I recently received the best bit of business advice of my whole career! At the ACES conference in St Louis, TeresaSchmedding of the Chicago Herald was on a panel of women talking about women in business. I forget the context, but I think it was negotiation. She said if you’re not good at negotiation, practice with little negotiations. When the guy comes to cut down a tree on your property and says $300, suggest $250. When your spouse or child wants to leave early to an event, hedge 15 minutes. Then when it comes to a big negotiation you’ll be experienced with popevents.ca
Doesn’t sound like much of a revelation, right? But how many little things like that bring you to a halt? Talking to a staff member who isn’t doing their job? Getting someone to remember to hang their clothes up? Talking to the lawn guy about trimming bushes? The guy at the body shop? There are plenty of other examples–writing thank you notes, learning something new on the computer, meeting new people. I just mention negotiating because it’s something I’m absolutely convinced I can’t do.
I was reading an excert from Sheryl Sandberg’s ubiquitous book Lean In, and read that one of her observations was about ways women stop themselves from succeeding. She specifically mentions the young woman who talked to her about balancing a family and work. When Ms. Sandberg asked her about the details, the young woman wasn’t even dating. She was just restricting her business development so that when she DID have a family she’s have negotiated a nice, comfortably low spot for herself.
When Teresa first mentioned the tip, I shrugged it off. I had heard that before, I thought. That’s nothing new. But it wasn’t too long until an opportunity arose and the idea, fresh in my mind, made me try something. It didn’t work. But it was such a small negotiation I was surprised to see that I really didn’t care that I had failed. In fact, I felt inspired to try again. A couple of weeks later we were at another conference in San Francisco. A very dear, deeply respected friend of mine was there, and the gentleman I’ve been dating recently. We heard about a cool restaurant in San Francisco in a rather remote location, so the doorman at the hotel suggested we ask the cab driver to say. He suggested a round trip rate and said he would make arrangements for a driver for us. The driver picked us up, drove us to the restaurant, and asked how long we’d be. We guessed at 90 minutes, but emphasized that was a guess. After about 90 minutes, he called my gentleman friend’s cell phone and left a message that we were taking longer than expected and he was going to charge us $65/hour to wait. By the time we got the message, another hour had passed.
We went out to find him and got in the car. Emboldened by my new view of negotiating, I told him we had received his message, but I had no intention of paying him $65/hour for waiting for us. I explained that we had not agreed to that at the outset, he hadn’t received any kind of confirmation from us after he left the message, and that his trip had already been marked up significantly to account for the time he would spend waiting. As it happened, I had been on a couple of other rides in San Francisco of a similar duration and had noted the charges. He was angry and blustered. I held firm. After a few short minutes, he conceded. I was flabbergasted! I tried to leave him a generous tip, but he refused it, insisting that the rate he had been offered included the tip.
It was just the beginning of an adventure for me! Teresa’s words made me feel like I had just landed in Oz Try it! There might be some small failures, but so what? Just try it. And keep trying it. A little bit at a time. My elation at my small successes far outweighed my disappointment at my small failures. And I have continued to try it. Now it’s fun!
I NEVER IMAGINED that I would someday say that negotiation was fun. I had spent most of my life reflecting on my lack of success as a negotiator. All of a sudden it was a great game, I even ended up checking the 4k monitor reviews to get a new one! And I’m succeeding much more often than I’m failing. And Sheryl Sandberg is right–the limitations I place on myself are much more constricting than limitations anyone else ever placed on me. I was convinced I was a bad negotiator and re-convinced myself every time I thought about it. And I was paralyzed into inaction. I had no idea how to become a better negotiator and I “knew” that would keep me from being a successful businesswoman. I also got a Chicago business lawyer to help me make any legal decisions.
Thanks, Teresa! It’s a tip that has worked beautifully for me and I hope it works for you! And if you ever meet @TeresaSchmedding, pay attention to what she says! (Smile).