The Good Girl's Guide to Negotiating: How to Get What You Want at the Bargaining Table

I wrote a New York Times bestseller.
I got paid $12,400 for it.
Don't let this happen to you.

As a sadder but wiser woman, I'm here to tell you that there's nothing like making a bad deal to inspire you to do better the next time. Since I made that perfectly awful deal, I've mastered some valuable lessons about negotiating. And I'd like to share my learning experiences with the many women (perhaps even you) who are in danger of repeating some of the mistakes I made.

Do you get paid too little for your work? Do you pay others too much? Do you get queasy thinking about negotiating for a big-ticket item, like a car or a new house? Do you pick up more dirty socks than anyone else in the family?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you're in good company. Millions of wonderful, intelligent, professionally skilled, and domestically adept women have lousy bargaining skills. Partly that's because we're simply mystified by the negotiation process, so we avoid it whenever possible. But more significantly, many of us were raised to be what I call "good girls" —which means we can't stop being nice, even if it kills us financially or robs us of our fair share of the proverbial pie. This book is for every woman who ever made a bad deal because she was too nice or too naive to negotiate effectively.

If you're looking for proof that just about any polite pushover can learn how to improve her winning percentages at the bargaining table (without having a total personality transplant or sex change), you can stop your search. In this book, my friend Beth and I will reveal all the bad deals we ever made — and how we finally figured out how a couple of good girls can negotiate for their fair share of the pie.

When I sat down to sign my first book contract, my head was full of warm, fuzzy thoughts of how lucky I was to have such a great opportunity. I had just been hired to ghostwrite for the Beardstown Ladies' Investment Club, to tell the story of how they used their down-home good sense to invest in the stock market. A friend recommended me to the book's New York—based packager because I had been a reporter for Time and a columnist for Modern Maturity. He had hired me over the telephone, then flew to meet me, contract in hand. I felt so special that he'd go to all that trouble just for me.

In my excitement, it didn't occur to me that I might need a lawyer to review the contract, or that I had no idea what professional ghostwriters usually got paid. I just wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. So my main goal was to make this high-powered stranger like me.

He did. Who wouldn't like such a nice, friendly woman—especially one who was so willing to help him get rich? I signed the contract with a big smile, and ended up with no claim to royalties, hardcover or paperback, for what turned out to be a hugely successful book. It spent three months on the New York Times bestseller list—with the packager's name on the list, not mine. That's when I finally realized I might need a little help with my negotiating skills. My coauthor, Elizabeth Austin, was an equally proficient deal-maker. When she saw her first house, it was love at first sight; she immediately offered the sellers their full asking price. (She says she really liked the porch swing.) Later she realized she had paid nearly 20 percent above market value.

When I began complaining to Beth about my fabulous book deal, we put our journalistic heads together and realized we could do ourselves, and millions of our sisters, a service by figuring out how to negotiate competently. Don't misunderstand. We still pride ourselves on being do-gooders; Beth is a Girl Scout leader, I'm a frequent volunteer at my children's schools, and we've both driven in more car pools than we care to remember. But we didn't enjoy feeling like chumps, and we bet you don't either.

So we set out to learn how to be better negotiators. At first our hearts sank; to us, the best-known dealmakers, people like Donald Trump, seemed like ruthless jerks. To negotiate successfully, it looked like there were two basic requirements: First, be mean. Second, be male.

But after some more digging, we found there are plenty of successful negotiating styles that work for good girls like us. It turns out that legions of admirable women (and men) are advancing their causes and careers by sitting down at the bargaining table with the goal of solving problems in tandem with the people on the other side. And guess what? Those types of negotiations often end up yielding creative settlements that provide both sides with more than they ever expected.

Now, after several years of poring over the bestselling negotiating books and the latest academic articles, interviewing researchers in the field, and seeking out women who have succeeded at the bargaining table, we've actually used what we've learned to negotiate much more equitable deals on subsequent book contracts and home purchases —not to mention the great deal Beth got on her new car. Moral: Don't give up just because you weren't raised to be a shark. You don't have to choose between being a good person and getting a good deal. A negotiation is truly successful when both sides feel they've struck an equitable bargain, one that feels good to you the day you make it, and when you look back years later. Like us, you can learn how to make better deals —and still feel like a good girl, too.

Copyright © 2001 by Leslie Whitaker and Elizabeth Austin
Excerpt posted with permission from http://www.twbookmark.com

Many thanks to Time Warner Bookmark (Little, Brown & Company, Warner Books, A Time Warner Company) at: www.twbookmark.com. We appreciate their cooperation with OfSpirit.com to share this chapter of their book with our visitors for education, entertainment and empowerment.