422: Mastering Negotiation: Strategies for Women to Get What They Want - Kathryn Valentine

ELLA: 00:00:00

Hey, it's Ella jumping on here very very briefly to tell you that we had a technical glitch with Ms. Katherine Valentine in the first five minutes of this episode. The sound is utter trash.

But after the five minute mark, okay, it gets way better than normal quality that you're used to. So I'm really, really sorry, but I did not want to throw out the first five minutes because of that technical difficulty. Bear with me. It's worth it.

Katherine delivers an absolute masterclass in negotiation. She tells us exactly what to do, like literally what to say to get what we want. She has a recipe. It works.

And I cannot wait for you to hear all of the gems in this packed episode with Katherine Valentine. Let's go. Welcome, you're on air with Ella, where we share simple strategies and tips for living a little better every day.

If you're interested in mindset and wellness or healthy habits and relationships, or hormone health, aging well and eating well, honestly, if you're into just living better and with more energy, then you're in the right place. We're not here for perfect. We're here for a little better every day. Let's go. Hey, you're on air with Ella. And today I am joined by Kathryn Valentine.

Hey, Katherine, how are you?

Kathryn V.: 00:01:19

Hey, Ella. I'm great. I'm so excited to be here.

ELLA: 00:01:22

I know. It's about time, right?

You guys, you guys, there's all this behind the scenes stuff that happens before two people can get on a mic and record together. And we will spare you the details, but suffice it to say, Katherine, I could not be more delighted to be having this chat with you today.

Kathryn V.: 00:01:37

It's definitely taken us enough attempts.

ELLA: 00:01:40

I gotta ask you before we jump into anything, who are you and what do you do?

Kathryn V.: 00:01:46

Ella, I am a speaker, a wife, and a mom. But I think we're probably on air together because of my role as a researcher. So I use research to advance women.

Most of the business skills we've been taught have been taught through a male lens lens, and it's actually very different for women.

Some of the things that we hear about how to network or time management or career advancement strategies, honestly, research has shown it's all different for women. We're just not talking about it. And so that's why our research has been in the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, fast company.

And I think that's why I get to talk to you today.

ELLA: 00:02:17

You are 100% correct about that. Okay.

I want to spend most of our time today, Katherine, talking about negotiation I think that the word negotiation can be really scary for some people. I think it can be anticip, like almost exciting for others.

But the one thing that I have Learned in my 23, 25 years of business, I don't know I'm going to start lying about that anyway.

Kathryn V.: 00:02:43

In my seven years of business, in.

ELLA: 00:02:45

My four years, I have witnessed, observed and understood that the art of negotiation is a different experience. It's a different science and a different art for women. And I want to talk about it because that happens to be something that you are world class in.

Kathryn V.: 00:03:04

Sounds great.

ELLA: 00:03:05

Okay. The first thing that I want to ask you when we talk about negotiation, you said that this is different for women at 30,000ft.

Kathryn V.: 00:03:12

Can you tell me why it's different for women? Because of societal concepts of gender. Really?

Since you were born in our culture, you have been cultivated to be others, focused, and you have been told that that's where your value is. So even we can look at toy coding studies where they go into the homes of children to see what children are playing with. And children continue.

We continue to give little boys toys that teach agency. You build your blocks, you knock it over, you are exerting your power on the world around you.

And we continue to give girls toys that teach reactivity. The baby cries, you feed it. Nana's thirsty, you make her tea in your toy kitchen.

And so these societal concepts of gender are so locked in that at 18 months, if we act in gender non congruent ways, babies will cry, they will cry longer and harder because it scares them.

And so if you flow that through, what happens when you negotiate on behalf of yourself, if you do it in a sort of male centric way, and we can kind of unpeel that in a little bit, but if you do that, it actually ignites backlash because the other person is feeling fear. And so the backlash we see today isn't, maybe isn't as clear as it was in the 70s, right? It's a little more nebulous. You're slowly getting sidelined.

