coach and they go up the ranks because they they will signal kind of a higher level of professionalism. And so even though that doesn't affect their on the field performance or on the ice performance, you know you certainly want somebody more polished. You can trust or loyal or you know more prepared. All these things. Well, that also happens in a lot of management consulting interviews. I remember.

Five years ago, I went to one and it was like, I don't know, you sit down, like, how many golf balls are in the air right now? I was like, what? Yeah, how many golf balls are in the air right now? And I thought that was like a crazy question. And so what they wanted, and this was like 20 years ago, something like that, 15 years ago. And then they became an arm for a while. They're a little bit less than style now. But the idea was two things. Number one is to catch you off guard. That's got nothing to do with the job. so, know, it's just, and number two is you're hopefully being, you're kind of,

thinking out loud, right? You're walking through your process. So some people will say, you know, like they'll take 50 different ways to answer that question, but they want to hear how you think. And so it's interesting. those became, and so that's, you know, the same thing you're talking about is that you ask a few questions that, like, again, when I go back to really start a core with me, which is a lot of what we teach is like, you can't be in sales or you can't be a negotiator with integrity if you are, you know, even our influence training, right? Which is kind of persuading.

Wes Schaeffer (40:49.613)
Yeah.

Andres Lares (41:10.231)
The goal is not to convince you you need something you don't need. That's not the job. The job is to cut through the clutter and the noise, get to people, and for anyone, it's to get a real understanding of what you need and then offer a solution that will actually achieve that, or if not, point them in the right direction if you can, and to do that efficiently.

Right? And so the worst case scenario is not a no. The worst case scenario is someone drags on forever and they weren't actually interested or they just dragged you along because they felt bad. Or you put them in a situation where they didn't feel comfortable saying no or whatever. Maybe you wasted a lot of time on it. And so there's absolutely nothing wrong with them saying no. They may not have the need now, the budget now. They may have another need. Things change. And I think people, that's intuitive. People know that. But I can't tell you how many times we see that in teens where it's like they're just avoiding the no.

Wes Schaeffer (41:40.984)
Yes.

Andres Lares (42:03.339)
That's definitely one of them and it's the most common. That's not what you're avoiding. What you want to do is you want to get to an answer, yes or no. Obviously you want to maximize the probability of a yes, but a no is not the enemy. It allows you to be focused on something else.

Wes Schaeffer (42:09.283)
Yes.

Wes Schaeffer (42:15.468)
Yeah, I tell people, know, hearing no early is a win.

Don't, maybe they'll kill you, you know, and you got to cut to the chase. so you're, know, so the name of the company, you know, is negotiations. Is it, is it sales training? Is it negotiation training? Is it one in the same? Is it both?

Andres Lares (42:40.941)
It is not sales training. A pure sales training is about a sales process and implementing that. And that's not really us. So it's really negotiation is in the name of the influence training. So those are two kind of separate trainings that are complimentary. But that's what we do. And I think there is certainly some overlap, right? Our negotiation training and any good negotiation training has a lot of time spent on discovery. And so you can't be a good negotiator for not asking great questions that uncover needs and go really beyond their position onto their interests.

That skill is absolutely critical for any salesperson as well. So there's a lot of, know, but I think it's in some extent, it's actually broader than sales in the sense that like, so we train a lot of salespeople for sure. It's one of the reasons we're talking today, but we train a lot of procurement. You know, the other side of the table, we train leaders, we train program managers, project managers, R and D engineers, nurses, right? And essentially there's almost communication skills. So in some ways it's broader than sales.

In the sales place though, it's almost a little bit niche. It's considered, you know, most people think of it as one stage in the product. We talked about Salesforce early on. Well, Salesforce has a negotiation stage. So the one thing I would say it's really been interesting is we work a lot of clients like, that's the negotiation stage of Salesforce type of thing. It's like, if you're waiting until you get to that stage to negotiate, you're already in some major trouble. The negotiation is about the impression.

