Chris Voss is the author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, CEO of Black Swan Group Ltd., and a former lead negotiator for the FBI.
Prior to 2008, Chris was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the FBI’s hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council’s Hostage Working Group. During his government career, he also represented the U.S. Government at two (2) international conferences sponsored by the G-8 as an expert in kidnapping. Prior to becoming the FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator, Christopher served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City Division of the FBI. Christopher was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years. He was the case agent on such cases as TERRSTOP (the Blind Sheikh Case – Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman), the TWA Flight 800 catastrophe and negotiated the surrender of the first hostage taker to give up in the Chase Manhattan bank robbery hostage taking.
During Chris’s 24 year tenure in the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service.
Chris has taught business negotiation in the MBA program as an adjunct professor at University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. He has taught business negotiation at Harvard University, guest lectured at The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, The IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland and The Goethe School of Business in Frankfurt, Germany. Since 2009 Christopher has also worked with Insite Security as their Managing Director of the Kidnapping Resolution Practice.
In today’s episode, we discuss:
- Is real life FBI negotiating like what we see in the movies
- How we can use negotiating skills in our every day lives
- Strategies for dealing with customer service representatives
- How to be the smartest and most interesting person in the room

Chris Rollins is a Master Trainer in the DISC Model of Human Behavior and a Founding Partner with the global John Maxwell Team. He speaks and trains using his proprietary 3C Model of Performance (Communicate, Connect, Convert) to address the crucial areas of Communication, Leadership, & Sales that every organization must address to achieve massive & sustainable top & bottom line growth. Chris has shared the speaking stage with speakers such as John Maxwell, Les Brown, & Brian Tracy, among others. Chris brings an uplifting, encouraging, yet challenging delivery style that has helped inspire audiences to take action that leads to achieving their true potential.
Bruce Lund has trained thousands of professionals all over the country as a business professor, career author, speaker, and sales trainer for more than a decade. Bruce has one basic belief that trained people consistently outperform untrained people. Because of this belief, Bruce founded the widely popular 90-Day Sales Manager™ coaching program that specializes in sales onboarding and entrepreneur training. It is essentially the P90x of sales training. He was formerly a vice-president for Micheal Burt Enterprises.
Jeff Raver is a John Maxwell Certified National Sales and Leadership Coach, motivational speaker, as well as the founder and president of Begin To Win. Jeff previously held the position of Director of Training for over 20 years, as well as the position of Vice President of Sales and Marketing, at CVS Systems, a national electronics distributor. He recently spent 2 1/2 years growing an electronics retail company from a small start up to one of the fastest growing Dish retailers in the Midwest. As Vice President of American Wireless Entertainment, Jeff was responsible for hiring managers and sales people, as well as opening 6 locations in a year and a half. He has experience in every aspect of the sales business and knows the process very well. Jeff is passionate about everything he does and he is an excellent choice as a coach, trainer, or consultant for you or your company. Jeff spent most of his life in central Indiana with his wife and three daughters, but Jeff and his wife Penny recently moved to North Port, Florida, allowing Jeff the freedom to travel the nation as a coach and consultant.