You're no longer invited to the meeting after the meeting where the decisions truly happen. For some reason, you're not getting promoted at the pace that you would expect, or you're not getting the resources sources that you used to get.

All of those things are what we see when women negotiate it using male centric tools.

ELLA: 00:04:39

Okay, Catherine, first of all, 18 months, like that's actually depressing. But what I want to ask you is this.

When we talk about negotiation, some of the people listening, they have corporate Jobs they need to negotiate for salary or benefits, et cetera, et cetera. Other people do not.

I would submit to you that negotiation is a life skill, no matter how you spend your time and no matter how you earn, earn or do not earn a living.

Kathryn V.: 00:05:06

Would you agree 100%. I mean, think about it. I have saved much more than I make on an annual basis. By negotiating our house, we got it for 20% less than it was on market.

By negotiating cars, by negotiating for my children to, please, dear God, be in aftercare. I know you don't have any spots, but let's work together on this, right? All of those things. Even.

Even when, you know, when the plumber comes to your house, does he come at a time that's convenient for him or convenient for you? Right. There's so many different ways that we use this, Katherine.

ELLA: 00:05:33

That's exactly what I mean. Yes, yes, yes. Like this is a life skill, no matter where we sit. And let me ask you this.

We talked about how there are gender differences, but setting those aside, is there also a difference? Because, like, you mentioned getting your kids into care, and I was like, it flagged something for me.

Is there a difference when we are negotiating for something for ourselves versus negotiating for an outcome that essentially benefits someone else?

Kathryn V.: 00:05:57

Yes. The research nerds like me call this negotiating as an agent. When we negotiate on behalf of ourselves, we are only. Only 50% as successful as men.

And there are ways to change that. And you and I are going to talk about that today. Like, I can tell you how to completely eliminate that.

However, when we negotiate on behalf of others, we are 20% more effective than men.

And so if you're like, I don't know, if you're part of a company where there's three people in leadership, the woman should be negotiating all of your deals. She's going to get a better deal.

ELLA: 00:06:25

Okay, this is like amazing news and also distressing news. Kind of depressing.

Kathryn V.: 00:06:29

Yeah, it's great and depressing all at the same time.

So when we negotiate on behalf of our children, we are extremely effective negotiators because we are fulfilling societal's concept of gender in that.

ELLA: 00:06:40

And at the same time, it sounds like there's a halo effect when we are negotiating on behalf of really anyone other than ourselves. Is that what the research says?

Kathryn V.: 00:06:50

That's right. And so, for example, I obviously run my own company. When I started it, one of the first things I spun up is a board of advisors.

And so I was negotiating with a, you know, a Fortune 10. Huge, huge company.

And when they were playing hardball, I got to say things like, gosh, I'd really like to do that, but I'm going to have to run that by my board. And then I could come back and be like, the board's really uncomfortable with that for the following reasons. But what if we do this?

And so anytime you can really sort of dial in that you're negotiating on behalf of others, even if the others is your company as opposed to yourself, that's where we can start to kind of get a little bit tailwinds, actually, from this.

ELLA: 00:07:28

Okay. So if we're being strategic about almost creating a second party for whom we are negotiating, like, there are ways to do that in situations.

Even if you're buying a car, if you're buying a car, you can create a scenario where you're not just trying to get the best price for you. Do you.

Are you able to take that example that I did not warn you about and give us an anecdote as to how you might create a second party in that negotiation so that you get better results?

Kathryn V.: 00:07:56

Sure. So you're buying a car. Let's buy a car for your kid.

So I really want to buy this car for my kid because it's incredibly safe, and that's really important to us. That said, we're a little bit tight on our budget here. What can I do to help this make a win?

Like, do you want me to come back on the last day of the month? Or I see you have 10 white cars over there. Do you want me to buy one of the white cars?

You have to have some flexibility in what you're looking for and show that flexibility to the other party. But there's all kinds of deals we can come up with when you sort of open up what you're willing to negotiate.

