Top 12 Negotiation Mistakes Women Make and What to Do About It
Lastweek Victoria organized a negotiation Q&A for CitiBank's Professional Women's group on LinkedIn, curated by the amazing community wrangler Jacky Carter. Women asked their most pressing negotiation questions, and we gave advice and direction.
One of the unexpected windfalls of the event was a flurry of hundreds of new subscribers to the Tuesday Muse, and a gazillion or so requests for training, information and resources in our email inbox (gulp!).
Great gratitude for your enthusiastic participation, and a warm welcome to all of you.
The CitiBank group is 156,000 strong and here's the link if you'd like to join:
And here's a link to to the Q&A:
http://tinyurl.com/l63xeee
We want to share some of the most common mistakes, assumptions and behaviors we gleaned from the day and help you avoid them.
the don'ts
Failing to research your market value in advance of your compensation conversation.
Going in to a negotiation focusing solely on salary, and forgetting to put benefits and perks on the table as moving parts to use as bargaining chips.
Underestimating your own authority, ability and strengths.
Discounting your lifetime experience, skills and strengths when making a move to a new department or job with a new learning curve.
Assuming you know what the opposition wants.
Overestimating your opponent's knowledge of your weaknesses.
Becoming intimidated by your opponent's prestige, rank, title or educational accomplishments.
Being overly influenced by traditions, precedents, statistics, forecasts, or cultural icons and taboos.
Negotiating against yourself by asking for a raise and following it up with something like, "but I'm willing to negotiate."
Accepting a promotion and additional responsibilities without asking for the obvious well-deserved raise.
Failing to be proactive and waiting for your boss to make an offer, or make good on a promise of a raise or promotion.
Thinking you can't re-negotiate when you've accepted an offer that's truly below market, or against your financial best interests, or clearly not aligned with what others in similar positions are making.
the dos
Take heart. These mistakes or behaviors are easily corrected. Here are some resources to get you started:
Most of you already know about the many free resources on our page here. If you don't, download to your heart's content. The list includes, "Sourcing and Researching Your True Market Value," "Negotiation Prep Worksheet," among others.
You can also get our immensely affordable (as in 25 bucks) online video tutorials at Lynda.com. More info here.
Next, we've just added a couple of Mastermind Groups starting in September, and you can find more info here.
Finally, we'll be launching a free monthly Google Hangout Q&A series soon, so be on the lookout for an announcement soon.
Anything you'd like to add to the DON'T list? The DO list? As always, we look forward to hearing from you!