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Speaker 1: From House to works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen. And Kristen,
Speaker 1: I thought maybe today we could start the podcast with
Speaker 1: a little dose of my personal pain from childhood. Always
Speaker 1: a good way to start a podcast in my opinion. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I go for it. I love hearing your painful past stories.
Speaker 1: All right, here you go. Here's one. This probably represents
Speaker 1: the most embarrassed I ever was as an adolescent. Ever ever. Well, okay, shoot, okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm sixteen, just got my driver's license. My dad's
Speaker 1: taken me to the used car lot to find a car,
Speaker 1: and we find one we like, and we go into
Speaker 1: that little room that car salesmen taking into and they're
Speaker 1: trying to make the deal. And I became mortified when
Speaker 1: my father started haggling, because it's just I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just thought that the car salesman would would get
Speaker 1: a bad impression of us, and he was being so forceful,
Speaker 1: and I just I was really upset by it that
Speaker 1: I actually went and hit in the bathroom instead of
Speaker 1: waiting for my my deal to be made. I was
Speaker 1: just I was just so embarrassed that my father negotiated
Speaker 1: at that car price. First of all, Molly, I find
Speaker 1: it amazing that that is your most embarrassing story from
Speaker 1: child is Well, I mean, I said at a lessons
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean I I was freaked out that
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we're getting in there, my dad's
Speaker 1: yelling at some guy about numbers. Yeah, I mean, negotiation
Speaker 1: is definitely an uncomfortable thing, especially for women. I find Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it sounds pretty stereotypical. I O, women
Speaker 1: don't like to negotiate. I don't like to negotiate. I like,
Speaker 1: totally fit that stereotype. Well you're not the only one, Christen,
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I mean, in addition to me, we've
Speaker 1: got a whole host of statistics we can go over
Speaker 1: about how women don't like to negotiate. And I was
Speaker 1: so relieved to find that someone think about it the
Speaker 1: way I do. They say they see it as going
Speaker 1: to the dentist. Basically, men's negotiation is like a wrestling match,
Speaker 1: a time to get down and dirty. And that's how
Speaker 1: my dad was like when when we gotten in the car,
Speaker 1: like drive it off a lot, my dad was like pumped,
Speaker 1: he had adrenaline going through him. He was happy with
Speaker 1: the dealing made. And you know, he just explained to me,
Speaker 1: like the guy expects it, that's what we're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Whereas if it was you driving that cough a lot,
Speaker 1: you probably would have been just shaking so relieved, like
Speaker 1: ripping a band aid off or something, right, like I
Speaker 1: just you know, get through it. And I would have
Speaker 1: probably still been embarrassed about it. Even if I had
Speaker 1: negotiated myself been like, oh gosh, he thinks I'm I'm
Speaker 1: just an awful person. Right, Women sometimes they're socialized too,
Speaker 1: you know, not be pushy like that. Negotiation I think
Speaker 1: can feel just naturally uncomfortable because it goes against maybe
Speaker 1: the types of things we were raised with, the types
Speaker 1: of stereotypical behavior, you know that women were and were
Speaker 1: not expected to do. You know, negotiation and haggling is
Speaker 1: a man's job, so right, and it seems impolite. You know,
Speaker 1: if you were raised a good then girl like me,
Speaker 1: that's not within your manners to just start haggling, right,
Speaker 1: and that kind of cultural factor could be one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why of adult women say that they never
Speaker 1: negotiate at all, even though they need know that they
Speaker 1: need to write and this just you know, it may
Speaker 1: say be faced for like a few minutes, but it
Speaker 1: has very long ranging h financial implications in every aspect,
Speaker 1: whether it's buying a car, negotiating your car price, negotiating
Speaker 1: your first salary. It's it costs to not negotiate. Basically. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was there's a real world example that I think
Speaker 1: sums this up pretty well. There was one study um
Speaker 1: in which men and women participants were told that if
Speaker 1: they came and participated, they would earn between five and
Speaker 1: twelve dollars. So at the end of the study, when
Speaker 1: the women were leaving, the people who were conducting the
Speaker 1: study said, oh, here you go, here's your five dollars,
Speaker 1: and most of the women just took the five dollars,
Speaker 1: whereas a lot of the men, once they were handed
Speaker 1: five dollars, said whoa, whoa, wait a second, you said
Speaker 1: that I could it up to twelve dollars. I would
Speaker 1: like twelve dollars, And they actually negotiated their way up
Speaker 1: to doubling and almost tripling. You know, bet initial five dollars. Right.
Speaker 1: A little known fact of how I got christened to
Speaker 1: you this podcast was I gave her five dollars instead
Speaker 1: of twelve. Wait a second, and but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's probably what people did when they got
Speaker 1: their first job, you know. And maybe they were told
Speaker 1: a range of salaries and when they got the bottom one,
Speaker 1: they just took it. Whereas men are more inclined to
Speaker 1: ask for more, right, men who negotiate their jobs are
Speaker 1: usually able to increase their starting salaries by an average
Speaker 1: of seven point five percent, or four thousand dollars. And
Speaker 1: that is nothing to sneeze at. Four thousand dollars. That's
Speaker 1: a down payment on something, right, And then are negotiating
Speaker 1: initiating these negotiations about four times as much as women.
