May 31, 2024 • 52 mins
Women are already expert negotiators—they just don’t always realize it.
This episode of Kick It Open starts with a simple but powerful text: a reminder that negotiation isn’t just for boardrooms—it’s a skill women use every single day.
Host Shelby Nicholl is joined by Kathryn Valentine, CEO of Worth More Strategies, to break down the science of negotiation and why traditional advice often fails women. Kathryn shares research-backed insights, personal stories, and a holistic negotiation strategy designed to increase impact without increasing burnout.
This conversation covers:
✅ Why women already have the skills to be rockstar negotiators
✅ How to advocate for yourself as effectively as you advocate for others
✅ The power of body language, silence, and understanding what the other party values
✅ A game-changing reframe of stress and “non-promotable” tasks—so you can ask for (and get) the resources you need
If negotiation has ever felt stressful or intimidating, this episode will change the way you see it—and show you why you’re already more skilled than you think.
Resources mentioned in the episode:
To access Kathryn’s courses and the “75 Things to Negotiate” visit her website at: https://worthmorestrategies.com/
Claudia Goldin’s book Career and Family is incredible! A bit of a history lesson but full of great info we should all know.
Linda Babcock, Brena Peyser, Lise Veterlund and Laurie Weingart’s collective book “The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead End Work”
To connect with Shelby Nicholl, reach out to her via LinkedIn or at info@murielnetwork.com.
About this podcast:
If you're a woman in wealth management (or any male-dominated industry), this podcast is for you.
Muriel Siebert (first woman member of the NYSE ) said, "When a door is hard to open and nothing else works, sometimes you just have to rear back and kick it open.” After decades of sluggish progress, it’s time for us to kick the door open on women’s success.
Schedule a discovery call with Shelby Nicholl: Zoom Scheduler
Produced by Shelby Nicholl.
Edited by Aaron Sherman.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll License code: EV5ON7Y3CSESDSEU
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If right now, when you Googled how do I negotiate,
you actually got advice for howto negotiate as a woman, I think
women would love negotiationbecause we're really good at it.
It's just that we've beenhanded the wrong tools and they
backfire on us, which makes usnot want to do it.
Once you have the right tools,this is fun.
It's great.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hi, I'm Shelby Nickel .
Have you ever had a greatconversation with a colleague or
a girlfriend and you leave withan energy, boost of inspiration
, ready to fight another day?
Me too, and that feeling wasthe inspiration for this podcast
.
I'm a 25-year corporate veteranwho climbed the corporate
ladder to reach top levels attwo broker-dealers, and often I
found myself being the onlywoman in the room.
I saw women advisors andcorporate leaders burned out,
(00:54):
overlooked and generally wantingto have more impact.
And it's not just about us whowork within the wealth
management industry.
It's about the untappedpotential of women as investors
within the wealth managementindustry.
It's about the untappedpotential of women as investors.
In this podcast, we tell thestories of women who are winning
clients, leading organizations,doing things differently and
bringing new energy to theirwork.
(01:15):
There's a quote that inspiresme by Muriel Siebert, the first
woman member of the NYSE.
She said when a door is hard toopen and nothing else works,
sometimes we just have to rearback and kick it open.
Welcome to the Muriel NetworkKick it Open podcast.
Our goal with Muriel Network isto close the gaps on women in
(01:43):
senior leadership and thegender-based wealth gap, and so
our guest today, catherineValentine, is an expert in
negotiating, and negotiatingwell is critical, of course, to
landing the role or winning theclient, creating your balance in
life and certainly, earningmore money.
Catherine is the CEO of WorthMore Strategies, where she helps
(02:05):
organizations advance femaletalent.
A top-rated speaker, herclients include companies like
JPMorgan, kpmg and Bain, and herwork has been featured in the
Harvard Business Review, theWall Street Journal and Fast
Company.
She started her career atMcKinsey Company, where she
became one of their youngestindustry advisors.
(02:27):
She lives in Atlanta with herhusband and two sons.
Those two sons put herleadership skills to the test
every single day.
Welcome, catherine.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Shelby, thank you so much for the opportunity to be
here.
I'm excited to have thisconversation with you.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Great.
Well, before we get started, Ijust wanted to start off with
this text that, when I announcedI was doing Muriel Network and
to a group of my girlfriends whowere all senior vice presidents
at one of the firms that I wasat, one of them sent to me
talking about content and shesaid it was all about
negotiation and how importantnegotiation was.
