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Salary Negotiation – Can You Walk Away From That Salary Negotiation?

Salary negotiation should start by keeping your bottom line salary in mind. If that salary cannot be met, you must be comfortable walking away from the salary negotiation. To succeed in any type of salary negotiation, you must be willing to walk away. Look a little closer…

Salary negotiation can be learned. Some work with a career coach to learn how to market their skill better to organizations. This can increase your perceived value and financial standing. You sabotage your career success and financial standing by accepting a job offer you should really walk away from. How do you know when to walk away from a salary negotiation?

Look at poor Steve. His interviewer began by ridiculing items on his resume and discounting real experience. After his entire resume had been verbally chopped, Steve had to get up and leave the interview. Later, when he talked to his contact for this interview, the explanation was that this was just the interviewer’s style and that Steve might have been offered the position had he stayed. But Steve did not regret his move. In fact, several months later Steve saw the interviewer’s name in the paper. He was the subject of an investigation for the mistreatment of staff. Steve listened well to his internal mechanism or “gut” while in this interview.

Here are several situations that should give you a red flag when in salary negotiation:

Salary Negotiation Red Flag #1 – An employer that is inflexible and displays no respect.

They don’t respond to e-mails, can’t find time for a meeting, can only be available via telephone for a few minutes at a particular time or demand a quick response. They haven’t decided they WANT YOU. Walk away.

Salary Negotiation Red Flag #2 – Try as you may, they just won’t negotiate.

Often HR never gives you their best offer first unless you hear the words “This is a firm offer.” However there are more things to negotiate other than salary (at least 26 other things I walk through with my clients). No matter what option you propose whether it be a different start date, job duties, more vacation, professional training, tuition reimbursement, company car or cell phone, they won’t budge. This is probably a good indicator of how they will negotiate in the future on salary or these items. Walk away.

Salary Negotiation Red Flag #3 – An employer that is not on their best behavior during the interview process.

They may be derogatory about your work experience or your value as they were with Steve above. They might simply be nonchalant or cut off your answers before you can complete your thought. This is probably a taste of how they will address you as an employee. “Believe them when they show you who they are the first time.” They are showing you what they will be like as an employer. Walk away.

Salary Negotiation Red Flag #4 – Being unwilling to see the situation for what it truly is and continuing to go forward with unfavorable terms.

Salary negotiation should not t move you into an unfavorable situation because of fear, bills, a slow economy, or higher unemployment. Pull out of your tunnel vision and look around you. Talk to your career coach, a trusted friend or adviser. Trust your internal mechanisms and intuition. Be secure in the value you possess. If you take the job embrace the fact that this is a stop gap job and not a resting place or career!

I know what you are thinking. You could not possibly walk away from any salary negotiation in this shaky economy. Unemployment is up as well as layoffs. Obviously, during a slow economy it is easier to discount that strong negative reaction to the position or salary negotiation because you believe jobs are scarce. Stop! Try to see all of your opportunities. Do not be pressured into accepting an inferior position with an inferior salary because of fear. You continue to bring the same value to the organization in a slow economy as you would in a growing economy. There is still a market value to that worth.

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Negotiation Tactics – How To Get What You Want

Negotiation tactics are one of the most important lessons you can learn to be successful in your career, relationships, and life. There will be a lot of times when your capacity to persuade will be tested. How you try to gain favor through effective delivery can make or break your credibility and integrity as an individual. Here are some of the most useful negotiation tactics.

Advocacy

The advocate’s negotiation tactic attempts to present as much relevant and beneficial ideas and results to the parties involved. The person you’re trying to influence should clearly be able to see himself or herself in a very advantageous position, should he or she adapt to your idea. Delivering situations in a way that increases the likelihood of the other person gaining success is crucial.

Winning Matters

The winning tactic encourages you, as well as the person you’re trying to influence, to assess your current positions, instead of potential interests and needs. People will prefer to be influenced by ideas which put the end result in a win-win situation, rather than include chances of losing.

Although there is no such thing as absolute security, a person entering the negotiation with a sense of confidence and importance already puts him or her in a more advantageous state, regardless of the outcome of any risk or venture.

Positivism

Positivism is one of the most potent negotiation tactics, since it fosters cooperation and interaction between all parties involved. You need to be optimistic about your views, which will help gain respect or understanding from others. Show satisfaction and willingness in taking risks. Problem-solving and decision-making becomes easier if you consistently encourage others to share your insights in a positive manner.

