Dealonomics

Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, American author and humorist; 1835–1910)

Recently I had the privilege of delivering a lecture at a business schools association conference. Attendance at the conference had been stable for many years, but this conference saw attendance down by more than 50 per cent. The bad economy meant that people simply couldn’t afford the minimal entrance fee, even though it bought them a superb lunch.

In general, the lecture rooms were half full at most, but mine was bursting at the seams. There wasn’t even standing room. Why? Am I a spellbinding lecturer? I wish that were the case. People were in my lecture because of the subject matter – they wanted to pick up every tip they could on negotiating salary packages and contracts.

All the lectures I have presented over the last few years show the same trend. Negotiating salaries and contracts is a burning issue.

But what do you absolutely need to know before you even begin the ‘more’ conversation? That is what we explore in this chapter.

Have you ever heard of Sutton’s Law? It is a ‘law’ used in medicine and other diagnostic fields (such as information technology). Sutton’s Law says that when someone is diagnosing a disease or a problem, they should first look for the most obvious cause of the problem. Once the very obvious has been ruled out, then look for the next most obvious, and then the next, and so on. It is far more effective to work this way than to guess, or to start with an obscure diagnosis.

The law was named after Willie Sutton, a bank robber, who reputedly told a reporter that the reason he robbed banks was because ‘that’s where the money is’.

Now I’m not advocating that you head off to rob a bank if you want money. What I am saying is that if you want more money, go to the obvious source of the money. Who has the authority to give you the job, increase your salary, or renew your contract? Who has the gold, so to speak?

It should be clear from Sutton’s Law that the first step in getting what you want is to find out who obviously has the power to make the decision regarding what you want. Can you believe that this is one of the most difficult elements of business to teach?

If you ask a graduate looking for their first job the question, ‘If you want a decision to be made in business, to whom should you speak?’, they will immediately reply, ‘The boss.’ Ask a fifth-grader the same question, perhaps about a country, and they will reply, ‘The king.’

Yet time and again, experienced businesspeople, competent consultants and even owners of companies argue vociferously with me about this. They give a myriad reasons why they shouldn’t see the chief decision-maker, and why they should instead see his or her minions in middle management. But if you want a decision made, you speak to the organ-grinder, not the monkey.

Have you seen the film Highlander? It is a 1986 cult fantasy action movie starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery. The film tells the story of an age-old battle between immortal warriors, and has the tagline ‘There can be only one’. The same applies with The Golden Rule.

The subject of the Highlander was covered extensively in my book The Devil in the Deal: 50 Secrets to Successful Dealmaking, but in case you haven’t read it, the key points are summarised here for you.

There will be only one person who can make the ultimate decision about your increase or promotion or contract. Although you might be told ‘it is a human resources decision’, the Highlander holds the power to make, break or delegate the decision. The Highlander has the ‘power of veto’ – he can say ‘yes’ when everyone else says ‘no’, and ‘no’ when everyone else says ‘yes’. It is essential for you to identify the Highlander, because if things don’t go your way, you need to know where you can get the decision reviewed or overturned.

The problem? The Highlander is a busy executive. He does not want to be pestered with small issues. Highlanders, after all, have lots of people to whom they can delegate unimportant conversations and decisions. They want to focus on the highest priorities of the company.

This begs two questions: One, when should you see the Highlander? And two, what should you say when you are in front of the Highlander?

If you are looking for a job or an increase or a promotion or to renew your contract, you would in all probability only go to see the Highlander if the decision goes against you and you want it reviewed or changed, or you are not getting a decision at all.

There are big consequences, however, in going to the Highlander that you must factor into your decision on whether or not to approach him.

The most important consideration is that you will undoubtedly annoy the person who has given the decision you don’t want (let’s call the person a ‘blocker’). You have to make a judgement call. Do you go over the blocker’s head and damage that relationship but potentially (and it is only potentially) get what you are after, or do you accept the unfavourable decision? Both have consequences.

However, if you do go over the blocker’s head, you will probably make an enemy of the blocker and this could seriously damage your career path in the company. If you are not already in a company or have no relationship with the company, you may well take this risk. In short, you need to decide whether it is less costly to accept the decision or fight it.

There is another option. Assuming you are already in the company, you could try to get the blocker’s support for you to see the Highlander. This is not as difficult as it may sound. To win the blocker’s support, you need to show the blocker that it is to his or her benefit for you see the Highlander. You could, for example, say to the blocker that you intend to tell the Highlander about how helpful the blocker has been in your career to date, or how committed the blocker is to mentoring his or her team, or something similar.

You may think that this is being manipulative. It is, but manipulation is not necessarily a bad quality. Ask the question: ‘What is my motive?’ If the manipulation does not harm anyone, then how can it be negative? Manipulation is just a form of selling that uses an emotional hot button rather than the more accepted ‘features and benefits’.

If you are uncomfortable with manipulation, then find a method with which you are comfortable that shows the blocker how he will benefit from your seeing the Highlander.

Never go into the Highlander’s office without a valid business reason for doing so, unless you have a personal relationship with the Highlander. That is the only exception. The business reason for seeing them needs to be valid to the Highlander, not to you. And never, ever go into the meeting unprepared.

Senior executives are busy people. They do not like their time to be wasted. One of the reasons executives employ blockers is to protect them from time-wasters.

