A relational mindset doesn’t just help you build your network, sell more and accelerate your career. Thinking relationally can help you become a better negotiator.
Our old transactional mindset convinces us that the “pie” is only so big. The relational mindset opens us to new options and new perspectives. We can struggle to split the pie, sure. But we can also cut the pie into unique pieces or even make a second pie TOGETHER!
Negotiation and the Relational Mind:
1. Before you begin negotiating, take the time to define what success REALLY means to YOU. Do you REALLY want the title, the money, the power to make things happen or do you want something else?
2. Do your HOMEWORK. Don’t assume what you want is what other people want. Use relational research to determine what’s really at stake. An educated guess, even if it’s wrong, provides a foundation from which you can adjust as you gain new information in the negotiation.
3. Understand want it means to CHOOSE! Yes, negotiation it is about territory but it’s also about commitment. Making a choice is a two-sided coin with a straight forward deal. You get THIS when you choose THIS but by definition when you chose THIS you lose your rights to THAT.
It’s true. Success doesn’t always mean a higher salary. So remember, the pie has a lot to offer: benefits, title, level of independence, bonuses, type of work, location of work, structure of the work process, no travel, some travel, lots of travel, entertainment, private jets, summers in the Hamptons…time with your family and friends.
Amazingly, most people don’t give enough thought to what they REALLY want; they make knee-jerk decisions and fight for turf for turf’s sake. In this respect, traditional negotiations are reactive, animalistic affairs, instead of relational discussions about how we can make one another successful.
What is success to you?
What is success to other members of the group?
Now let’s start succeeding- TOGETHER.
The “Girl Scout Cookie” strategy
When girl scouts come home with news of the annual cookie sale or when students come home from school with fundraising forms for candies, calendars, wrapping paper or some other non-essential, what do parents do?
What strategy do parents employ to quickly sell the cookies, the wrapping paper or the candy?
Do they mimic the process most salespeople have been taught for a generation and cold call?
Do they grab a phonebook and tell their kids to start with the “As”?
Of course not!
The reach out to grandma—she won’t say no.
They go to uncles and aunts—they are easy marks.
They find their friends at work and demand they buy a couple boxes (just got one of these from my business partner JP only a week ago).
In other words, they go to the people they know first. They sell to people with whom they already have relationships.
The “Girl Scout cookie” strategy works.
So why don’t more salespeople employ it?
And since everybody sells, why don’t we use it more to garner the help and support we need at work, in life or to just get a second opinion?
No matter what you have to sell (whether a product, a service or an idea ) start with your base — the people that know who you are, what you are about and stand ready to help and assist.
Don’t think you have enough of a base to support your dreams and aspirations?
Time to start networking (see prior blogs and videos on this website for ideas on how to do just that)!