Care-Less Negotiation
Care Less Negotiation
This week I had to negotiate pricing for a script. Learnt an important lesson about negotiation.
One mistake I have repeatedly made in the past, is to fall in love with one option and I get obsessed with it.
The best example was when I decided to get a Ps5 for myself. This example is almost painful to write.
I got super excited and it was obvious to the store owner that I wanted it and I wanted it now. He sensed it. So when I started to haggle with him about prices, I had no success and he said take it or leave it. Embarrassed, I bought it. That purchase still hurts, not because I bought a Ps5 but because I refused to consider other options.
This brings me to what happened with me script negotiation. The client and I decided on a price. According to the terms, I was to receive an outline of the video and I would script based on the outline.
A few days later, instead of receiving the outline, he told me that I would be required to research and write the video. I do research scripts if needed, but I thought changing the terms of the agreement after we agreed on price was not a good idea.
So instead of falling in love with this option I decided that I would quote a higher price given the sudden change in the scope of the work.
I reasoned that there were 3 outcomes:
- They would agree and pay me a higher price (yay, more money!)
- They would pay me the same price and send me the outline for the video (yay, what we agreed on anyway)
- Worst Case: They would say no and not work with me
For outcome 3, I thought I would be loosing out on a potential client. But it dawned on me, if it happened do I even want to work with someone that changes terms after pricing has been agreed on? So in that sense I'd dodge a bullet if it happened.
Luckily, this time, I had other options in terms of clients so I did not care if they didn't agree to my terms and I just would not care if the deal fell through.
There is a weird calmness and a sense of I don't care that you sub-communicate when you don't need a deal even though you want it. This can't be faked.
He who cares the least in negotiations, wins.