The Highlander is interested in the impact on the organisation of whatever it is that you want. This impact is the valid business reason, which would typically be along the lines of:

You need to be able to tie the value in giving you the raise or promotion or position to one of the five points above. It takes a lot of thought and preparation to be able to do this, but if you are serious about getting what you want, you will put in the time and the effort. A final comment. It is a person that makes the decision to hire, fire, promote or engage with you, not ‘the company’. ‘The company’ is just a collection of people making decisions. If you can figure out who will make what decisions about you, and have value conversations with those individuals, the likelihood of you getting what you want increases exponentially.

Presenting value, and specifically your unique value, is addressed throughout this book.

Life is not fair. You know this now and you knew it when you were a child. From an early age, you would have exhibited an innate appreciation for equity and fairness. You would have, without training or prompting, shouted, ‘It’s not fair!’ if you felt justice was not being served.

If you don’t expect life to be fair, you will never be disappointed. People who don’t deserve it will earn more than you, or be promoted before you. You will be blamed for things that are not your fault, and someone won’t like you for no good reason. Can you change these situations? Not often. So what can you do?

Start with taking a look at your attitude. Are you being a victim and expecting everything to be fair? How regularly do you find yourself blaming something, or someone, else for your problems? Blaming other people or even other forces (for example, ‘I’m so unlucky’) is one of the single biggest indicators of a ‘victim mentality’. If you think you have a victim mindset, you will need to get help and support to break out of this trap. Speak to a professional or read recommended self-help books. A poor attitude is the quickest way to damage your chances of getting what you want.

Eleanor Roosevelt (American humanitarian and first lady; 1884–1962) said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’ This quote works on two levels.

Firstly, if you believe others are putting you down or treating you unfairly, it is because you are allowing them to treat you in this way.

Secondly, the opposite of a victim is someone who is self-aware, and someone who is self-aware recognises that they can accept being put down, or not. If you refuse to feel inferior when someone is putting you down, you give that person no power over you.

Back to life being a bitch. Did you know that people who are overweight or short earn less than those who are slim or tall?

The Obesity Society published the following findings of research on their website www.obesity.org (edited):

Experimental studies have found that when a résumé is accompanied by a picture or video of an overweight person (compared to an ‘average’ weight person), the overweight applicant is rated more negatively and is less likely to be hired. Other research shows that overweight employees are ascribed multiple negative stereotypes including being lazy, sloppy, less competent, lacking in self-discipline, disagreeable, less conscientious, and poor role models. In addition, overweight employees may suffer wage penalties, as they tend to be paid less for the same jobs, are more likely to have lower-paying jobs, and are less likely to be promoted than thin people with the same qualifications.

Further investigation shows, however, that men who are very thin earn less than men who are hefty, but this trend reverses if the man is obese (obesity is measured by the BMI (Body Mass Index) scale, which is basically when someone is very overweight with a high degree of body fat). Poor Salaryman.

On the subject of height, a study titled ‘Does Size Matter in Australia?’, published in 2010 by Economic Record, shows that taller men earn more money than their shorter counterparts simply because taller people are perceived to be more intelligent and powerful.

The study goes on to say that taller people, particularly men, earn more money, with every five centimetres of height being worth about AUD950 per annum. It elaborates further:

There is a wonderful television show called Drop Dead Diva about a beautiful female model who dies and is immediately reincarnated into the body of a robustly large female lawyer. If you haven’t seen the series, Google pictures of Brooke Elliott, who plays Jane Bingum, the lawyer.

Although technically obese, Brooke is exquisitely groomed and graceful and has a beautiful smile. She is completely captivating and no doubt overcomes any of the stereotypes to which she is subjected.

Superficial judgements are not fair, but you do not have to be a victim. Get to grips with the factors you can control – and ‘first impressions’ is one of those controllable factors – and fix them. If you are not sure how to make these changes, the next chapter gives you plenty of advice.

An old adage says one should never judge a book by its cover; that is, we should not form quick opinions, as they may be wrong – but making swift judgements is exactly what we do.

In this age of information overload, if we don’t make snap decisions or scan documents, we fall further and further behind in terms of the material we need to see and decisions we need to make. Unfortunately, this transfers to evaluating people on the basis of a quick glance, so the first impressions we project really do matter.

Another old cliché, proven again recently by a team of psychologists from Canada, Belgium and the United States, says, ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression.’ There are plenty of articles available on the internet about creating a decent first impression, so I’m not going into detail here, but I will direct you towards a couple of websites:

Make those first impressions count because, like it or not, your appearance and the impression you create influence many facets of your career and life.

Have you ever thought about yourself as a product or a brand? Now is the time. In hiring or promotion decisions, or awarding business contracts, you are what someone is buying. So how do you rate as a brand?

To earn a higher salary package, get the promotion or secure a job that has dozens of applicants, you can’t position brand You as a commodity. You have to be seen as a unique and differentiated product. How should you package yourself? How can you make sure the buyer of brand You sees a quality brand?

Here are a few simple, practical ways in which to start developing brand You, modified from my book Work Diva: How to Climb the Corporate Ladder without Selling Your Soul.

The first and most important part of marketing yourself as a quality product is to understand your outstanding qualities, strengths and attributes, as well as where you are not so strong. No point in living in a fool’s paradise and pretending you have no negatives. Recognise your ‘weaknesses’, but concentrate on your strengths. It is being brilliant in a couple of areas that will make you stand out from the crowd, rather than being okay in lots of places.

A helpful exercise is a SWOT analysis, where you write down all your personal Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (using a table like the one on page 25). Be as objective and as honest as you can. Focus on what makes your brand different to, and better than, those around you. Your aim, after all, is to be an exclusive and differentiated product that can demand a higher price. An obvious example mentioned above is height. If you are tall, put it on your Strengths list.

