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Bullying and 13 Negotiating Tips

I gave you each my list. Do you actually have them? So you can follow along and Great. Great. Okay, um because I'm gonna walk you through this. And this is actually one of the things that's being given away or included in the course. I guess that's the way we talk about it, right? It's included in the course for us. That right where you're reading on that is, if you're reading, you're reading a thing. 13 tips for creatives. We already did that. High conflict personalities. Here's the cartoon in which I have part of my of my, ah statement in it. My respect statement paying are full fee demonstrates the respect clients have for our expertise. And that is my Cheryl character. By the way. That's Cheryl. She's one of my favorite characters. Okay, so tip number one I've talked a lot about this. Create your own virtuous cycle. By definition, a virtuous cycle is a Siris of events that result in a favorable out kym come time and again. So that's the economists definition of virtuous cycle, a se...

ries of events that result in a favorable outcome time and again. And that's the whole idea. You get something started and it keeps going and it keeps going and it keeps going and it keeps going. For creative professionals, it means using her work and the insights gained from your experience to attract the attention of future clients. The prospects interest means that they have accepted you as an expert, and when that occurs, fees become non negotiable, and that's what we want to have happened. However, if you do respond to pressure to reduce fees, you will lose some of your negotiating power in the relationship. So that's what happens. It begins to indicate that you really are a value. A well managed, virtuous cycle negates the need to negotiate. Negotiate Tip number two plan. Negotiation produces anxiety, and we've talked about that a lot, and anxiety is caused by unknowns. Negotiation has lots of known unknowns. Will they include me? How much should I ask for? Is my work up to their level? Will they like me? Planning reduces the unknowns. The process of making lists and planning will reduce your anxiety and prepare you remember your credentials. Make a list of your accomplishments. Sometimes when we're under pressure, we forget or lose face faith in our own condemned credentials and accomplishments. Don't study the opportunity. Study their website linked in Twitter Feeds Facebook. Do a news search. Ask friends, families and any connection to have about them, know what they're looking for and why have a general understanding of the issues that they seem to be facing. Professionals never negotiate without a plan. No, the range every negotiation that involves money has some kind of a range. Be aware of what you charge for similar work in the past. Create a series of rules of thumbs for different project types that you can use to guide your pricing. I know this kind of assignment should get me this much money based on past experience. Watch the media for stories that include what others charge with salaries, consulting and freelance fees. Ranges air documented in current professional surveys. These third party sources provide credibility for the amount you request. Also, consult with peers, colleagues and advisers. Just knowing the range should reduce your anxiety considerably. If you are comfortable that you know the range opened by asking for more than the top of the range research shows, and this is the Harvard Negotiation Project by the way, the research shows that if you start high, you'll end up higher than you would have if you had not tip number four. Behave like an expert. There's a list Experts determine how to meet client needs. Experts ask questions and create plans. Experts develop lists of devote of deliverables required to achieve success. Experts develop a budget to create the agreed scope of work. Do not cut fees to appease client demands. Cutting fees undermines the potential for success. Do not and listen. I must have left one out here. I did. I left out. Five. Uh, listen, listening is a powerful tool. Listen, take notes, read back what you wrote and asked for clarification. You will learn what the client really wants needs and how to shape their future in the future of their company. The more you learn, the more precisely you'll be able to define your response. Tip. Seven. Avoid talking too much. Talking too much is a sign of discomfort and neediness. Do not do it. It is interpreted as a sign of nervous tension and insecurity at the bargaining table. Being really listened to is immensely flattering and enduring. You will learn about the opportunity, and you will build a personal bond with your client. Tip eight. Ask, Don't tell. Ask them why they're interested in you. When they answer, you'll know Maura about your value in their eyes. When follow up questions come to mind, ask them. Hold back one question that you can use at the end of an interview when you are asked, Do you have any further questions? Which is always a trick question at the end of interviews, Remember that asking is much more powerful than telling. Use your research to prepare, prepare a few relevant questions and then our