Episode 83: How to Transform Negotiation Skills with 6 Tips
Sometimes you need to be face to face and it's good to practice, but being prepared is going to just increase your confidence level. And when you're confident in what you're talking about, even if it's not a hundred percent accurate, you're still giving the other person the appearance. that you're here to play and that you know what you bring to the table.
The last and final lesson I want to leave us with is when you have to have difficult conversations like these, or you have to call someone that you're just really uncomfortable or you're dreading calling. I always like to plan a little something to look forward to afterward. So plan something to look forward to and get these types of things out of the way early because otherwise building up that, I call it anticipatory anxiety, Isn't going to serve you and it's going to be able to be felt in your voice in your conversation.
So be confident, know your value, and try to have fun with it.
Hello, and welcome to Prospecting on Purpose. Today's episode is about negotiation, and I'm going to share a story of a negotiation that I was really thrust into in my personal life, but there's about six really awesome takeaways that came out of it. Some I knew going into the situation and some I had to learn along the way, but they really worked out and I've now incorporated it into my work.
But what I like about the fact that this is a personal story is that we have to negotiate all the time, no matter what we do for our jobs. So if we're talking to a customer service rep, or we're negotiating with our family members and trying to find compromise there, if we're buying a new home, if we're, you know, signing a lease on a new apartment, if we are transitioning jobs and having to negotiate job offers.
And then, of course, in our roles, especially client-facing roles, we have to negotiate to close deals and move business forward. And so I really like this topic because it's a skill set that can serve everyone. And this is, you know, the tip of the iceberg as we get into this story. I want to caveat that I may come across as feeling and sounding really confident when this was happening.
But I wasn't, and I think this is the epitome of fake it till you make it, especially in negotiations. Most negotiations are very uncomfortable. It's not something that comes very naturally to most people. They're nerve-wracking. They're scary. I still get scared when I have to do big conversations and big negotiations.
So it's something that most people don't like to do. So I hope that this episode gives you a little bit more confidence and some tools that you can use if you find yourself in a situation where you have to negotiate. So let me take you back to the year 2010. I'm a fresh 23-year-old Utahan moving to Los Angeles and I hit the jackpot with my first apartment in LA.
It was a neighborhood called Silver Lake. It was sort of between downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood. And at the time it was still up and coming. Now it's filled with, you know, Warby Parker's and Lululemon's and it's on TV shows and movies all the time, but it was a very cool neighborhood to move to. If you're going to land in Los Angeles, it was a beautiful fourplex.
It was up on a hill and it had some great views. It was overall just. Fantastic place to live, but it was about 90 years old. So the hardwood had some sloping, there was no air conditioning, there was no heating. So you just had a bundle in the winter and sweated out during the summer. But overall it was an amazing place to live.
I felt so lucky to live there. The best part about this apartment was that it was rent-controlled. So if you're unfamiliar with the term rent controlled, it essentially means certain jurisdictions, certain areas of, A city, the landlord cannot increase the rent more than a certain percentage. And over the nine years that I lived there, that neighborhood became pretty pop in very in demand.
So my apartment that I was renting for a certain dollar amount probably could have been double what the current market rate was. So 2019, my landlord notified us that she was putting the building on the market. And I started cleaning out my closets. Like I knew there was no way we'd be able to stay. And the building sold quite quickly.
The new landlord comes in, things are business as usual for my first two months. And then month three, I got a phone call from my new landlord and I was running into a meeting in downtown Los Angeles. So I'm standing outside a building And my landlord tells me that he's putting the building on the market, but the way that he was going to kind of revamp and, and remodel and renovate this building was through a platform called tenants in common.
So essentially he was selling the four individual apartments, but instead of treating them like individual condos, they were basically You would buy 25 percent of the building and you would be basically a co-owner of this fourplex with three other strangers. You'd own 25 percent of the building.
And he gives me three choices. The first choice is I had the opportunity to buy my unit. I think he was looking for 800, 000, which I didn't have, and I knew everything wrong with it because it was 100 years old. So, um, that was not the option I took. The second option was the law says that they could, you know, it's essentially a no-fault eviction.
I didn't do anything wrong. But I was being evicted because the unit is no longer a rental. So it means it doesn't qualify for rent control. So they have systems in place for when you're no fault evicted. It's called cash for keys. And the law says I would get 11, 000. And 4 months to move to find a new place.
