Become A Master Negotiator

Part 2: Meeting with your Boss

Last week we started this two-part blog reviewing the steps to take before your negotiation. As we mentioned, preparing for a raise negotiation starts long before you have the talk with your boss. It starts on your first day of employment with the company. Ensure that you have a good reputation for producing results and working hard to add value to your position, department and organization. If you do not, your preparations will be in vain and you are likely to be unsatisfafied with the outcome of the negotiaiton.

We wish you the best of luck!

1. Prepare for Your Meeting. Before you meet with your boss, you must feel confident you have earned the right to ask for a raise. It is helpful to have a prepared list that highlights certain information, such as your three most significant accomplishments in the past year, or things you will do in the next year to add significant value to the company. Don’t highlight things that are expected of you, such as showing up to work on time each day. Focus rather on significant accomplishments, such as how you have exceeded your sales quota by 50 percent or more each quarter. Knowing your boss’s needs and goals is critical, since this knowledge enables you to demonstrate how your future accomplishments will help your boss be more successful.

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Part 1: Do your Homework before you Meet with your Boss

Its never too early to prepare for negotiating a raise, although it is possible to prepare too late. Today we are posting part one of a two part blog, concluding with next Monday’s entry. Over this next week, focus on getting your ducks in a row by reviewing the tips in today’s blog entry and reflecting, to the best of your knowledge, how you fare in your boss’s eyes among the first four tips below. And always remember, we welcome comments in the section below each entry if you have any questions or anything else to add.

Several times a year, seminar participants will inquire, “Do you have any tips for asking for a raise?” A sensitive issue like a raise can be difficult to negotiate. For your boss, agreeing to a raise will most likely impact the budget, and may even cause other employees to feel they are also entitled to a raise. For you, getting the raise–or failing to get it–could ultimately impact your ability to live in the style you wish. Although asking for a raise can be a risk, not asking for one can also carry a price.

Here are some tips that will help you in advance, when negotiating a raise.

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Sharks, Carp and Dolphins

Basically, there are three different types of negotiators, which closely parallel the three different kinds of businesspeople discussed in The Strategy of the Dolphin by Dudley Lynch and Paul L. Kordis. Lynch and Kordis compare the three types of businesspeople to sharks, carp and dolphins to shed light on their distinct behaviors. I think that applying the same metaphor to negotiators provides a better understanding of the three negotiating styles.

Sharks

Sharks believe in scarcity. Their perception is that in all negotiations, there must be winners and losers. To ensure that they won’t be the losers, sharks move in for the kill, striving to get as much as they can in every case, regardless of the cost.

When negotiating, the shark’s basic nature is to take over or trade off. If their efforts to win are thwarted, they will resort to a trade-off strategy. But they feel comfortable only when they are in total control, so one of their characteristics is a tendency to use crises to confuse the other party. A second characteristic of sharks is to assume that they always have the only possible solution to any negotiation. They have a desperate need to be right 100 percent of the time and will go to any extreme, including lying, to cover up their failures and shortcomings.

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