Basically I've just been saying "yes, I like it here" but what I'd rather say is "yeah work is work and I have to do it but I'm freaking stoked to come here rather than so many of the toxic workplaces out there. I'm being challenged in a healthy way, my boss actually cares about me, and I'm not being overloaded. It's fantastic here"

I just worry a little that if I'm overly enthusiastic they might feel like they can offer me whatever and I'll take it. That I'm throwing out my leverage of "being able to go somewhere else" if you know what I mean?

I think this is especially true for introverted individuals whose social battery wears down quickly.

You could have the best negotiation "technique" in the world, but it's so ridiculously easy to start making concessions once you start getting drained and are willing to say almost anything to just leave/get things over with...

What do you think?

Email magic from Never Split the Difference

Hi, I hope you’re doing well. I want to know how would you handle having to explain to a customer that your product will be ready to install in a time frame they consider unreasonable.

I’m a woodworker and my manufacturing process takes time, I don’t have items in stock since I work custom projects.

One of the most contentious points when negotiating is always the time. I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses, I’d like to have a proactive and positive response that allows me to explain why a project will take X number of weeks.

Thank you

Im going into an interview this week for a Lead role in starting up Engineering support with SUE. Company has the work load and is subbing out the work for SUE. I had my first interview and all is good; and this next interview is more direct about expectations on both sides, and my assumption negotiations on pay/relo package.

I live in NE FL and own a home, and this job is in the Roaring Fork Valley of CO, but I’d be living in the cheapest area at first, and dealing with long commute ( non issue as my commute in FL isn’t much shorter time wise, and commute to go back home in Canada is the same if not more than the CO job).

What is a reasonable relocation package lump sum? Salary range is 120-140k. I’m aiming for 130k, and I’m keeping my house, but renting it to trusted friends at a slight loss. Selling my home is a non-negotiable for 12months as a safety net in case things don’t pan out.

Is 20-40k unreasonable? Just a U-Haul truck and fuel is 5,000$. Let alone first/last and security deposit on a rental home, transferring of vehicle registrations with impact fees, license, etc.

The job is needing very specific skill set and industry knowledge and the will to do ground up work which I am very qualified for, as I did it essentially for my previous employer. I am very comfortable where I am but I’m growing old of Florida and its climate both politically and temperature wise.

My bare minimum to even consider is 120k/10k relo, but my goal is 130k with 30-40k relo. Lump sum.

How unreasonable would It be ?

I just a got a really good offer from a firm, problem is my current job requires us to serve at least 2 months of notice period

Plus as a probation employee I can’t buy out & they won’t allow me to leave as they don’t have a replacement

Any tips on how to ask the new company to wait for 2 months to get out of my notice period

Hello, trying to see if I am being low balled for a role. I am being offered 85k for a project manager of programming and events in the Philadelphia market. It’s a public company and I have 12 years experience. They said the original budget was 70-80k. It seems really low to me. Thoughts?

I just sold my car last week. Brakes and rotors needed to be replaced, which I was aware of and made sure the buyer was aware as well. He messaged me today and said his mechanic found a leak and thinks it's the head gasket. Estimating $3500-4k for repair/replacement. The car was sold for $4900 and did not have any visible leaks at the time. He is offering to give the car back and let me keep some cash, or willing to fix it himself but wants some cash back. I asked him to get a second opinion, just to make sure. I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on the situation.

I just finished the last round of interviews for a VP level position at a biotech company in Boston. The team, including the recruiters, were enthusiastic about me joining the company and I have a really good preexisting relationship with the C-level executive that this position will report to.

As I was leaving the office yesterday the recruiter essentially said, “We’d love to have you. The ball is in your court.” I felt this was a strange message given that they haven’t actually made an offer yet. We spoke very generally about salary expectations early in the process, but nothing since then. I would be moving across the country for this job, so I’m also interested in a relocation package. Throughout the process the recruiting team has been pretty passive, with me kind of driving the next step every time. I’m not sure they expect me to send them my expected compensation plan?? I could also ask the exec, but am not sure this is the best move because the recruiting team has the final say.

My thought was to email the recruiter and the exec saying something like, “Thank you for your time and continued interest. After spending the day with the team I am even more excited to be part of the organization. If the team feels the same, I am ready to move on to the next step. Some of the things important to me include the salary and a potential relocation package. What do you have in mind?”

What do you think is the right approach here? How can I position myself optimally in the negotiation?

Looking to take a course.

Would you recommend The Harvard course or The Gap Partnership and why?