Strengths and Weaknesses need to be about you, while the Opportunities and Threats are external to you. They represent the market into which you are selling your product.

When you have written down all your Strengths and Weaknesses, analyse what makes you different to, and stand out from, your competition. What would make someone choose You over another brand? The output from this analysis represents your unique value, and shows the reasons why you should get the job or raise or promotion or contract. You need to emphasise these strengths when you meet with the person responsible for making the decision to give you what you want.

Once you have recognised your strongest and most competitive qualities, decide on which market you want to target. Who would want to hire or promote someone with your specific capabilities? Make a list of all the people or companies you would like to work with or for, as well as the types of positions you want to hold.

If one of your strengths is your ability to work in a team, to comply with best practice or to understand political alignment, then you are probably best suited to working in a corporate or other structured environment.

If you are more entrepreneurial and see yourself as a mover-and-shaker or self-starter, then you may do very well in your own business (or a small business) and need to find a backer or funding.

The more specific you can be about your target, the more successful your marketing campaign for brand You is likely to be. It is in identifying your target market that you make the most use of the Opportunities and Threats identified in your SWOT analysis.

Look closely at what could hinder or derail your marketing campaign. Decide on a plan of action to maximise each Strength and Opportunity, and to address and overcome each possible Weakness and Threat. Detail is important, so don’t skimp on how you intend to achieve your action plan.

A few years ago, the marketing manager for a cigarette company attended a one of my company’s dealmaking programmes. When the break came, I noticed he was not smoking. It turned out he was a non-smoker. ‘How, then, did you get your position?’ I asked. He told me he had presented a list of his ‘strengths’ and ‘weaknesses’ at the interview. Here is an example of what he prepared:

A good book to read on the subject of defining a market for yourself is Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. The book looks at how to create unique markets and is easy to apply to product You.

After analysing product You and determining your target markets, take a long, hard look at the packaging of your product. Do you have a high price tag (you are asking for a high salary or a senior position) but look like a bargain-basement special? What changes do you need to make to the presentation of your product? This, again, is a time for honesty. First impressions count.

When you need input, don’t be too proud to ask for help from someone you respect. Be sure not to get defensive when they give you their feedback, as you are, after all, asking for constructive criticism.

If you have nobody to ask for this kind of input, you can self-evaluate. Imagine yourself entering a room for a panel interview or an important cocktail party. What impression do you make? What do people think of you when they see you? Do they see a porn star or the new head of marketing? What do you want them to think? Make the changes you need to make and hit the marketing trail.

If you want to be the Rolex and not the Swatch, you need to look and act the part. The clothes you choose, your grooming in general, the words you use, the books you read, the company you keep – all these factors contribute to creating impressions that influence the way in which other people perceive You.

When you are serious about getting what you want, send out this message via your appearance and presence – your packaging.

You may be thinking to yourself that in a bad economy, being a high-end product is not a good idea. Your thinking would be incorrect. At the end of August 2012, Johann Rupert, Executive Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer of Richemont, stated (edited):

The Richemont group includes brands such as Montblanc, Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Panerai, to name a few.

Now that you know what you have to crow about, where you want to be crowing and how to present the cockerel, it’s time to start promoting your feathers. Very few of us are lucky enough to have someone doing our marketing or advertising for us, so we have to rely on self-promotion to get noticed – if people don’t know who you are or how fantastic you are, how can they possibly consider hiring or promoting you?

A fine line exists between being an egocentric braggart and promoting oneself, but now is not the time for false modesty.

It is possible to sell yourself with pride but retain your humility. If you are able to demonstrate your unique value in a way that communicates your talents without coming across as arrogant or conceited – an ‘I(Eye)-Specialist’ (I can do this and I know that and when I was wherever) – you will be able to market yourself to great effect.

The best way to illustrate your value is to give examples of where or how you have contributed to a business in some way. And if you are presenting to the Highlander, this sort of value-based language will have tremendous appeal.

Women, unfortunately, have to work harder at promoting themselves and establishing their credentials than their male counterparts. Such is the world (nobody said it would be fair).

Once your product hits the stores, in a manner of speaking, you need to be constantly evaluating the quality product You delivers. Is your brand still current, attractive and in vogue? Is your value still unique, or do you need to add more features? Is your target market the same, or should you be looking for a new, fresh market?

To improve the quality of your product, you need to be prepared to learn from your mistakes and to make changes in order to ensure that you continue to attract your chosen buyers. Keep in touch with your market – make sure they don’t forget about who you are and the perfect, unique contribution that only You can make.

Henry Ford (American industrialist; 1863–1947) is incorrectly credited for inventing the first motor car. He was the founder of the Ford Motor Company, which sponsored the development of the assembly-line technique. Ford’s Model T was the first mass-produced car in the world.

For your interest, the very first automobile, a working steam-powered vehicle, was designed by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China circa 1672. It was unable to carry a driver or a passenger. Karl Benz (German engine designer and car engineer; 1844–1929) is generally regarded as the inventor of the modern gasoline-powered automobile.

Mr Ford is also renowned for his many statements. One of his more profound sayings was, ‘Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.’ Being the right-winger he was, this may have had another meaning, but the common interpretation is: Whatever you believe will happen, will happen.

There is no specific law or rule called Ford’s Rule, but his theory deserves a law, so here you have it.

