How to Negotiate Successfully with Any Decisionmaker

You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, we share how to negotiate successfully with any decision-maker. So, stay tuned. If you want to have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place. I'm Cath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive non profit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter. It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner, and to have them Right. Bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the nonprofit power podcast. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode, because we're tackling one of the skills that tend to give folks a bit of trouble, not because it's hard to learn, but because there's a lot of emotional freight around it a lot of the time. If you've ever wound up with a deal whose terms didn't serve you, you know how important negotiation is. And yet, of all the skills demanded of nonprofit leaders, this is probably one of those that trips people up most often. So how about we change that? You know, the reality is you negotiate all the time. Especially if you have kids in your life, in any capacity, you've got experience negotiating. And bonus points for experience negotiating with teenagers. The thing is with kids, there's always a few things that you absolutely insist on and a few things that you absolutely will not tolerate. And in between there's room. And that's where the negotiation happens. Somehow though, when it comes to negotiating with decision makers, Folks frequently struggle. And a lot of the reason for that is the power dynamics feel very different, obviously. And often the stakes are pretty high. And in those situations, it's easy to get unnerved and even to feel relatively powerless. And obviously that is not a great place to be if you're trying to negotiate a good deal for yourself. So today I want to talk with you about how to get past that. And how to set yourself up for a successful negotiation with any decision maker. So first let's talk about what gets in the way. First and foremost, folks often think that they can't really negotiate with this big decision maker. And usually there's one or more of the following that are going on in their head that's telling them that this negotiation isn't really possible. One is the idea that you don't have any power. And so you don't have any leverage. If you don't have any power or leverage, the decision maker has no incentive to negotiate with me. Why even try. Another is not having faith in your own negotiating skills and feeling like either you don't know how to do that, or you don't know how to do that from a place of power. Another is believing that whatever the decision maker is offering is a take it or leave it proposition. Whether they've actually said that or not. It's really easy to go there. Especially if you're caught up in the belief that they have all the power. In each of those cases, you're actually defeating yourself before you even start. Primarily by making assumptions about what's possible. And about what's in the decision makers head. So we've got to deal with all of that stuff that's in your head before you get anywhere near the decision-maker for an actual negotiation. Cause even as I lay those out. It becomes pretty clear how operating from any one or more of those beliefs is going to put you in a position of tremendous disadvantage and make it really hard for you to negotiate anything good for yourself. So that's the stuff in your head And then there's just like the practical practice of negotiation. In that realm, the most common mistake I see is not having clarity about what your own bottom lines are. About what constitutes a good deal or a bad deal for you. And attached to that is having the willingness to say no to a bad deal if it comes to that. If you're not willing to say no to a bad deal then you basically have no negotiating power. Ultimately, you have to know the conditions under which you will say no to a deal. Now in addition to knowing your bottom line or bottom lines, plural. You also need to know what your ideal is. In a perfect world, what would this thing that you're negotiating look like? What you don't want to do is start from the question: what do I think they'll be willing to do? And I see that happen all the time, whether it's around pricing or other money-related things, whether it's around policy and try to do something really bold with policy. It's like, it'd be awesome if we could do such and such, we really need this. Oh. But they'll never agree to that. So, well, what could we propose that they would maybe be open to, or that they might agree to? What you hear right there is me negotiating with myself. Before I ever get into the presence of the decision maker. So don't do that. Now there's all sorts of strategic questions around what you say to the decision maker when you're engaging them. But you must start in your own mind with clarity around what it is that you really, really want. If you could have all that you want around this specific thing that you're negotiating, what would that look like? And in between your ideal and your absolute bottom line is all your room for negotiation. But if you don't stake out those two end points, what often happens, just by force of all those things that I've already talked about. Some of the stuff that's going on in your own head, some of the inclination to not want to push it too far, not irritate the decision maker, all those things. We start narrowing those end points substantially. We start saying, wow, you know, we could live with, this or that. And they'll never go for that. And then all of a sudden, your end points are quite close together. And the room for negotiation becomes very small. So what you ideally want is a great big space in which to negotiate. The bigger, the negotiating space, the more options you have, the more ways to get to a mutually beneficial agreement with the decision maker. So, this is another big mistake that I see with a