Negotiation Fundamentals Guide

Negotiation Fundamentals Guide

a course companionwith Lisa Gates

Negotiation Fundamentals

2Contents

CONTENTS

OpeNiNg QuestiONs .............................................................................................................page 3

ReseaRChiNg yOuR value ...................................................................................................page 4

a little list makiNg .............................................................................................................page 5

hOmewORk .............................................................................................................................page 8

ResOuRCes FOR ReseaRChiNg yOuR value .....................................................................page 9

diagNOstiC QuestiONs: Cheat sheet ..............................................................................page 10

FRamiNg ...................................................................................................................................page 13

12-step pROCess CheCklist .................................................................................................page 15

additiONal ResOuRCes .......................................................................................................page 16


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OPENING QUESTIONSReflect on your negotiating experience and try to start noticing daily opportunities to negotiate.

Questions

What have you been negotiating over and over with little or no success?

Who or what gets in your way?

What did you have the opportunity to negotiate today?

•Did anyone ask you to do something for them?

•Did you offer your help or services to another?

•What did you reach into your wallet to pay for today?

Opening Questions


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rESEarChING yOUr vaLUE

1. Do you know what your market value is? What are your services worth? Do a little digging.

•salary.com

•Glassdoor.com

•getraised.com

2. If you are an employee, are you asking for raises and increased benefits on a yearly basis? If so, list here.

3. If you’re an employee, what projects did you contribute to that increased your employer’s profits?

4. If you are an entrepreneur, are you pricing your goods and services based upon what the market is willing to pay for them? If you are an entrepreneur, is the market you’re now serving a market that can afford to pay what your services are worth?

Researching your value

http://salary.com/

http://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm

https://getraised.com/


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a LITTLE LIST MakINGYour values and priorities should inform your search for the right compensation, so let’s do a little hands-on work.

1. Research the market.

2. Price our goods, services, and salaries/benefits accordingly.

3. Begin to recognize opportunities to negotiate $$$ for time, services, and products.

4. Practice asking for what we want based on the value we bring to the table rather than what we need to make ends meet or what we think is fair.

It’s critical to understand that getting your market value is not about just covering your expenses. It’s about taking your long-term priorities and goals in your life and work into account.

To get started, let’s make a few lists to get your money-making life on paper. (Use the table provided)

a little list making


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1. Make a list of the services you provide and/or products you sell and indicate what you’re currently charging for them.

2. Make a list of the benefits your clients, customers, or employers derive from your work.

3. Based upon questions 1 and 2, make a list of all of the people and businesses that might use your services or buy your products, focusing on the high-end.

Services provided Cost Benefits People/Businesses

4. Categorize your work. Using the National Wage Data web site (see “additional resources”), find as many job or service categories that apply to your work and rank them from highest to lowest average wage. Notice where your current position ranks and bump yourself up a notch. Note: If you’re a nurse, might you also be a health care manager? If you’re a teacher, might you also be a trainer? If you’re a manager, might you also be an executive?



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5. Make a list of all the most respected, accomplished, high-earning people in your field or similar fields. Contact at least three of the people you mention in question 5 to find out what they make/charge. Alternatively, post a question on LinkedIn, Facebook, or any forum or social networking site you’re on.

respected People Contact (mark x)



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hOMEwOrk1. How do your feelings about what you’re charging or being paid differ from your fact-finding?

2. What changes might you need to make to your:

Market?

Services?

Products?

Career focus?

Business focus?

Branding?

3. What, if anything, is standing in the way of maximizing and achieving your true value?

homework


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rESOUrCES FOr rESEarChING yOUr vaLUEThese sites contain industry and often employer-specific information on salary and benefits by job category:

1. Glassdoor.com

2. JobVent.com

3. Vault.com

4. Payscale.com

5. Six-Figure Income Level Jobs. Use this site to compare what you now do to jobs paying 6-figure incomes: http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_salaryrangenarrow_50.html

6. Career Benchmarking Assessment. Use this Monster tool to find out where you stand in terms of salary in your industry: http://my.monster.com/Career-Assessment/Dashboard.aspx

7. Occupational Employment Statistics, including national wage data: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_stru.htm

8. CareerOneStop. Salary & wage information from the U.S. Department of Labor: http://www.careeronestop.org/SalariesBenefits/Sal_default.aspx

9. GetRaised. This site offers a mashup of many of the resources above to create a personalized plan for getting a raise. You enter data like job title, skills, accomplishments, time on job or in industry, etc. When you’re finished, GetRaised provides your salary range, plus a letter you might use for your ask. It takes 20 minutes! http://www.getraised.com

Resources for Researching your value


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DIaGNOSTIC QUESTIONS: ChEaT ShEETDiagnostic questions will help you figure out what your bargaining partner’s interests, wants, and needs are. This will allow you to dig deeper and create an atmosphere of natural problem solving. Here are some examples to get you started. Think of them as your personal cheat sheet.

