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Better Spending & Smart Negotiation

We're going to talk about oh optimizing your spending who here believes that you could actually cut certain areas of your spending not by depriving yourself but perhaps by getting a better rate or negotiating some of those rates? Anybody okay? Good too little exercise where people are actually gonna negotiate maybe the people on the web they could negotiate some of this stuff I'm gonna teach you the exact words to negotiate with some of the companies you do business with and we'll ask some of the people on the web to negotiate and maybe they can come back with their results if she doesn't take that long right? So I would like to first introduce a concept called negotiating like an indian okay, so basically I was raised since I was like four years old to negotiate my mom used to take me to macy's and teach me how to negotiate with the corks she's like don't talk to her she's too experience go talk to her she does know what she's doing and I would learn how to negotiate all this stuff an...

d like buying a car for most people who were born here it's like you walk in there, you buy it for us it's like a five day event we like ate breakfast at the car dealership, then we'd go home I'm not kidding we would do this for like four or five days it was ridiculous but that's just how we did it as a family so indian people know how to negotiate very, very well and I wanted to teach some of this to people here because it's not natural right? First of all, most of us are afraid of using the phone, which is so weird I understand that, but we're talked like negotiating is haggling and its unsavory and what if they say no and all this stuff? Anyone here have some? What of a fear of negotiating? Yeah, and it could be negotiating our salaries could be negotiate with clients could be negotiating with some faceless person and a credit card company, but it turns out that let's say you're so I'm just gonna make up a number let's say you're spending hundred bucks a month on cable or whatever okay, with one phone call if you could negotiate twenty bucks a month off that that's two hundred over two hundred dollars a year in savings right for doing nothing for one phone call. The reason I call this a big win is that you keep on locking in those savings for years and years actions you do the action once you get the results for years and years kind of like when you raise your rates with a client, you raise it once you get the benefits for years and years, does that make sense so that's a big win because you want to keep doing the work and using willpower you just do once boom you get the results so we're gonna talk about who we can negotiate against and I'll give you a list of companies right now because it's awesome in fact I was talking backstage teo one of the crew and he told me he just read my book starting on saturday he actually negotiated his a pr with his credit card company in other words the interest rate he's paying for his credit card debt did anybody know you could do that if you have debt let's say you have five or ten thousand dollars you can it doesn't always work but it works sometimes you can actually negotiate that rate down I have people who have negotiated something like eighteen percent down to eight percent many people are saving one hundred plus dollars a month month many hundreds if you have a high amount I'm just negotiating so let's talk about the things we can negotiate they're gonna talk about how we can use that for our lives credit card you can negotiate for late fees easy easy a pr you could do it a little harder cable anybody ever tried to negotiate your cable company going try that in a few minutes um jim's that's pretty hard but you can do that cell phone companies anybody ever try to negotiate the cell phone company didn't work yeah, how how? Well from one hundred six a month down to seventy nine a month beautiful one, five hundred dollars a year one hour and thirty three minute phone call eyes the timer was very good stressful that's beautiful five hundred dollars a year in savings the next year it'll be even more right and that's very impressive for one yeah, yeah run them out so that's very good and that's the kind of stuff we can do so I'm gonna show you the actual script uh for how we can negotiate with some of these folks and this is something that everybody can do two days you can use this word for word script today and negotiate all right and I have a whole bunch more scripts let me show you this so here's a script uh ok here's what's going on in this criminal read it off then I'm gonna analyze hi my name's remi se t I've been a customer with your company for four years. You know, I've been doing some research and I came across some other companies that can offer me a better deal than what you're giving me now the thing is I've been a loyal customer for the past four years and I'd hate to have to switch to another company just because of a simple money issue but you know times are tough so what can you do for me okay, you could break that up you could make it into three or four paragraphs if you want but let me analyze what's going on here this isn't just some script I wrote in my bedroom and then put it on the screen this script has been tested with tens of thousands of people okay it's been tested with cable companies, credit card companies, all kinds of companies all right? And I have well over hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings from my students using