All too often I meet people who say, ‘I don’t have the skills to get the deal.’ The problem is Ford’s Rule – if you believe you can’t get what you want, then you can’t. So not only are these people invoking Ford’s Rule, but they are also talking nonsense. All people are born with dealmaking instincts and skills, so they can get the deals they want.

This triggers Ford’s Anti-Rule. If you were born with the skills, you have them whether you acknowledge them or not.

The evidence to support almost everyone being a born dealmaker is overwhelming, although the majority of us lose traces of this early on in our lives. If you want proof, ask anyone with children between the ages of three and nine whether they think their little ones are born negotiators or not.

Two of the skills central to dealmaking are selling and negotiating. Children are consummate manipulators and ruthless traders. What are tantrums, begging and sulking designed to do, if not to get the child what it wants?

Children peak as dealmakers between the ages of five and seven. Try getting a six-year-old to go to bed if this is not what he or she wants to do. They can think up endless reasons for staying up, or might beg for five more minutes, or will ask for a vast range of rewards in exchange for going to bed.

Look closely and you will see these same qualities in the world’s leading dealmakers, and in the Forbes list of richest people.

If we are born with dealmaking abilities, why, and when, do we lose these skills?

Youngsters let go of their persistent negotiating and persuading during primary school. For children to adapt to school life, and because of their initial natural willingness to please their teachers, they start to conform to ‘the system’. You can’t have the teacher say, ‘Class, sit down,’ and have little Johnny reply, ‘Only if you give me five more minutes of break.’

When children unwittingly buy into ‘the system’, they lose their inherent trading skills – they stop expecting to get something in return for giving the other person what they want. By the time they meet the next real ‘system’, commonly called ‘business’, their dealmaking abilities are long gone.

To get what you want, you need to use the same approach as a child and have lots of options in your back pocket. If your pleading for an increase is rejected, pull out another proposal, and another, and another. It’s not nuclear physics – your average six-year-old knows how to get what he wants.

But what happens when you come up against a professional who closes deals every day, like the human resources person with whom you need to discuss your salary package? The person who practises daily will be more fluid and probably more confident. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn the rules of the game, or know when to play which shots, or depend on that one brilliant strength you possess.

The key to getting what you want from an experienced negotiator is planning, and in planning, you will find your power. Professionals use their skills every day and therefore have confidence in them. You, however, can play an equally good game using different tactics – but you have to plan and practise those tactics. More about this in the next chapter.

In Ford’s Anti-Rule, I posited that everyone is born with dealmaking skills, and that being born with these skills enables you to sell and negotiate. These are only two of the qualities that characterise a dealmaker, but these two are the most important.

When I began writing about dealmakers in the early 2000s, the only formal references I could find described brokers (house sales and stock trading) and dealers of cards in casinos. A few people may still see dealmaking as ‘wheeling and dealing’, but the world has changed and ‘dealmakers’ are now an acceptable – even an elite – group in business. I like to believe that my company and I have played a significant part in this change.

You may be thinking that ‘negotiating’ and ‘dealmaking’ are almost the same, or that selling and marketing are similar. To correct this perception before we go any further, let’s distinguish between dealmakers and negotiators, and then look at sales and marketing.

To promote ‘dealmakers’ as bona fide business experts, my organisation, The Dealmaker Programmes Company, developed a definition of a ‘dealmaker’. The formal definitions that exist are as useful as a solar-powered torch. Here is how Encarta Concise English Dictionary defines a ‘dealmaker’: ‘Somebody who arranges deals, especially in business or politics’. Really?

A dealmaker’s key skills are negotiation, selling, communication and the ability to leverage power. The good news is that you will be armed with all of these skills by the end of this book.

If our definition of a dealmaker was stripped down to a single sentence, this is how it would read: ‘A dealmaker is someone who is able to get what they want by using a finely-tuned set of skills’, which is the essence of dealonomics.

Now that you understand the art of a being a dealmaker, what is a negotiator?

The formal definitions were again not much use, so my company formulated the following description:

The key difference between a dealmaker and a negotiator? A dealmaker uses a range of skills, including negotiating, to get the deal they want, whereas a negotiator is specifically skilled in trading to close the deal.

Essentially, the dealmaker takes a holistic view of the deal and uses the skills or alternative strategies that will be most effective in closing the deal, whereas the negotiator focuses on quid pro quo (give to get) to close.

Encarta Concise English Dictionary describes the process of selling as ‘the activity or process of persuading (which is defined as ‘to successfully urge someone to perform a particular action, especially by reasoning, pleading, or coaxing’) people to buy a product or service’.

Their definition of ‘marketing’ is ‘the business activity of presenting products or services in such a way as to make them desirable’.

So if the two are combined, the marketer makes the product look really attractive for the marketplace, then the salesperson takes it to someone in the market and convinces them to buy the product. These are two very different sets of skills.

You need to be able to prepare product You for sale, but unless you have sales skills, product You is going nowhere.

Because selling is so important, my company created a unique definition for this vital skill:

Charles M. Schwab (American steel magnate and one of the men who ‘broke the bank in Monte Carlo’; 1862–1939) highlighted the importance of sales with his comment: ‘We are all salesmen every day of our lives. We are selling our ideas, our plans, our enthusiasms to those with whom we come in contact.’

Without the ability to negotiate and sell, we would get nowhere in life. We would not have any friends or be able find a life partner, nor secure a job or buy a house. You see the pattern?

We are born with dealmaking skills for a reason, just as a baby Komodo dragon is born with the instinct to look for predators as it emerges from its eggshell. These instricts are pivotal to our survival. Our inherent dealmaking skills enable us to interact with, and be part of, the world in which we exist.

