52. Negotiations: Everything you need to prepare for a successful negotiation

Vanessa  00:00

Welcome to coaching for Latina leaders, the only podcast dedicated to the advancement of Latinas at every level of life with your host Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Latina with over 20 years of leadership experience, Harvard grad physician, and mother of two. 

Hello, cuties. I am so excited for today's podcast because I am going to help you today be super calm and confident at your next negotiation. So you can leave feeling really happy with the outcome. Okay, but before I start, I just want to share something special with all of you. So one of the most common problems that I see come up for my students over and over again, that leaves them feeling frustrated, exhausted, a little bit pissed off, is this need to make everyone else happy. You know, you might be feeling something like this to where you're afraid to disappoint other people, you're afraid to make someone mad. So what do you do instead? Instead, you don't respect your own boundaries, and you start saying yes to things that you really don't want to do. And at the core of all this comes the problem of people-pleasing. 

So I created a super awesome guide that teaches you the five steps you need to stop people-pleasing today. It's called the five-step guide to stop people-pleasing today. Very creative title. So the guide is awesome. And it walks you through absolutely everything you need. I walk you through why you've developed this tendency, and how it actually serves you sometimes. And then the five steps you need to stop today. And the five steps are really easy to follow. In fact, I taught this to one of my students in a coaching session two weeks ago. And immediately after learning the five steps, she had this request, where they asked her to speak at a conference, but they weren't going to pay her to speak. So she was a little annoyed because she wanted to do it. She didn't want to make them upset. But she also didn't want to say yes to more free work. So she walked through the five steps and she went back and requested money. And guess what they paid her to come to speak. So it was a win-win for everyone. So you can find the guide. It's available to you right now. It's free. You can get it at VanessaCalderonMD.com/guide. So just my website VanessaCalderonMD.com/guide, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. 

Alright, let's get started with today's episode. So I want to start by asking you when was the last time you advocated for something that you want it? Maybe it was the location of your next family vacation, where to go for dinner, or what movie to watch for your movie night. Guess what you were doing, my friends, you were negotiating. You know, we often think of negotiations as something really scary and very serious, like a bunch of old white men and dark suits at this really big long table. But negotiations don't have to be scary or intimidating. They can just be a collegial conversation, where you're simply advocating for something that you want, like where to go on your next family vacation. So I want to help 

you be calmer and more confident in your next negotiation. So you can walk away from it feeling really good about the outcome. 

So today, I'm going to walk you through the three things you need to think about to prepare and how to prepare for your next negotiation. And those three things are you need to know what you want, you need to know what they want. And you need to prepare your mindset. Yes, mindset is everything, especially in a negotiation. Okay, so I'm going to walk you through each one of these steps. And then I'm going to share an example of how I coached a client through this. Okay, so step number one is to get really clear on what you want. And this one requires a few things here. So let's get clear on what you want. So you want to know what you want, and you want to know why you want it. Okay, the why is really important. Because if you want a raise, why do you want the raise? Is it because all your friends are getting raises? Is it because you think you're worth it? Is it because you think it's time? You've been here a long time? Is it because you're starting to feel unappreciated? And you think this is going to help you feel more appreciated? Or is it because you're feeling burned out? So get really clear, what is it that you want and why? And as you're preparing for what you want, you want to start thinking about why they should give it to you? What do you want it and why. 

So when you're thinking about why they should give it to you, you want to look at really good objective performance data. If you have some, if you have, you know if you can reference a patch performance review, that was stellar, that is just gold standard. That's fantastic. But if you don't have that, that's okay. Another thing you can do is you can answer these questions for yourself and come prepared with the answers. Number one, how have I added value to my team or to my organization? 

Vanessa  05:00

What have I uniquely brought to the organization that no one else has done before me? How am I exceeding expectations? Like, what more am I doing? How am I going above and beyond? You want to have all of those questions answered when you're getting ready for your negotiation. Okay? Now, when you're thinking about what you want, the other thing you want to do is you want to be really specific with your ask, if you're wanting money, if you want to raise, how much do you want? And why? is it a 1%? Raise? Or a 3%? Raise? Or do you just want to add a bonus, for example, at the end of three months, or at the end of the year? And to answer this question, you want to do your research, okay? You don't want to just say I want a 5% Raise when the industry standard is maybe 2%. Or maybe the industry standard is 7%. So you want to be really clear. So do your research, just go to Google and ask the question, what's the industry standard for arrays and type in your industry? And you want to make sure you're doing it by region. Because there are tons of cost of living adjustments.  