ELLA: 00:08:26

Well, you don't have to advocate for this, but let me tell you about a couple times when I've been strategic, Katherine, strategically fictional.

If I'm negotiating with something around the house, like a service provider, to do something around the house, you know, like cut a tree down for an example, I always, always, always say, oh, that's a little higher than we were looking to spend. I need to talk with my husband and get back to you. Okay, let me be super clear.

My husband has never and will never weigh in on how much it costs to cut a tree down. I am making him up in that scenario with his blessing, and I do that because I have found that to be more effective.

Now, part of that might just be like, you know, the patriarchy and the other part of it might be just solidly rooted in when you're not advocating for your own self serving purposes, you get better results. I don't know and I don't care. What I care about is the efficacy.

Kathryn V.: 00:09:20

I agree. You've created another party that you have to get in to the, to the deal.

So now the person's not just making sure their deal is good enough for you, but it's good enough for you and the other magical party. So it would be the same if you were negotiating with a vendor and you were like, that's, that's a little higher than we wanted.

I'm going to have to run this one by my boss because it's a little bit higher than what I have, you know, license to sign a check on right now. Right. We're just creating another party. Frankly, it doesn't matter if you're like, hey, I need to go run that by the squirrel sitting over there.

Right. As long as they go with you on that, you're just, you're creating another check.

Checkboxes they have to make, which means they need to make sure that the deal is good enough that when you repeat it to another person, they will agree with you that you should do this.

ELLA: 00:09:59

And that is why every time you go to buy a car and you ask for a better price, whomever you're working with says, oh, whatever the price is, they're going to shake their head and they're going to say, oh, I need to talk to my manager.

Kathryn V.: 00:10:09

And they're going to go into the back room, pour a coffee, do a little jig, you know, call their wife.

ELLA: 00:10:13

And then come back out to you 100%. So I'm happy to be strategically fictional whenever I'm negotiating, as long as my intentions are pure. Katherine. I want to flip the script, though.

I work with so many women who are like solopreneurs entrepreneurs, and I have to say, 99.79% of the time that's real data based on the numbers I just made up. Okay, okay. Invariably, I tell them they need to raise their prices. Invariably.

And I think that this is fully related to our inability or our less than ability or our reticence to advocate for ourselves. So I want to bring all this back full circle.

Either why do we have trouble negotiating for just ourselves, so to speak, or if the why doesn't matter, what do we need to do about it?

Kathryn V.: 00:11:04

I want to tell you a little bit about why, and then I'll tell you a little bit about the solution? Perfect. As I push up my nerd glasses on the bridge of my node. Here we go. There are two studies that really pull out exactly what you were saying.

One is, I've reviewed 13,000 pages of research, right? That's like 2,000 hours.

The one that stands out the most is this research done with children, where they invited children into the lab, they gave them all a coloring page and said, you know, go color this. Bring it back to me. And when the children brought it back, their work back, the researcher said, thank you so much for your work. What do I owe you?

And what they found is that at 8 years old, little girls were asking for 40% less than little boys. Why? Because the little girl said, I don't want to upset anybody.

Which means that before, you know, the tooth fairy is not real, you know, there's something about negotiating on behalf of yourself as a woman that is scary. Fact number two is this research done by Northcroft and Pinkley. And this is with women and salaries.

In job negotiations, direct quote, accepting less implies that you bring less value. And so what they did is they looked at women who.

And men who had the same experience and had delivered the same impact to the company, but were being paid differently. And what happened is their superiors assumed their impact based on pay, not on work. Think about that.

So that means that pay and what we charge is a huge signaling effect, just like it is for consumer packaged goods. Right. If you charge more, people assume your work is better.

ELLA: 00:12:26

That is universally true.

Kathryn V.: 00:12:28

Right.

So my, like, off the cuff thing when you're working with women is, on average, we should be raising prices between 20 and 40% just to correct for sort of the bias that is in our own brains.

