For the most part – women lose when it comes to negotiating. Why? Because we’ve been taught to fear one of our greatest strengths – emotion.

Let’s face it – negotiating is emotional, and even though, there are several aspects you need to initiate in order achieve a successful negotiation, to win at negotiating, you have to master three emotional areas: balance, intelligence, and confidence.

The balance between “anger” and “happiness” when negotiating

Most of my early negotiating experiences came from initiating negotiations with my salary, whether it be a starting salary or a raise. There was always one common theme that I can remember – anger. I was always angry that I wasn’t being paid fairly or equally as compared to other counterparts – usually male counterparts.

Sorry guys, not sorry, but it’s a fact you earn 20% more than women in the US, and women earn less in almost every single industry .

But the thing with anger is that Anger is one of the most destructive emotions that you can have when trying to negotiate effectively…

The reason anger is so destructive is because it clouds our objectivity, narrows our focus, and misdirects our goals. Not so great for getting to a productive outcome! On the flip side, positive attitude leads to better outcomes. That is why it is important to approach negotiating from a place of emotional balance.

Negotiations tend to foster negative emotions and reactions. To maintain your own emotional balance, you need to understand your underpinning motivations and emotions.

If you are engaging in a negotiation from a place of negativity, such as anger or frustration, look at what may be the underlying root cause. Are you angry and frustrated with the situation, the person, how you’ve been treated? Or are you bringing in other non-related emotions to the table (e.g., you’re stressed about your child getting into college when negotiating your salary).

Taking a step back and look at the “big picture,” be prepared to recognize what could be your emotional triggers and how to steer the conversation back to the purpose at hand – the negotiation.

You can steer the conversation in your favor by leveraging emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence takes emotional balance to the next level, where not only are you managing your own emotions, but you are tuning into the emotions to your counterparts. It can take the form of being aware of body language and tone of voice, as well as using strategies like taking a break, and reframing the conversation.

A good example to use is called “mirroring.” You do this by repeating the last one to three words that your counterpart communicated (i.e., “I heard that you said you were frustrated with everyone seeming to be asking you for money all the time”), this will help establish rapport and communicate that you are listening and hearing what they are saying, in turn creating a “safe” environment, thereby creating a more positive setting for negotiations.

Now you can use your emotional confidence to get to a positive outcome. A lack of confidence is created in the presence of fear, which is the greatest enemy of a positive outcome. Fear in this instance is due to not being informed, prepared, and self-assured.

• Informed – You must understand what you are worth and what you have contributed, you can do this by identifying:

–Data research, this is the hard facts you will need to communicate in support of your position/arguments (e.g., quartile information for a raise, invoice price for a car, standard industry rates for a contract). Ensure you are researching from reliable sources (e.g., salary.com, Edmunds.com, etc).
–Value provided, understand the results that you have contributed and/or provided to the organization or client and reiterate them in support of your negotiations. Ask yourself how have you contributed to the bottom line? What efficiencies have you identified/developed? How do you solve problems?

• Prepared – You need to prepare for all outcomes of negotiations, you can do this by identifying:

–Key interests, yours and theirs, so you can try to identify the best possible mutual resolution. What are their likes and needs? Connect on similarities to create synergy.
–Possible outcomes (e.g., best, mediocre, and worst). Practice the counter position for each scenario, so if the need arises, you are ready to redirect the negotiations.

• Self-assured – your confidence will be greatly bolstered by practice. Negotiations is a skill set that is developed over time through constant practice. The greatest athletes didn’t become great overnight, they did so by constantly practicing, and so you too can become a great negotiator. Practice your pointes with a trusted friend to help you navigate your thought process and communications, so that when you show up to the negotiations you feel confident and ready.

Negotiating is a skill set, that anyone can master, and that women have a natural advantage in. If you keep your goal in mind, focus on the relationship, and strive for synergies, you will come out the other side of the negotiations in a better position than when you went in. Negotiations are emotional, but they don’t have to be negative, this skill will serve you in business as well as in life.

The post What Women Entrepreneurs Must KNOW Before Negotiating For Raise and Higher Fees appeared first on Catalytic Change.

One of the biggest things that I see entrepreneurs struggle with, especially women entrepreneurs, is setting boundaries – most often time boundaries. It seems there’s always some king of excuse, but rarely ever a good one. Seems to be easier to default back to an old habit, a bad one for that matter, than to stay the course and honor the boundary you originally set.

So, what’s the big deal? What if I break a boundary or pick and choose when I keep it?

Respect. That’s the big deal. Respecting yourself, your family, and your business. Yea, it’s that serious.

Imagine your business as a river, be it wild or calm, if there are no banks to guide it, the rest of your life will be flooded. Boundaries serve as your banks to your rivers, be it your business, personal life, or even self-care.

As a woman, a mom, wife, and boss, it’s critical to carefully choose, and set your boundaries. Often it feels as though we must always choose. Choose between the career and the family, the children or our sanity, it feels as though we’re in a constant and perpetual state of sacrifice.

But when you have clear boundaries it’s not a fight anymore, it’s an invitation to fully step into your life and honor everyone in it, especially yourself. When you set boundaries, and stick to them, you can become exponentially more productive when you flow in the river you choose to be in.

For example, if you set a boundary that you will work on your business only during weekdays from 10am – 3pm, then you can be focused, driven, and targeted in the work you do during that time. Otherwise you might “accidentally” do work on weekends or evening when you had meant to spend time with the kids, or that date night you keep pushing off… because you “had” to do work. See the cycle starting to emerge here?

Women especially struggle with this – society has made it clear that we’re expected to sacrifice, accommodate, and suffer silently, or else be viewed as aggressive, forceful, and do I dare say it – bitches. So how do you set boundaries without coming off as a self-centered ego maniac?

The first thing you need to do is look at how you are communicating with the world. Are you annoyed that you must answer emails at 10pm at night? Despite being annoyed, do you keep answering emails at 10pm at night? Who said you should answer emails at night?

That action communicates to your clients and the world that you don’t have a work time boundary – so your clients and the world are going to continue to email you and expect you to respond

Now let’s communicate a different message by going to boundary boot camp. It’s tough at first, but old habits die hard, right? Make note of all the actions you take that support having your boundary broken (e.g., answer/send emails and phone calls in the evenings) and then communicate to your clients, partner, children, employees that you will no longer be responding to emails in the evenings, and if the matter constitutes an emergency – they can call you directly.

Does that feel uncomfortable? Consider that a good thing, because what seems easy isn’t working for you. Once you’ve communicated your new boundary – stick to it. What you communicate in word must also be communicated in action.

Remember to be compassionate and loving with yourself as you reengage your boundaries, as they are in service of yourself and your life objectives.

The post Women Entrepreneurs: How To Set Boundaries To Grow Your Business Without Compromising Time With Your Family appeared first on Catalytic Change.