95% of people are bad negotiators and it’s costing them millions.

This is especially true for people that are employees. Business owners are typically a little better.

A thread/

Let’s start with the numbers.

If you start working at 21 making $50k and receive a 3% raise every year you will earn $4.4M over the course of your life.

If you negotiated your salary at the beginning of your career and started your work life at $70K with the same annual raise you would make an additional $2M over the course of your career.

But the fact of the matter is good negotiators don’t negotiate their salary once in their life. They do it often.

If you negotiate your salary every 5-10 years. Starting at 50k you would double the lifetime earnings of your peer that doesn’t negotiate.

That’s $11M!

Negotiations are the key to making real money in life.

The problem is most people are scared of it.

Good negotiators love it.

Yesterday I told a story about how I asked to have my bag fees waived on my flight back from ATL.

Some people may think it was crass but conversations like that are the foundation of becoming a good negotiator. https://twitter.com/talktohenryj/status/1291057000877625349

Back in the day @noahkagan had a course. I believe it was called “how to make $1000 a month”.

In the course the first challenges was to go to Starbucks and ask for 10% off of your coffee. Not because that’s how you make a $1000 but because negotiation is key.

It applies to employees as much as it applies to entrepreneurs.

The key is you don’t want the only time you negotiate to be when you’re doing it for a raise. Do it every day!

Next time you go to buy something ask for a discount.

This will get you comfortable with asking.

Everything is negotiable but 99% of people don’t believe this.

I promise if you hang out with someone who is a good negotiator you will learn this is true.

To an untrained eye it looked like luck but a negotiator knows it’s just an ask.

I loved this story from @domm about how he asked for a raise at his last company.

I think a key takeaway is humor fits very well in a negotiation. They’re typically not hostile like non negotiators think. https://twitter.com/domm/status/1279426894572576770

If I can sum it up. They key to being a good negotiator are four fold.

1. Enjoy negotating. Do it early and often.
2. Infuse humor. It makes it easier for people to say yes.
3. Be prepared. @domm didn’t get the raise just because he asked. He was also good at his job.

And 4...

Understand you will get no more than yes and that is ok.

If you do 1-3 right it won’t burn a bridge. You’re just getting started.

Try again next week