And so one of the things that we talk about when we're working with women and corporations is imagine you're talking to a friend with your identical experience in your identical situation. What would you say she should ask for?

And what the research shows is that we're horrible at figuring out our own market value, but we are spot on at figuring out the market value of other people.

ELLA: 00:13:01

This is such a critical point, and one of the best ways to instantly make 20 to 40% more than you are right now is to go to a peer who you trust, who is successful, and run this by them. Use them as a sounding board, as a coach. I have guaranteed ROI retroactively.

Okay, I never say this up front, but I swear to you, Katherine, every woman that I work for, that's in a scenario where this is relatable or applicable to her business or her endeavors. Every single person pays for their entire coaching. They get a lot more than this, but they pay for their entire coaching because of that one tip.

Someone with business experience who knows markets and understands price elasticity tells them you are undercharging, and they immediately raise their prices, and they immediately benefit for the rest of time. Because once that bar is raised, it does not go back down again. It's like magic.

Kathryn V.: 00:13:58

That's right.

And in the corporate world, the kind of number that's tossed out there a lot is research by Linda Babcock showing that choosing not to negotiate is equivalent to leaving a million dollars on the table throughout your career.

ELLA: 00:14:10

Good Lord.

Kathryn V.: 00:14:11

And so we don' I don't know what the entrepreneur version of that is, but you have to imagine it's also pretty stark.

ELLA: 00:14:17

I want to go back to the stat that you quoted and. And let me see if I can repeat it to you correctly. When women are negotiating for something for themselves, they are 50% less successful than men.

And when they negotiate on behalf of others or for others, they are 20% more effective than men.

Kathryn V.: 00:14:35

That's right.

ELLA: 00:14:35

And you said, I am going to help you fix that, Katherine. Help us fix that. 50% Delta. I hate it.

Kathryn V.: 00:14:43

Here we go. Okay, so this is. This is sort of. This is my soapbox. This is the thing that I live for, right?

And the thing that I live for is we continue to give women negotiation tools that are built for men and then stand back and be like, I don't know why it didn't work for you. Well, it didn't work for you because it wasn't built for you. So let's go deep down into the rabbit hole, the research rabbit hole here.

Research has been coming out of the top universities in the world.

We're talking Harvard, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon over the past almost 15 years, showing that there is a very clear way to negotiate on behalf of yourself as a woman that will make you not only more successful, but it will actually increase the value of your relationships. So this idea of backlash, this is research out of Georgetown. It virtually eliminates the risk of backlash. Okay, so what is that solution?

Three parts to it. One is to think holistically. And we can kind of dive into each of these in a second. But one is to think holistically.

The second part is to ask relationally, and the third part is to negotiate collaboratively as a woman. If you do those three things, you are going to be significantly more successful.

But also the worst thing you're going to hear is a no, not a no that comes with backlash, just a no. Which is fine once. There's no cost to it. You can ask for whatever you want whenever you want.

ELLA: 00:15:56

But yes, you will survive. That's one thing that I think we also not, not even gendered.

I think that we attach failure at asking to some sort of spiritual death, like we will never recover. And that is a. That is a knot I'd like to unravel as well. But frankly, I think that gets unraveled through practice and surviving knows.

But I have got to ask you to explain one term before we get into these three steps. When you talk about backlash, please elaborate on what type of backlash that is.

Kathryn V.: 00:16:29

So we were talking about this a little bit at the top of the episode where, you know, before what you would hear these horrific stories of people getting fired or things that are incredibly illegal or whatever it was. Those things still happen. I want to be clear about that. But it's not the majority of what we see.

The majority of what we see right now is sort of second generation backlash. And so it's things like you used to be invited to the meeting and now you're not.

You used to have, I don't know, the summer intern used to report into you every summer. And now all of a sudden that person doesn't. Actually.

One of the stories I heard was a woman who was on an all male executive team and she used to fly. They would split the team across two airplanes just for risk reasons.