this stuff it works does it always work? No can it probably worked for you with one of the cos you're paying yes you've on your great example five hundred dollars a year so let me analyze what's going on here I love this phrase times are tough right it's like it doesn't really mean anything but it's actually very true like times are tough okay like that's your reason for calling up on negotiating so if you feel guilty about calling oppa company the truth is times are tough you calm obviously look times are tough. I also like to focus on how many years I've been with the company do you know why do you know how much it costs for a bank to acquire you as a customer? Anyone have any idea a lot hundreds of dollars sometimes over one thousand dollars that includes everything from billboard ads, technology the person at the clerk etcetera have to count all that, so do they want to lose you for a twenty seven dollars late fee? No, they want to keep you for years so that's why I specifically put in this and tested it how many years I've been with the company also? Uh hopefully you can do a little homework and you could find out another company is offering you a better deal let's say you're on company x for cable and you learn that company wise offering a special introductory rate this happens all the time you called the cable company say you know, I noticed that this cable companies offering in your case one hundred one hundred ten they're offering seventy five what we're gonna do we're actually going to role play right now, so I want to take one person who wants to negotiate with me you can pick what kind of company you want you can I'm your credit card company on your cable company, whatever we're gonna do a little mock negotiation right now who wants to do it? Don't be I'm actually nicer than jim jim is tough way could do a gym in a minute that's a very tough one who else has got something else who wants to negotiate? They're too intimidated you can keep sitting at your chairs otherwise I'm just gonna pick someone I'll just call call okay yvonne our champion so yvonne who am I am I your credit card company your cable company credit card okay how about I just issued you a late fee for paying late okay okay uh and the late fee wass thirty five bucks okay so uh hello welcome to abc credit card company how can I help you? Hi my name's yvonne my account number should be there for you I've been a loyal customer for the last nine years and I paid my statement online but it seems to have registered the following day and I see on my latest invoices a thirty five dollars late fee I'm not really pleased with that and I'd like to see where we can get yeah I'm just I'm not satisfied okay, let me take a look your account that a yeah, I do see that leafy unfortunately it was received past our grace period and so unfortunately we will have to keep that late fee on your account I really apologize for that. Um sorry I appreciate that you're trying you're at least listening to me but I did make my payment and there must be some leniency for someone excuse me who's been with the company as long as I have and if you look at my track record I always pay on time I think that there should be some extra grace in this case I'd really appreciate more effort on your part okay okay I'm able to waive that fee thank you very much for being a customer we appreciate you think you actually did a great job and I want to point out yet let's give a round of applause e want to point out what you did that was so great and then I'll give you a couple constructive things I might change but honestly it was great I love that you didn't end your questions with a yes or no question it's a critical mistake people make they'll say stuff like can you do anything for me what's the most common response someone gives you know what? Why would I want to do more work for myself and after explaining to my supervisor you said surely you could do something for me and you also said I'm really not satisfied that is beautiful you ended on a statement I also love that you were not antagonistic people think negotiations about someone's going to break down and cry no you were very polite but you were firm right? Anybody else noticed that it wasn't like heated were just calm I also threw in a little no and then you came back and you say, well I understand that but blah blah blah blah blah so a lot of times we don't prepare and we kind of get shot down there like okay but and you were just like oh man, so you you came back at me politely. You did a great job. I might suggest a little tweak, which is I like to start it off, you know, a little little report. Little friendliness, right? So, like, you jumped right into it, I was like, damn she's here to play, but instead, you know, you could say something like, uh, hi. Uh, really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. First of all, before we get into it, I just wanted to confirm how long I've been a customer with you. I have eight years on my end. Do you show the same? And they were like, yes, I actually show the same. So basically I'm building report hello, how you doing? But I'm also laying the foundation for me about to say, hey, you know, I've been with you for eight years as we both stipulated, so just kind of making a little friendly it's also possible that sometimes this company will just say no that's the case if so that's okay, you can say thank you very much. You can call back another time. All right, so there are ways to do. I'm going to show you this new iphone app I have well, reckon