although my list of questions and then tip number nine. Don't give them anything for free. If you do not value your work, clients will not either always get something in return for everything you provide to the client. In our market economy, everything of value is measured by money. If you do not ask for an appropriate fee, the client will not value the work. Tip. 10. Separate your services from yourself when you're at the bargaining table. Train yourself to care, but not too much. When we care too much, we lose perspective and sometimes our insecurities rise to the surface. If that happens, you must find an excuse to leave the table. I know this is difficult for creative people. We are We are the product and as a result, is difficult not to care too much. Tip. 11. Never cut. Deliver Bols to meet the clients. Budget Cutting deliverables completely undermines your expert status. You have built the exact combination of Deliver Bols to provide the best possible solution. If, under the pressure of bargaining, you cut them. It says you would like just like everyone else Desperate for the work cutting deliver Bols is epidemic in the creative service industry. Do not do it. Tip Never rushed to close. Recognizing that recognize the negotiating stage is part of the creative process. Take the time you need to understand every step, every detail of process Be guided by the phrase I have all the time in the world. Rushing to close is a classic sign of insecurity. Often we're so uncomfortable negotiating we just want to get through the bargaining so we could get so we can do the work. No surprise. The work is our first love Tip 13 do not reveal your bottom line often in a misguided attempt to connect personally with the client. You feel the need to reveal mawr than is required. You never want the client to know how you compiled your costs or what you're really bottom line is. Rest assured the client will use it against you. Or worse, they will feel taken advantage of if they paid more than your bottom line. Creative professionals have the power to improve the world. Unfortunately, they often do not get paid what they deserve. My missing is to change that. This bottom line thing. We saw that in the aggressive close video, and, uh, and you could see that at the very end, he revealed his bottom line. And the reason he, of course, did that Waas Teoh to make the other guy feel bad. He wanted to make him feel dead. And that's why people reveal their bottom lines. One of the reasons that people reveal their bottom lines. The other reason is to is to establish a full sense of camaraderie with the other person. So don't don't do it, Okay, so now we have another difficult conversation, have saved all the difficult conversations really destroy all ones for the last day for the afternoon of the last day. And, um, this one is what I call the stand up interview. And my guess is some of you will have experience have had experience with this because many people have this. This story was from a student who who told me this story. In fact, she was in the process of planning to negotiate an intern, a paid internship position as a young designer with a brand design firm, small but very highly, uh, regarded, at least for their work, highly regarded brand design company that was doing international work. Well, there was a really small team. I think it was like 10 people or something like that. And she desperately wanted to work there. And they were offering a paid interview position and, um ah, and so she she entered into. She called me a couple times and we went back and forth, and I kind of coached her a bit through this process. So So again, we have this case we have Cindy dealing with dealing with Jim, and one of my questions for you is I want you to wonder if you ever had an experience somewhat like this? So let's go ahead and run the stand up interview. Wow. I love it. This is great work when you start. Thank you. Really? Yeah. How But what? I'll send all the details in an email. Right? Okay. How? It's a great place. I love their work. But wait a minute. I was really fast. Too fast. An email from Jim. I've been paying $10 an hour. I hope that works. Oh, no. All my classmates are getting $20. I didn't call him. Hey, Cindy. Thanks for calling. Sure. I'd love to meet you for coffee. We love your work. We cannot wait to have you in studio. Another email from Jim. If the only reason for coffee is more money, I can feel this spot for free. What happened? What did I do wrong? I feel horrible. Charles. What did I do wrong? You didn't do anything wrong. You did just the right thing, right? He's a bully. He's ah, bludgeoning kind of person. People like that are, um, very friendly when they're afraid, or they're concerned about something and they show their true colors when they think they have the upper hand. And he thought he had the upper hand. So you did just fine. You extended the conversation, right? You asked him a question asked to meet and look what you got. You got tremendous information from. So now you have a choice. You have a couple three choices. You can take the $10 and go to work and see how that works. You could refuse the job and pick an alternative. You could do both. You can take the $10 until you can find another job and start looking immediately. Right. But now he's giving you a choice, right? I honestly I don't think this job is the right one for me. I I think I want Teoh not take the position. And I want to let him know tactically. So I was hoping you could give me some advice. Perfect. Well, that's a great That's a great conclusion. Right? Hi. Um, I've decided Teoh pursue other alternatives. Thanks very much for the offer by email or call. That's a good question. Um, I might email because you don't want to get into a long conversation with him at this point. That's true, right? It's now not about the money. It's about who your boss is gonna be. All right? Right. And I don't think I want to work with someone like that. There you go. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Has anybody here experienced a stand up interview? Was there praise involved like that? Casual praise, generalized praise. And how did it turn out? Um, well, my personal experience, I'm actually still going through. The process with him happened yesterday. No, it actually had happened about a month ago, but it was that I actually started laughing when, uh, the very beginning, Where he just like he's like, Great cool. See you next week. Like, kind of like, immediately. You got it? Because that's basically what happened. Wear us. Mystified it, Cindy. Yeah, I was like, Well, what about all these things? Let's talk about all the stuff. And I'm still going to the process of phone calls and emails, and there's, like, no straight answer. Um, and so I'm so it's getting to the point where I'm like, Well, I'm gonna go ahead and continue my life. You let me know. What do you want? A day? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's been how I forgot how you said how long it's been, man spend or a month and 1/2 of quicker. So you extended it like Cindy did. I mean, this clip was obviously put together really factually. Yeah. You extended it long enough to see what he was like. Or she Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, he There was no bullying aspect. It's just there's just a lot of unknowns that he's unwilling to give me, right? Yeah. So he didn't tell you that he didn't demean you? Like I could get you for free. No, no, no, no. You did to Sandy, you know? Yeah. Max. Oh, for myself. I've had I've had, like, one or two like this, where it's actually been. You know, I've gone to a client meeting and the clients been like Okay, Yeah. I really like your work. Let's Ah, let's shoot over an email here and try and work this out through all the other details, like, No, that's what this meeting's for. And I kind of confronted him right there before he could really get away. Good for you. Like No, Like I've set this meeting up, so we didn't have to do this over, like, over email, and I'm or face to face person. And you really got kind of defensive. Was it a woman? No, it was a guy. Okay, you got defensive about that. He's like, Oh, like I wasn't planning on, you know, coming here in talking about numbers like this. It's like, Well, when I talked to you over the phone, like, that's what I intended it. That's what I talked to you about. So it's like, Think why why did you come to have a two minute conversation and then leave and try and do this over email? I kind of confronted him right there. And where did it go? Um, he got extremely defensive and, you know, it's like it really didn't go anywhere because he didn't wanna talk about it and right, It's like I didn't want to talk about in person or on the phone or in person in person. Yeah, so, yeah, I've totally had times where I was working with someone and I would come to me like a Let's have a conversation about, you know, details like, How are you feeling about the project? Like, you know, what's your What's your big idea? And they're like, Oh, yeah, I agree. And then they come with, like, nothing. Um, and then the conversation is usually super short. And it's hard for them to, like, really to be on that level. And so they, like, just dismiss it completely. And like an or it and usually just kind of like conversation just dies, right? Yeah. So what were they trying to achieve, Britt? What was he assume? It was a man, man. The men are always, um Well, ultimately, what I've have now figured out is that he was extending the job without fully going through their HR manager on discovering what that job actually is. Yeah. So that's where a lot of the unknowns are. And he he was very honest about that. Over time. Eso he kind of revealed a little. Told you a little mawr. That's time as time went on, and yeah, I didn't actually, I've never actually outright said that I'm moving on. I just kind of been like, Absolutely. Just get ahold of me when you're ready. Um, so he said I'd exceeded his authority. Yeah, And he was feeling a little guilty about perhaps Yeah, he knows. Like, I made it very aware that I feel like I'm being left out a lot of the conversation. So So why do you think he exceeded his authority like that? I don't know. I guess. Ultimately he I think he felt bad, cause he ultimately understood where is coming from. Right? But why Why do you? Why do you think? Why do we think? I mean, why? Who? Anybody. Why would he offer you