Salary questions

1. What issues might bear on my salary increase this year?

2. Who besides _________ might influence the company’s decision on the size of my raise?

3. Who do you need to satisfy to close a deal? How can I help you satisfy them?

4. Who has the authority to close the deal? Should we include them in our discussions?

5. What should I be prepared to demonstrate about my performance to maximize my raise this year?

6. What limitations might you be operating under of which I’m unaware of?

7. How can I help remove or diminish those limitations?

8. What are your primary goals for the coming year?

9. How might I help you achieve them?

10. What metrics do you base the company’s proposed raise this year?

11. If I were to accept your counter offer, what could you promise me as a timeline for getting to X salary?

12. What would it take to adjust my salary at target points as opposed to annual reviews?

13. Can you think of any items within the scope of this discussion that are of low cost to you but might be of high value to me?

14. Would you be willing to brainstorm other ideas and options?

Deal and fee setting questions

1. What are your financial goals for the year?

2. What were your goals for last year and did you meet them?

diagnostic Questions: Cheat sheet


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3. What obstacles prevented your being as successful as you wished to be last year?

4. If you could eliminate or reduce the number of those obstacles, what would it be worth to you?

5. What have you budgeted this year for services like mine?

6. What did you base that budget on?

7. What items have you budgeted as little/as much on?

8. In what ways do you anticipate spending the money you budgeted for services like mine?

9. Are you currently paying for services like mine?

10. Have those services lived up to your expectations?

11. When you hire a _________, what are your preferences in the manner the job is done?

12. What do you demand by way of quality?

13. How might we pass the expense of __________ along to the customer?

14. What other sources of income or another budget item could be used to pay for my services?

15. Would you be willing to give me a chance to show you a better way to do X?

16. If I could produce X results, would you be comfortable entering into a contingency deal or a flat fee with a bonus or an hourly rate with a bonus?

17. Is there something of value you believe you could provide to me in addition to cash that might incentivize me to do the job for less than my going rate?

Issue-oriented questions

1. How would you characterize the issue/problem?

2. Who do we need to include in the conversation?

3. Who might be harmed as a result of this issue?

4. How can I help you avoid that harm?



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5. Where do you think we might obtain more information that would help us resolve this problem?

6. Would you like me to search that out?

7. What’s most important to you?

8. What’s least important to you?

9. What would be the best outcome for you?

10. What’s difficult about X?

11. How can I help you?

12. How do you see our relationship evolving if we resolve this issue?

13. What do you fear might happen if we don’t resolve it?

14. What’s holding you back?

15. Where do you wish you could go?

16. What would you do if your hands weren’t tied?

17. If we were partners in this, how could we use our strengths to support each other?

18. What role would you like me to play in resolving some of the problems you’re having with X now?

19. What’s upsetting you?

20. What do you think is fair?

21. Why do you think that’s fair?

22. What about that resolution seems fair?

23. What else?

24. What might be left unsaid or undone?



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FraMINGTo help you move through resistance, rejection, or limited thinking, try your hand at reframing (creating a new or different perspective) using the examples below as a guide:

Example #1:

Frame: “It’s not personal. Nobody’s getting raises.”

Reframe: “I’ve been doing the work of three positions and producing great results for the company, and I’d like to talk about bringing my salary and title into alignment with the reality of what amounts to a new job description.”

Example #2:

Frame: “As a professional business association we do not pay our monthly speakers; people are happy to speak for free for the marketing possibilities.”

Reframe: “As a professional business person I make part of my living by speaking. Perhaps we can brainstorm ways to underwrite my talk without impacting your budget or your policy.”

reframe the following statements:

1. I can’t raise my fees, nobody will hire me.

2. The sales department keeps promising turnarounds that production simply can’t meet.

3. If I support your work on this new project, I’m going to lose you to Jane’s department.

Framing


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4. Your resume indicates you don’t stick around long in any given position.

5. Your hourly rate is more than my car payment.

Framing


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12-STEP PrOCESS ChECkLISTPrint this out and hang it somewhere you can see it!