lot of leaders is they negotiate with themselves first. And wind up taking themselves out of a position of strength before they ever engage the decision maker around the negotiation. Don't let that be you. it shouldn't be a surprise to learn that most of successful negotiation is an internal game. And it really just boils down to two things. One is a set of beliefs that you're operating from. And at a minimum, you need to believe a hundred percent that you have the right to negotiate. You have the power to negotiate. And that there is room for negotiation on every deal. And then the other thing you need is absolute clarity about your bottom line and your ideal. If you have those two things. You have the essential ingredients of being able to successfully negotiate a good deal for yourself. Now it's really important to point out that a negotiation involves give and take from both parties to get to a place of agreement. If you're adamant that you won't compromise on any piece, that is your decision. But then there can't be a negotiation because you have no ground to give. There's no space for compromise. So you do have to understand That there will be a give and take. There will be compromise for both of you. But that's again, why we want you to be working from the largest possible space of negotiation on your end. So that you have lots of avenues for not only acceptable compromise, but compromise that helps you. So. As with advocacy, generally speaking, negotiation tends to be around either money or policy. Sometimes both. When it's around policy, it could be around establishing a new service or expanding eligibility for an existing service. Expanding the scope of services under an existing policy. Creating a demo or a pilot. Changing the rules around an existing program. Those are all the kinds of things in policy that might directly relate to the work that you're doing and the services you're providing. Or you could be thinking bigger. depending on what space you're operating in. Maybe you're looking to expand Medicaid eligibility in your state. Maybe you're looking to expand a reimbursable child tax credit in your state. Maybe at the city or county level, you're looking to create an entirely new set of services or an entirely new program, because you see a need and you know that it needs to happen. And you've got some interest and now you need to actually hammer out the details. And that is going to involve negotiation. So all kinds of stuff. You can negotiate around policy from the fairly detailed and specific kind of service delivery oriented stuff that is the substance of daily life. And that can frankly be highly consequential. The rules around service eligibility, or the rules around how money is spent, can have enormous consequences, both for the people you serve and for your organization and its ability to thrive. So that stuff is not small stuff. It's very important. But there's also sort of the big vision stuff that you may embark on from time to time that you're also interested in negotiating about. Well, actually, Let me rephrase. You might not be that interested in negotiating. You probably really would rather just, if you're operating from a big vision, you'd just like them to adopt your big vision wholesale. And that would be super awesome, but it hardly ever works that way. Almost always there is going to be a need for negotiation and compromise. So again, Understanding your ideal and your absolute bottom line, tells you your boundaries for your negotiation. And obviously you're trying in the negotiation to get as close to your ideal as humanly possible. And we'll talk about how you can try to Set things up so that your chances of that are greater. But you also have to absolutely know where's your bottom line and when will you say no and just walk away from the deal. in a money negotiation, generally speaking, the decision maker is buying something from you. One way or another. And the negotiation is often around what specific benefits they'll get in exchange for what price. Whether you're talking about a contracting partner whether it's a, private entity contracting partner, or a government contracting partner, whether it is a government funder of some sort. A, grant of some kind. Private or public. Whatever it is. If you're in the service delivery business, chances are, essentially the purpose of this money negotiation is how much money is going to be involved? And what are they going to get for the money they're going to hand over to you? So. In a money negotiation it is really, really important to know that because they're basically looking to buy something from you. Understand that they already want something that you can provide. Or there wouldn't be a deal to negotiate about. as soon as that happens, as soon as each party has something they want that the other one can give them. That's where part of your power in a negotiation comes from. If they could just go to a vending machine and stick a quarter in and get the thing they want without having to deal with anybody, they would probably do that. But for the most part service delivery doesn't work that way, thankfully. And so in order to engage in a partnership with you of some kind, the terms of that partnership will need to be negotiated. Now sometimes, and I see this an awful lot, is that a negotiator for an organization is operating from the belief that they don't have any power. And that the decision maker has all the power. That leads to viewing whatever the decision-maker is offering as a take it or leave it deal. And it's almost never that. Every once in a while there will be an RFP that goes out that says these are the terms. Take it or leave it. But in the grand scheme of all of the different money negotiations you're likely to have in the course of the work of your organization, that situation represents a relatively small portion And even then it's very important for you to know what your bottom lines are. I had a client a while back who was facing basically a take it or leave it deal