Afraid To Ask For More? Here Are 10 Questions To Negotiate Anything

I wish I didn’t speak up for myself … said no one ever.

If you’ve ever wished that you were more confident and articulate in your negotiations, then you are going to love today’s episode. 

Our current topic in the Future of Work Campus is assertive communication and handling difficult conversations, being able to get your point across and dealing with unpleasant situations.

Unfortunately, negotiation isn’t something that we are taught well in school and quite frankly for many, it can be such an intimidating requirement that we avoid if we can. 

I know too well myself, as I am naturally shy and and an introvert. Growing up, I never wanted to make a scene or had the courage to speak up for myself. Until I realised that it was costing me professionally.

If this resonates with you, then listen up because I’m going to share with you a technique of 10 tried and tested questions you can apply to negotiations and make this necessary evil not just bearable but beneficial!

Do you remember the last time professionally you had to have a difficult conversation? perhaps to ask for a pay rise or you had to ask for a reference. Maybe you even had to speak up because you disagreed with your supervisor?

How comfortable did you feel when you did this? 

How often did you go through the conversation in your head before you said something?

I just know this feeling well, confrontation is not something I seek pro-actively. You may be nodding right now as and you aren’t alone as this is more common than you may expect (spoiler alert: this also has a massive commercial impact for which I come back to in a second). 

This is also the reason why we chose assertive communication as our monthly topic in the Future of Work Campus.

March is often the month where contracts are re/negotiated, reviews are close and pay rises are on the card’s. So to make it less uncomfortable and more successful, I will share with you a very powerful way to be more assertive.

Whilst assertiveness “in asking”  has been identified not to be a naturally strong female trait, it can still effective when deliberately applied. 

Since it was International Women’s Day yesterday and there are some research and figures available around the impact of not asking, I thought I would use this as opportunity to raise awareness of the topic overall because let me tell you – the statistics prove the point that it’s worth learning this skill once and for all:

• Men are 4x more likely to ask for a raise than women

• When women ask, they typically request 30% less than men do

• Only 12.5% of women negotiate their starting salary (vs 52% of men (that leads to a whopping $1.5Mil in lost income over the woman’s career which equals to about working 8 years longer) Source

Recent studies have unveiled that Covid-19 impacted more on women than men as more female workers were made redundant or offered lower paid jobs. Which can be seen as a step backwards in terms of equal opportunity and pay Source

Currently Covid-19 can be one reason why we don’t ask for more but sometimes, we’re taught, especially as women, that we’re lucky to be there and that it’s rude, demanding or arrogant to ask for more (and no one wants to be seen like that).

Or that people aren’t going to respond well, and we should just be good and do the work. This has now just been highlighted even more during this time of crisis and uncertainty.

However, this is not today’s topic because there are plenty of men also struggling with asking for more. No matter if you’re female or male – standing up for yourself pays off long-term. It is also a key element for building your Personal Brand as you want to stand for something, and a strong Brand is defined by resonating with some but also repelling others. 

Before we go into the tactics, let’s set the scene and start with the basics and clarify what negotiations actually are:

Negotiations aren’t more than having a conversation in which you are navigating a relationship. 

So next time you have to negotiate for whatever reason, think about this first: it’s about steering a relationship in one way or another and the earlier you start with directing it in the direction you want it to go, the better the results. It has nothing to do with manipulation as think of it this way:

If you’re not steering it in any way, you’ll still end up somewhere (most likely at the same spot you’re now). So better to get clear on what you want and support your case the right way from the start.

It comes down to speaking about your achievements, bringing people on the journey of any milestones you’ve tackled and of course, great wins that you’ve had.

This was also a fantastic tip from Leanne Hughes who was on last week’s episode where she shared the tip to collect any feedback or praise you’ve received in a dedicated inbox folder that you can draw upon when it’s time to negotiate.

One of the more common reasons for not “asking for more” is the feeling of guilt.

However, by ensuring that you charging your worth in order to support your lifestyle and family will also ensure that you’re showing up for others 100%.

It’s those nagging limiting beliefs that we create based on our upbringing or environment that are the real issues why we aren’t asking for more. 

Beliefs come from thoughts, that were thought of over and over. And beliefs determine actions that then create results. 

It’s so much easier when you have something tangible to fall back on, it takes out the emotion and allows you to lead with a factual foundation. I know, I sound very calculated but it’s just because I’m very much a left brainer who’s driven by facts and figures and I ignored this for many years which in turn made my negotiating harder. 

This leads us into the tactical part of todays’ conversation: Questions 

Questions are powerful as they shape our reality and that of others. The questions we ask ourselves determine our mental state, our decisions, our emotions, everything about the day to come. So it’s really important to think about the kinds of questions that you’re asking yourself. 

One of the best ways for you to change your thoughts, is to ask different questions. 

This is a power of coaching- we change someone’s perspective simply by tapping into a different part of the brain and the same applies to negotiations. And that’s often all that is needed.

There’s a saying- if you want better answers, you need to ask better questions but this is already where people can get stuck. 

They are asking: ‘How can I do xxx’ or ‘Why can’t I be xxx’ but don’t go a step further and ask themselves the game changing question:

‘What is the goal here? What problem do I need to solve?’ 

This can often lead them into a different direction because it may open a new path that isn’t apparent immediately.

