There are many times in the course of your career that you will want to negotiate:
- you get a job offer and want to negotiate the job offer terms;
- your role changes and you want to negotiate a raise and/or promotion;
- you need more flexibility and want to negotiate your work schedule.
I could dedicate an entire post to reasons to negotiate – this is truly a critical skill to learn to maximize your professional and personal fulfillment.
One of the questions I get most frequently during my negotiation workshops is what to do when the other person in the negotiation says No. Do you accept what is already on offer? Do you walk away if you still don’t agree? How do you keep the conversation going if it looks like the other person really means No?
Here are five steps to take when you are in a negotiation and hear No to your request
Don’t panic
Of course, no one likes to hear No, but negotiation is a situation where you’re likely to hear No at some point. After all, you are negotiating with someone who has a different opinion than yours (that’s why you’re negotiating in the first place and not just agreeing and moving forward!). If you go into your negotiation expecting to hear No to something you propose but resolve to try and work things out, then you will be in a better frame of mind to move past No.
Hear the No as a reason to keep negotiating, not to give up. Do not take it personally – hear the No as a rejection of your particular request, not of you overall. Take a breath – silence is helpful in a negotiation to calm both sides down – and continue the conversation with the No in mind.
Aim for information, not agreement
When you hear No, resist the common initial reaction to go into convincing mode and try to force the other side to agree with you. Instead, get curious and aim for information, not agreement. Ask questions to find out why the other side is rejecting your request. For example, if you ask to work from home, and your boss declines, ask “Can you let me know the concerns you have about allowing me to work from home?” Your boss might want the team in the office to share ideas, or want to ensure that s/he can reach you at a moment’s notice, or worry about tech security from working remotely, or worry that everyone is going to ask for the same thing.
The reasons behind a No can be very different, and depending on what the reason is, your counter-argument needs to be structured differently and worded differently. If the No is based on a problem to solve (e.g., tech security), then you can focus on a plan. If the No is based on a feeling (e.g., I’m worried everyone will ask for this), then you can focus on listening to your boss’ specific fears and coming up with a plan together to assuage each of these. If you launch into convincing mode without full information, you may focus on the wrong argument. Furthermore, by launching into a counter-argument right away instead of trying first to better understand the other side’s point of view, you risk putting the other side on the defensive and shutting down to additional conversation.
Get creative
One of the critical steps in preparing for any negotiation is to think about alternative options to getting what you want. Sometimes your request can’t be granted – in the flexibility example above, let’s say your boss actually agrees with you, but got shot down higher up in management. No amount of negotiating with your boss is going to change the situation, and if you go over his or her head, you open up problems for both of you. So, knowing that you may get a No to a particular request, what else can you ask for?
In the case of flexibility, see if the terms can be adjusted to get to Yes – e.g., if working remotely is a No, can you change your schedule, so you work more hours in fewer days? If you ask for a raise and there is no budget for additional salary, can you tap the bonus pool and get a spot bonus? Can you get the company to pay for something you normally cover, such as commuting or tuition expenses? This money might come out of a different budget for the company, and it saves you money so could be seen as equivalent to a raise for you. Ideally, you have some creative alternative options already in mind for when you hear a No, but if not, take a breath, suggest to the other side that you’d like to get creative, and move the negotiation into a brainstorming session, instead of a back-and-forth. Remember to think of all options. If you can’t get the flexibility you want as an employee, can you become a consultant? You could then continue to work on a beach somewhere!
Change your approach
When you get a No, it may be a rejection of your particular request, in which case the creative brainstorming suggested above can help. However, you also might get a No because of your approach. For example, you negotiated with the wrong person. You ask your boss for flexibility, but s/he doesn’t have the authority to make these exceptions, so s/he defaults to a No. Ideally, you would have looked into the decision-making process for flexible arrangements, and you might have realized that these decisions emanate from higher up, so your request to your boss would be for him or her to start the process with you, not for a decision right away.
When you negotiate a job offer, make sure you are negotiating with the right person. This could be the recruiter who introduced you, or it could be the recruiter within the company, the hiring manager or someone else in the hiring department. When you negotiate a raise, make sure you understand how the company makes decisions – who decides, when are decisions made, what are the factors – so you can frame your request within the context of how the process unfolds.
Change the timing
Finally, you may deserve what you’re asking for, you may be flexible about other options, and you may be asking the right person but still hear a No. It might not be the right time. For example, I once coached at a bank during the post-2008 meltdown, when banks were undergoing increased scrutiny. It was all-hands-on-deck, and there was legitimate worry that even the biggest banks would not survive the stress tests on their reserves. This wouldn’t be an ideal time to press for flexibility. Maybe you could still get it, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if your chances were better in the time period after your bank passed the stress tests.
If you ask for a raise, your chances are better if the company is doing well. If you had asked during a slow time, but now the company economics have considerably improved, ask again – don’t feel like you have to wait a full year. If you accepted a job offer at certain terms, but your role is actually bigger than you were sold or you willingly took on more, revisit your compensation – again, don’t feel like you have to wait a full year. Timing changes your negotiation prospects and can turn a former No into a yes.
Remember that No really means Not Now. When someone declines your request, it could be what you’re asking for or how you asked or when you asked. If you change any of these factors, you may get to a Yes. This is why Don’t Panic, Ask for Information and Get Creative are the first three steps. These actions keep you in the negotiation. They don’t put the other person on the defensive, and buy you both time to figure out a solution that works for both of you.
A version of this post originally appeared in my column for Forbes.com.
