The secret to understanding what’s going on when negotiating a project engagement is to simply take control. These nine steps provide a formula for getting control and starting on the path to getting the deal you need to succeed.
Step 1. Establish your expertise
What are you known for? What keeps you working all hours while making you happy? Did it start when you were a child? Do people pay you money for it? Are you respected for your skills and the insights you’ve gained from using them? If the answer is yes, then you have expertise. If what you’re known for helps others achieve their goals, then your expertise has real value.
Step 2. Tell your world
Compose your story. Focus on how you help others. Use insights you’ve gained from your work as source material. Identify who will benefit most from your experience and reach out to them. Use all the channels available to spread the word. Refine your story and fine tune the channels based on feedback you receive.
Step 3. Respond to queries
When someone reaches out to inquire about how you might help them, you know that they respect your expertise. When that happens, it is expected that you will ask for something in return. So, the first thing to do is to ask a series of questions: What they need, what they are trying to achieve, how they think you can help. Start your questions with “help me understand…”. Their answers are your plan.
Step 4. Understand their issues.
Issues are concrete. Budget, schedule, and deliverables are the basics. Their descriptions of the issues will quickly determine if and how you may be able to help. Get as many of those facts nailed down as quickly as possible. They will be flattered by your interest and happy to answer your questions if they feel you can help.
Step 5. Uncover their interests
Interests are more complicated and more sensitive. Interests always have an emotional foundation. Hence, they must trust you before they will reveal their interests. Be sensitive to how they feel about you; use the conversation to guide your inquiry. Interests are underlying things, usually personal, that are far more important in terms of making a deal than the issues. Interests include personal aspirations like how this film, album, project, or design will impact their future. Personal values are interests. Are you aligned socially? Publicly? If your interests align, you have a shot.
Step 6. Inspire them
Here comes the most important step: Inspiration. This is where your creative skills will be most effective. You can sense who they are. You can feel how they are feeling. You can intuit how they would like to see their future. You know, because of your experience, how to describe the opportunity in a way that dramatizes the results they are seeking. And most of all, you know what you can add to the effort that will make the experience a success. Tell them. Start your inspirational remarks with “in my experience…” and keep it short.
Step 7. Summarize
Describe how you will meet their schedule, what the costs will be and what you will provide in the broadest possible manner. Make sure that your budget and schedule can be easily met so that you can complete on time and under budget. If they question, push back or say you’ve left something out. Ask a few questions, clarify, refine your approach, and summarize again.
Step 8. Close
If they agree with your summary, tell them that you’ll follow up with a one-page summary, which, once they sign, confirms your relationship. With their signature, you’ll get started.
Step 9. Reinforce. Confirm
Everyone gets buyer’s remorse. You must quickly prove your worth after the close to make the deal stick. That means you must demonstrate your expertise with action as quickly as possible so they are reminded just how perfect you are for them.