show you exactly how to do it, but that's a script it's very simple it's not complicated, but there's some key psychological triggers going on in here right times are tough. There's a competitors that's offering a better rate. And I've been with you for x years. Very simple. Right? All right, let's. See what else we got here. Oh, oops. Uh, okay, look, here's that you are all I want to give out to everybody because I have these scripts available for you this and many other scripts I will teach you to be rich dot com slash creative life if you go there, I've got a bunch of free stuff for you. Just enter your name and email and you'll get the script as well. Some case studies and other stuff. All right, um, we did the negotiation hot seat and here's an iphone app I also have if you guys are interested, it's not even it's not happening out publicly yet negotiated. One thing I did was I discovered that people want there's some critical areas people want to negotiate, and so I was like, hey, like my friends always show up late. I'm like sitting here in the back of a taxi or waiting and I'm like five, ten minutes I can call up someone so actually put like if you want to negotiate your cable bill it has all the phone numbers for all the cable companies the coolest thing is when you go in there it actually has that you just read it off to them the script is right there and then if it works you say great they said yes and you log how much you save if it doesn't work if they say no like I said no to you yvonne you push a button asses they said no it gives you an escalation script it's like you get a little more hard ball with it and it's like you know your firm but but the beautiful thing is if they still say no you can just set a reminder and it will remind you went to negotiate again like in a month or whatever like that we actually tested it I do a lot of testing the average savings on this was about one hundred forty dollars so it's pretty cool overdraft fees cable bill's car insurance you're a pr blah blah blah blah blah so that's called negotiated that's an iphone all right let's keep going um let's pause there actually for a second do we any questions about negotiation? I mean there's so many ways this is an area where you can instantly save hundreds of dollars a year and it's a big win because you lock it in once you get the savings forever sarah situations where you would say don't negotiate like I one of the things that you came out with I guess a couple of months ago was negotiating your rent yeah, I'm living somewhere were rent is like cheap cheap and I worry that if I were to negotiated that my landlord would actually raise the rent was like you're like, oh yeah, you guys were living out there like actually like she forgot about it so I do I do have a mini course on how to negotiate your rent and red is actually very it's possible to negotiate it's a little tough but it's one of the biggest wins you could get right? So like a lot of my students, they negotiate like a couple hundred bucks off the rent, which is a lot of money and that's two hundred bucks a month they're saving for a long as they live there in your case, one of the things I advise is like negotiating a rent isn't for everyone you wanted first do a little homework and I show you how to do that in the course, which is about like, let me understand and my way under paying rent anyway. If so, maybe it's just shut up and be happy with and if I'm like getting gouged or are where I'm a really good tenant and maybe I have a little bit of leeway, you can actually do that, so if you know that you're under pain I probably wouldn't do anything with that is that a general like, what are your general rules for not negotiating things if you see a situation, how do you about you a great question I I negotiate when there is a massive opportunity for savings and I know that there's leeway in the price so for example, if you're buying like eighty thousand dollars car, I'm just using exam uh there's a lot of leeway to be negotiated if you're if I'm buying, you know, like a hot dog on the side of street in new york, I'm probably going to negotiate, right? I also use social norms so do people negotiated mcdonald's I would love to, but I've never been successful I just have so you know you gotta be you got it use your common sense but I would say that most people particularly america under negotiate the chronically under negotiate and the fact is like, okay, look, the savings from what you conceive for something you might save ten bucks a month you might even get rejected, but this is a two part one you can actually get big wind savings because you've locked in forever too when you start negotiating, you start realizing, oh my god, a lot of things are negotiable client rates start dates when you start working with a client or a nine to five job, anything right as long as you can bring value and you could communicate value to them so negotiation from his two part number one the direct savings number two the indirect benefit I get from knowing that a lot of things are negotiable. Yes true. Uh, my question is in your script you had you know, I've done some research and I found company why offers this rate what do you do? What would you do it if you're trying to negotiate a price? But you've done all your research and you found there are any lower prices and you still want to negotiate? Yeah, first of all, I wouldn't lie I wouldn't just wouldn't bring that up. I would just say look, times are tough I just can't afford this I'd hate to have to