The Truth About Contracts
Contracts by definition is a mutually beneficial agreement. While you may be able to negotiate and come up with a “great deal”, more likely than not one party benefits more than the other.
Your talents unlock your ancestral abundance and thus when you sign contracts with people/organizations to govern over your talents you’re letting those said organizations govern over your ancestral abundance. You may need to read that again.
Ancestral abundance: The abundance that is due to you from the universe and your ancestors.
We all have talents and gifts that are unique to us. When we enter into a situation, i.e job/workplace we give that organization governance over our talents and lessen our potential earnings (our abundance). That is, that situation gets to benefit from your talents, and often times a lot more than you do. As an example, many doctors work for corporations and produce millions of dollars but only reap a small fraction of that production.
“When you sign contracts with people to govern over your talents you’re letting those organizations govern over your ancestral abundance. ”
More and more people are recognizing this these days and are choosing the route of independence and freedom. This is one of the reasons there are so many people going towards entrepreneurship and becoming a self brand.
This is not to say there’s anything wrong with working for/with corporations. They have their benefits and individuals who are early in their career find this option attractive. While ownership offers freedom (on many levels) and potentially enables you to have far greater earning potential, not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur.
If you do decide to work for someone or a corporation arm yourself with contract negotiating tactics.
To Negotiate like a boss, especially if you're female, will take some mindset changes to get what you want, what is fair and what you deserve.
1. Learn To Say NO
One of the greatest inhibitions in asking for your market value or what you think you're worth is the fear of rejection. Once you can get passed this fear you can move on to the negotiating table. Understand that the real negotiating doesn't start until someone says no! Never just accept what you're being offered. Quite often contracts are written with wiggle room for that reason. The goal of negotiating is to reach an agreement with someone whose interest may not necessarily be aligned with yours. In this context the word no is not a negative thing but offers grounds to problem-solve and come to a consensus and an agreement. The alternative is being stuck in a job with individuals who are happy to place their needs above yours.
2. Ask for More Than What You Want
It's a much better negotiating strategy to ask for more than you actually want or think you will get. Allow each party to say no a couple times before saying yes. People aren't necessarily happy when they get what they want. Think about it: You sit with your potential employer and say " I would like a 10% increase from my previous salary and a corner office" and his/her immediate response is "Sure, no problem!" You will likely suffer from buyers' remorse and wonder if you should have asked for a 20% increase instead.
3. Be Willing to Walk Away
A lot of negotiating is a mind game. The greatest bargaining advantage goes to the person who is perceived to have the least to lose. Establish your deal breaker or bottom line and be willing to walk away from a deal (or say you will). If you at least act like you're prepared to walk away if your bottom line isn't met then the other party will be more incentivized to meet your requirements.
4. Get a Lawyer
You have looked over your contract thoroughly but you need a second pair of eyes on it. There may be some legal jargon that you don't understand or have over looked. A lawyer will be able to point some things out to you that you may have missed and can even negotiate on your behalf. In my experience it has been worth the money pay a lawyer to do some of the heavy lifting for you.
I know contract negotiations aren't always easy. You must ensure that you ask the right questions upfront, learn to say no, don't get bullied into signing on to something you will regret later and be willing to walk away. I have negotiated several contracts throughout my career and I’ve learned something from each encounter. At the point where I am today in my career,I realize that even the best negotiating tactics where I felt like I was getting the best deal, still resulted in me coming up short in one area or another. At the end of the day, make sure that if you do work for someone/corporation that you are getting at a minimum a fair deal.