Negativism

Negativism is an aggressive negotiation tactic, wherein you may choose to be uncooperative or show disinterest in an opposing idea, in order to show possible consequence. You aim to present the consequences of the other person’s interests to try to lead him or her to your own perspective. It is a matter of how you can effectively compare differences, outcomes, and benefits.

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Are You Satisfied With Your Present Job In Sales?

It is important for you to appreciate that you are not merely involved in sales. Selling is your career. You’re a professional.

There is a vast difference, that you must never lose sight of.

The dictionary describes a professional as someone “engaged in a specific activity as one’s main paid occupation”. It also describes a profession as ” a vocation or calling that involves some branch of advanced learning”.

It is clear that both these definitions are appropriate descriptions of the work in which you are involved and distinguishes you as a professional..

Everyone is involved in selling:

When you come to think about it, everyone is involved in selling in some way or another. Selling is persuasion and negotiation.

Think of a small child and parents in a department store. The child sees a
tempting toy; gains attention by dragging the parents towards the item; then begs the parents to buy the highly desired item.

In return the child promises to reward the parents in a variety of ways.

The promises are tempting: Never to nag again; permanent good behavior; eating vegetables and other appealing forms of behavior.

The child is an excellent natural negotiator and the parents, sold on the idea, agree to keep their side of the bargain!

Or consider the politician, who attempts to persuade constituents to vote for him, promising in return increased benefits. The preacher promises spiritual satisfaction for adherence to a certain moral and ethical code.

Everyone in every calling offers something in return for something else.

There is hardly an aspect of life that does not contain the same elements. The difference between your occupation and that of a doctor, lawyer, dentist, accountant, teacher – to use just a few examples – is the nature of the service being offered.

Never forget you are a professional.

Your occupation is your main source of income. As a professional your occupation required some form of advanced learning. The fact that some professions involve a greater length of time in the learning process is irrelevant.

Like everything in life, your success in your chosen profession depends on your skills.

Of course you already possess certain skills. But like all professionals, you are very much aware how important it is for you to improve your skills.

Selling, as you well know, is a skill. It is a skill that can be improved with training.

The importance of a positive attitude.

Many people involved in sales unfortunately have a negative attitude unworthy of their profession. They feel that in some ways it is not as prestigious as other more glamorous or charismatic professions.

To some extent this has been due to an unfortunate stereotype that has been perpetuated in literature, the cinema and T.V.

The Salesman is often portrayed as an overbearing, or cunning,devious person who will use any means to trick unwary customers to buy a product of dubious quality.

Sometimes the Salesman is depicted as a struggling, loser who drifts from one job to another.

Consider the type of person many people have been conditioned to think of as the “typical” car salesman. This unfortunate stereotype persists.
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Some professional sales people come to accept this completely fallacious, demeaning view of themselves as accurate!

Often there is a tendency to belittle oneself and not attach sufficient importance to the very important role played in our economic system.

As any economist will tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. The salesperson is an absolutely essential cog in the wheel of our democratic, free enterprise system and our capitalist economy.

Without this vital link between the producer and the final customer commerce would grind to a halt.

Compare your career with those of others.

Have you ever stopped to compare your vocation with that of someone involved in what might be considered a more glamorous profession?

A close examination of many occupations will reveal that in many cases the work is tedious, dull, boring and monotonous in the extreme.

I mean no disrespect to the important work carried out by people involved in other professions, but can you imagine yourself having to cope day after day with the physically demanding profession of dentistry for example?

Can you visualize yourself continually examining the teeth of patients, day after day, hour after hour?

I had an interesting experience a short while ago. It re-enforces the idea that not all professions are as attractive and as charismatic as they may seem on the surface.

The son of a friend of mine is an airline pilot with an international airline.

Can you think of an occupation that presents as much glamour and prestige in the eyes of the public?

But in a recent discussion with him I was very surprised indeed to discover that he found his career monotonous and boring. He seriously considered changing his career, even though it would mean a considerable drop in salary.

The rewards of a selling career.

As you will appreciate, everything depends on your attitude to your work. Selling, as a profession can be exciting, stimulating, satisfying and immensely rewarding financially.

Every day presents new challenges. There are no limits to the goals you can set yourself.

You can look forward to each day with eager anticipation. Unlike many other profession it is never boring.

And, as has been pointed out, it is important to continually improve your skills and levels of expertise. The rewards you receive will be commensurate with your effort.

Devote yourself to becoming proficient in every aspect of your profession.
Improve your product knowledge so that you are regarded as an expert in the particular field in which you specialize. There is no end to the possibilities and the challenges.

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