She used to fly with other leaders and then all of a sudden she was flying with the other women, which unfortunately, in this scenario, and I say unfortunately because we should have gender parity and leadership, we do not. She wasn't in the plane with the CEO and the CE COO anymore, where the strategic discussions were happening. And that hurt her.

ELLA: 00:17:26

This backlash, in other words, is to your power compromising your power or your status or both.

Kathryn V.: 00:17:32

I love how you tied it back to Allison Fragal's work. And yes, that's right.

ELLA: 00:17:35

Absa dam Lutely, which is how we met, I think actually shout out to Allison, Likable Badass, which is again, just one of the best books I've read all year. Okay, thank you for that. So that is the type of backlash we're talking about. We're talking about consequences for asking for what you want.

Now you shared with us sort of a three step process. Repeat that for me and tell me what you mean.

Kathryn V.: 00:17:55

When we survey women, what we find is that 82% of women, when you say, what are you Going to negotiate or what do people negotiate? Say, base salary. But that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can negotiate.

So we've been collecting information over the past 11 years. We have this resource of 76 things we have seen women successfully negotiate. And.

But when you're going into a negotiation, I advise that you think to yourself, you know, what would help me deliver more impact? Because you can monetize that. What would lessen my stress? Because we should always be thinking about those things.

And then, frankly, what would bring me joy? Like, what can I negotiate that would just make me happy?

And once you've listed all those out, then choose maybe three of them that you're going to negotiate together. So when we say negotiate holistically, it's don't just go in and argue for a 3% raise, but go in and ask in order to deliver more impact.

I'd like to talk about increasing my pay by 5%, adding in a performance bonus, and taking this class that I think is really going to increase the value I can add to our clients.

ELLA: 00:18:52

Okay, so we are asking for perks and benefits and investment and resources that go beyond what we get paid.

Kathryn V.: 00:19:00

That's right. You can also, and in many cases will also want to ask for what you get paid.

But what I learned when I was coaching women is that in terms of, you know, what brings joy to your life, what makes you happy, what makes your day better, to a certain point, it's pay. And there's certain times in your life where it's pay, but there's also certain times in your life where it's, I can't work.

I don't want to work Fridays right now because this amazing thing is happening in my life, and I want to be there. Or this thing is happening in someone else's life, and I need to be there. Right.

Or maybe it's, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to do this anymore. Or I love what I'm doing, but I only have three people, and everyone else has five people. And we need to negotiate that.

ELLA: 00:19:35

Yeah, very much an. And it does not need to be an or. And also, I love that you have a menu that. I mean, you literally have a menu.

You have a menu of 76 things that go beyond just your base pay that. That people can negotiate for. So, yes, Yes, I want to share that.

Kathryn V.: 00:19:50

And as we were putting that menu together, the thing that blew my mind is how many gender gaps there are. Gender wage gap, 20%. We're all familiar with that, right?

The gender gap in stock options is 80%, the gender gap in equity is 40%, and the gender gap in team resources is 25 to 40%. So this is Lara Cray out of Berkeley who showed that when women get a team, they're being given teams that are 25% smaller to do the same amount.

And actually, as you get promoted, a lot of people think, oh, as I get promoted, these problems will solve themselves. These problems actually get worse. And so when you look at women at executive levels, their teams are 40% smaller to do the same amount of work.

So those are just things that I always hesitate because I'm like, man, this is a bummer.

But on the other hand, when you have an opportunity to negotiate, I almost want to create that checklist in your mind, which is not just, you know, certainly review our list of 76 things, see what on there can be helpful to you, but also just run through, like, oh, I know that there's gender bias in these three or four places, or any of those things that I, you know, am experiencing or need right now.

ELLA: 00:20:50

Listen, I have a wildly controversial take, and it is that women should be asking for more. And any. Any broad generalization can always be proven false. But let me prove this true.

In many cases, we need to be asking for more of our needs to be met. We need to be asking for more help. We need to be asking for more money. We need to be asking for more recognition.