People, however, often lack the confidence or experience to use their negotiating and selling skills to full advantage. They have forgotten what brilliant dealmakers they were when they were six years old. If you are lucky enough to still have parents, go and ask them to describe you at age six. See what I mean?

For those of you who cling to the war cry, ‘I can’t!’ you are going to learn the essentials of negotiating and selling in the next few minutes of reading. Ford’s Anti-Rule applies!

If you are one of the sentient beings who recognises that you have negotiating and selling skills but would like to refresh or improve them, read on.

A question for you: What is the world’s oldest profession? Answer? If you said prostitution, you have a dirty mind. If you said negotiation, you would be on the money. The prostitute had to learn to negotiate before she (or he) could become a ‘professional’. They had to learn to trade – to sell their body for an agreed payment. The payment may have been chickens, chopped wood or an early form of legal tender, but whatever the currency of the transaction, trading took place.

Since time immemorial people have been trading – bartering at the market, giving this to get that, paying money for a product, promising favours for favours. The list is endless.

Knowing that you were born with negotiating skills, and knowing that negotiating is the world’s oldest profession, surely you can recognise that trading is actually quite easy. Our human ‘intelligence’, though, complicates the subject.

To comprehend your amazing trading skills, let’s start by comparing negotiating with selling. You have already read my company’s definitions for negotiating and selling. At first glance you may have thought that they seem pretty similar, but have another look. There are two important variances:

Firstly, negotiation is all about trading – or quid pro quo, or something for something, whereas selling emphasises the use of persuasion to get what you want.

Secondly, negotiation is about accommodating any differences the parties may have, while selling requires the overcoming of these differences.

To be able to trade, which is the aptitude every good negotiator needs, you should approach your deal like a child – with lots and lots of variables (or incentives or marbles or carrots or sticks or concessions) in your back pocket. If part of your proposal is rejected, present a new option. Have an unlimited supply of items to give so that you can get what you want.

This is exactly what you should do when you negotiate your salary package. If the company is not prepared to give you the salary for which you are asking, then take as much cash as you can get, and supplement the package with different types of leave, an upgraded car, shorter working hours, a different split of fixed cash to bonus, whatever – until you get to the package value you originally wanted. A six-year-old gets it.

Don’t panic. How to come up with these variables, and how to present them, is at the heart of this book.

Pretend for the moment that you are a financial manager for a large company. One of your colleagues has left the company, and you have taken over his responsibilities. Your boss has told you that your colleague is not going to be replaced, and that he (the boss) has been impressed with how you have handled the additional workload. You should be happy with the recognition alone, right? Wrong.

You want an increase. You are working longer hours than ever before, and the new responsibilities put you in the firing line if anything goes wrong with the company’s accounting compliance. You know that the economy is bad and that your company has been withholding annual salary increases and cutting expenses, but you figure they are saving your ex-colleague’s whole salary, and you only want a small amount of it as an increase. You have presented your argument to your boss, but he has postponed making a decision. It is now a new week and you have a meeting with your boss to continue the discussion.

You:	As you know, I have assumed a lot more responsibility and risk recently, and my workload has almost doubled. Although I am prepared to work longer hours to keep on top of my bigger portfolio, I would like an increase of 20 per cent, backdated to when I took over my colleague’s responsibilities.
Boss:	I am pleased with your work, but as you know, the company only reviews salaries once a year. You will have to wait until then for a review. Now what? The boss is throwing the rule book – or terms and conditions – at you. Do you resign because you can’t get what you want? Or do you give in because your boss is taking a firm position? No, you think (not behave) like a six-year-old.
You:	Well, if you can only give me an increase in seven months’ time, then I can either give back my colleague’s work to the department head for the next seven months, or we can review my benefits effective now. I have a few ideas I would like to present to you.
Boss:	I’m disappointed with your attitude. I would expect you to understand that the company is struggling in this difficult market and that you would come to the party. Stymied again. The boss is now manipulating you. What is your next move? Do you walk away or execute on your threat? No, you keep going like a six-year-old. You make a new proposal.
You:	Let me tell you what I had in mind, because I’m sure you will see that it takes into account the difficulties the company is facing, and offers a solution everyone will find acceptable.
Boss:	Shoot.
You:	If you can increase my annual leave by three working days, and give me a more private space in which to work, and the company pays my cell phone bill in full, then I am happy to keep the extra work and wait seven months for my salary to be reviewed.
Boss:	The company may not like the risk of an unlimited cell phone bill. Let’s put a cap on your cell phone expenses of whatever it was last month, plus 50 per cent. The boss has stopped blocking you and started trading with you, so you are probably getting closer to a deal. You now need to take stock of the value you are trading. You realise that the benefits you want, with the limitation on your cell phone, amount to a bit less than 20 per cent over the next seven months. You need to improve your deal a bit. Time for the six-year-old again.
You:	If you agree to review my salary in seven months’ time, and increase my annual leave by three working days, and give me a more private space, and the company pays for a subscription to a financial magazine of my choice, then I’m happy with the cap on my cell phone expenses.
Boss:	I will choose the magazine. Deal closed.

Not that difficult as a concept, is it? Okay, you didn’t get the increase you wanted now, but by being flexible you got enough in terms of other incentives to compensate for the delayed increase.

But be warned, you need to prepare in order to be able to think on your feet. It was Mark Twain, my favourite wit, who quipped, ‘It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.’ The more variables you can find to entice the other party, the more interest they will have in doing the deal you want. Variables give you far more control and power over your deals.