something and then back away from it like that? I mean, why motivating what was motivating? There's always a reason. That's what I'm I don't ultimately no. I mean, um, it's it's a really small firm. No, I think they're still kind of in start up mode. I think he was very excited of what I could bring to the table. And I think he so often that's excited about your skills. Yes. I thought you would be a great addition instead of like, That's good. Yeah. Yeah, that side. And you thought that was genuine. You thought that was genuine. Absolutely. We're Cindy. He never gave her a specific. Did you notice that? Yeah. So it was less than genuine. There Yes. Okay, so you thought it was genuine. All right, so then why? So did they have a reversal of fortune? Or, um, I know that there something to do with the space where their office. Gillian's. It was more of like, a personal thing. That kind of shifted their business a little bit where they had to move offices. So do you. So do Let's go back and look at your situation. And so did so did he? What changed? I mean, he offered you something, and then, yeah, it was Ah, this amazing opportunity. There's gonna be a lot of travel involved with it. Oh, in all truth and honesty is I really don't know exactly what changed with him, because it was like, I go in and I talked about this opportunity and I give him when I'm going to do for him. And what goals are set out like a pretty good, you know, plan for how I wanted to execute this for it, for him and then it is, like, like and go down to sit with you, talk about, you know, negotiate like fee and everything that goes along with it. And he didn't want to do it in person he wanted. He wanted, I guess. Keep it separate. I don't know if he was nervous, for he did. Like you felt like you would give more than he wanted Teoh. But it's like at the time is like, oh, and if you don't want to talk about it now, we can't really move forward. You know? It's like at the time I was like, Okay, just send me an email, sent me what you want. It's like, never really got back. May. It's frustrating because, like, I e mailed back like, Hey, like, I was still Ford on this. Like what's going on? Please talk to me like nothing in return like, Oh, yeah, In my case, I expected, like the initial excitement about the project to, like, keep going. I'm in. So, like the first time with the client like it kind of seemed a little like dismissive of like any real details, but we still, like worked on the project in the leader. I found out that they actually never dealt with the creatives at all like this was just a job. They kind of got thrown onto them so they had no idea off like what? Even to like offer me in order for me to do the job. They discomfort in charge of it. So that was kind of why. Maybe they were, like, a little flaky about it. But there was nothing I could really take to personally, but it it was kind of hard to get through, All right? So, Son, so we could we could chalk this up to They were excited initially about the possibilities. And then they realized that they were operating with some constraints that they weren't thinking of at the moment. And then potentially, they were embarrassed that they had these constraints and didn't really have this authority, for whatever reason, didn't have the money, didn't have the space, didn't have whatever the authority in some form. And so But they were embarrassed to tell you why they reversed their position so we could we could go there with it. We could. The case of the email. Lots of people are uncomfortable discussing money. The clients are often uncomfortable, and the employers are often uncomfortable discussing money, too. It's not just us creatives, and so ah, and it's much easier to deal with difficult issues. If you can do it through email because it's much easier to, you know, to be kind of abrupt and and, uh, direct and, uh, say no and and so on rather than in person where you have to deal with the immediate response from the other person and you might might not make you feel good. So So in the case of in the case of Jim here, he clearly was, you know, completely glib in person. And he was in the real negotiation that this was based on. And but and so on the phone, for instance, he agreed to coffee to discuss this because she wanted to not just ask for more money. She wanted to ask what her duties would be, And she wanted to know specifically what it was about her work that he liked because that's like, you know, information for her future. She's right out of school. You're just a recent U Dub grad and right out of school and looking for this, you know, three or six month internship paid, uh, to kind of get her started. And she loved the firm. She thought they did great work and It was a great start for her, but he so he would, you know, say on the phone, he would say, Yeah, great. We're gonna have coffee. We don't have a conference room here in my office so we can talk privately. Boat. There's a private little coffee shop down the street. I do my private meetings there, so he does all of that on the phone and then he thinks about it and goes, Wait a minute. She's just trying to get more money out of me. So types, this nasty email that demeans every does he could