around a very large potential contract from city government to provide a set of services. And they were struggling mightily about whether they were even interested in submitting a proposal. It was a very large contract for a complex set of services that involve both housing and workforce development and the intersections of that were quite complicated. The city wanted what it wanted and it put out this RFP that left very little room for negotiation. This would have been a multimillion dollar contract. So the stakes were pretty high. And, you know, when it's that much money, there's a tendency to want to say, heck yeah, let's do it. My goodness. Think of all the people we can help with all that money. But the terms of the RFP were such that it felt uncomfortable. It felt like there might be too much compromise that would have to be made in order to conform to the contract. So we went through an internal process at the organization to answer the question. What are our bottom lines around, even proposing to do this, nevermind, agreeing to a contract in the end. We revisited the organization's mission and vision and the principles and ethical drivers of their work. And reaffirm those commitments. And then from that we pulled apart the RFP. In extreme detail. And identified all the areas where there could be alignment. And all of the areas where there might be a conflict. and from those areas where there might be a conflict, we came up with a set of questions that needed to be answered, and that became their decision-making screen. then they went to the bidders conference. They asked their questions, they got their answers. And in the end, the answers were such that it did not pass their decision-making screen. And so they said, no. But they did it from a place of certainty. They spent a lot of time and energy and a fair bit of money to examine that question and answer it to their full satisfaction. So that when they ultimately said thanks but no thanks, They did. So from a place of feeling really solid and aligned with their mission and values and felt like, yeah, that's the right decision for us. There were obviously mixed feelings at the end of that process because folks felt like dang, that was a lot of work to get to no. But in the end, they also felt enormous relief because there was such dissonance between how the contract for services was going to be structured and how they felt they needed to operate to be in integrity with their vision and values. Their gut was telling them this was probably a bad deal. But on another level, they really wanted to make it work. So, you know, if this stuff was easy, we wouldn't struggle over it, right? Sometimes it takes a fairly intensive look within. To say, where are our bottom lines? And once this client defined those, clearly they already felt better. This was feeling really squishy and difficult, and we didn't know where we stood. And now that we've really taken it apart and examined it all through the lens of our core values, now we have clarity. Now we know that we have a set of questions that will be our decision screen for this project. All that to say that sometimes this is fairly quick and easy. Super simple to say, okay, here's our bottom line, and here's our ideal. And boopity boop, you got that done in 10 minutes and that's great. Other times it might take more time. Generally speaking, it is worth the time it takes. Because the other thing is once you do that You're going to have a lot more clarity about any other opportunities that come along in a similar vein. You don't have to do all of that work a second time. Once you've gone through that process as a staff, you will have clarified so many things for yourselves that it really will pay dividends for many months and years down the road. So the other thing to remember with negotiations around a money item is that, while the ultimate conversation is going to be about money, it's really about what are you getting for that money? And that's where the negotiation happens a lot of the time. One key question always to ask in a money-related negotiation is, is the dollar figure attached to it fixed or is it flexible? a lot of times it will be fixed. Sometimes there's flexibility. It's important to ask. if they say the amount is fixed and there's no room for negotiation on the amount of money, you run that through your filter of what you know about them and whether you maybe should cross check that information with some other sources. hopefully you have a strong trust-based relationship with that decision maker. And if they say something to you, it's truthful and accurate and you don't have to do additional research. But if you're not so sure about that, it's always good to double check. you do want to know, is it a fixed amount or is it somewhat flexible or a lot of flexible. Some questions to ask yourself to help you figure out that bottom line without necessarily going through a massive internal exploration process. Although sometimes that is what you need. But a handful of questions that are always extremely valuable to know the answer to. you want to know what is your full true cost for your services? That means everything. And then you want to also know your true direct cost. you want to be clear what it actually costs you to deliver a set of services. And as you know, it isn't just the staff who are directly interacting with clients. It isn't just the rent on the space where you're interacting with the clients. if you're a producing product, it isn't just the ingredients of the product and The equipment and machinery required to produce the product. all of your operational expenses, ultimately have to be divided out among all of your direct service contracts, or grants or whatever they are. They are part of the cost of delivering your services. And there are certainly funders out there who don't like to think about that, that way. And in some imaginary world, the indirect cost fairy is taking care of all your indirect and that shouldn't be their problem. But that's not