(03:04):
And her text read you know,before I had my daughter, a
friend had said to her so to myfriend that your entire life
will be a negotiation from hereon out.
Think about what we do when wenegotiate with a toddler or God
forbid, a teenager.
Women are uniquely positioned toactually be rock stars at
negotiation if they just leaninto what they do all the time
(03:27):
without realizing it.
The same fundamentals applyfiguring out what's important to
the other party, trading for it, body language I mean, we all
have a mom glare and the silenceis legit one of the most
impactful ways to gain leverage,just to name a few Rock your
work life like you, run the hellout of a household and you'll
be fine.
(03:47):
That was my friend's text,because we were all talking
about what are the key elementsof work life that can be hard
for women and negotiation alwayscomes up.
What did you think about thattext?
I know you read it and you justheard me read it here.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I think that text is spot on, and what we know from
research is that once we removesome of the roadblocks which
we'll talk about in a second andhow to remove those but women
are better negotiators than menin almost every context.
We're absolutely better whenwe're negotiating on behalf of
others, because that actuallyleverages societal concepts of
gender instead of having themwork against us.
(04:26):
Where it gets a little bittricky is in gender
non-congruent negotiations,specifically those that happen
in the workplace.
So if you think about when mennegotiate for flexibility,
they're at a higher risk ofbacklash than women are, and
when women have traditionalcareer negotiations promotion
resources pay.
Those are the places that get alittle bit trickier for us.
The good news is, as yourfriend, pay.
Those are the places that get alittle bit trickier for us.
The good news is, as yourfriend pointed out, we are
(04:49):
fundamentally excellentnegotiators.
The sort of roadblock we haveis one that is created by
society, and it's one that wecan get around pretty easily
once you know what the tricksare.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh my gosh.
So how did you become anegotiation expert?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Oh, so many good stories come from massive
failures, right?
So I was getting my MBA and Iwas negotiating with the.
So I was getting my MBA, I washaving my MBA internship, which
is essentially a three-month jobinterview, and I finished my
three-month project in fourweeks, which was faster than
(05:29):
they ever had anyone do.
I was, like you know, I'd beentrained by McKinsey.
I was very clearly on strongfooting, and so I decided what I
wanted to do was to negotiateto be placed on another team
halfway through the summer sothat I could get to know more
people and sort of understandthe organization better.
And so I did what any, I think,well-intentioned person would
(05:51):
do in that situation, which is,I decided that over the weekend
I was going to get trained up onnegotiation and then I was
going to have this conversationon Monday morning.
So I went to the Barnes andNobles, which were like on every
corner.
I bought the books, Iunderlined them, I highlighted
them, I Googled how do Inegotiate?
I put all the informationtogether, synthesized it, I
wrote out a script.
You know, one would argue I'venever under prepared for
(06:12):
anything.
We'll put it that way.
And so I went into the meetingon Monday morning we had started
at 10 am and I asked to beplaced onto another team.
By 10.06, it was clear that Ihad somehow offended this person
.
I had not intended to and I hadno idea how I had, but I had.
And by 10.10, I was being toldthat I was no longer a culture
(06:36):
fit and therefore would not begetting a job at the end of the
summer.
So I went from top of the pileto bottom of the pile in less
time than it takes to get alatte.
At the end of that then you know, if I wasn't going to get the
job, then the internship didn'tmake sense.
I needed to go find a job andso, as a result of that, I was
(06:58):
then escorted out of thebuilding by security because
that was their protocol.
I mean huge Fortune 10 company.
Their protocol is if you're nolonger employed, you're going to
sort it out.
But it was one of those thingswhere it's like, oh gosh, 20
minutes ago I was one of theirtop candidates and now I am
sitting in my car with a box ofstuff trying to figure out what
the heck just happened to me.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Wow, I mean, I can't even imagine that must have felt
like such whiplash.
It feels like such anoverreaction to your ask as well
.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow, yeah.
So at that point in time I wasin a fortunate position because
I had a year of business schoolleft and I went to Northwestern,
where you know there's a numberof very famous negotiation
professors there, including somethat are on retainer.
You know Google for all oftheir M&A like big, big players.
One of my professors did a twobillion dollar acquisition when
(07:53):
when I was working with herRight, and so I went to her and
I said do you have any idea whathappened to me?
And she said no, but there's abunch of new research being
pumped out right now betweenHarvard and Carnegie Mellon on
the impact of gendernegotiations.
