Posts tagged Negotiation
Work Made For Hire
Creative Business Advice for Creative people
What Amy’s Baking Company and Brosie Can Teach You About Conflict
One of the things that makes conflict so darn difficult are all the Feelings.
Anger and fear and embarrassment are strong, visceral emotions. Once introduced, they can easily dominate a situation.
Two very different things happened in the world of Internetlandia this week that highlight the best and worst ways these emotions can serve you in conflicts.
Let’s unpack each so we can understand the difference between using emotions when in conflict and having emotions when in conflict.
I’ve probably taken the Myers-Briggs personality test, or some variation on it, at least a dozen times over the course of my life so far.
Every time I’ve taken it in the last twenty years, the proctor has given me the results with a raised eyebrow.
Why?
I’m an introvert.
The Science of Persuasion:
Reciprocity / Scarcity / Authority / Consistency / Liking / Consensus
Well worth watching.
Do you have a hard time saying “No”?
Even when you really, really want to say “No”?
Even when you know in your gut that saying “No” is the right thing to do?
You, friend, are not alone.
Read this week’s post for advice on how to make saying “No” easier.
What To Do When You’re Popular
A few weeks ago I asked Twitter followers to send me questions they’d want me to address on the blog, and one of them struck my fancy in particular:
What do you do when you have one thing to offer, like a manuscript, and there are two different parties who want to negotiate with you for it?
How do you make sure you get the best price possible for your one of a kind manuscript/painting/illustration? Or, if you freelance, for your ever valuable time?
Here is how to prepare for and engage in negotiations that involve more than one party.
Read this week’s post on the blog!
Featured image by Lady_K via Flickr.com.
Be a Freelance Rock Star
No matter what it is you do—design, act, write or make music—learning the business of freelancing can be hard.
Business skills aren’t usually taught in school. Even if you’re lucky enough to land a class with a helpful teacher, the teacher isn’t there when a client calls demanding (another) revision and I’ve yet to see a “textbook example” in real life.
Education by experience is part of being a freelancer. But that doesn’t mean you personally have to have every experience known to man in order to learn valuable lessons.
This week I take a submission to the Freelancers Union tumblr and help figure out what went wrong, what the freelancer might have done to correct the problem as it was developing and tell you how to recognize when something similar is happening to you.
Why Email is Awful
You’ve been emailing back and forth with a client about the details of a new job; hours, what you’ll do, what you won’t, and of course, how much you’ll get paid. You think you’ve laid everything out fairly clearly in your last email and are feeling good that this negotiation is (finally) coming to a close.
Just then an email from the client pops up in your inbox. As you read his response, your blood pressure rises and your vision blurs. “This guy is crazy; who does he think he is talking to me like that? I’ll show him! I’ll write the best email he’s ever seen!!1″
Friend, step away from the email machine.
I’ve heard the advice,”Fake it ‘til you make it!” more times than I care to count. I’ve never given it much thought. I mean, it sounds good and people say it all the time so it must be right, right?
But I started thinking about it this week and I’ve decided I kind of hate it.
Without any context, “Fake it ‘til you make it!” is pretty horrible advice. If you fake the wrong thing you run the risk of being branded a liar and ruining your reputation before it can really begin.
Fake what?
When?
How?
Read this week’s post. (And if you haven’t been to the website in a while, go now! It’s all brand new and pretty!)
Featured image is by CarbonNYC via Flickr.com.
What Curiosity Can Teach You About Negotiation
Last Sunday night I, like the rest of my Twitter feed, watched something unbelievably cool. The rover NASA had cradled in a spacecraft, loaded on a rocket and lofted into space back in November, 2011, overcame considerable obstacles and the high possibility of failure, and safely landed on the surface of Mars.
Mars!
An entirely different planet!! Mars!
Which of course made me think: this is a great lesson on negotiation!
Featured image from the MSL website.
Hopefully, by now you know that working for “exposure” is fool’s work. People die from exposure! You should only work for free if it involves your mother or a debt that is the result of a life saving organ donation (see Jessica Hische’s awesome flow chart for specifics).
But just because you know you shouldn’t work for free doesn’t mean that people will stop asking you to work for free. When you respond to these inevitable offers of blood, sweat and tears in exchange for exposure you have two basic choices:
—> Say “No” and walk away pissed that people don’t appreciate how valuable your services are; or
—> Say “No” and have it lead to paying work and that person never asking you to work for free again.
I figure you know how to do the first; this week’s post will teach you how to do the second.