So, yeah, I think in general, if there's one takeaway, and then I shall step down from this wooden box of soap that I've put myself on, I dare you to ask for more. And I wanted you to come on to help us know how to ask for it better. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Kathryn V.: 00:21:29

I'm so excited to be here.

And also I want to enhance your TED Talk by saying that the reason why we need to ask for more is because we are stepping into a place that was not built for us.

ELLA: 00:21:40

Yeah, we have to close the gap.

Kathryn V.: 00:21:41

Not only do we have to close the gap, but, like, we're pressing ourselves to fit this mold that was never intended to fit us.

So if you look at men and women going into the workforce or into negotiating for small businesses or whatever it is, by default, women have to negotiate more because those molds are less likely to fit us or, frankly, more likely to be uncomfortable in more places.

ELLA: 00:22:02

Okay, okay, I take your point. Okay, Katherine, the second piece of this is ask relationally.

Kathryn V.: 00:22:07

So this is where the research is very, very Deep.

As a woman, if you're negotiating on behalf of yourself, if your negotiating partner sees that as your ask is both legitimate and beneficial, you will be significantly more likely to be successful. But also you virtually eliminate the risk of backlash.

Okay, so when I was coaching women, what I saw is that you have very busy women who are like, wait, how do I. What? Who? How? And so we just created a formula and we've tested it over about 100 negotiations now.

And women have used it to get promoted to make more money. And so what this looks like is past performance plus future vision plus your ask and then stop talking. Women are so great.

We will end up negotiating against ourselves. So what if I give you an example? Does that.

ELLA: 00:22:53

Can I repeat those steps first?

Kathryn V.: 00:22:55

Sure.

ELLA: 00:22:55

Past performance, future vision, and then your ask? Yes. Paint us a picture.

Kathryn V.: 00:23:01

Okay, what example would be most helpful to your listeners?

ELLA: 00:23:04

Let's just keep the example simple. And we are asking for a raise plus the ability to work remotely two days a week.

Kathryn V.: 00:23:13

Okay, great. It's funny that you choose work remotely because that's how we came up with that last step, which we added on, like three years later.

Because we had a woman who wanted to negotiate to work remotely five days a week before she got to her boss's office. She convinced herself that four days a week would be fine. When she walked in, she said four days.

And then she said she saw the look on her boss's face and immediately said, or three. Three would be fine. You know what? I can do two. And so before her boss even had to respond, she had reduced her asked by like 80%.

ELLA: 00:23:44

As I was coming up with that anecdote for you, I was gonna say three days remote, and I edited myself in the anecdote down to 2. It felt too much. It felt too much. It was too much.

Kathryn V.: 00:23:56

Well, we wanna anchor high. And so here we go. We're gonna do three for this one. So you're gonna go in and you're gonna say something like.

And I'm just very off the coast cuff here. We have not rehearsed.

ELLA: 00:24:06

It's not like we're being recorded or anything.

Kathryn V.: 00:24:08

Yeah, well, I can't even say the word cuff. So you're going to go in and say something like. As you know, last quarter I was able to increase sales by 10%.

I think next quarter I can actually do that again. But in order to deliver that kind of impact, I wanted to talk to you about. And remind me, you said a raise and work from home.

ELLA: 00:24:25

Yeah, Bump and pay. And three remote days.

Kathryn V.: 00:24:28

Great. I wanted to talk to you about increasing my pay to be in line with the value that I'm bringing the organization.

And I also wanted to talk to you about working from home three days a week so that I can ensure that I'm working the hours that I'm most effective for you. What do you think? And what do you think is what we call conversational volley.

So what's going to happen now is your manager is going to tell you things that maybe you didn't know, like, oh, I think that, you know, I think that sounds really interesting. Here's a deadline that's happening. Here's a new client we just brought in.

There's this new company policy that you can only work remotely if you live 50 miles away or I don't know. But you're going to learn something that you didn't know, and then you're going to integrate that into your collaborative solution.

