Nuts & Bolts
Business of Freelancing

Secrets of a Master Negotiator: How to Get the Best Deal

By Tom Hollon, WIW Member

There is no art to negotiating, said Jim Thomas, a McLean-based attorney, teacher and author of the forthcoming It’s Negotiable. Negotiating is sometimes counterintuitive, often seasoned with a little stylized acting—a sort of haggler’s Kabuki Theater. But at bottom it is a mechanical, formulaic skill any writer can master sufficiently to leverage better deals from clients. At WIW’s June 2 workshop, Thomas shared lessons from his long negotiating career.

1. If persuasion fails twice, negotiate.
If you cannot win agreement within two attempts to explain the logic of your position, the other side has stopped listening. “Now you’re going to have to buy the behavior you want with concessions,” said Thomas. Keep the atmosphere positive and transition into negotiation with a phrase like, “In the spirit of compromise, why don’t we work out a deal?”

2. Krunch (a negotiating jargon) early and often.
Krunches are various ways of saying, “Make me a better offer,” and on a daily basis are often the only negotiating tools you need. And when one krunch works, why stop?

Editor: “Pay is a dollar a word.”
You: “I generally expect offers higher than that.”
Editor: “OK, $1.10.”
You: “Can you go higher?”
Editor: “Well, $1.25.”
You: “That still doesn’t work for me.”
Editor: “Well, $1.30 then.”

You may eventually have to make an offer of your own, of course, but then just switch back to krunches. When you get krunched (“A hundred dollars an hour! Let’s get serious.” “The other writers don’t get that.” “I can find somebody cheaper.”), the only response that avoids negotiating against yourself is some variant of “Make me an offer,” such as, “What number did you have in mind?”

3. Start high.
To come out a winner, your offer has to be assertive (but not ridiculous), and no question about it, making it while controlling your emotions is hard. “Making that assertive offer is the most painful instance in all of negotiation,” Thomas acknowledged. “But nothing else in negotiation has a greater effect on where you ultimately end up. This moment—and the courage you displayed—will echo in every single exchange between the parties and in the final agreement.”

4. Make strategic concessions.
Do not fall in love with that high offer, because you are going to retreat from it in order to get the target offer that is your real objective. You accomplish this with a concession strategy built around the high opener, the target, and a bottom-line offer that is the lowest you will accept.

Most people start with small concessions and make bigger ones as they get desperate for a deal. Thomas does the opposite. His first concession is his largest, moving midway from opener to target. The next move is half as big. The third is half the second. To illustrate, if your target is $200, you might start with $300 and retreat to $250, $225 and $210 before settling at $200. The first move makes the other side feel victorious. But those that follow (you need at least three concessions so the person with whom you are negotiating cannot miss reading the trend) discourage hopes for a windfall and make it appear your target is actually your bottom line.

5. No more free gifts.
Good negotiators make and reject concessions saying yes, if. That is, say yes to a concession, if the other side offers one in return. “If I drop from $300 to $250,” said Thomas, “I do it in exchange for a nominal concession. Even if I don’t necessarily expect to get it, the tradeoff justifies my concession.” To say no, simply attach to the yes an if the other side cannot possibly accept: “Absolutely, I’ll accept an all-rights contract, if you’ll agree to $15 a word.” Saying no this way is preferable to being direct and confrontational, which risks detaching the other side from negotiations.

And when you cannot think of what to ask for, just hold off: “You know, I think I can accommodate that, but let’s set that aside for now and bring it back later on.”

6. Do not settle terms individually.
“How do you know how flexible to be on issue one when you do not know how issue four is going to turn out?” asked Thomas. “Agreeing to things unconditionally hemorrhages leverage. By the time you get to the final issue the only leverage you have is what attaches to that issue. It’s not enough.” The solution is to postpone unconditional agreement on anything until the very end, although it is acceptable to come close to agreeing: “So we’re agreed on first North American rights. This looks fine. But you know I can’t agree to that just by itself, because it’s part of a larger understanding. Assuming the other issues play out as I think they will, it will be fine. Why don’t we set it aside for now, finish the other issues, and wrap it all up as a package.” In this way, you agree to all terms at once. “And you have every right,” he said, “to revisit issues again and again until you’re satisfied with their overall balance.”

7. Close with a nibble.
Eventually the other side wonders what it is going to take to wrap things up. When you are ready to settle, asking for a small concession, a nibble, sends the signal they are looking for: All they have to do to reel you in is offer a little bit more. “If you’ll increase the fee from $5000 to $5100, you’ve got a deal.” When someone nibbles you, defend with a krunch or a yes with a big if.

8. Bottom lines.
“Probably the biggest lies in negotiating are ‘This is my bottom line. I can’t offer any more. That’s all I’ve got,’” said Thomas, but a clue you may have found their bottom line is when their offers stop changing. As for yours, disclose it in only one situation. Where there is no agreement and the negotiation deadline is only a couple of minutes away, make your bottom-line offer and declare it as such. You will get a deal you can live with, or, if not, you did your best.

9. Stay alert all the way to the end.
With agreement seemingly at hand, tension eases and now begins “the stupid period,” when people get stupidly generous: “Oh, I’ll take care of that.” “Oh, that won’t be a problem.” Sometimes there is a sneaky demand for an important concession never mentioned earlier. All of a sudden, your gains fly out the window. Defend with a krunch, or a yes and a big if.

10. Learn from your mistakes.
Learning to negotiate will not make imbalances of power crumble, nor supply and demand tumble into the sea. You still will not win every negotiation. But you will win more. Learn from the mistakes you will inevitably make, and your security as an independent writer can only increase.

11. No bad deals.
Finally, says Thomas, “a good negotiator never lets the other side get a bad deal.” Make your clients feel like winners with excellent work and service, and keep them coming back for more.