So two good websites to look at are salary.com and glassdoor.com. So go there or just Google. Okay, What's the industry standard for arrays in my region? That's the question you want to answer. Alright, then you want to get really creative. This is the last part here and what you want, you want to get creative, because you want to come up with a plan B, your plan A, for example, is you're going to request a 3% Raise. But there's sometimes there are going to be reasons why an organization or the person you're negotiating with can't say yes to just a plain one-for-one money raise. You know, it could be because they have some sort of HR issues, or there's union issues, or whatever. So a company can't always increase your salary. So get creative with the plan being so what if you go and 

request things, your boss loves you, they want to give you a raise, you're coming up, and you're bringing up all of these great reasons why, but they can't give you the raise. What else can you ask for? So maybe they can't do a raise. But do you, for example, get a professional development stipend? And if so, can they double that for this year? Or can they just give you a bonus pay one-time bonus pay as opposed to something that's all of the time as a race? Or if you're working, If you're not working from home, although most people are working from home these days, if you're not, can you come up with a flexible work schedule? where maybe you work from home, or do you do half days on Mondays or half days on Fridays and stack your hours? Or maybe it's the office space that you want. So come up with a super creative Plan B. Okay. All right. Now let's go on. 

So we talked about what matters to you, what you want, how to ask for it, and how to get creative. And now we're going to talk about what matters to them, to the people you're negotiating with. And the reason why you want to do this is that you want to make it super simple and super easy for them to say yes, you want to make them feel like they're winning, too. You know, the old school way of thinking of negotiation was this pie where you know more for you meant less for them, there's just one simple pie, you cut it in half, you get half of it. And now they only have you know, less than half Okay, so more for you meant less for them. But the new way of thinking of a negotiation is not just one simple pie, but expanding the pie, so that everybody feels, everybody feels like they are leaving the negotiation like a winner. And that's kind of the attitude you want to create. That's the experience you want to create. 

So to do that, you want to think about what matters to my boss, what matters to my manager, and there will always be a few things that matter. Number one, it matters that they look good to their boss and manager. Okay, so what is it that will make them look good? How the team is performing usually, so if there are any metrics you can speak on that you're gonna work on after you get the bonus or the raise. Team engagement matters a lot. So how are you supporting that? If you're in the healthcare space, patient experience scores are incredibly important. So how can you affect those types of things? That's what you want to talk about, okay? And then you want to frame your request in a way that highlights their needs. If their needs are staffing, and you're really great at helping retain employees, then you want to speak to that. 

Alright, then then the last thing here is a mindset. Mindset, my friends is everything, especially in a negotiation, because a negotiation can feel like a difficult conversation. And so what do we do? We avoid it like how For how long have you wanted to request something to ask for a raise to do these things, but we don't do it because we don't want to feel the discomfort that comes along with the negotiation. And usually, the discomfort is because we're afraid to feel disappointed. We're afraid that they're gonna say no. And so that fear of disappointment, that discomfort is what's keeping us from requesting. So what you're gonna do is you're going to prepare for that discomfort.

Vanessa  09:57

It's gonna feel uncomfortable. There's going to be very little that you can do to avoid that. And you don't want to try to resist that. Because of like, as I've said before, what we resist will persist. So the more we want to try to avoid the discomfort, the more that discomfort will be present. So instead, what you're going to do is just hold space for the discomfort, and you hold space for the discomfort by telling your 

mind like I'm committed to this negotiation, I know it's going to feel uncomfortable. And when I get uncomfortable, I'll take a deep breath. 

And I will focus on the bigger picture, I will focus on the win, I will focus on what this means, and I will focus on everything I'm learning by just showing up to negotiate. Okay, so you want to prepare your mind by creating space. Now, one last thing about disappointment in negotiation. It's so interesting because our brains will do whatever we can to avoid disappointment because disappointment gives us a huge downturn, a huge like negative, and it decreases the dopamine in our brain. And that feels really bad. And so we do everything we can to avoid disappointment. But I want to talk to you about this because I think there's a different way to think about it that will support you. So there's this term, the negotiations called BATNA B-A-T-N-A, your best alternative to a negotiated agreement, BATNA, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. And what that does is it asks you before you come into a negotiation, what's your BATNA? So what happens if they say no? What's your best alternative to a negotiated agreement? 

Like, What's your best alternative If they say no? And for most of us when we're negotiating in these types of settings, our best alternative is the status quo. Our best alternative is the life we have right now. Our best alternative is that nothing will change. That's it. So when you think about that, yeah, it might feel a little bad when they say if they say no, but remember that that feeling is fleeting, it will go away. And then you're going back to business as usual. your BATNA is status quo. So think about that. When you're afraid to feel disappointed, just know that nothing is going to change if they say no, usually, your BATNA is exactly what you're living right now.

Vanessa  12:21

All right, so let me walk you through an example of one of my clients. Okay, so you learned how you show up how you prepare for what you want, how you think about what matters to them, and then how you prepare your mindset. So let me walk you through an example of one of my clients. Okay, so I'm gonna change her name, just to protect the confidentiality, and I'm gonna call her Jackie. So Jackie was a physician's assistant at this really big, prominent hospital, and she had sort of taken on this managerial role at our hospital, managing the other physician's assistants. And she had been there for three years. And she had come to me because she was feeling really burnt out and kind of a little bit pissed off because she had asked for a raise and had been turned down. She liked her job, but she wasn't feeling appreciated in her job. So we walked her through the three steps. So the first thing I asked her is, what is it that you want? and she said she wanted to raise but when we got down to the why what she actually wanted was she wanted to feel appreciated. That's what she wanted. She wanted her company to know all of her efforts, all of her hard work, and appreciate her. And she thought that she needed the raise to prove that she was appreciated. 