Speaker 1: So you hear a lot about the gender pay gap.
Speaker 1: You know, this is kind of what it made me
Speaker 1: think of um. On average, according to you the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Labor Satistics, women make about eighty percent of what
Speaker 1: men usually make for the same job. But one interesting
Speaker 1: study that kind of relates to all this is that
Speaker 1: men starting salaries are usually about four thousand dollars higher
Speaker 1: than women's on average, and if men were going in
Speaker 1: there and negotiating for that some point four percent more
Speaker 1: or about four thousand dollars, that could be one of
Speaker 1: the areas where we're kind of shooting ourselves in the
Speaker 1: foot and keeping that gap wide open. So basically, we
Speaker 1: start off behind and then we can never catch up.
Speaker 1: We're shooting ourselves in the foot and never catching up.
Speaker 1: And to the tune of the fact that by the
Speaker 1: time we're sixty, were five thousand dollars behind the men
Speaker 1: and overall salary earnings. That sucks. Yes, it does. So
Speaker 1: you know what, Molly, we gotta take back the power.
Speaker 1: We gotta learn how to negotiate. Okay, I want five
Speaker 1: or thousand dollars, and I want it now. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna get it now, but let's learn about how
Speaker 1: negotiation works. Okay, there are three parts of negotiation. First,
Speaker 1: recognize the conflict. All right, you want something, Say, all right,
Speaker 1: your dad was a used car salesman. He wants a car,
Speaker 1: and he wants it for cheaper. There's a conflict. Then
Speaker 1: you stay your claims. Your dad, while you were hiding
Speaker 1: in the bathroom, was probably telling the used car salesman
Speaker 1: that he wanted the car for let's say, fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars instead of twenty dollars. He was stating his claim,
Speaker 1: and then once they started haggling, at some point they
Speaker 1: had to concede. They had to meet somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: So maybe instead of buying the twenty tho dollar car
Speaker 1: for fifteen thousand dollars, he paid, oh, seventeen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So that, in a nutshell, is a negotiation, right. But
Speaker 1: I was more worried about the people on the other
Speaker 1: side of it, which was I was worried that the
Speaker 1: seller wanted to make as much as possible, and I
Speaker 1: was worried that, you know, um, the seller wanted more
Speaker 1: money for the car. But what I was doing was
Speaker 1: sort of ignoring the fact where I could, um, just
Speaker 1: by you know, being interested in the car, I could
Speaker 1: give him a benefit. He could sell a car that
Speaker 1: day and you know, maybe get a commission, maybe just
Speaker 1: meet a sales quota. And so that's I think a
Speaker 1: key points to realize that there can be benefits in
Speaker 1: the deal for everyone. You've just got to find them,
Speaker 1: right And one of the first places that you should
Speaker 1: start before you even walk into that sales room and
Speaker 1: start haggling. If you gotta do your homework. If you've
Speaker 1: got to know how much is let's say back to
Speaker 1: the car. If you're buying a car, you have to
Speaker 1: know how much it is actually worth in whatever specific
Speaker 1: condition it's in, so that you can walk in there
Speaker 1: knowing that they're probably inflating the price somewhat, and you
Speaker 1: can have facts to back you up with, you know,
Speaker 1: justifying your claims exactly. And the same thing if you're
Speaker 1: you know, negotching your salary. And this one might be
Speaker 1: a little bit harder because you've got to turn the
Speaker 1: lens on yourself. You've got to know how much you
Speaker 1: are worth. So that means before you even go in
Speaker 1: for a job interview, you've got to know what other
Speaker 1: people in this position are making. Um, you know what
Speaker 1: kind of education background you're bringing to this, what your
Speaker 1: skill sets are that are that are very you know,
Speaker 1: defined and special to you because you have something to offer.
Speaker 1: When we can go for jobs, we often think, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I hope I get hired. I need a job. But
Speaker 1: you have services that you were offering to them, and
Speaker 1: that's what you've got. Our members, it's still a two
Speaker 1: way street, just like buying a car exactly, and that's
Speaker 1: all part of strategizing your approach. A lot of times
Speaker 1: with negotiations, there are two approaches you can take. You
Speaker 1: can take the more soft approach, which you would probably
Speaker 1: use in a salary negotiation situation where you know you
Speaker 1: don't want to UM anger your you know, potential new
Speaker 1: boss by demanding to have some insanely high salary, so
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna want to work with it and a
Speaker 1: little bit more, be a little you know, a little gentler.
Speaker 1: But then if you go to the car lot, you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna want to take more of a hard approach.