From the moment you start the sales process about the impression rate of think how differently, let's say you're buying a house, think how differently if you're selling it and you come off as desperate, like you're the only person that's come in this open house today and we got to sell this thing. By the time you get to the negotiation where you go back and forth on the dollars, you think that person is going to do better or worse than someone else who says, hey, you know, I've got a few people so I need your offer by the end of the day because I got four other offers. Well, that is a very different feel.

And so, that wasn't, you weren't negotiating yet, people would say. And so I think it is, there's a contradiction there, but to some extent there's a narrowness to it as part of the sales process, but you gotta be thinking of it all the way through.

Wes Schaeffer (44:47.886)
Yeah. Yeah. I took a Chester Karras class. 20, 23 years ago. I think it was around 2002. And is that guy, is he still alive?

Andres Lares (45:06.957)
I don't think so, but they are, yeah, I mean, so they used to be in Southwest everywhere. One of the things I really like about our industry is in negotiating. Sales there is like millions of sales training companies, but there's a handful of global negotiating training companies, really. There's been a lot of consolidation. And what I like is there's room for more than one and comfortably so, because each has its own niche. For example, Carers is really about, I mean, they're a B2C company. You could take their class today.

Wes Schaeffer (45:08.076)
I

Andres Lares (45:36.607)
in California where you're based and I can take it to more in Baltimore. And so for us, that's not what we do. We have no invitational programs. We have no public seminars. The only way to get training is we come to you, we tailor to your company, we tailor to your function. So it's sales at this company. And the next thing we can be training your procurement people. And even at your own company, it will be different because one audience is procurement, one audience is sales. And so what's nice is I've actually sent folks to them. I've been to the training.

You know, I'm biased and I think ours is better, but I say I've been through training. feel comfortable. So if you want to send two people and you needed to do it locally and you had nowhere else to go, we're not the group for you. And so I would say I'm very comfortable saying you should go to their training. You know, when you've got 25 people or 500 people and you want to be custom and made for you. I don't think there's anyone else that's fit for us. What I love is there's different ones and I feel the world's small enough and the right thing to do. You said earlier about being honest.

Wes Schaeffer (46:15.053)
Yeah.

Andres Lares (46:30.253)
We will say, go ahead, they're a competitor, but they are a better fit for you here. And I don't even know if you all, I'm just referring them to a competitor, but good things will come around when you're honest with people, I think, and you really have your best interests at heart.

Wes Schaeffer (46:40.238)
Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (46:43.502)
Yeah, I've told more people no than yes over the years, you know, on stuff that I could have sold them like, yeah, that's not the right fit for you. So, but it was good. And you know, I urge everybody take some kind of negotiation training. It is, it is different than sales training. and, and I remembered distinctly, I, it helped me see things from the perspective of the buyer and I,

And I realized how much pressure the buyer is usually under, you because we think all the pressures on us, the sales people like, they're under pressure too. A lot of times, right? They're under the gun, something's late, something's broken, whatever prices are going up, tariffs are coming in. They got to jump the gun and get this in before the price goes up, blah, blah, blah. And how you uncover that is there's an art to that. And I remember the class, was $2,500.

Wes Schaeffer (47:44.049)
And the week after, and I was living in Austin, I drove down to San Antonio for the class and I had a big, it was like a Bell Labs, like AT &T lab in Austin and they bought our stuff and it was test equipment and we were the leader in the space. They already had one of our units and the guy wanted to buy another one. It was a $50,000 unit. And know, 2002.

I mean, so what's 70 grand a day, 75 grand, but, I was allowed to give a 10 % discount without getting approval. And I would have done that just to be nice to the guy. But after that class, I was like, Hey, let me check. I'm sorry. You know, this is a rare unit, but it was, was a rare unit. We didn't have a lot of them. There were high lead times. We did have one in stock, which was a coincidence.

and it would not remain in stock and otherwise it'd be eight weeks, blah, blah, blah. I was like, no, I'm sorry. We can't. says, okay. He bought it. Right. So I called my boss. So, Oh, I forget what, yeah. It was 10. I could have given 10 % was five grand. Yeah. Yeah. And I told my boss, said, we just, you just, that's what I told her. That's how I remember the numbers. I said, I said, this class is paid for itself. Two times over says what? And I told him that whole story. He's like, Oh hell. Okay.

