Dentist or Negotiation? What do you prefer? Here are some tipps to enjoy your next negotiation.

How often have you negotiated for yourself in your career? How often have you asked for a salary increase, time, trainings,…. anything. And how often have you accepted an offer without asking for more?

Would you rather negotiate for a salary increase or visit your dentist? If you prefer your dentist, then we need to talk.

You have probably heard of studies that calculate the amount of money women leave on the table, if they don’t negotiate from their first job on – and what that means for their pension. (Take a look here: https://www.themuse.com/advice/why-women-must-ask-the-right-way-negotiation-advice-from-stanfords-margaret-a-neale)

The article states, that if a women graduate starts with 100k per year and her male collegue with 107k per year (due to his negotiation skills), everything else being equal, the women would need to work 8 years more, than the man.

So, how can we make our negotiation experience more joyful (than a visit to the dentist – just joking)?

There are 3 key elements to joyful negotiations:

1. Mindset
2. Skills
3. Your BANTA (Best Alternative to you Negotiation Offer)

Let’s start today with mindset. The other 2 elements will be covered in blogs to come.

• A few weeks ago, we have already talked about “appreciation” and what you appreciate about yourself. This is one daily activity you could do to build your confidence muscle.

• Visualising or daydreaming about how you would like your negotiation conversation should look like and how you want to feel is a second element that builds your mindset.
• Consciously putting yourself in a positive mindset, will help you to be more creative, relaxed and confident to achieve an outcome that is valuable for both yourself and your company.

The things I like to do are:

• Putting on my favourite perfume (I have a special one for special occasions)
• Putting on a red lipstick (for me, it’s the act of putting on the lipstick, that boosts my mood)
• Listening to great music (e.g.: Robby Williams “I love my life”; Queen “Breakthrough”)
• Doing a power pose for 2 minutes (e.g.: in the toilet right bevor the meeting) – just watch this great video: https://youtu.be/phcDQ0H_LnY

“Everything is negotiable”

I had an amazing negotiation trainer, Wies Bratby (https://womeninnegotiation.org/) : she said “it’s 80% mindset and 20% skills”. And another key phrase of hers “everything is negotiable”.

If this is the only thing, you will remember from this blog “everything is negotiable”. Everything.