Obviously, you know, money is great, but that wasn't going to offset my new rent wherever I would be, uh, you know, relocated and, you know, move to. So that was option 2. We, me and all of my neighbors would get 4 months to move. And we'd get 11, 000 to offset the inconvenience. And then my landlord, my new brand new landlord gives me option three.
And he says, well, I would like to give you and all the other neighbors 15, 000, but you have to move out in two months instead of four. So he wanted us out sooner so he could begin construction sooner. And then obviously sell the units for 800 grand sooner. So I was running into a meeting. I was not prepared for this phone call.
You know, I'm downtown, cars are blaring by, I'm late at this point. And this is kind of where the first lesson came in to play. The first thing I think I did right was I didn't really engage. I just listened and I told him, Hey, You know, thanks for this information. I'm running a new meeting. I'm going to have to call you back when I've had some time to digest this.
And when I have more time to speak, he says, okay. So the first lesson is to really, you know, you don't have to respond right away. And most of the time, if you're, especially if you're getting hit with something that you're not expecting, it's okay to ask your client, uh, the other person, whoever you're in conversation with, it's okay to take a beat.
You know, it's, it's most of the times things aren't urgent and on fire. Sometimes they are, and you have to handle it on the spot, but if you're getting asked for something that's surprising you, if you're not in a position where you're ready to negotiate because you weren't expecting that from your client, it's okay to ask to get back to them.
You know, Mr. Client, this is the first time I've heard of this. I need to run it up the flagpole or let me do a little digging. I'll sync back up with you in a couple of hours. Does that work for you? So it's okay to let yourself take a beat, and get organized, potentially. If you need to simmer down or if the other person needs to simmer down, it's okay to take breaks.
Now I had some time to talk to my neighbors. We all kind of chatted and prepared my response to this offer. And I asked my neighbors. I said, you guys, I work in commercial construction. I deal with contractors all the time. Are you comfortable if I negotiate on our behalf? And they agreed. And that leads me to my second lesson.
And I actually think this was one of the biggest tools in my tool belt that I had. And I think a lot of us have, but we don't always recognize that it is a position of power. So the second lesson is to recognize your power. I knew this landlord underestimated me. I could tell him the way he was talking to me on our 1st phone call.
He had met us all. So he knew I was the youngest person in the building. I was a female. I think he thought out of the 4 of us who lived in this building, he was expecting 1 of the older men to sort of be a spokesperson or be the stick in the mud for the move. I thought he just thought I was going to roll over and take the deal and be excited and, uh, My neighbors are lovely, were lovely, but none of them would have counteroffered.
They wouldn't have even thought to because they weren't in that industry. They weren't in that mindset and they didn't have that type of personality. And I knew that we were in a position of power because he needed us to leave so that he could make his money. So I've also been yelled at by commercial contractors my whole career.
So I was ready to go, but this man didn't know that. And he didn't try to understand. Me at all. This happens all the time all the time. I mean, I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in where the client looks at 1 of my colleagues who's maybe 10 years older, maybe a different gender, and starts to assume that that person's the decision maker when really I maybe was the decision maker in that meeting or I was the person who would be able to influence what that client needed.
But if they assume they don't take the time to ask. And sometimes you don't always have the opportunity to introduce yourself or it doesn't behoove you to do so, like in this case with my landlord. When people underestimate you based on your age your gender your ethnicity or your experience level or how you dress, whatever the assumptions that they put out in front of you, if they underestimate you or they make assumptions about you, That puts you in a position of power.
They exposed a weakness because they underestimated us. So now we have an advantage because we know our value. And a lot of the things that we talk about on this show, when it comes to confidence and it comes to reaching out to prospects, reaching out to clients. We talk a lot about it. Understanding our values, our passions, our core competencies, understanding kind of our personal brand of what we bring to the table, whether the other person knows it or not.
And that works for prospecting, but it also works for negotiation. He exposed himself because he didn't see me coming. So lesson two, recognize your power. If it ever happens, it's obnoxious when, when it happens, when people, you know, make assumptions about you, just try to find some humor in it and just think about it as, okay.