I Have been texting a salesman about this truck at a used dealership by me. A bit out of my price range but she’s a beaut. It recently came in and I was told it got sent to a body shop to get the bumper repainted and id be able to see it the following day.. Didn’t hear back for 3 days and I found out from the salesman that the truck was actually getting two new doors replaced because of an accident. Car fax doesn’t show any accident reported on the car. 1) is there even A way to get the price to come down after getting that information from the salesman and if so 2) how would I go about negotiating the price to come down? I’d assume I wouldn’t just say “hey man this isn’t worth the x amount you guys have it listed at due to a car accident that wasn’t listed with insurance prior to being sold to you guys.”

Often, we try so hard to make others understand what we're saying.

But what if they 100% know what we're talking about and just pretend they don't?

This is a kind of self-protection.

Sometimes, they just want to do what we want them to do.

However, it's hard to refuse directly.

So they use other language: "I don't understand what are you talking about."

Even if we try to explain 10 times repeatedly.

People may not consciously notice what they're doing, but what can we do about that?

First, recognize what they're doing — raising the cost for us to make them take action.

So, clearly, beat it by asking, "Which part don't you understand in my explanation?"

Raise the cost for them to deny understanding what we said.

Inquire, push them to think, burden their cognitive load.

Such as.

That works, but it's limited.

Because what we're doing is forcing others to do what they don't want to do.

It would be better if we could persuade them with a common goal or, better yet, align with what they want to do.

I´m a Chriss Voss masterclass practitioner - work, daily life, even kids.

• I was always worried about situations when I would encounter another practitioner ... but it tuner out to be funny meetings where both sides would respect and play with each other in a positive way:
  • longs opening with naming elephants in room , several layers of mirroring, "positive no" type of questions etc...., every sentence beginning "from my perspective, seems as". So eventually a positive experience

But lately I´m in a very difficult situation in work, where a toxic colleague following by his own admission a "Stoic" Philosophy is threating my development and making my work hell.

• I was able to cross reference that he indeed is a stoic based on these:
  • YT: The Dark Side of Helping Others: 11 SURPRISING Ways It Can HARM YOU | STOICISM
  • YT: 13 Stoic WAYS To DESTROY Your Enemy Without FIGHTING Them | Marcus Aurelius STOICISM
  • YT: 7 Stoic principles to MASTER THE ART OF NOT CARING AND LETTING GO | The Wisdom of Stoicism
  • Medium: "Is Stoicism Representative of “Toxic Masculinity?”

Not only is he immune to any communications techniques, but he employs non-voss manipulative techniques himself all the time, such as:

• never admitting mistake
• not caring about anyone else opinion, virtually ignoring them face to face
• repeating a list of ppl who he supposedly met and who approve what he is saying (board in our company)
• eve as ridiculous as "Elon Musk would do it this way"
• absolutely no emotion, immune to emotion
• lying , wining people with lies
• even if proven wrong, still goes on and on with his "trues" like a lunatic
• he is convincing and thus winning people with lies
• I´m on emotional side, so I always get crushed

The main message: the stoicism seems to be a thing that works, I have fond criticism of it, but I have found very little guides on how to counter these people.

full story is here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/comments/1fwptli/how_to_deal_with_a_toxic_stoic_colleague/

I’m preparing for a negotiation role play where I’ll be representing the Euro-Idol Corporation in a two-round process with a Nordic country (Denion) looking to host next year’s competition. I’ve got a few key areas to cover, and I’d love to hear from anyone who has insights on similar (or this exact one) large-scale event negotiations, particularly around logistics, city selection, and financial commitments. Here’s what I’m focusing on:

•	Arena Size: Ideal venue capacity should be between 10,000 and 15,000 seats to avoid the optics of empty seats, especially during semifinals.
•	Infrastructure: The host city needs to support over 30,000 tourists with adequate transportation, lodging, and event facilities.
•	Additional Events: I’m looking to push for a significant investment in side events like Euro-Idol Village to create a festival atmosphere and generate revenue.
•	Financial Commitments: This includes negotiating a host-broadcaster fee ($10M-$20M), a host-city fee ($1M-$10M), and securing at least 20% of the event revenues. Total financial commitment should be around $35M.
•	City Selection: I’m expected to play a role in selecting between two potential host cities (Bardane or Eindborg). My goal is to be the “voice of reason” to ensure the chosen city doesn’t over-promise on what they can deliver.

It’s a Harvard negotiation role play, and I’d love to know what kind of background or information the ‘Denion rep’ might be working with. Any insight into their priorities or negotiation points would be super helpful!

Thank you much!

So, I want to take AP pre-calculus, but since I live in Georgia. You have to take Honors Algebra 2 first. I'm taking On level Algebra 2 with a grade of 99.81% How can I negotiate with my counselor to let me take AP Pre-Calculus? I'm on the debate team, but I still have some errors in my negotiating.