Speaker 1: You're gonna say, you know what, I'm only paying fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for his car and you can take it
Speaker 1: or leave it right. And I will say, since we
Speaker 1: do have UM women's concerns that our forefront, Kristen, you
Speaker 1: don't want to be too soft with the boss, though true,
Speaker 1: because there are studies that show that women probably take
Speaker 1: UM more of a softer appotion than they need to,
Speaker 1: and they back down, whereas when men negotiate with their
Speaker 1: future by says it's just business, they're able to separate
Speaker 1: out that UM idea that they might offend the boss
Speaker 1: and play hardball and then go have drinks with the
Speaker 1: boss afterwards, whereas that's not something that women are as
Speaker 1: comfortable doing. Now, Molly, that sounds like a certain negotiation
Speaker 1: strategy that I've heard of called separating the people from
Speaker 1: the problem, And I think that that strategy is the
Speaker 1: number one things at least for me personally with negotiation
Speaker 1: that I would have to keep in mind, right, it's
Speaker 1: not personal right walking into negotiations, we might care a
Speaker 1: little bit too much about how the other person is
Speaker 1: going to perceive us, if we're going to come across
Speaker 1: as hard nosed, be words who you know who, they're
Speaker 1: just gonna bad mouth once we leave. We need to
Speaker 1: get rid of all of that. If we've done our
Speaker 1: homework and we have a strategy worked out, we need
Speaker 1: to separate what people are going to think about us
Speaker 1: from what we actually need to accomplish. And we need
Speaker 1: to do is think about what they want. Because if
Speaker 1: we get to the root of demands and not just
Speaker 1: think about positions that people hold like boss and job applicant,
Speaker 1: buy or seller, but if we get to what each
Speaker 1: person wants and how they can benefit from things. Then
Speaker 1: you can sort of make your demands so that they
Speaker 1: seem reasonable. You know, you say, well, I have all
Speaker 1: the special certification in X, so I think I should
Speaker 1: get X more dollars. And if you approach it like that,
Speaker 1: you can actually enlarge the pie if you will that
Speaker 1: you're looking at small. Let's also think about let's think
Speaker 1: about negotiation as a pie. All right, pizza pie. It
Speaker 1: could be a pizza pie. I was thinking of a
Speaker 1: blueberry pie. Excited about negotiation, I think it. So let's
Speaker 1: think of a negotiation as a pepperoni pizza for Molly's sake.
Speaker 1: And um, you know I want I want three quarters
Speaker 1: of it, but you but you don't want to get
Speaker 1: you only want to give you just a little bit
Speaker 1: if you only want to give me one slice. So
Speaker 1: they're but they're actually ways a negotiation that you can
Speaker 1: enlarge the size of that pie. You can have a
Speaker 1: pie and a l zone on the side. I know.
Speaker 1: And that's called inventing options for mutual gain. And I
Speaker 1: really like this concept of negotiation because it allows you
Speaker 1: to think of as many options as possible so that
Speaker 1: both parties can walk away satisfied. So going back to salary, negotiation.
Speaker 1: If you can't take as much of a hard lined
Speaker 1: approach with demanding you know, your fifty dollar salary, maybe
Speaker 1: you would be more satisfied with stay forty dollars and
Speaker 1: an extra week of vacation. You just expanded your pie,
Speaker 1: so it's like getting a salad with the pizza, bread
Speaker 1: sticks with the pizza. Yes, now I'm pretty distracted by
Speaker 1: the pizza, but I also think that you know, despite
Speaker 1: how much I love pizza, you've still got to be
Speaker 1: objective about it at the end of the day. And
Speaker 1: I'm not just going to settle for a pizza because
Speaker 1: they're giving me a personal pan pizza even though they
Speaker 1: know I love pizza. At the at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I'm going to keep my emotions in check
Speaker 1: and be like, even though I love pizza, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to settle for just this little amount of pizza
Speaker 1: if it's not enough for me. You have to remember
Speaker 1: how much power that you hold as a consumer, As
Speaker 1: someone who you know has job talents or whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you're negotiating for, You hold a lot of
Speaker 1: power when you walk into a negotiation situation as long
Speaker 1: as you do your homework right. So I guess the
Speaker 1: message here for all women who find negotiation a little
Speaker 1: bit scary is just to you know, do your homework right,
Speaker 1: keep the emotions out of it right. And since that's
Speaker 1: all easier said than done, why don't we end on
Speaker 1: just a few more or really scary statistics. Kristen, Well
Speaker 1: this one. If this does not convince you that you
Speaker 1: need to start negotiating, I really don't know what will.
Speaker 1: Because Molly, women who consistently negotiate their own salary earn
Speaker 1: at least one million more dollars in their careers than
Speaker 1: women who don't. A million dollars. Well, and do you
Speaker 1: know how many pizzas that you can buy for a
Speaker 1: lot of pizza? You can eat pizza every day. I'm
Speaker 1: sold on negotiation. No more haggling for me, but for
Speaker 1: with you. I mean I will haggle now in the
Speaker 1: real world. Oh and by the way, I want twelve
Speaker 1: dollars instead of five dollars for this podcast. We'll see
Speaker 1: about that. Let's negotiate, Let's go get pizza. Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about negotiation or other business topics,
Speaker 1: you can read all about that on how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
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