So then I asked her Okay, so do you have any objective performance data? She actually did. She had some really stellar past performance reviews that she could point to, but she was able to easily answer the questions. How have I added value? I've recruited all these people, and I've helped them stay. I created this extra program for them, where I'm teaching them and mentoring them while they're here, which is why we've been able to retain at such a high rate. How, what have I uniquely brought to the organization? She brought that program. How is she exceeding expectations, her only job is to create 

the schedule, and she's not just creating the schedule, but she's retaining, she's mentoring, she's doing all of these other things. So she was able to answer those questions. And then I got her to get really specific with her ask, initially, she asked for a 5% Raise. But at her organization, the gold standard or what they normally do for raises is a 3% annual increase in salary. So she was like, Okay, I'll ask for a 3% increase in salary. And then we got really creative with her plan beam. So what if they can't give you that raise? What else would make you happy? I asked her. 

And we went through everything. It turned out, that she had a professional development stipend, and they could potentially increase the stipend and that would make her happy because then she could go to a conference and maybe extend it and stay for an extra paid vacation. She could get super creative about her work schedule, so she could stack her hours and essentially have one entire half-day off. So she can work only work half a day on Fridays. So we got her to get really creative. And then we thought about what matters to the organization. And what mattered to the organization is that the team was engaged, that they were performing well, that they were meeting certain metrics, and that their patient experience scores were high. So she couldn't do a correlation, one for patient experience scores. But she made this argument that if she has an engaged happy team, the happy providers will show up and be really happy with their patients, and the patients would be happier. So she was able to sort of draw that narrative. 

And then we talked about her mindset was everything. Because for her, she was already so pissed off that she was feeling kind of upset, frustrated, but also combative. Like she wanted to go in there and demand that they give her that money. And so we had to sort of reel that backs a little bit and bring her back to this place of neutrality, this space of Okay, so I'm going to request this, I know what I want us to actually feel appreciated. There are so many other ways that they can make me feel appreciated. They can just tell me, thank you. But I would also like financial compensation. So she knew that she knew she loved her job, and she wanted to stay. So her best alternative to a negotiated agreement really was just them saying thank you. And that would probably make her feel really happy. But she was going to request money because why not? She had worked really hard. And she was at a place where she wanted to do it. So she went back and negotiated. And she initially asked for that raise, she asked for a 3% Raise. And it turned out that there was at we're at a point in the budget where they couldn't give her the raise. And initially, she felt a little upset, but she had a creative plan being. So she said, Okay if you can't give me the raise, can we double my professional development stipend for this year. 

And what would make me really happy is for Fridays for me to only be an available half day. So no clinical schedules that second half of the Friday, I do all my admin stuff in the morning. So I have the whole half of Friday off. And the organization was able to meet her with those two requests. So and because she made those strong arguments of how what mattered to them, she talked about all of those things. And she showed up feeling really confident, feeling really happy and at peace, because she knew that if the only thing she got was like, Thank you, we really appreciate you that would make her feel really happy. She was super clear on her BATNA, she was willing to feel that little bit of disappointment, that discomfort if they said no. And she went in there feeling prepared, calm, and confident. And she came out with an extra paid vacation, which was nice and a super flexible working stay on a Friday. So all 

good things. And that, my friends, it's what's available to you when you prepare for your next negotiation.

Vanessa  17:56

So again, the three things are you get really clear on what you want. And why. Because when you get clear on your why it will help you get really creative for your plan B, what if they don't say yes to your initial request? What else would make you happy? And what else would make you happy? Okay, you want to get really clear on what you want and why. And you want to get clear on what they want. What is it that the organization wants? What is it that your boss wants? How can you make this a win-win? How can you expand the pie? And then the last thing is you prepare your mindset, you prepare yourself to feel uncomfortable, you prepare yourself to potentially feel disappointed and you get super clear on your BATNA, your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. 

Okay, my friends, that's all I've got. And if you've listened till the end, I will once again remind you that I have a free guide for all of you that I've created. It's called the five steps to stop people-pleasing today. It is super awesome and really easy to use. You can use it now and you can start feeling better about all of the decisions that you're making. You can start feeling happier with the boundaries that you set and start respecting those boundaries. So go to my website VanessaCalderonMD.com\guide to get your free copy today. VanessaCalderonmd.com\guide. Okay, my friends, I will see you next week. Adios

Vanessa  19:17

Hey Mujeres if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate the review, and share it with your friend. And if you love what you're learning here, then you have to sign up for my weekly love letters. I send you all the good stuff, doses of inspiration, and all skills you need. So you can live lead and make money like the chingona that you are, subscribe to my website at VanessaCalderonMD.com. I'll see you there.