Negotiation all the way - Girls in Tech Tel-Aviv event

Negotiating All The Way

Yael Elad yael@aleph.vc

469 books on Amazon

But nothing compares to practicing

A little bit of background

• How many negotiations have you been involved in?

• So why are we here?

• What will we cover?

– General tips on preparing for and getting through a negotiation process + a few words about negotiating a position

• Caveat: all advice here is generic

We negotiate to settle differences

What’s so hard about it?

• How we feel • How we think we are made to

feel • Assumptions about our position • Unknowns

• What can we do about it? – Recognize that the equation, power = control, doesn’t

always holds true in negotiation (e.g., parents and kids or buyer vs. seller). Don’t underestimate your own power

Myth #1: the strong controls the negotiation – Avoid reducing a negotiation to money or cost; focus on

substance Myth #2: it’s all about money – Define your success criteria. Remember that the outcome

of a negotiation is often not binary Myth #3: you can only win or lose

Part 1 – before you go in to the room: How to prepare?

• Work through the scenarios in you head - Are you negotiating or convincing/pleading?

• Read the contract, know the terms

• Determined if you need professional help from a lawyer or other service provider

• Run potential outcomes with a colleague or a friend

• Go into the room with the confidence of a winner

How to prepare?

• Who is sitting/will be sitting on the other side of the table? Is he/she a decision maker?

• Are you the decision maker? If not, do you know the parameters you are free to agree or disagree on?

• Do you have a mandate to walk away?

• Do you have a third party (lawyer, manager, interested party) that you can bring to the room to mediate?

Part 2 – now that you are in the room: How the manage the process

• Share information, be personal

• Ask a lot of questions

• Rank order your priorities

• Go in knowing your targets and “walk away” terms

• Don’t climb a tree you can’t climb down from

How the manage the process

• Never feel rushed

• Make the first offer

– If you did not: (1) use silence as a tool, and (2) don’t take the first offer

– Don’t counter too low; don’t bid against yourself

• When encountering “take it or leave it” offers, focus on content if you can’t negotiate price

• Be flexible, don’t relay on a single strategy

Part 3 – negotiating a job

• What’s different about job negotiations?

– It feels binary (either I got it or I did not)

– It touches on all of our insecurities (what if they get annoyed and hire someone else)

– We want to start with a good impression

– We are made to feel there is competition and that we could easily be replace by the nth candidate

– The person we negotiate with is not a decision maker

You will not get what you did not ask

10 Key behaviors to avoid while negotiating a job

1. Settling/not negotiating

2. Revealing how much you would accept

3. Focusing on need/greed rather than value

4. Weak research or negotiation preparation

5. Making a salary pitch too early

6. Accepting job offer too quickly

7. Declining job offer too quickly

8. Asking for too many changes in counteroffer.

9. Taking salary negotiations personally

10. Not asking for final offer in writing

yael@aleph.vc

References for further reading

• http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/12/05/six-surprising-negotiation-tactics-that-get-you-the-best-deal/

• http://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/batna/10-hardball-tactics-in-negotiation/

• https://hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-negotiate-with-someone-more-powerful-than-you

• http://www.wikihow.com/Negotiate

• https://www.roberthalf.com/creativegroup/blog/negotiating-salary-questions-to-ask

• http://www.calcalist.co.il/local/articles/0,7340,L-3673190,00.html

• http://www.quintcareers.com/salary-negotiation-mistakes/