Andres Lares (48:57.985)
Pay for yourself 2X already.

Wes Schaeffer (49:08.11)
And he would have given the 10 % too.

Andres Lares (49:09.101)
I love a couple of things you said there. The thinking about the buying side is like, it's so one of the things that we like to do. there's a lot of role playing, good negotiating training, should have a lot of role playing in simulations. And the idea is because you want to do not, you as we talked about earlier, same as a video, you want to be doing not talking about it. And so what I love about it is you started to think about the other side, you know, and a portion of that's emotional intelligence, right? It's about having empathy, thinking about like really caring what the other side wants and digging in based on genuine curiosity.

And so I love to think about the other side. then the other thing is that it gives you confidence, right? If you have a process to negotiate, which you should get from negotiation training, then it gives you confidence. And so it gives you the confidence to say no, not because you're being cavalier, but no, because that thing is worth it because the next one is going to be weeks. No, because it's rare. No, because you know, they already have one. And it's so it isn't just this thing you did, you know, is thought through. And so I think those two takeaways are.

Wes Schaeffer (49:58.284)
Right. Yeah.

Andres Lares (50:05.337)
for anyone listening to some sales is like, nothing convinces like conviction. We like to say that phrase in some of our training. I mean, if you don't believe it yourself, if you didn't believe that thing was worth what you were selling it for, you were going to discount it. And so that training helps you to realize that they're in that same position too. They really need this, they may need this machine more than I need to sell it and they likely. And so.

Wes Schaeffer (50:05.592)
Yeah, and then...

Wes Schaeffer (50:13.773)
Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (50:21.804)
Yeah. Right.

Wes Schaeffer (50:30.734)
They did. mean, this is a multi-billion dollar company and this is their main research laboratory. we had the Cadillac of equipment and they already had one and they needed another. But it's like I talking about earlier, what I would do for a big company, I would reduce for a small company. Same thing in Texas, we had contractors that would splice the fiber and test the fiber optic cables. And 23 years later, I'm still friends.

Talked to a guy less than maybe six months ago. You know, I haven't been in that business since 2004, but we have stayed friends. I took care of him and his dad, you know, family owned business and I would loan them gear. would, I would cut them deals because they would buy more and they referred me business and they were just good dudes. And even though I was the, I was the manufacturer's rep, they would buy me lunch because I took care of them.

You know, and so I would give them discounts because that's just how it worked. The big company didn't need it and it didn't hurt our relationship. I was friends with that guy. He was a Ph.D. in the Air Force. He taught at the Air Force Academy. We kind of over. I didn't know him, but he was there when I was there. So we always had a relationship. I would call him on his birthday, you know, so we were friends for decades. And so that didn't hurt us.

by me selling it at this price, but I knew that because of the training. You know, and so it helped me see things at a deeper layer. So, get you some, get you some training. I'm gonna link out to you. you've mentioned the book over your shoulder. Where should people start? You've got a new book, right? Persuade, The Four Step Process to Influence. You got both of them, there you go. You gotta sit right in the middle. You gotta hold them up like.

Andres Lares (52:00.641)
Mm-hmm.

Andres Lares (52:17.311)
Also the, yeah, you know, so I guess this is the time where I should open up the other one. Exactly, there's two, you know. So the one behind me. That's true, yeah, boom. Exactly. So yeah, we have five books, but there's really two core ones for us. And one's The Power of Nice, that's what founded us. That's version three, it's been updated a bunch of times. And it's a great read. That's kind of an airplane read in the sense that easy to read. know, Ron's an incredible storyteller and the founder of the thing.

Wes Schaeffer (52:26.476)
Where's the beach?