have simply said, I'm sorry. $ is my budget for this position. I can understand that. Maybe that doesn't work for you, but we could have been nice about it, But no, he needed Teoh. He needed to kind of get the last sort of like the pat on the back in the aggressive close with a student. Made me want to go down and punch him. You know? No anything online about that? We had an interesting comment from Daniel architect, who said If I can pull it up, ah bully will buy you dinner. And the next day use a reciprocity principle to extract a discount from you in the business deal. I've watched them do it. Yeah, and so I wonder if sometimes that's kind of what's going on here is an expectation that they'll be able to get something for free, right by being nice in the beginning. Could be. Could be. Yeah, definitely a lot of Yep, that's happened to me. Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. I think it's I'm assuming the online computed. He might be fairly young because it's that's who I heard mostly that this happened to but both, well, actually at San Diego State recently, and the U Dub and Saddle Central. Um, all recent gigs in mind when I tell these stories ago. Yeah, having to me, it's like it's amazing. So I think it's amazing to be to me that people would do that to a student or someone you know. It's like, Why? Why would you do that? You know, it's It's It's just seems so. You rude? Yes. Well, a lot of what I've gathered is they feel like they're doing your favor by offering you the job. But they're not doing. Yep, they're not. Do you any favours. They're not doing you a favor when they tell you that you're worth nothing. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now. So it's Ah, it's a really strange, really strange circumstance. And people who who feel like they're in positions of power to take advantage like that. It's just is just disgusting. But it happens. So I think you just have to protect yourself, be prepared and do what Cindy did in this case. She took her time. She got advice for E. You know, I had several phone calls and emails back and forth with her, so she know she had a You know, uh, it kind of gave her a context where, you know, she kind of had mawr understanding over it should, rather than if she'd gone through alone and again, I say she could have done that with a friend or, you know, somebody in the family. Or you wouldn't have to be somebody like me, but just has help to get to get some perspective outside of your own little shell of rejection. And wait a minute. Maybe I'm not really any good. And you know where we kind of fall into this negative thinking um, with the Brits situation in particular. So I was wondering whether, uh, you would recommend, actually, just sharing that. You feel like you're being left out of the conversation. Yeah, I think I kind of feel like I'm being left other conversation here. Or would that be perceived as being weak or too sensitive? You know, I think No, I think, except great question. My whole point is its not weak. It's certainly sensitive because your reporting how it makes you feel, I think that would be exactly the right thing to do exactly the right thing to do. Let them know that they hurt your feelings and that, you know, it's, you know, just do it like what's happening here. You know, filming in. I thought I had a great thing opportunity here, Which is was Max is Yeah. I thought I had a great thing, and suddenly it like, evaporated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. All right. So, uh, taking the time to play out the negotiation, extend the conversation, we saw that with Alfa Group. We saw that with Cindy. It is a really good and my little story about my recent negotiation. That's a really good technique for not only finding out what the other side is about, but also what you want to dio. And because you can change, you may change your perspective in your position as well. It may not even be negative. It may not be OK. I've had enough of this. It may be positive. You may go forward, make a deal in a on a different set of terms than you would have going in because you let enough time go by and you kept asking questions and you kept engaged, which I think is extremely important, is to stay engaged so that you learn as much as you possibly can about the situation going forward. So So, um, now we have Ted tips Well of the Ted tips. Love the Ted tips. Ah, we're always striving to stand apart to help. Both are our clients and ourselves, and we always recognize that when we're asking for something for the from the client, we're doing it from the perspective of of helping them and ourselves, uh, go beyond the constraints. So there's always obvious constraints when you're involved, and usually the constraints air around the budget, and then people get locked into focusing on the budget. So one of the things that we want to look for is how to look around the opportunity for for what else we can do. Some. You know what else we can negotiate on and then find, ah, higher purpose that you believe in and use it to help others. So we're always looking for a way that we actually will not just benefit the client and ourselves, but also perhaps a cause or something we really believe in along the way.