What Successful Negotiators Do Differently | Kathryn Valentine | TED

I love negotiating. I love negotiating. Anyone else?

Four people! (Laughter) As women, we have a negotiation problem.

When we negotiate, we are less likely than men are to be successful and we're at a higher risk of backlash.

This causes us to miss out on opportunities, earn less and frankly, messes around with our mental well-being.

Fun, right? We've all been there. There's something you want to ask for.

So we stress about it for weeks. We prepare, we take all of the expert advice, and yet it never feels like we're coming from a position of strength.

What if I told you that's because we've been given the wrong advice our whole lives?

What if I told you there's another way, a better way, a more authentic way, designed especially for women, that will make you much more likely to get what you're asking for?

I want to share a story. Ten years ago, I was an MBA intern with an opportunity at a Fortune 50 company, a company that I had had my eye on for years.

I was doing really well in the internship.

I actually finished my summer project in under a month, and I decided that my best bet would be to negotiate to be placed on another team halfway through the summer, because that's how, I thought, twice as many people would vouch for me and I would get that job.

So I made an appointment with the intern coordinator for Monday morning, and spent all weekend preparing for one of the biggest conversations of my life.