Which, shelby, they didn't lookat that until like 12 years ago
, that's crazy too.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I mean, we have been in the workforce for a long time
and nobody thought we shouldlike look at these things.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Right, and so I just dove into the research and I did
that for a full year and what Ifigured out by the end of the
year is one negotiation isgendered, which is kind of
obvious once you say it out loud.
But to anyone that Googles, howdo I negotiate?
You're denying that gender's inthat, because no one is giving
advice that's gendered.
Right now, we're all assumingthat what works for white men
(08:40):
works for everybody.
The second thing I learned isthat most of the advice out
there is for white men.
We don't say it's for white menbut it is.
So, even like?
The Wall Street Journal ran anarticle last year that said the
advice given by the expert wasgo in and say, and I quote I
(09:18):
deserve to be promoted.
Oh, we can't say that.
No, we can't say that solutionthat has been proven by the top
universities in the world.
People in the academic worldknow about this.
They've known about this foryears, but it hadn't been
translated to the professionalworld, which is how I derailed
my career because I didn't knowabout it, and so my job now is
just to bring the insights towomen who can use it tomorrow to
(09:39):
negotiate more pay, moreresources, that promotion,
whatever it may be the work lifescenario that you need to be
able to be successful.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh, I love it.
It's so reminiscent of what Isee all the time in the
financial advising wealthmanagement community and
specifically, I hear it a lotfrom women advisors, and women
advisors are often called intotheir, whomever their leader is,
if they have you know kind of aboss, or it might be somebody
in their, in their home office,and or they go to attend a class
(10:11):
and they're going to be trainedon you know how to do, how to
grow their business and they'llbe brought in and the usually
white man will say do thesethings, say this stuff.
And if you say these things,that's going to close the deal
and the woman I'm talking withwill you know, take the note,
because she's still polite, takethe note, look at it and go.
(10:33):
There's no way I can say that.
It's like so much of the advicewe get is built for that white
man, of course.
And we're working in financialservices in an industry like
many that was created by men forthe male advisor, for a male
client, and now you've got thisfeminization of wealth and, oh
(10:57):
gosh, the whole world isshifting.
Like what does this look like?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And I get so excited about what you're describing
because I feel like I'm one ofthe spokes on that wheel, which
is that, to your point, mostbusiness skills were created for
white men and we talk aboutthem as if we are all white men.
But we now have really robustresearch and we have a number of
research partnerships where wecan talk about training folks on
(11:23):
how to negotiate as a woman,how to network as a woman.
I mean to your previous podcast.
It's different, right.
How do you do time managementas a woman?
Any time management book youpick up that's written for a man
is going to ignore 54% of thethings that we do on a weekly
basis.
Any system that was built forsomeone that does that much less
(11:44):
work than I do is not going towork for me.
And so there's all these littlethreads of places where we're
being trained, we're being giventhe wrong tools you know, and
so I think part of this podcastis let me give you some more
tools.
You don't have to use them, butat least in your arsenal you now
have something that was builtfor women and you can pick and
choose what feels right to youin any specific case.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Okay, so let's get into it.
How, what does the research saythat we should be doing?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I love this part.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Me too.
So at this point in time, I'vereviewed about 13,000 pages of
academic research and it comesout very clearly on.
There are three things that weshould do.
One is think holistically.
Two is ask relationally.
And three is discusscollaboratively.
Do you want me to dive in eachof those?
Yeah, let's dive in.
(12:41):
Yeah, okay, let me give you alittle bit of a foundation and
then I'll dive in.
So where backlash comes from forwomen is backlash comes from
societal concept of gender, thatwe need to be others focused.
Add that into a scenario wherepeople come into a negotiation
believing that it's you versusme.
(13:02):
Those two things will neverinherently go hand in hand.
Right, those are always goingto clash, which is why, when
women negotiate for others, youknow if you're doing a deal,
negotiation or something likethat we're extremely good at
that because we don't triggeranything.
It's when you're negotiating onbehalf of yourself that you
tend to trigger these societalconcepts of gender which lead to
(13:23):
backlash.
So that's kind of thefoundation of what we're dealing
with here.
So then step number one thinkholistically is and I feel like
you handed it at the top of theepisode but 82% of people that
we talk to when we saynegotiations, think about base
pay, and that is absolutelysomething that you can negotiate
.
But I would encourage you tothink even bigger than that,
(13:45):
right?
So we have a list of 75 thingsyou can negotiate.