Another word of caution: there is no point in offering something to someone that is of no interest to them. Would you offer a lion a carrot or a piece of meat? To get your boss’s attention in the above example, you needed to give him what he wanted (which was for you to do the work of two people and the company to save money) in order for you to get what you wanted (a better salary package). You would have been wasting everyone’s time if you had offered to do the office flowers instead of the extra financial work.

In a nutshell, negotiation is about giving to get – or quid pro quo, or trading, bartering, haggling, exchanging. You give the other person what they want on condition that you get what you want in return.

The downside of negotiating is that you have to make concessions – you have to give to get, whereas in selling you simply have to convince the other party to give you what you want.

There is one word in negotiation that crops up all the time, and that is the word ‘if ’ – if you give me more leave, I will accept a lower salary; if you want a cheaper price, then I need a longer contract; if you release the hostages, then we will withdraw our snipers.

This may sound like horse-trading, but using the word ‘if ’ ensures that conditional giving to get takes place. This is, after all, what characterises negotiation.

Another very important point about negotiating: Encarta Concise English Dictionary describes ‘negotiation’ as ‘resolving of disagreements; the reaching of agreement through discussion and compromise’. Compromise? It must be a joke, right? ‘Compromise’, according to the Encarta Concise English Dictionary, is the ‘agreement; settlement of a dispute in which two or more sides agree to accept less than they originally wanted’.

No self-respecting negotiator goes into a deal intending to leave with less than they want. They go into the deal with the full intention of being as flexible as a six-year-old, but not through compromise. Good negotiators will ensure that they get the package they want by being flexible and creative around the various components of the package.

Compromise, or middle ground, is a custody battle over a child where the child is cut in half so that both parents get an equal share. Flexibility is agreeing to have custody of the child half the time, on certain conditions, like one party has the child every December and the other gets the child every April. Compromise is a foul word.

To be a great dealmaker, to get what you want in business, you must be able to sell – or persuade or convince someone to pick you or your products. Does this make you think of Donkey in the movie Shrek? ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ yells Donkey, played by Eddie Murphy. Whether you are promoting your unique expertise, knowledge and value, or selling your company’s products, you are selling – asking to be picked.

‘Selling’ is not a swear word. You must be able to sell. What I can’t understand is why selling is not the number-one subject taught in business schools. We cannot survive in business, or in life, for that matter, if we are not able to sell.

Without the ability to sell, you will not function properly in life. Without selling, you won’t get that job you want, or the promotion, or the big contract you are after. You can’t sit there and hope that someone will notice you and choose you to be their bride or friend or employee. You have to sell yourself. You have to be able to convince someone else – whether through your verbal, physical, sexual or intellectual skills – that you are who they want.

A case in point: My husband and I were on our daily walk (more like a route march, given that he is ex-military) around our suburb. These early-morning adventures give us the opportunity to chat. I had an issue in my craw that I wanted to raise with him, and the walk offered neutral ground. My man had overachieved at work by almost 200 per cent, but the powers-that-be were deliberating whether he qualified for an incentive trip or not.

My husband is a great mentor and motivator. He shares his success with those around him – which is all good and well – but he does not give himself enough credit. His self-promotion is, in my opinion, very poor. My beef with him was that if he had sold the exceptional contribution he made to the success of the company properly, his bosses would not have hesitated in awarding him the incentive trip. He gave far too much credit to people who may or may not have deserved it, and did not take enough credit for himself.

Don’t be afraid of selling yourself in the world of work. I’m not suggesting that you have to take a job as a salesperson or become a pain-in-the-ass windbag; just appreciate that a part of whatever you do in business will involve selling in some shape or form.

There was a small but vital comment about selling in the negotiating section above that you may have missed. Here it is again. The downside of negotiating is that you have to make concessions, whereas in selling you simply have to convince the other party to give you what you want.

While this statement is true, you may remember the earlier definition of selling that said that you have to overcome the other party’s objections. This is not always that easy, especially if the other person’s viewpoint is driven by a strong emotional or personal agenda. Then it can be very difficult to convince them to do what you want them to do, regardless of your selling capabilities. Emotion, ego and greed make people behave irrationally, and irrational behaviour causes conflict. In situations of conflict, negotiation is the best tool to pull out of the toolbox.

In Ireland, many years ago, I kissed the Blarney Stone in the hope of becoming a smooth talker. When I got back home, I decided to take my newly and dubiously acquired skills out for a spin. The more I practised persuading, the more success I had. Some people are better than others at selling, but if you practise enough, your ability will improve. You were, after all, born with this skill.

To relearn your selling skills, attend a sales course or two, read a few books, hang out with salespeople (found in fun places), or ask an expert salesperson to mentor you. If truth be told, salespeople do like to show off a teensy-weensy bit.

The ability to convince people to give you what you want means that you can rely less on the more difficult skills of negotiating and leveraging power, and take the easier sales route.

Selling and negotiating are intertwined in the business world, and both form an integral part of dealmaking.

Another practical example. Picture yourself looking for a new position – something with more responsibility, a better title and a far higher salary package.

Your conversation with a prospective employer will usually begin with you selling yourself. Assume this gets you onto the short list. You will then start to move between selling and negotiating. Pretend you are now being offered the position. Eventually you will be negotiating far more than you will be selling. Selling usually opens a deal, and negotiation closes it.

A competent dealmaker can move seamlessly between negotiation and selling, and then back, and then forwards, and back and forwards and back and forwards – much like a professional tango dancer.