If anyone cares, I will edit this and post how I think the conversation may go

Tomorrow a very successful and wealthy individual will be walking me through a 32-acre property that he has tried to sell (unsuccessfully) previously. He is my friend’s father-in-law and I have never met him before. I know that he would accept an offer that happens to be right at the very very TOP of our budget. The intel I have gathered is that he has held this property for 18 years and let his handyman live and hunt on it. His heirs do not want the property, and he tried listing it last year but did not receive any offers. I also know that he enjoys the outdoors, his college football team, and cars/tractors.

How would you prep for and approach this meeting?

View Poll

Without going in to too much detail, I’m a contractor for a very disorganised & often sloppy business, and I’m the sole industry expert in the area of the business I work in. I charge £20 per on unit of work & £50 for another. I have also inadvertently absorbed almost all of the management that goes into the work I’m actually paid for. A client of the business I work for revealed to me a while ago that they pay the business I work for £70 per each unit of work I do, regardless of if it’s something I bill £20 or £50 for. On top of this, at the beginning of the year, I went from getting paid through a recruitment company (which is owned by my clients umbrella company), who charged them a 30% fee, to invoicing my client directly. Finally, I think I’d be difficult to replace, there’s not many people who do this job and no one is really aware of what managing these projects involves as I’ve taken it on entirely for the last 2 years and the people who used to do it left.

Due to the business’ disorganisation, and knowing that I could earn more, I raised my rates by 20%, they initially said they can’t swallow that increase (two weeks ago), I ignored them for a few days and told them I wasn’t willing to discuss anything further until a purchase order was issued for an old invoice and then ignored them. Today the director of the company asked if we could have a catch up tomorrow.

I get the sense that they’ve realised I’m not easy to replace but my question is, is a 20% increase fair on my part. I know they’ve recently saved that 30% but is it possible that they’ve already committed those funds elsewhere? And would I be cutting too much into their profits?

For a bit of context, the company I contract for collect data, I analyse it. They get paid separately for the data collection which makes up the majority of their business. The part I do is just a requirement of the clients. The clients also pay for access to the data management software, so as far as I’m aware this is just supplementary income from services that they are required to provide

After reading Chris Voss's book, I have the urge to practice. Where can I go to build my skills?

I live in NYC.

Hi guys,
I struggle to communicate leverage in negotiations. For example:

• Someone wants to negotiate the rent for a flat, where I’m the only interested buyer. If I say no, they lose the rent, so it’s unreasonable to demand an immediate answer.
• My landlord wants to withhold my bond unlawfully, even though there are three legal reasons he will probably fail and I could retailiate by notifying authorities due to criminal, data and professions law, building law and he know this.
• A group undervalues me, though if I cancel my membership, they lose thousands of euros and hundreds of volunteer hours (long term).
• My neighbor is loud at night, and I could take him to court, which he likely can’t afford.

In these situations, I have strong leverage, yet the other side acts reckless, irrationally and uncooperative. Are they just unaware of their weak position? I want to cooperate, but it feels like a “hostage negotiation” where I don’t want to threaten them, which could harm the negotiation, yet they take advantage of me. What to do in those situations where you have strong leverage, but the other party does not want to cooperate?

I have just been offered a position a I really want with a start up and I need to return he contract on Monday. I'm moving from the non-profit world to a tech start up. The company has 30-55 employees. I'll be a mid-senior level manager with an initial team of 10 that I’ll be growing. They are in Series A funding. I have ideas to expand their offerings, so I’d like to negotiate stock options. Is that realistic? (current wording on stock options in contract, below) How can I protect any valuable ideas I bring? There's another section on "prior developments", which I am including below. I have ideas, which could be very valuable (or not). I'm not sure if I include those on the "prior developments" section since they're just ideas. Once I write them here, how do I value or protect them? That's why I'd prefer to negotiate stock options so I feel compensated for my ideas and the growth related to them.

Also, The contract doesn’t list benefits or PTO, though I was told verbally about the PTO policy and benefits. Should I be concerned? I’ll be fully remote, but the headquarters and most of my team are in NY and I'm in the PNW. Is there anything specific I should focus on in the contract?

"Stock Awards. As part of this Offer Letter and as an inducement to join the Company, on the Effective Date. You will be eligible to participate in the Company’s stock option program. Subject to approval by the Company’s Board of Directors, we anticipate that you will be granted an option to purchase 0 shares of the Company’s common stock at the then fair market value of the Company’s common stock as determined by the Board of Directors, subject to a four year vesting period (with 25% of the options vesting upon the one-year anniversary of the grant date, and the remaining options vesting monthly in equal installments until the fourth anniversary of the grant date) which will be governed by the Company’s Stock Plan (the “Plan”) and any associated stock option agreement."