ELLA: 00:25:07

Okay. I'm going to encapsulate these four steps. Then you're referencing past performance success. You are referencing future vision for success.

You're making your clear and concise ask. And then you are closing that paragraph, if you will, with what do you think? And then you're shutting your mouth.

Kathryn V.: 00:25:27

Yeah, so what, what we're trying to do now is introduce a conversational volley where it would break societal rules for you to keep talking. That way you don't negotiate against yourself.

ELLA: 00:25:37

So you shut yourself up brilliantly. And you said, what do you think? Can we make this work? Is that what you said?

Kathryn V.: 00:25:44

Well, there's different conversational volleys. One is what do you think? Which is the one I like. A lot of people have had success using how can we make this work?

Because we're just assuming we're going to make this work. That's another good one. It might be that you have one that feels comfortable to you.

ELLA: 00:25:57

Okay, that is outstanding. And I love that it's a literal formula, tried and tested. Okay, now the third thing that you mentioned to me was I can't read my own writing.

Something about a collab.

Kathryn V.: 00:26:11

Collaborative negotiations. Okay. Collaborative negotiations is best practice negotiation regardless of your gender. Actually, it was introduced in the 80s.

One of the things that we found is even when folks are trained in collaborative negotiations, when they're thinking about negotiating on behalf of the themselves, they default to this old way of negotiating, which is like very aggressive. Winner, loser, that kind of thing.

We don't want to go there because a combative negotiation is a gender stacked game that we're set up to lose before we even Open our mouths. Right. That's just going to step us right into gender bias in a way that we would rather avoid.

The other thing we find is that when women are trained in collaborative negotiations, they say it feels more authentic to them. So they're more likely to negotiate this way. And we want it to feel comfortable to you.

So what this is, is it's going into a negotiation with a mindset not of you versus me, but us versus the problem. And the problem is anything that's standing in your way.

For example, as an entrepreneur, I had a very large company approach me to run our Accelerate program, which has shown a 50% reduction in intent to leave. So when employees go through this, they're much less likely to leave their company. And it's very effective. It's also very expensive.

It's like $10,000 per head. And so this company came to me, we reached a deal and sent me my teeny tiny research based company over to procurement.

Now, Ella, you know how this is going to go, right? I'm just going to get, I'm going to spend 50% of my time arguing about, I don't know, whatever.

So I went back to the person who had said yes and I said, hey, I just noticed that just yesterday I spent four hours with your procurement guy, and that's four hours that I'm not able to be doing the research specifically for your women. I want to focus on high quality content that gets you the results you need. In order to do that, though, I cannot do this.

ELLA: 00:27:52

Brilliant.

Kathryn V.: 00:27:53

All of a sudden, this multinational company was like, oh, okay, that sounds right. And just credit card on file. Done, done. Let's actually do the work now for us.

ELLA: 00:28:02

Can you please share how you could have said that poorly and made it me versus him.

Kathryn V.: 00:28:07

Ella, I drank the Kool Aid. Can you share with me how it could go poorly?

ELLA: 00:28:10

Yes. Something like this. Bob, I cannot deal with procurement for one more minute.

We came to an agreement and now you've got me fighting for my life over here with procurement who is not in on the situation and how badly you need it. Like, I need you to make this go away.

Kathryn V.: 00:28:26

And then let's throw in a, this person's an idiot just for extra cherry on top. Yeah.

And so I think when you're doing it, you know the other thing, when you're an employee, you're, gosh, you're set up so beautifully because what's better for you is better for your employer if you get more resources and you can deliver more. Better for your employer if you can do something that reduces your stress better for your employer.

Like, we're set up really well in those negotiations to address the problem together so that I as an employee can deliver more value to you as my employer.

ELLA: 00:28:57

This is gold I will throw on the table right now that this is extremely effective in relationships.

So if you have a life partner or if you're related to literally anyone and you need to work through something challenging, when you make it, me versus you, we are arguing on either side of a thing. But when we put both of us in the same boat and we are facing a problem together, that's an entirely different dynamic.