Strategic thinking vs Tactical thinking – again, something we all have to work on every day as it isn’t something we grow up with using.

I’ve broken the questions in 2 parts: one part is for yourself as you first need to be clear about the ideal outcome and goal before you can step into the negotiation. If you don’t know what success looks like, any path will get you there (and that is highly likely the path others choose for you

So Q1 to ask yourself is:

‘What is the goal here? What problem do I want to solve?’

Let’s apply that to an actual situation:

You want a pay rise and your goal is to increase your rate by 20%.

Instead of asking yourself:

‘Why don’t I earn more?’ or ‘How can I earn more?” you want to take a step back and identify:

Is it literally just the 20% more income you want to get? Or are you trying to proof how valuable you are? Or are you trying to fight for equality because you know that your male counterpart earns 20% more.

The ‘why’ questions can come across as offensive and our natural reaction to offence is defence. That’s exactly the opposite we want to achieve. We want to broaden the perspective and get us on the right path to solve the real problem.

This first question very much directs the next steps you take and the arguments and evidence you will prepare.

You want to have decent case studies to help you make your point.

This is also where lateral thinking comes in. Whilst you may not have what’s required for a job or the pay rise, you want to have an example where you demonstrated the skill or trait and put it into context. For example – you get knocked back for your 20% increase because ‘no one else gets paid that’.

However just because others don’t get it doesn’t mean it applies to everyone, especially if you’ve gone above and beyond. Again- this is where your evidence comes in handy that you’ve collected. It could be that you’ve been the only one who consistently got new business on board or you identified a way to save the company money by improving your process. This is commercial value and proves the ROI on you.

Q2

is a deeper question as it goes to the core of you. And that question is:

“How do I want to show up?” “How do I want to be remembered as?”

This reflects your values and impacts your behaviour and also your expectations of others.

Q3 is clarifying what success would look like for you in this situation.

Back to our example: Would only an actually 20% increase in money be successful or would you also be happy with 5 additional days off and flexible work arrangement. Success looks very different for everyone which is why it is so important to go through step 1 and 2 first to make sure you’re heading into the right direction.

The next question to ask yourself is

Q4

‘What do the people in the negotiation really want? What are they interested in?

If you can put yourself in other shoes, you’re more likely to show empathy and are able to address any concerns that might come up.

This also helps you with further preparation of your arguments.

The more you understand what others want, the better the chance that you can prepare for ways to get to a win-win situation.

Q5

is looking ahead:

‘What am I going to do it I don’t reach the deal?’

Researching and knowing these alternatives–yours and theirs–is your source of power and again- is the base for our preparations. For example – your ask for a 20% pay rise gets rejected. What are you doing next? What is another acceptable solution you’d settle on?

Actually – that is even an actual method that you go in first with a massive ask (bigger than you even want to achieve) and of course they reject it (which you expected). Your next step is to offer a counter solution (which is your actual goal) which seems tiny in comparison to the first ask.

To recap, the 5 questions you want to ask yourself are:

So Q1 was:

“What is the problem I want to solve?”

Q2:

“How do I want to show up? How do I want to be remembered as?”

Q3:

‘What does success look like in this situation?’

Q4:

‘What do the people in the negotiation really want? What are they

interested in?

Q5:

‘What am I going to do it I don’t reach the deal?’

Now let’s look at questions to ask your counterpart and by far the most powerful question is this:

Back to our example – you make a proposal.

They say, “Sorry, that’s not going to work.”

Simply say, “Okay, thanks. What are your concerns?”

That is a magic question because what it does is it gives the other person the floor to tell you what’s holding up the deal and often unveils completely different reasons you might have expected to be.

Also- if you dig deeper, you can learn from this rejection as they might not see you as competent yet because you haven’t shown your leadership skills or they got negative feedback from colleagues etc – these are super valuable insights you can use to work on so you get to your goal.

This also leads into an even more opening question,

Q2:

‘Would you mind explaining it further?” or ‘Can you expand on that?”

(especially if the first answer was a bit shallow).

Next – you dig even further and prompt them for coming up with a solution:

Q3:

“What would your suggestion be to make this work?”

This could lead to a completely new solution also you might not even have thought of. Everyone’s got access to different information so you never know if the counter deal might be even better.

Q4

Is recapping on what was said:

‘If I understood you correctly, you’re saying that ...?’

This gives everyone the chance to clarify any grey areas or misunderstandings, potentially any gaps that haven’t been filled yet.

At the same time, you also give the other person the opportunity to be understood and heard by using their words.

And last but not least- you want to be crystal clear on next steps, so

Q5 is:

“How would you like us to proceed?”

Ideally in this step, you clarify also timeline and action steps for everyone to get both parties excited about what’s to come and to avoid any concerns or doubts what’s next.

You see- negotiation is more about being and staying curious – right from the beginning to the very end. So it really comes down to listening...

Listening is really the foundation, not just of negotiation, but of everything worthwhile in life.

This is probably the biggest lesson here because let’s be real - It can be hard because we are all so quick to respond but here’s my invite:

Instead of listening to respond, listen to understand as this already solves a lot of problems in the first place.

Now over to you: I would love to hear from you what was the most intriguing, eye-opening part of today’s podcast? And most importantly,

How can you turn that insight into action starting right now?