"Company has no rights in or to inventions, ideas, concepts, discoveries, know-how or works of authorship (if any) which were conceived or created by Employee prior to the commencement of Employee’s relationship with Company (“Prior Developments”). All Prior Developments of Employee which are owned wholly or partly by Employee and which could reasonably be considered to be related to Company’s current or planned businesses or products are listed and described with particularity on an attachment to this Agreement entitled “Prior Developments” separately executed by Company and Employee. If the Prior Developments Attachment to this Agreement is not completed and executed, Employee shall be conclusively deemed not to own any Prior Developments. Employee shall not incorporate any Prior Development into any Company product or service without the prior written authorization of Company, and if Employee does so, Company is hereby granted an unlimited, non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license, with unlimited sublicensing rights, to use such Prior Development in any manner whatsoever Company may desire, including, but not limited to, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, reproduce, modify, create derivative versions of, distribute, publicly display and publicly perform such Prior Development."

A bit of background before going into the details and converting currency for convenience.

This is happening in an active war area, I purchased the car for $9000 early 2023, a month later conflict started between two large militia, I had to flee with the family and left the car due to risk of road robbers.

Every now and then carjackers would loot parts off of my car, some of the missing parts:

• Steering wheel.
• ECM.
• 4 Wheels.
• Gas pump.

And I would hear about this from neighbor who still live there somehow.

Fast-forward today, carjackers have contacted my father through one of the neighbors asking him if he got car papers and offering $750 for the car, my father without getting back to me told them I would sell it for $1350, then only a day after messages me to tell me it's a great deal because it's better than losing it for nothing.

What do you guys think I should do?

I’m curious how people would think about negotiating with someone who had just been lied to and taken advantage of by another negotiation partner. Would you choose to negotiate with someone else if you could? How would you approach this situation?

I'm about to be a fully licensed mental health therapist. I'm currently an LPC candidate working under supervision and the hospital I work for is going to hire me for a licensed position. I'll be negotiating my salary and have been working on my justifications for higher pay.

My question is how many rounds of negotiating is considered typical? How many rounds is considered excessive? I'm ready (and kind of excited) for the negotiations but don't want to piss the company off by over doing it. Thanks!

Hi dear people,

I'm in a tough spot at work. I’ve been with my company for 5 years, started as a student, and now I’m doing a PhD while working full-time for the last 3 years. My director, who’s also my mentor, suggested the PhD. I love the job and have a clear vision for my future.

Recently, a coworker my age quit; he earned about 30% more than me. A top consultant at the firm suggested I take over his work since we worked together, and he thinks I'm a good fit. The directors offered me a 10% raise through my manager; I countered with 30%, and they came back with 15%. We’re meeting next week to finalize.

I've been underpaid from the start, and when I ask about salary criteria, the directors get defensive, mentioning things like their wives don’t earn as much or that "we’re all equal." I need to stay another year because of my PhD and upcoming professional license, but even with 30%, I’d still be underpaid since I’d be handling two roles solo.

How can I apply maximum pressure in negotiations, regardless of the outcome? I know I need to leave eventually, but I need to stick it out for at least another year. My mentor is an passive aggressive ego maniac whos close to retirement and is really, really narcissistic person. Not only my thoughts if it clears anything up.

Thanks!

Currently I am on maternity leave and I got a good job offer and I have approx 4 month pending for my maternity leave.

How I can convince my new employer to extend my start date until January?

Do I tell them I can only start on January due to vacation and current job related reasons, or be honest that I had a baby 3 months ago and need 3 more months off? I do actually have vacation booked for the next 2 months. Idk, not sure how to approach this situation but I know they really like me!

Hey people, so I'm a UX Designer who's looking for a new job. I've applied to a company where a couple of my ex colleagues work and have dropped a good word about me. But the problem is, I've given my expected monthly salary as 900-1000 USD not knowing if the company would be comfortable paying me something like 1600. But I found out that another ex colleague, who was my junior, is freelancing with this same company for aroynd $12 an hour which is wayyy higher than what I thought they'd be comfortable with.

Now I need help to negotiate/quote something like $1600, at least, during our interview call! Can someone please help with this? Thanks!

Do you have any resource for doing mockup negotiations? To get some experience in a “risk free” way.

I was just presented a contract I would like to make 2 changes to. Should I lead with the one they are more likely to budge on and then mention the one they might not be so flexible on or vice versa? If it makes a difference, this negotiation would be in email and not verbal/face to face.

Currently I have every other Friday off and am under consideration for an internal position on a different team. Is it obtuse of me to ask the manager if it’s possible to continue my flex time in this role? Or should I wait until offer has been presented?

I’ve worked flex for a couple of years without any impact to my performance, occasionally working on my day off to ensure business needs are met. I would like to retain this benefit going forward.