1. Research and prepare.

2. Prioritize your moving parts and concessions.

3. Know your bottom line.

4. Convene the decision makers or stakeholders.

5. Establish connection and trust (small talk).

6. Ask open-ended questions.

7. Anchor first and anchor high.

8. Frame your request as a benefit to your bargaining partner.

9. Meet an impasse (no) with brainstorming.

10. Name concessions and ask for reciprocity.

11. Paraphrase your understanding.

12. Reach agreement and write it down.

12-step process Checklist


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aDDITIONaL rESOUrCES:

Terms and definitions

1. Negotiation: Discussions between at least two parties for the purpose of reaching an agreement.

•Trying to get someone to do something they don’t want to do.

•Trying to get someone to stop doing something they want to continue to do.

•Trying to satisfy, with an agreement, everyone’s interests in the subject matter of the negotiation.

2. Interests: Your own and your negotiation partner’s needs, desires, fears, motives, preferences, priorities, appetites for risk, and predictions about the future.

3. Interest-Based or Mutual-Benefit Negotiation: In this type of negotiation, we enter into a value-expanding conversation by first identifying all parties’ interests (preferences, desires, fears), and our task is to do our best to satisfy everyone’s interests.

4. Distributive Bargaining: In this type of negotiation, we are attempting to distribute among us what we perceive as limited resources. So the subject of the negotiation is viewed as a “fixed pie” and our task is to get as many slices as possible.

5. Diagnostic Questions: Open-ended questions beginning with the words who, what, when, where, how, and why. Used to discover the interests of your bargaining partner in order to find mutual benefit, and to help you move past objections and impasse.

6. anchoring: An attempt to establish a reference point (anchor) around which a negotiation will revolve. The negotiating partner who makes the first reasonable offer anchors the bargaining range in her favor. The anchor will influence your bargaining partner’s responses in the direction of the anchor throughout the negotiation.

7. Framing: Creating a perspective of the problems or issues for a decision. A question as innocuous as “how tall is he” frames the response. Research shows that people give higher numbers when asked how tall or large someone is than they do when asked how short or small someone is. If you can frame any negotiation as a benefit to your bargaining partner, you are poised to achieve a favorable outcome for both parties.

additional Resources


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8. Concessions: Tradeoffs in which you engage in conceding, yielding, or exchanging things of value. Exchanging things of lower value to you and higher value to your negotiation partner is called “log rolling.”

9. reciprocity: When someone gives or concedes something of value in a negotiation, we acknowledge the offer and respond with something in exchange. Note: we must stress the difficulty or generosity of our concessions and ask for something in exchange in order to avoid the “doormat” factor.

10. Contentious Tactics: Attempts to convince your bargaining partner to do something she doesn’t want to do or to stop doing something she wants to continue doing. Tactics include ingratiation, promises, persuasive argumentation, shaming, threats, gamesmanship, and violence.

•Ingratiation: Getting what we want through charm or flattery or because we’re just so darn likeable. “Hey, you’re really a better editor than I am. Would you take a look at this document?”

•Promises: Getting what we want now by promising we’ll do something later. “I’ll deliver the goods to you on an expedited basis but only if you pay me my normal charge up front and a bonus of $ at the time of delivery.”

•Persuasive Argumentation: The use of logic and reason to change someone’s behavior or position, to prove how you’re right and they’re wrong, or to lower their expectations.

•Shaming: Expressions of dismay, shock, or disapproval of another’s behavior, usually on moral grounds. “Your work is really embarassing and you’re really not living up to your potential.”

•Gamesmanship: Getting what we want by manipulating our bargaining partner. “If I have to give you ten days notice, I’ll give it to you at 5 p.m. on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.”

•Threats: Getting what we want know by threatening to cause the other harm if they don’t comply. “If you don’t get your report in you’re going to have to work over the weekend.”

•Physical force: Hitting, pushing, shoving, taking.



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recommended reading

1. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

2. Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box by Arbinger Institute

3. Leadership Presence by Kathy Lubar and Belle Linda Halpern

4. No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power by Gloria Feldt

5. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher

6. Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation--and Positive Strategies for Change by Sara Laschever

7. Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want by Sara Laschever

8. 3-d Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals by David A. Lax

9. Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond by Max H. Bazerman

10. Getting Past No by William Ury

11. Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, The by Leigh L. Thompson

12. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina

13. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) by Robert B. Cialdini

14. 27 Powers of Persuasion: Simple Strategies to Seduce Audiences & Win Allies by Chris St. Hilaire


Documents

Negotiation Fundamentals Guide