how things actually work. So for you to be a strong negotiator, you have to have absolute clarity about what your full true cost is of delivering services. And then you can cost that out in whatever way makes sense for what you do. It might be per unit produced, or it might be per person served, or however you quantify your units of service. You want a cost per unit that reflects your entire cost of operations. And then you also want a cost per unit that reflects all your direct cost, because you need to know both numbers internally. And then you have a conversation internally about What percentage of that full true cost is going to be attached to your per unit price. Is it going to be a hundred percent? Is it going to be some lower percent? Or is it going to be a hundred percent plus a percent? And the argument for that latter is that it's essentially for your R and D. It's for your ability to expand and serve additional populations. To create additional innovative services and all of that. And you want to be able to do that without having to go around with your hand out to a bunch of different funder saying, oh, please, wouldn't you fund us to do this new, innovative thing. If you see an opportunity and you want to pursue it, and you think something is needed, you want to have the resources available to be able to say, yeah, let's run a pilot. Let's try this. Let's see what we can do. But if you're only meeting expenses, And you're not creating an R and D fund. Not to mention an emergency fund and all the other funds that the Accountants would like you to have, then you're living on borrowed time and you're living on borrowed money. Every organization has to answer those questions for themselves. But it's very important to know your answer. Because If you don't know what your dollar bottom line is, it's impossible to have an effective negotiation around money. So with that said, as I mentioned, When it's ostensibly a money negotiation there's also all sorts of other things on the table. let's say the dollar amount is fixed. Grab a number out of a hat. Let's say that a prospective funder or contracting partner is saying the total amount is $50,000. That's the number. It can't change. That's what I have to work with. And they want X, Y, Z services for that, for 200 people. And you do the math and realize you can't do that. That will violate your bottom line around unit costs. So then what you can do is say, Really love to do this. And those numbers don't work. But what we can do is... and then you can propose some other things that involve either serving fewer people. Or if it's appropriate in your model, offer a more streamlined service package that maybe leaves off a couple of bells and whistles. You can decide if that's appropriate for you. That's part of your bottom line conversation. That's part of your, what we will and won't do. And only you can answer what you will and won't do, and under what circumstances. But the time to be thinking about all that is not when you're in the negotiation. The time to have figured that out is back home with your staff, hashing that out internally. So that you already know when you walk in the room, what your options are, where your space for negotiation lives. What your end points are and where you can work in the middle of that. A huge thing that is critical to bring to any negotiation is clarity around the value that you bring relative to what the decision maker wants or cares about. And a big part of your prep work is to clarify this in detail and to frame it in terms that the decision-maker would use. It's like any other messaging and engagement with a decision maker. You're still using all your messaging strategy in a negotiation. You want to be connecting everything back to what they want, what they care about. for example, if they're asking you for such a stripped down version of your services, cause they're trying to keep their costs low, that it would be compromising quality in ways that are unacceptable to you. Probably for reasons that it would not result in good outcomes for the client. So any compromise that would result in a poor outcome for the client is pretty much a non-starter. But then there's gradations of, well, what about a less perfect outcome for the client? Well, That again is something you want to have figured out back at the office With some careful deliberation, and considering alternatives. But if you can offer something that is a more streamlined service package that will still result in good outcomes for the client. Maybe not gold standard, but better than no services at all. Are you willing to do that? If so, you can attach a price to that and say, you know, look, we both want the same thing here. We want this end result for the clients. We want this to happen. I need to be transparent with you that the gold standard really is what will get them there. And if we take away from the gold standard is going to have an impact on the outcome. But. If we did it this way, this, this, and this, then we could get X outcome, which is still solid. And we could do that for something in the neighborhood of the price you're talking about. Alternatively, we can do the gold standard for fewer people, which is really what we would recommend. Because in fact, We believe and we can demonstrate, that the cost savings ultimately for delivering the gold standard services are going to be so much better for all of us. And that you will find ultimately that if you invest that way, you're going to have more resources to invest long term. however you frame it, if you're framing everything in terms of either a shared goal or something that you know they care a lot about. That's how you help move them toward yes on a compromise that will work for you. And as close to your ideal as possible. Another key thing is to be prepared to make distinctions and compare yourself to your competitors without trashing them. In almost every nonprofit service delivery realm, there are competitors. In many realms, there are for-profit competitors