Being able to sell enables you to get what you want without having to give up much. To be offered employment, or a contract, or friendship, or a deal, someone somewhere has been convinced to pick You.

Rational Choice Theory is, in simple terms, a model used to understand social and economic behaviour. The theory states that people want more, rather than less, of objects they value. The word ‘rational’ is used in the economic sense here. It suggests that an individual balances costs against benefits to choose the actions or objects that maximise the individual’s personal advantage.

Rational Choice Theory is closely linked with Subjective Value Theory, which is another economic concept. It identifies worth (value) as being based on the wants and needs of individuals, rather than on the actual value of the object itself. This is closer to the social interpretation of ‘rational’.

To get what you want in business, you will repeatedly have to sell (persuade) and negotiate (trade). Negotiating can be expensive when you are dealing with high-value or high-cost items, and selling can be time-consuming and becomes problematic if egos and emotions are involved.

Consequently, you often need to try other ways in which to get what you want. This is where Rational Choice Theory can be applied.

When it comes to dealmaking, you also need to think through the various options available to you. Here is a list of the most common of the choices:

The easiest way to illustrate how to choose from this powerhouse catalogue is by using an example. Anyone who read Deal Diva: How to Negotiate Your Way to Success without Selling Your Soul or The Devil in the Deal should recognise the pattern in the following situation.

Picture the scene. You have finally been promoted at work to executive head of marketing. It’s your dream job, but you have made plenty of sacrifices and worked extremely hard to get the position. Your salary package is very good, and the company is promising you a seat on the board of directors if you achieve certain objectives.

While most of the objectives are within your reach, you are also required to obtain an Advanced Marketing Diploma from your company. It is equivalent to an internal MBA degree. You will have to invest the equivalent of one week of your own time every month for the next two years to studying. If you don’t get the diploma for any reason, your job could be in jeopardy. Your biggest challenge is that you have a spouse and a young son, and with the demands of the new job and having to study at night, you will not be able to see much of them over the next two years. Spending time with your family is far more important to you than getting some diploma. What options do you have to get your boss to drop the diploma objective?

You now know that if you can persuade someone to let you have what you want, you will usually not have to make any sacrifices or give any concessions. So, first prize would be to convince your boss that you do not need the diploma. What could you say to your boss? Your arguments would range from the importance of your focus being entirely on the job over the next few years, to how your years of experience and existing qualifications make the diploma redundant, or how the company should not be spending the money on your studies at the moment, to the loss of productivity if you need to divert your attention away from your business goals. Will the boss buy your arguments? Possibly, so it’s worth a try.

You could also manipulate your boss by telling him that you want to achieve the job objectives as it adds to the success of his portfolio, or that the money spent on your diploma could be better used sponsoring a disadvantaged child to go to university. Don’t be sanctimonious about manipulation. There are times when it is extremely useful.

Persuasion costs you time – it might take a while to convince your boss that the diploma is unnecessary. If you are running out of time, or the situation is becoming emotional, you may want to try negotiation.

Negotiation is about trading – about giving to get. What could you offer your boss in return for his removing the diploma from your objectives? You could offer to take on more responsibilities, or to assist with one of your boss’s projects so that he has more time for golf, or to create a mentorship programme within the company, or to lecture for the diploma course. You would offer whatever was of value to your boss.

What could the cost of this be to you? You might be committing to something that extends you too far, or is beyond your level of competence, or ends up taking more time than the studies.

You may have deduced that negotiation sounds quite similar to bribery – and you would be correct. There is only one difference between negotiation and bribery: the latter is seen in a negative light.

According to the general (as opposed to legal) definitions of ‘bribery’, it is not necessarily illegal – it’s about ethics: one man’s bribery is another man’s negotiation.

Dr Donald ‘Ducky’ Mallard (played by Scottish actor David McCallum; 1933–) put this more succinctly when he said, in the NCIS televisions series, ‘The ethical man knows he shouldn’t cheat on his wife, whereas the moral man actually wouldn’t.’ Is bribery unethical, or immoral, or neither, or both?

You would never stoop to bribery, right? Answer this question: What do you offer your children in exchange for eating their vegetables? Or to someone for lending you their car? Or to your partner for taking you out for dinner? Or your teenager for cleaning his room? (Incidentally, teenagers respond very well to bribery.)

At what point does negotiation become bribery? You need to draw your own line in the sand based on your value system, but I use the following delineation: if offering somebody something in exchange for getting what I want is going to lead to trouble with the law, my family or friends, my customers or colleagues, it is the wrong side of negotiation.

‘Blackmail’ is a form of negotiation that contains a threat or disincentive (a stick rather than a carrot). If someone doesn’t do x for you, then y will happen to them. It is similar to bribery, but the upside is that the other person gets to avoid an unpleasant outcome, rather than receive a reward. Extortion is illegal.

For example, if your boss does not drop the diploma objective, you will leak that he spends every Wednesday playing golf, not in a strategy meeting with the company’s biggest client.

A proposal containing a disincentive is never first prize, as it can seriously harm relationships. As with the ethical versus moral line on where bribery becomes problematic: if in doubt, steer clear.

Back to the ‘new position must study’ example. Another possibility would be for you to simply accept your boss’s objectives – roll over and study. This has a price, too. What is the cost of foregoing the time with your family? Will your spouse leave you? Or does it reduce your power relative to that of your boss? Will you ever get your own way again? Will your boss respect you for simply giving in and showing no perseverance or backbone?

