The mindset shift you need to feel confident negotiating

Who here loves negotiating?

Yeah, ok, that one weirdo standing up and waving enthusiastically, we can see you. We can also see all the people who almost crawled under their chairs at the thought.

Do you think negotiating is all about bullying someone into submission?

Do you think it’s about who can play the dirtiest tricks?

Does the word negotiation conjure up images of high drama; staring contests, fists slamming into tables, threats to flounce from the room and so on?

Do you secretly believe you have to be an ‘alpha’ (lol) to get your way in negotiations?

Negotiating is one of those things that many people mentally put somewhere between “I’d rather not” and “can’t I just have a root canal instead?”. Actually a small shift in mindset and it needn’t be painful at all.

The truth is everyone negotiates. If you have worked out who’s going to do the vacuuming and who will take the rubbish out with your partner or housemates, you have negotiated. If you have told a child they can have a treat as long as they’re quiet until the grown ups finish talking, you have negotiated. If you’ve coordinated with a group of friends about when and where you’re going to meet up and hang out (those were the days!), you’ve negotiated. Everyone negotiates it’s just a questions of how, with whom and over what.

Funnily enough, we’re often happy to negotiate in settings where money doesn’t come into play. but when one of the factors we’re discussing is money, suddenly we realise we’re negotiating and it all feels much more scary somehow. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Negotiating doesn’t have to be a competition, it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game. Often a really good negotiation is less of a fight and more of a collaborative problem solving process. Ideally you’re trying to get to a win-win outcome.

If you struggle to negotiate because the idea frightens you, make a list of the times you had a friendly discussion with someone about what they need and want, versus what you need and want and tried to find a solution that works for everyone. How did it go? What helped you find a good solution? Were there ways you were able to be creative so everyone ended up happy?

This is your successful negotiations list. Take this same mindset you had in these situations into negotiations that involve money. You’ll feel more confident and get better outcomes.

To learn more about negotiating, I recommend Getting to Yes * by Fisher, Ury and Patton, it’s a great book that massively boosted my confidence in negotiating in business settings and elsewhere.

If you’re specifically negotiating a price for your time (as an employee or self-employed) you can listen to this episode of my podcast, Squanderlust, where we talked with start-up mentor, Jasper Lyons about exactly that.

What are your best negotiating tips?

(*Yes, this is an affiliate link. Buying from Bookshop.org helps support independent bookshops and I get a small % of the purchase price.)

When is a budgeting issue not a budgeting issue? (A blog post for freelancers)

When you’re a freelancer working out what you can afford to spend can be a nightmare. I mean, it’s ok if you’re established and making the big bucks, but what about when you’re just getting going, or if you’re in a field that’s more known for passion than paycheques?

How do you plan your spending when you don’t know how much money you’re going to have until you’ve got it? When you’re living job to job and struggling in between, it can feel like everything is out of your control.

I have lived this life. I know this issue well. I hate to tell you this, but this probably isn’t a budgeting issue, this is a business issue.

My first question for people in this situation is this: are you sure you don’t know what you’re going to make and when? Why not?

Many, many types of freelance work have a pattern to them; some are seasonal and follow the weather, or the academic year, or certain holidays. Others just tend to go through a cycle (pitch, contract, set up, work, close, payment) with relatively predictable timescales for each stage.

If you haven’t figured out the time patterns for your freelance work, it’s worth taking a few hours and trying to do so. These patterns determine when you get paid and that is vital information.

If you’re not a business-y type you probably avoid words like ‘cashflow’ but you’ll be familiar with the dreaded phrase ‘feast and famine’ or as I like to call it, having a lumpy income.

But unless you smooth out those lumps you’re always going to struggle, so go back through your invoicing, go back through your work calendar and look for the patterns.

Once you know roughly what happens with your work you can plan how you’re going to manage both your time and your money better. For example, your pattern might include something like this: “everyone needs my outputs about six weeks before the major holidays and seasonal events. I tend to get paid about two weeks after that”. So you can plot when those holidays and events come and reckon on getting paid about a month before each. Or else find another income stream with the opposite seasonal pattern to balance you out.

Or your pattern could be “it takes an average of six weeks from pitching to starting work, eight to finish a project, and another four from finishing work to getting paid” You know that you need to start pitching at least four weeks before work on each job ends, so you aren’t leaving a huge gap between projects and struggling for money if an invoice becomes overdue. You could also consider setting up your contracts for part payment midway through to prevent the gaps from getting too long.

Once you start paying attention to this, you’ll feel much more in control of what’s happening in your work. You can start looking for solutions and that will give you confidence as you promote your work.

It will also allow you to plan your spending, so you know how long you’re likely to have to make each payment last and you can make sure bigger essential outgoings tally in with times when you are confident of having more money.

Women's money and the echoes of history

I realised I hadn’t done an International Women’s Day blog, so here’s a quick link to a relevant podcast episode from the archives.

Back in September 2019, I and my former podcast co-host, Alex, were guests on The Couragemakers Podcast. Couragemakers is a podcast for creative women, many of whom struggle with life at the nexus of the starving artist myth and all our cultural baggage about women and money.

We talked about how recently women were not allowed to hold financial products in their own names. How easily within living memory woman had to get their father or husband’s permission to open a bank account or (gasp!) get a credit card.

This still has an impact on how many women relate to money and how both women and men respond to women who have money and are clearly happy, confident and competent around money. There are some ugly stereotypes about women who are cheerfully good with money that really should have been left behind at the turn of the millenium. We’re gradually seeing a change but it’s worth remembering how recent this is because otherwise we lose the context for so many people’s views.

Personal finance is still annoyingly seen as a male domain and the preferred role for women is ‘damsel in distress’ asking a man for advice or indeed giving up her financial independence entirely, so he can ‘look after’ her. Sadly, as the saying goes, ‘help is the sunny side of control’.

We talked about the macho culture of financial services and how this plays out in creating complex systems with impenetrable language and then condescending to those who don’t understand those systems.

We also talked about how understanding and taking control of money brings you a firm foundation to build the life you want, especially for women. Having clear financial goals and being educated about money brings a confidence that goes beyond your conversations with the person in the bank or at the insurance company. Knowing what you have to spend money on means you know what’s left for pursuing your pleasures and life goals and that is very liberating.

I created a set of links for listeners of the show who wanted to learn more about money. It’s still up, but this is a better and more up to date list.

During the show I also wished that I had a good book recommendation for women who want to know more about personal finance, and nowadays I do. You can find books I like, including personal finance guides, here (I make a few pennies of affiliate income if you buy something).

We also referred to this episode of Squanderlust about using money in line with your values, this one on financial self-care , this one about the Change Cycle and this one about creativity, drama and money.