who may have advantages of scale. Of the ability to buy in bulk. Any number of scalability, leverage options that they have that allow them to operate at a lower cost per unit than you do. But it might also be that they have a lower cost because they pay their people substandard wages and no benefits. Or because they use inferior quality ingredients or because they cut corners on a service. Or they do a one size fits all approach. And that's another way to cut corners is they don't do any individualized support for the clients that they serve. There's all kinds of ways to get your costs down that erode quality. But from a decision makers perspective, they may be dazzled by the lower cost and be attracted to that. And it's on you to point out essentially the link between your higher costs and your higher quality services, which then lead to your higher quality outcomes. And you need to be able to do that in a way that doesn't trash your competitors. So trashing would be to say, Yeah, well, the reason they're cheaper is because they pay their people terrible wages and no benefits, and they have incredible turnover and that leads to lots of mistakes. And the services are poor quality because of all the mistakes. and they cut corners by doing one size fits all and all of that. Instead of saying that, you can simply say what it is that you do that sets you apart. you can say, well, You know, one of the reasons that our costs are a little bit higher is that we are committed to paying everyone on our team a living wage and a solid benefit package for three reasons. One, it's the right thing to do. Two, people who are making a decent wage are more secure in their life at home and therefore are able to bring their best self to work every day. They're able to bring better energy, more dedication, and they make fewer mistakes. We have very, very low turnover. And so not only do we have a low error rate, but we also have people who've been doing this work a long time and have developed deep expertise and deep reputations and relationships in the community, all of which help us deliver extremely high quality services. In addition, we are dedicated to a model of meeting individuals where they are and tailoring our services to the individuals need so that they're not being asked to do anything they don't need to do. We're not delivering anything that isn't needed. And they're getting the shortest, most efficient path to success as possible. So all of that takes a little bit more of an investment upfront. But the dividends that it pays are so dramatic that in the end, it is actually highly cost-effective. Whatever you want to say. But you frame it that way. You don't ever have to say a word about your competition. Not one word. You just talk about you. But you're making a comparison. This is a very important to be able to do this because everybody wants to pay the lowest cost. It's normal. And if they believe that they're getting exactly the same thing from vendor A and from vendor B; the only difference is vendor A costs less than vendor B. Well, of course they're going to pick vendor A with the lower cost if all other things are equal. So it's on you to show them, no, all other things are not equal. There's a reason that's cut rate over there because it's cut rate quality. And cut rate quality leads to poor outcomes. And then you can just have to invest more later to mop up the mess. In the long run buying the cut rate product costs you more. So you can do this all without ever saying a bad word about your competitors, but you've got to be able to distinguish yourself. Because the decision-maker is making comparisons in their mind. one other key thing that I hadn't mentioned, but I feel it's very important to call out. Is that you have to have authority to negotiate on behalf of your organization. You can't go into a negotiation without that authority. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that you can sign the contract right there in the room, that you're going to have final say. that's not what I mean. Because that probably shouldn't be the case. You always want to take a little time to reflect on anything that's been negotiated. Give yourself a chance to say, have we thought of everything, did we miss anything? Is there anything hiding in here that's going to bite us that we didn't catch? And if there is, then you want to fix that before you sign anything. but you have to be empowered to negotiate. So you see the difference. it's perfectly okay to be in a negotiation and say, and in fact, this can be tactically very useful to say, I don't know. I don't think I'm going to be able to sell that to my boss To my leadership team, to my board. what would make it less of a tough sell is if we did X. but you've got to have the authority to actually be in there negotiating or you're kind of toast. And The last thing is that if this all makes you nervous. if you don't have a lot of experience negotiating, or you don't have a lot of experience having negotiations go well, it can feel pretty nerve-wracking to go into a negotiation. So if you're feeling that ahead of a negotiation, practice in a safe space. Pull some colleagues or some friends or whoever aside and get them to work with you a little bit. roleplay a little bit with them. Find out where the things are that are tripping you up either internally or you're not sure of your messaging. if you role play this a couple of times, you'll find those holes or those rough spots and you can smooth them out. And then when you go in to actually do the negotiation. It's like, oh, okay. Yeah. I've I've really thought this through. I'm good. I'm ready to do this. And the other thing is, it's very rare for there to be one negotiation conversation, and then that's it. That's the only opportunity there is to talk about this ever again. That just doesn't usually work that way. With the exception of say things like bidders conferences where there's not really a negotiation going on, you're just getting information so you can decide, does