Andres Lares (52:46.529)
Persuade the other one, which is kind of more the teal color. That is, you know, still stories and still easy to read, but it's a lot more dense in the sense that we tried to pack in a lot more of the science behind, you know, really about building credibility, building trust, how to engage you emotionally, storytelling, facilitating action. So there's a lot more kind of psychology and science behind that one. So we both have it to some extent, but it's just a lot more at the forefront. So.

Those are kind of the two core books for what we teach. One's the basis for negotiation training and one's the basis for influence training.

Wes Schaeffer (53:19.082)
And is there a size of company that's too small for you? Like who should be calling you?

Andres Lares (53:26.861)
So really typically we want to have a minimum of six people going through the training. So we definitely work with very small companies, larger portion of it is the bigger companies, but that's skewed because a bigger company will train 500 salespeople, 1,000 salespeople, 300 procurement people. So then when we're doing one 10 person training for a 30 person company, it's not only one program only, but that's one program rather than 20, 30, 40, 50 programs for another company. So it's kind of that scale.

I think really it's about having a need. mean, the people we can help the most is when they have, you know, there's a challenge that they're facing and we're helping them overcome. That's how you get real ROI, right? It's we're being commoditized, a new competitor in the space. We just had an acquisition. Our people aren't really trained and having over time. And now there's more pressures. Tariffs are coming in and we have to negotiate increases in pricing or the tariffs themselves, if you're in the supply chain side or sales side.

So that type of thing, if there's something specific, we can then tailor more to you and have a bigger impact. any size really, the other thing too is any industry really, that you see, we talked about it, if you're human, you sell, the more complex the sale, the more relationship based, the more of an impact we can have.

Wes Schaeffer (54:43.65)
Yeah. Yeah. And I tell people that all the time. It's like, it's a, it's a feature. It's, it's a benefit, right? Not a bug for me to not have experience because I'm going to ask a lot more questions. in that uncovering discovery, we're going to pull more stuff out. Cause people like, they really don't get it. I think in the beginning, cause it's like, in my interview of you, as we prepare, that's where the magic happens.

You know, then I just feed it back to you what you gave me. You know, I think we just, we overlook, you know, the curse of knowledge is like a real thing. We, we devalue, we undervalue what we're familiar with. And it's like, man, that's the magic right there. You ever see the, you ever watch mad men?

Andres Lares (55:32.641)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Schaeffer (55:34.328)
that story all the time when we had the cigarette guys come in he's like it's roasted. Do remember that scene? Yeah everybody does it but you know you wrote everybody else you know I gotta I gotta probably just buy that episode just have it because I talk about it so much you know everybody else is just copying you you know.

Andres Lares (55:40.205)
They're all roasted. Yeah.

Andres Lares (55:51.533)
Well, that won't be cheap. That won't be cheap to buy that episode. We used to some videos in our training back in the day and they became so expensive. It was crazy. So you better just get really good at telling what that scene looks like. It'll save you a lot of money.

Wes Schaeffer (55:56.599)
Yeah, yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (56:05.998)
Mmm, mmm, okay.

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's true. I'll I'll storyboard it. I'll write it out. I can memorize it right. They can't they can't sue me if I'm just quoting it. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. It's their show but it's such a good scene. You know, but it's so it's so indicative. It's so accurate. know, you just down but everybody does it but to an outsider, it's like that's unique.

Andres Lares (56:16.01)
Yeah, exactly.

Andres Lares (56:21.195)
Yeah, exactly. And giving them credit.

Wes Schaeffer (56:40.576)
Okay, like trust me, let's run with that. You know, so bring in an outsider. So let's roll the Rs. Andres, Lores. Look at that, man. I'm practically Venezuelan. Look at that. Very nice. Well, thanks for carving out some time, man. It's been great catching up with you.

Andres Lares (56:52.268)
There you go.

Andres Lares (56:56.237)
You

Andres Lares (57:01.655)
Thank you for having me. It was a fun experience and hopefully worthwhile for the folks that listened in.

Wes Schaeffer (57:06.951)
yeah, for sure. Hey man, have a great day.