Alexandra Carter

This was my first time.

And pretty quickly, I

I maxed them out on the money and I was convinced that they had given me all they could.

And so instead of seeing this as a win-lose, right, either I need to get more money or this deal is done, I said, okay, tell me more about the event.

They gave me a bunch of information and I said, all right, here's what we're gonna do.

So you're gonna pay me this fee, which is under market, but I'm gonna do it if you can get me this.

You've told me you have a professional photographer

I would like you to have that person take pictures of me with your company logo in the background while I'm on stage and give those to me to use for my portfolio.

I'd also like to know a very senior department head who's willing to serve as a reference for me for my future engagements.

The value of those additional things turned out to be not only more than the difference between what they paid me and market value, but I went on to generate probably 50 times that in all of the referrals that I got from that one deal.

So they got what they needed, which was a great speaker at an under market price, and I got what I needed.

When you negotiate from your needs, you can create that mutual win.

So I think I just previewed it.

But one of the questions I love is, what do you need?

You know, I think a lot of times people assume that they have to come in.

It's not just us.

Sometimes the person on the other side assumes that they're going to have to come in with a full suit of armor and demand, demand, demand.

When we ask people what they need, this question has an amazing way of kind of cutting through some of the BS that you were talking about, even in a situation where it's a car sale.

I've gone in before and said, look, I know you're a human being and I know you're a person who's trying to support your family also, right?

I'm doing the same.