Is there an example you can think of outside of the boardroom where this might bear fruit?

Kathryn V.: 00:29:32

Yeah.

When I was buying my house, I was in the stage of life where money was my number one thing, and I would pretzel myself six ways to Sunday to save the dollar. The people I was buying my house from were in a different place and space in their life, and for them, money wasn't as important.

But when I was, you know, learning more about them, I found out that they'd already purchased another house. So I know they're paying two mortgages now, and also that they had kids. And so logistics are just much heavier in that stage of life.

And so instead of just negotiating on price, which we weren't going to reach a deal on, I mean, it was just too far off. What I said is, hey, I am happy to close whenever it's helpful to you. I'm also happy to waive.

Like, I'm going to do an inspection, but I'll waive all of that. I'm not going to nickel and dime you on these things. I also knew she had taken a really good care of this house.

ELLA: 00:30:20

House.

Kathryn V.: 00:30:20

And you can move whenever you need to. And you know what? If there's anything in the house you don't want to deal with, just leave it. I'll deal with it.

But in order to make all those things work, we can only pay X. And so she had multiple offers, including offers that were more competitive on X. But it was worth it to her to minimize that.

Like, she got to make all the decisions. She didn't have to read anybody in. You decide when you move, you decide when we close, you decide what. You don't even want to pay movers to move.

I will deal with all of it. And that was worth it to her. I reduced her headache by 95%. And so that's kind of like, when we're doing this together, we want this Deal to work.

Here's what I can give. Can you give on this? How can we make this come together?

ELLA: 00:30:58

That's also a great example, Katherine, of asking holistically, taking that holistic approach. Because you did not just go to the bottom line.

You were like, let me widen, let me throw a wider net and put more things in this deal basket, if you will. I am just, I am absolutely famous for mixing metaphors poorly. So stick to me here because we have cast a wider net, okay.

And we have expanded our basket at the same time. But in other words, you moved off the dollar figure and encompassed more of her pain points. There are so many ways that we can do this in real life.

This is such good stuff. Okay, so to summarize, you just basically offered up a masterclass in how to ask for what you want.

And that includes sometimes you can be strateg about not making it just for you and involving a second party, a third party in, in how you set up the negotiation. But sometimes it is just you. And you have shared with us that we can cast a wider net insofar as what we're asking.

We don't have to think so literally. And we can, we can ask holistically.

You said that we can ask relationally, but really that's a four step plan referencing past performance, future vision, asking for what we want, and then closing that convo with a what do you think? Or how can we make this work? Okay, masterclass. And then the third thing that you shared with us is to negotiate collaboratively.

It's not you versus me, it's us versus the problem. Katherine, thank you so much for this. But tell me this because I think our listeners will want to know, how do you actually work with people?

Like what. What are some ways people can work with you?

Kathryn V.: 00:32:44

So right now I mostly work with organizations who want to advance women.

So if you're part of an organization like that, or if you're in a women's erg or anything like that, and you need a speaker or a workshop, consider recommending me. That's how I can get this, these tools to as many women as possible.

And then also if that list that we mentioned of things you can negotiate would be helpful, you can find that at 76things.com. So 76 the word things dot com. And it's just there for you to download for free. We usually update it about once every three months. Months.

ELLA: 00:33:12

Okay, perfect. I will link to everything and make it super, super easy. Katherine, thank you so much.

Kathryn V.: 00:33:16

Thanks, Ella. This was great. I really appreciate the opportunity to come on.

ELLA: 00:33:20

Okay, if you enjoyed today's show, please share it with someone you care about and be sure to check out our new YouTube channel and head to onairela.com for today's show notes. You can also learn about how to work with me there on air Ella.com and I would love to hear from you.

So if you DM me in any Instagram, I promise I will reply. P S All the links you need for us to connect are right here in your podcast app in the description for today's episode. Check them out.

Thanks for listening and thanks for inspiring me. You are, quite simply, awesome.