cancel right and see how that works if they say no, you say like, what else can you do for me? What other introductory rates do you have going on? A lot of times cable company using a cable companies an example they'll say ok, you know, there's nobody else offering a better deal, but we have an introductory rate going on for a new customers. I'm happy to switch you there for six months or a year, so right there you're locking in thirty, forty bucks a month of savings as well that's not as big of a win because you're gonna get shunted back but you can often ask them what else can you do? Which is kind of exactly what you said to me, yvonne instead of saying can you help? No, what else can you do for me and let them figure it out? Questions from the web way definitely let's try out with inca who is asking this from cyprus? What if you do not have the advantage of being a long a long time customer or you don't have perfect on time payment track how do you defend your position? Well, start making payments on time first of all, there's a nice little automation system I know about you need to be a good you can't negotiate from a dramatic position of weakness I mean, you could try and I try because what's the worst they're gonna do to you say no, but if you are not a good customer than frankly like why would I say yes, right? These companies want good customers they don't want problematic customers so I would say get get your behaviour in order in terms of making payments on time, etcetera and maybe overtime maybe a year from now you could go negotiate but probably no harm in trying all right that's a good question from brenda and rebecca curfman and rebecca's in nashville, tennessee and I also want to know how do I handle it when my clients try these negotiating tactic oh yes so everyone's like oh my god! So so somebody asked who should I not negotiate against? I was going to like me because it will never work people try to negotiate with me all the time and actually they have used some of my people who work for me have used some of my own script against me and I was like, damn it, here you go you know what? Because because they actually added such massive value that it wasn't like I was being tricked I wrote those scripts, but I realize they convinced me that the value they added was was there and was riel intangible and so I actually awarded them a raise this happened at another company usedto work at and now in my own company, however, you will often find a lot of people who will try to negotiate you and kind of nickel and dime and I'm going to talk about how to handle that. Tomorrow we're actually going to some hot seats where I might be the nickel and dime er and then you're gonna have to come back so tomorrow's the day about turning your creativity into income and we're gonna work on that we're going to teach you how to negotiate with clients and what to do if they negotiate with you that's perfect because for a lot of people in here who are have standard fees say as a photographer and are asking you know what happens when people trying to negotiate those professional fees so that'll be great yeah and I'll just say one thing before we covered tomorrow uh you always want to think long term so if someone if you see someone who is a potentially amazing client and they just really hate the setup fees or whatever fees you know you might you might actually wave them but say you know, normally I don't do this but my goal is to work with you over the long term and I like what you're doing and I see that there are potentially twelve projects that going forward if I do an extraordinary job the next engagements they will have to include this that's just the way I work but I'm willing because I want to invest in our relationship to start off here I'm willing to waive that feat if that works for you who's going to say no to that plus what have you just done there? You just locked in potentially twelve new engagements, so a lot of people they get too fickle and focused on that the near term money like don't take away my hundred ninety nine dollars set of feet, but really they stop thinking about the eighty thousand dollars they can make for later we'll talk about that tomorrow. Uh, kim bia patrice is wondering if you find that their gender differences in negotiation women chronically under negotiate, they use certain words that cost them far more. I discovered this in my own research. It's also validated in the literature as well. They'll say things like, I think, or maybe they'll end their tone with an upturned question. Work. Anybody here do that. So when I negotiated my salary with a lot of your taking sexually at my most recent position, I was able to negotiate. It almost doubled the initial offer. Do we get that on camera? But a friend of mine who thinks that he would get along really well with you. And I probably agree, um, I sent him my email and said, you know, what do you think of this as faras negotiating and he totally toward apart. And I had a lot of this, like, with yes or no question saying, can we try x amount on gay? Would have said no, you know? Whereas he said let's, try this going forward and we consorted like talk about it and so that I think what's really valuable. Very good. I appreciate first I appreciate you. Implementing some of the stuff I talk about it's easy for us to all be here and kind of not our heads and be like, yeah, I'm going to negotiate and then not do anything but I really appreciate that you did it and you doubled your almost double your salary I'm so happy for