You’ll never have more opportunity for salary negotiation than you do just before you accept you job.  If you already have a job and you’re happy where you work and the idea of looking for something else scares the crap out of you, there’s still hope.  You can still negotiate your salary or other perks at your job.

So let’s say job negotiation isn’t what you’re looking for, you can negotiate other things too, basically, everything is negotiable.  If you have skills, you can also barter, which usually requires some negotiation skills.

Do your pre-work.  You have to be confident going into the negotiation.  You have to know your facts and be able to answer all the questions on our pre-work checklist:

1. What? – what are you negotiating? Don’t try to negotiate too much, its usually best to pick one or two things and focus seriously on those.
2. When? – When do you need to make a decision, is this something you can wait on, or is time your enemy…or do they need to make a sale and is time your friend? Know this.
3. How? – how will you communicate? Email, Face to face, Phone… technique will vary based on the how…
4. Choices? – Know all of your options, what are your choices here?
5. Goals? – What you really want. People mess up here, if you get your goal, stop… you win, game over.  Don’t get greedy and keep going.
6. Ground? – The lowest that you’ll accept.
7. B.A.T.N.A.? – Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement.
8. Other Info that might be useful…

The Ask.  Most of the time you can get what you want, just by asking.  You don’t always need to negotiate, just ask.  I was able to get an additional 10% discount in annual maintenance on a software agreement at the time of renewal, just by sending a simple email that stated:

“…since we’ve been such a good customer during our first year, I think it would be great if you could offer me a 10% discount on this.  What do you think?”

The reply included a new agreement with a 10% discount applied.  Sometimes, just asking is all you need to do.

When doing the negotiation,  a few things matter more than just the words you are saying.

Communication is far more than just words.  There’s a 7-38-55 rule which states that 7% of communication is the words you say, 38% is how you say it, i.e. your vocal tonality, and 55% is your body language.  Now, if the negotiation is on the phone, you loose 55% of your communication tools and if its over email, you loose 93%.  Its best, when possible, to negotiate face to face.

For more on vocal tonality and body language, be sure to listen to the podcast above.

Most people just don’t ask.  The are afraid of rejection.  For those people, please check out Jia Jiang’s TEDx Talk on 100 days of rejection.

If you liked this episode and want more like it, please head over to iTunes and leave me a review, and feel free to tweet to me @johnrouda, I’m pretty active on twitter and respond to most mentions.

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