They just exposed a little bit of a weakness on their end. So now it's time to make the phone call. I have to call him back and ask for more money on behalf of me and my neighbors. And this brings me to lesson three, which is to be prepared. I did not put a ton of time into this, but I did write out a script.
It fit on one page of what I wanted to say. I had talking points. I had facts. I had researched tenants in common and found one article in San Francisco. It's not a big thing in Los Angeles. So this is a newer thing they were trying to bring to the city, which worked in my advantage. I talked to my tax guy.
I talked to my lawyer friend. I was prepared for the conversation. It wasn't a ton of research. It didn't take me a ton of time, but it was enough to instill confidence in why I was asking for more money. And it very clearly demonstrated that I was more prepared for the call than he was, which again, he was not expecting from me.
So again, I ended up having a little bit more power because I came prepared. I had reasoning, I had facts. So that is something that I just, Absolutely helps your confidence and it doesn't need to take all day. It doesn't need to take a whole team, but just being prepared enough to navigate the conversation.
It was a phone call. It wasn't Zoom. Sometimes it's a lot easier to make calls on the phone where you don't have to be face-to-face. If you have the ability to do so, sometimes you need to be face to face and it's good to practice, but being prepared is going to just. Increase your confidence level and when you're confident in what you're talking about, even if it's not 100 percent accurate, you're still giving the other person the appearance.
That you're here to play and that you know what you bring to the table. So we know our value. We know what assets we have. Lesson four is. I had turned off all my notifications., I had two phones at the time. I fully turned off my second phone because I wanted to focus on this call.
This was the most important thing to me at that moment. So I called the landlord and I went into my script and I said, Hey, I want to discuss the third option that you gave me the other day. Is now a good time for you, he said, yes, I said, well, I want to thank you for giving me that third option. That's that's great.
Um, I appreciate it. However, I've lived here for 9 years. Gary's lived here for 15 years. Clark and Mary have lived here for 20 years. You were asking us to unpack 44 years in a two-month timeframe. 4, 000 doesn't cut it. You need to move the needle a lot. And he said, okay, what do want? And I said we each want 35, 000.
And then I went into my facts and my reasons X, Y, Z. Here's why I'm asking for that money. That brings us to lesson five. I had a base number prepared for where I wanted to land. I knew he was not going to agree to 35, 000. I intentionally asked for a number higher than what I was expecting so that I had somewhere to go if he said no, and it worked out perfectly.
Because we met in the middle and we agreed on 25, 000 and he had his reasons why he couldn't go more than that. And I said that was fine. And then he asked if we could move out in 45 days instead of 60. And I agreed. It ended up being a win-win for all parties. He got his building emptied out faster. My neighbors were all really happy with me because I got them each 25, 000 and it worked out for the best for everyone.
And I think that's really the ultimate goal of a good negotiation is that all parties, um, end up feeling comfortable with wherever one landed. I moved to the beach and then the pandemic happened. So I feel like that was the universe working for me to push me out of a very hot apartment building before we were stuck inside for a couple of years.
So it ended up being a great experience. I learned a lot from it. And when you continue to do these types of things, you start to realize it gets easier and easier because you know, you've already done it before. And you know that the outcome. Is amicable for both parties to win, and that's the ultimate goal. And I think if you approach things with that type of energy and calmness and rationality, and trust me, folks, I'm emotional.
I'm sensitive. I am nervous. I was nervous going into that. It was Scary, but I did these things. I was prepared. I removed distractions. I understood my value and that really shifted the power dynamics in that discussion. And I understood where my bottom was, where I wanted to land. So the last and final lesson I want to leave us with is when you have to have difficult conversations like these, or you have to call someone that you're just really uncomfortable or you're dreading calling.
I always like to have planned a little something to look forward to afterward, you know, the whole little treat movement that's out there. That's exactly the scenario. You would want to give yourself a little treat. So I think this uncomfortable conversation I have to have is just a stop. I have to make it on the way to getting an ice cream cone or a glass of wine.
Or call my best friend or read a magazine. So plan something to look forward to and get these types of things out of the way early, because otherwise building up that, I call it anticipatory anxiety isn't going to serve you. And it's going to be able to be felt in your conversation.
So be confident, know your value, and try to have fun with it because you never know, you might get 25 K and get to move to the beach that wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you next week.
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