Although it is not always measurable, the penalty for surrendering is potentially massive. It can also set a dangerous precedent. You need to decide whether this is a better option than negotiating with your boss or not. Your call, but surrender should not be your first, or even fifth, choice.

The opposite to surrendering would be to defy your boss and not do the diploma. You could get the support of your boss’s superior for what you want, or get a stay of execution from the dean of the internal university, or give your place at the university to someone else.

Taking the ‘conquer’ route, like the ‘surrender’ option, could have serious consequences. What will the price of this be to your relationship? Will your boss fire or demote you? Could he make your life a misery? Conquering would have been your grandfather’s preferred choice.

Dealmakers will only ‘conquer’ if they hold all the power and believe they will hold it for a long time to come. Think Robert Mugabe.

A further avenue available to you would be to ‘postpone’. You could delay the studying for a bit, or hold back on having the study discussion until your boss is in a good mood. Postponing is a favourite tactic of mine. I’m happy to postpone in order to give myself more time to think, or to wait for the balance of power to shift in my favour.

Postponement does not work if there is a possibility of the power moving away from you, or when you have a strict deadline to meet. It is worth considering, though, as part of a rational choice.

You already know what I think of compromise: only wimps go into a deal expecting to get less than they want. It is a choice you can make, but for me, it is the most unattractive of those available.

If you compromise, or haggle or wrangle or quibble, as it is alternatively called, it means that not only do you need to settle for less than you want, but the other party will probably not get what they want either – the value in the deal for you and for them is damaged. Women tend to compromise to avoid conflict, but running away from conflict is not the right move either.

In terms of the studying example, would it really benefit you to agree to do only one year of study and achieve half the objective? Or to miss every second month of class? With compromises of this nature, you would then have a half-happy dean, a disappointed boss and an unhappy you. What is the point?

If you choose to problem-solve, your first step would be to look at where you and your boss have common ground. You want to keep the marketing executive job and your boss wants this too. Place a tick in that box. Both of you accept that all the other objectives are important. Another tick. You and your boss want you to dedicate yourself to your new position. Tick again. You have no disputes over pay or benefits. Tick. And so it goes, until you have ticked all the boxes where you and your boss agree. What remains? The big, prickly issue of the diploma.

You have effectively removed every variable – every area of potential flexibility – from the table except the most contentious one. The problem is that the conflict is far more likely to escalate when there is only one difficult issue on the table than when you can work with, and possibly trade off, several issues. If you are in a situation of high conflict and choose problem-solving as your option, you are likely to intensify the conflict rather than resolve it.

This brings us to the subject of resolving conflict. In the real world, conflict-resolution experts are very seldom the same people as negotiation experts. These are two different fields following two distinct schools of thought and approach. As I fall into the camp of negotiation rather than conflict resolution, I am unable to offer much in the way of advice. In our example, where you and your boss want to have a decent relationship going forward, it may be advisable to engage the services of a person external to your division or company to help resolve the conflict.

Whether this is an arbitrator (someone who hears both sides of the story and then makes a decision, like a judge) or a mediator (a person who attempts to find the common ground for the parties and helps them to compromise), you would be placing your future in the hands of a third party. The cost of this, particularly if the third party is not particularly talented, may ultimately be higher than the negotiation route.

We have only explored the most common options from the list at the start of this section. Consider as many of these as you can when you’re doing a deal.

From the choices we considered in detail, which should you try first? The one that gives you what you want at the lowest cost.

This brings us back to the Rational Choice Theory. There are many routes a dealmaker can take to get the deal, but they all have a price – choose the ones that are most advantageous for you, but keep the other options in your back pocket for leverage and to adjust power.

Another useful theory is the Hick-Hyman Law, named after psychologists William Edmund Hick (British; 1912–1974) and Ray Hyman (American; 1928–). It describes the amount of time it takes a person to make a decision based on the choices available to them.

Make the time you spend analysing the pros and cons – or costs and benefits – of each possibility appropriate to the importance and value of the deal.

With all the knowledge you have already gained about dealmaking, selling, negotiating and the other options for getting what you want, you are ready to embrace ‘dealonomics’.

The definition of a dealmaker is ‘someone who is able to get what they want by using a finely-tuned set of skills’. These attributes encapsulate dealonomics.

There is no definition of ‘dealonomics’ other than the one you are about to read. This definition has been created just for you.

‘Dealonomics’ is the collective word for the laws, rules, guidelines, skills and expertise that individuals need to use to get the income they want, regardless of the state of an economy. By leveraging their dealonomics tools, individuals can improve their personal wealth and financial future by securing the salaries, benefits, positions, increases, contracts and retainers they want and deserve.

Dealonomics enables anyone to break out of the cycle of getting a raw deal just because they depend on someone else for their income.

STRENGTHS 1.	OPPORTUNITIES 1.
2.	2.
3.	3.
4.	4.
5.	5.
Etc.	Etc.
WEAKNESSES 1.	THREATS 1.
2.	2.
3.	3.
4.	4.
5.	5.
Etc.	Etc.

STRENGTHS 1. Marketing experience	OPPORTUNITIES 1. Promotion prospects
2. Industry experience	2. Strong brand
3. Physically attractive	3. Land Rover company car
4. Personal references	4. Increase in salary
5. Healthy	5.
WEAKNESSES 1. Non-smoker	THREATS 1. Be moved into sales?
2. Age (only 27)	2. Lots of applicants
3. No university degree	3. Asking for high salary
4. Hate travelling	4.
5.	5.