Negotation Tips and Techniques

Mostly people in business get trained to negotiate good contracts for their business / company. And that's great; but remember that negotation can also help you get paid more money for what you do.

The golden tip of pay negotation is this: You must get what you want BEFORE you join a company. The reason is simple - once you actually work there you get sucked into the usual HR and pay processes within a large company at least - you never get a pay rise of more than a couple of percent a year and the only way to get more then is through promotion or probably even moving onto another company.

Therefore if you want to negotiate on pay, it is much better to do it from outside the company whilst talking through the offer they have made you, rather than from the inside once you are there; when you've accepted the job it is too late.

With that taken into account, what should you do? Well you should always be firm but polite. If you think their offer is low, then say you would like some flexibility and prefer X - and give reasons too. For instance 'based on my ten years experience in this niche sector coupled with my qualifications and MBA I feel an offer in the region of 'x' would be more in line with what I require from my next role'.

And a key too to use is this - silence. It is remarkably effective to be quiet during a negotation and wait for a response. Too many are afraid of silence and want to fill a gap which undermines the negotation, simply wait for a response and don't say anything at all whilst they are considering matters even if this leads to a pause of ten seconds or more!

If you get what you want then great, if not immediately then you can consider other possibilities such as getting more share options, better percentage pay into your pension, a company car and so on - stay calm, don't get too greedy, and good luck.