Negotiation Skills for Women in Business: Ask and Get a Yes

Negotiation is not what you think it is. It is not for officials who write contracts every day.

It is communication, persuasion, asking, getting a yes, and saying no.

You negotiate before breakfast, friend. With your children, your team, your suppliers and the client who wants everything by Friday.

The question is not whether you negotiate. It is whether you do it by design, or by default.

What it costs you not to ask

My conservative estimate is $250,000 to $500,000 lost to under-asking and missed promotions over a career. That is a woman who under-negotiates by $5,000 a year, over a 30-year career at 3% growth.

And it is rarely one big loss. It is a hundred small yeses you never asked for.

Why women in business under-ask

Most of us were raised to be liked, and asking feels like it puts that at risk. So we accept the first offer, discount before anyone pushes and call it being nice.

Kind and firm are not opposites. The best negotiators I know are both, in the same sentence.

I was named ISMM Sales Negotiator of the Year in Britain. The women I have seen win since are rarely the loudest in the room.

Relationship before task

Most people walk into a negotiation and lead with their evidence: the price, the proposal, the slides. I start somewhere else.

I ask questions until I understand what the other side actually wants. Not what they say they want, what is behind it.

A seller is rarely only selling a house. Often they are selling an empty nest, and the agent who understands that gets the listing.

Get behind the motivation and the price conversation gets easier. Skip it and you end up arguing about numbers that were never the real issue.

How to ask for a raise, a fee or a yes

Here is the sequence I teach. Use it for a raise, a client fee or a favor you have been putting off.

First, decide your number before the meeting, and make it a number that makes you slightly nervous. Write down the lowest you will accept, and keep it to yourself.

Second, ask questions before you state anything, so you understand what matters to them. Third, state your number once, clearly, with your voice finishing downward.

Fourth, stop talking. Hold the silence, even when it feels like a year (it never lasts as long as it feels).

Fifth, if they push back, ask what would make it work for them. Never cut your own price before they have asked you to.

And if the answer has to be no, say no, lovingly and intentionally. Saying no well is half of negotiation, and it is the half nobody practices.

Negotiation is part of your personal brand

How you ask is the third part of your personal brand, with how you look and how you carry yourself. Your style and your stance get you to the table, and how you ask decides what you leave with.

Your body language does a lot of the asking for you, which is why I wrote about the signals the room reads first.

Negotiation skills, body language, relationship management and persuasive conversations all sit inside FORMULA X, my 12-week personal branding blueprint.

Friend, the next yes you want is one ask away. Decide your number today.