You’re going to hear ten “no’s” for every “yes” so don’t take a lost negotiation personally. Don’t burn bridges. I like to think of it this way: each person in a negotiation is just doing their job. The prospect’s job is to get you to work as inexpensively as possible. Your job is to shake the last nickel out of his or her pocket. Each person is just doing his or her job.
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That is a GREAT attitude, and one I share–really, we are each just doing our job; nothing personal. I want to get paid well; the client wants value for their dollar. We both want to feel respected and not taken advantage of, in the end.
This is what I wrote in my book The Photographers Guide to Negotiating:
“The negotiating process is one of communication: two or more people seeking to resolve a matter with an outcome that is acceptable to all. An agreement is reached through an understanding of the positions of all the parties and by balancing points of view. “Understanding” is a key word, defined as “to grasp the meaning or reasonableness of.” It is the core of all mental processes. It is the core of negotiation. Whether the negotiation involves a labor dispute, the ending of a conflict, an insurance settlement, or a business deal, the process always involves working with another party, trying to grasp the reasonableness of each others’ positions, and modifying those positions to make them reasonable in each others’ minds. With those thoughts in mind, let’s write our own definition of negotiation. Negotiation is a process of reaching a mutual understanding achieved through a meeting of the minds based upon the acceptance of the reasonableness of each other’s position.”
With those thoughts in mind, I would agree that one should never take a failure to have a meeting of the minds personally.
Go out and seek as many “no’s” as possible. The more no’s you’re getting, the bigger your chance is of eventually getting a “yes” …
I know, perhaps a strange approach, but for someone who dreaded going to see prospects, this was a very nice way to get me over my initial fears. And it worked well! Yess!!
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