you um gender differences in negotiation are really okay and we kind of intuitively notice but it's in some ways it's not politically correct to talk about differences between men and women but I don't believe that I believe that we are different we each have our strengths and weaknesses and I know from my own research doing my research for my course how to find your dream job that the women who came in for testing we brought him into studio they were just they were just at a very different level in terms of negotiation and they had these chronic tells like an upturned tone saying I think I might do this which is very common and it costs like as a hiring manager I looked cool that just save me five thousand dollars that just say me five thousand dollars more and you don't want to be in that position the thing you said about can we do this? I'm glad never I'm glad you actually went and talked to a friend who was strong at negotiating so many of us never do this right we walk into a negotiation with a client or with a potential boss as if we just go and do it for our first time like a fresh dough. Meanwhile his boss has done this five thousand times so you're going up against the hard nose negotiator and you expect to beat this person without even practising once are you out of your mind? I love that you actually went to a friend and we're going to cover negotiation in detail on day three but your friend was right simple changes in language can actually make you five ten twenty thousand dollars I'll give you a script right now we're going to talk about on friday but uh just just give it to you right now uh a lot of people when you're going to apply for a job they'll say what your salary required oh, I actually know this like and I've taught this to other friends who have been, you know, killed it in there uh huh I told you I'm a longtime reader so you say like, you know, I'm happy to discuss uh you know, finances a little bit further down the road, but right now I'm just trying to see if this position is a good fit for the both of us there are some variation that's exactly right now beautiful now what you did with that on we'll talk about this more what you did with that was instead of succumbing to that question, many people believe that if someone asks a question you have to answer anybody who ever watched a presidential debate are you out of your mind? You ask the question now these guys are the true true masters at it now they may answer the question maybe maybe thirty percent of time but they have a message and they will do anything to get that message out. Okay, so let me just give you an example a top performer would never answer that almost never so if someone asked me haber meet what was your last salary I need to know for the side requirements I would say exactly I said you know what? I'm happy to discuss money down the road but right now I'm just trying to see if there's a good fit for both of us I'm sure you're trying to do the same thing now what kind of person would say that? Ah baller someone who knows I have five other job offers going on right now by the way, I know I'm so good that I know the money is gonna come in fact the money's gonna come let's just deal with that later it's such a detail and you know what to me it is and to a top performer it is but to a beginning or novice person it's not the first thing they want to oh my god well I mean forty dollars an hour at the last one hundred and forty three dollars now right they want to talk about it and when you start talking like that what do I know as the hiring manager a very experienced I'm like okay gotcha. Gotcha because maybe I was prepared to pay sixty dollars an hour but you said forty forty three like sweet I just save seventeen bucks an hour right? So we make these mistakes way back here never realizing that eighty percent of the work is done before we ever get into the negotiating let's keep moving on we've talked about the differences between theory and practice and I just want to take a second to highlight that we did a lot of stuff about negotiation if you goto I will teach you the rich dot com slash creative live I got a bunch of scrips for you okay and you're going to see how you're going to feel pretty confident reading these scripts like it's everyone can read in their room it's great but actually doing it's sara how did it feel the first time you actually negotiated? Oh my god I sent this e mail and you know that said let's in it and it was like four sentences long instead of this flower like I think we came here to do well together and I was terrified they had already made the offer. I knew that they weren't going to, you know, say nope. We'll hire somewhere else. Someone else. The worst they could do is sort of life of my offer and give a counter offer. But I was so nervous. And nancy millon? Yeah, and it's. Interesting. You did it via email. Something I don't normally recommend. But if it works, it works well. It was in a contract negotiation on them. They were sort of signing the email. Got it. So but the point even still sending an email. You were terrified. Negotiation is very scary. Now, it's, easy to sit around and read these scripts and feel like oh, I read the script. That's enough wrong. Everybody today can go negotiate. Probably one thing we could do. We could negotiate a service provider that we're paying to credit card cable. Jim, whatever thes things are, they will change the way you think about taking control your money. Okay, so, that's what? I mean, when I say the difference between