Are You Negotiating Against Yourself?

Transcript

Hi there, it’s Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and here’s the idea that I’d like to share with you today, and that’s this: why would you ever negotiate against yourself?

Okay, well, that seems fairly obvious. However, what I see all the time in my work with authors, thought leaders, academics, advisers, consultants, etc., is that when you are the provider, when you are the delivery vehicle, when you are the brand, and you’re the CEO and you’re presented with an opportunity from a client, oftentimes, you start to discount before you even present.

You either give the client more than they’re entitled to, or you justify in your mind why, “Oh well, you know, they don’t really have the budget, so let me do X for Y. Let me throw this in on the house. Let me do this piece for free. They’re great people,” and those things, in essence, are you negotiating against yourself.

I think that you need to have the courage to justify your pricing in the marketplace, the value that your services present, and the benefit that the client gets from that in a very logical and rational way. Then there’s a time to negotiate after you’ve made your case, after you’ve presented the value proposition, not before.

Because inevitably, in many instances, there’s going to be a negotiation that’s going to happen after, and that should be with both parties, not you negotiating with yourself. So anyway, ask yourself if that’s something you might be guilty of. Ask yourself if that’s something that unintentionally you’re doing, or maybe intentionally you justify why you’re doing it because you know you love the client, you feel sorry for them, there’s a personal relationship, whatever the case may be.

But my thought, my advice, my strong recommendation would be: avoid negotiating against yourself.