Introducing new label: non-non-negotiable

Thanks to those who shared their fears about asking last week. If you have more, please keep adding your insights as comments to the original post, since my aim is to come up, eventually, with a list of tools, methods and counter-reasons to match each of those reasons for not asking.

Here I want to highlight the most recent comment on that post, where Martha puts her salary negotiation into perspective.

"When I got hired, I was met with a wall of non-negotiation. I am nagged with "what-ifs" about that conversation and I think I could be getting paid a lot better but I just don't have the tools to address a "non-negotiable" stance. It came down to the fact that there is a down economy and a lower paying job is better than no job."

Being up against a wall is the scariest place to be.

This is something I am hoping to work on, both for myself as a freelance/contract worker trying to eke out a living while dealing with clients on budgets, and especially for anyone facing full-time job negotiation in a down economy. Are there other things we can gain besides money? Is there a way to find out what a department's or client's bottom line truly is? Are there ways to approach the negotiation so that, even if we don't emerge with boosted earnings at the end of that conversation, the foundation is in place for a smoother renegotiation in 6 months? And more importantly, are there ways to emerge that very first negotiation by blasting (or coaxing, or persuading, or strategizing, or arguing, or asking, or selling, or requesting) our way through the impasse?

This is a question I've been focusing on in the She Negotiates seminar -- which, by the way, I'll have some more reports about in the near future.

So let it be known: any resources I develop or come across about overcoming negotiation roadblocks and impasses will go under a new blog post: Non-non-negotiable.

I hope we can learn from one another!

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