theory and practice. All right, uh, well, take let's, take a couple more questions. If you have somewhere, you know, we had a bunch in the chat room, we do always have someone in questions absolutely so claire of ara is wondering my credit card got sold to another company in february. How long would you wait to negotiate with them? The credit report shows my history transferred over, and I think this generally the question of when can you start negotiating with the company? How long do you need to wait to establish that relationship? Just negotiate. Now, what's the worst. They can say no. Call back in six months. Yeah. Don't wait. February to now is a long time. I say, just get going. Calm up. What else? Love it? Let's see, uh, question from michelle totes photography in atlanta how do you answer the salary question when you're just submitting a resume, say online and asks for your salary requirement and slash a but what you're going to learn on friday is that if you're already submitting your resume through the front door through a website you probably already lost. Okay? It's a it's a very it's, a very different way of thinking about resumes. Most of us believe if I just send out fifty more resumes, maybe I'll get a callback wrong you khun sidetracked the entire game and, uh and find a totally different way of doing it. Okay what else? Well I just want to let you know that uh flares thirty six as I just called my gym and I got them to lower my membership by five dollars and give me access to all of their gym facilities within the state beautiful really have tried action being taken with that by the way is even the five dollar month is better than dreaming about a fifty dollars a month reduction right five dollars a month okay at least we got started now I bet you this person's gonna call ten other companies today. Thes companies don't like me very much, right? What else? Anything else kira is wondering you negotiate insurance general question what can you negotiate? Yeah, you can negotiate insurance in fact, if you google remi safety car insurance, you will find a natural script to negotiate a car insurance that's a big win because you're paying it year after year you basically call him up and you say look, what kind of discount do you have available for x y z and insurance is such a massive difference in price? When I compared my insurance that I was paying I was I don't know what I was saying I'm going to make up a number here let's just say it was like three hundred dollars a month there were insurance ranges from like ninety nine dollars a month so like nine hundred dollars a month it's a vast range so you can use that script on my web site to figure that out as well. By the way, as we continue with these questions, anyone reading who has used my negotiation techniques to negotiate lower rates or higher salaries or higher client rates, I want to hear from the web because we've got a double you're almost double your salary here. I know a bunch of people watching have used my techniques, I want to hear from them as well designed diva says rami, I'm in canada, where cable and phone companies have a monopoly that makes him difficult to negotiate with. I agree with you that how much it costs for a company to acquire customer, but it doesn't appear to have enough weight over here. Any suggestions of what could be added to the script for that sort of such want? No, in some cases, you just can't do it, so move on don't don't sort of belabor it, move on and just find something else either to negotiate or how to earn more money or automate your money. So I want to go back to the gender thing because I find that really interesting and, um, I think that with many things in life just acknowledging what those differences are being aware of what you're doing. I can lead you to make those changes and so just be aware so new growth says does a woman need to pretend that she is a man to negotiate or is a or is there a feminine negotiations style that is just as powerful and respected in the business? Of course great great great question no, you don't have to pretend to be a man not at all. Some of the best negotiators I know are actually women and they use their unique strengths for example, women smile more they're more personable I'm generalizing here, but I know given example of smiling remember how I told you I applied to sixty five or seventy scholarships so I started I wrote pretty good essays, but I started getting these interviews and I will go in these interviews and I was like, yeah, I'm so good I'm so and I kept losing every scholarship interview it just didn't I just kept losing it and I was like, what is going on? And I finally videotaped myself and what did I learn? I learned that I wasn't smiling right at all. I just I just didn't smile that much and once I change that one tactic, everything changed for me I started getting scholarship after scholarship first thing I would suggest and we'll cover this on friday is videotaping yourself you're gonna be very surprised how you come off versus how you think you do, some women will smile too much that's bad, because you'll come off as a little too flirty, you're giggly that's, not good. Some won't smile at all, and as as she pointed out, maybe with the idea of being more master, you can actually have a nice blend. You could be yourself, but you also want to be really cognizant of certain phrases you use, like can we do x and be careful about focusing on the things that are about a negotiation, rather than can you do this? No. Okay, bye.