this fit in the parameters of what we've agreed is okay. but if it's an actual negotiation where you're both engaging on how can we figure this out? how can we work a deal that works for both of us? Then, there's very likely going to be more than one conversation. Unless the first one just goes so perfectly that you don't need to meet again, but that's rare. More often than not, you're going to need to talk to them a couple of times. And so you don't have to get it all done in one. some tips for how to make the actual negotiation sessions go as well as possible. Is to lead with your ideal. And be sure to frame it in terms of what the decision maker wants and cares about. They might surprise you. This is why you never, ever start from a place of what you think they'll agree to. Start from what you actually want, what you actually see as the ideal. But frame it in terms that are going to resonate for them. I have had more than one scenario where I've gone in with my pie in the sky version. Pitched it as, how this is going to just knock it out of the park for them. And have them go, wow, that sounds pretty cool. Can we do that? Why, yes we can. And here's how. So you never know. But if you don't go in with your ideal and you don't pitch that, then you won't know. And you'll almost certainly wind up with less than what you'd hope for. As always, listen. This is like any other scenario of engaging a decision-maker. If you're listening it's going to go so much better for you. They may share some details that really help you. You want to pay attention to body language. You want to pay attention to all the information that's coming your way. And use it in the moment as much as you can, but also file it away because probably there'll be a second conversation. And if there was something you learned that you couldn't quite figure out how to leverage in that moment, maybe when you go back to the office and talk to your colleagues, you'll figure out a way. but you won't have any of that available if you're not listening. And it can be really hard because again, if you're stressed out by the idea of negotiating. the more stressed out you are, the harder it is to take in information, to take in cues. So you have to let that stuff in. Take a breath, let it in so that you can make use of it and turn it to your advantage. It's very helpful to think creatively in the moment. this is part of being empowered to negotiate and to come up with new ideas. Maybe as they say something, they reveal something new that you didn't know before. And it sparks an idea. And you know, one of the most useful phrases in a negotiation is, well, what if we did XYZ. It's always a good start to a sentence. What if we... And then take them on a little story ride of what if we did it this way? Maybe that could work. always be prepared to say, I don't know if my leadership team, my board, whatever will go for that. I'm going to have to take that back to them. here's the problem I see with that. Here's the objection I think they're going to raise. And then see what the decision maker does with that. Maybe they'll say, oh, well, if that's the issue, then maybe we could do X. Or they might say, well, Then you better take that back cause that's a deal breaker for us. Either way, now you have information. But you don't have to make a solid commitment in that moment if you're not ready to do that. it's usually better to go back and think it through before you say yes to anything. You can say almost yes. You can come really close and say, that sounds amazing. I think we have the basis for a really great partnership here, a really great deal here, however you're framing it. let me take it back to my team, but I think they're going to be really excited about this. Let me follow up with you in two days or whatever. You can come right up to the edge of yes, without saying yes. And leave them really feeling excited and positive about the prospective deal without actually feeling like you have to say yes right then and there. it's not a used car. it's not like, oh, there's only one of these and it's going to go really fast. You better say yes right now, or it'll be gone when you come back in the morning. It's not that. And by the way, that's bogus when the used car person says it too. you always want to give yourself room to reflect. To come back, think about it, think through any pitfalls, check it with your colleagues. Multiple brains are better than one, always, on a deal. Because there are going to be things that you don't think of that other people do, and putting your heads together is going to really give you the best chance for the best possible deal. So. Most of this is an inside job. the two main things are to get your head right going in. So that's having complete clarity around your bottom line and your ideal. And to believe a hundred percent that you have the right to negotiate, the power to negotiate, and that there's room for negotiation. On both sides. You have your ideal and your bottom line. So does the other party, so does the decision maker. And the whole purpose of the conversation, the negotiation is to find a happy place, somewhere in the space that you've each created for negotiation room. Frame things in terms of what the decision maker cares about and wants. Be a hundred percent clear on the value you're bringing in that context. And be prepared to compare yourself to your competition in a positive way. if you can do that, you can have a successful negotiation 99% of the time. And the last thing I will say is that, like anything else, negotiation is a skill set. The more you do it, the more you practice it. The easier it will get, the better you will get at it. And the more opportunities you will have had to learn little nuances of how to do this even more effectively. And now you have a starting framework to help you put yourself on a path to success for negotiation with decision-makers, no matter how high the stakes, no matter how big your goal. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.