The work of Claudia Golden, whojust won the Nobel Prize, shows
that if you do want to maximizefor your financial future, you
will actually negotiate careerprogression before negotiating
base pay.
Right, it's the differencebetween, like, a 2% bump and a
20% bump.
But the other thing that wefind in our research that I
(14:06):
think might be particularlyhelpful to wealth advisors from
my understanding of wealthadvisors, so please step in is
that women are given fewer stockoptions, but also fewer
resources to do the same job.
So women, for example, aregiven team sizes that are 25 to
40% smaller than their malecolleagues.
(14:27):
Women are given stock optionsthat are 80% less than their
male colleagues, right?
So if we're talking about thewealth gap, it's so much broader
than just base pay.
So things I would think aboutwhen you're thinking about what
you want to negotiate is onewhat would help me be more
successful in this role?
Two, what would reduce mystress?
(14:47):
Three, what would bring me joy?
Right, so I've worked withpeople that have negotiated
certain locations, certain teamsizes, what they will do for job
responsibilities, what theywon't do anymore and who it's
going to go to Fertilitybenefits hours is a big one.
Also calendars.
Like I have worked with peoplethat have negotiated that they
(15:09):
do not work the month ofDecember because they believe
that that's when the bulk oftheir children's memories are
being made and also, frankly, incertain industries there's not
as much work happening.
Then, from your point of view,what kind of things do you think
financial advisors cannegotiate outside of just base
pay that would be helpful totheir career well-being?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, I think there's a couple of things.
One is that our community isboth people in home offices so
think corporate leaders, who youare very well accustomed to,
just like all corporate leadersand then financial advisors.
Financial advisors,specifically, could be
negotiating absolutely theirhours and their time off and
definitely the activities thatthey're doing.
(15:53):
So, for example, some of themost productive advisors and
teams even if you usetraditional metrics of AUM or
client served, et cetera theyhave distributed the work across
some other people.
They might have a paraplannerwho's doing the 80% of the
financial planning work and thenthey're just coming in on the
(16:15):
top of that and doing the reallycritical elements for them.
They don't have to enter allthe data themselves, et cetera.
So I think there's some thingsthat financial advisors there
can negotiate.
I loved your conversation aboutthe 75 things because it really
spoke to me.
You know I read Indra Nooyi'sbook and.
(16:37):
I remember this stood out to meso much as I read her book it's
probably the number one thing Italk about, I mean, out of her
enormous book, her enormouscareer.
But one of the things thatstood out was how she didn't ask
for the corporate jet.
All of her peers were using it,and it wasn't until finally her
calendar between her family andwork got so terrible that then
(16:58):
she felt forced to ask for it.
And then she was given it.
It was just never offered toher and she didn't want to step
out and ask for it.
And then she was given it.
It was just never offered toher and she didn't want to step
out and ask for it.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Well and think about all those years where she was
taking 50% more time to get toeveryone.
Like what impact was she notdelivering because of that?
Like the company lost out onthat one too.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
That's right, yeah, and I think she lost out.
She was such a worker, she justput in tons of hours.
But to your point?
A worker, she just put in tonsof hours.
But to your point, she couldhave been putting in tons of
hours on something else, not onthe travel activity.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So, so to your point.
I do think when you're thinkingholistically on negotiations,
you know what can, what can Iask for that would allow me to
deliver more impact?
Deliver more impact?
And part of that is looking atwhere I'm spending my time.
What can I reallocate somewhereelse that will free up enough
time that I can do more of thehigh impact work that I'm?
Maybe I wasn't doing when I was22 and started, but I'm capable
(17:56):
of doing now better for you,better for the company.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, absolutely, and I love how you just phrase that
as how can I give up somethings so that I can do more for
the company?
Right?
I talk with a lot of women,especially the higher ranking,
say SVPs, evps.
Everybody is feeling burnout,we all feel this achievement and
(18:19):
hustle culture norm, and so Ifeel like you can avoid some of
that if you can ask for some ofthis help.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Well, and if you want , you know if I can nerd out
with you here first.
Yeah, I don't know if you'veread the no Club yet.
This is Linda Babcock WineGartner.
There's two other authors on it.
But basically what they lookedat is non-promotable tasks, and
women are asked to do 200 hoursof non-promotable tasks every
year.
That is a full month of work.
(18:49):
It is very much contributing toburnout, is contributing to
limited talent from a companyperspective, and so to your
point.
One of the big solutions onthat is figure out what
non-promotable tasks are on yourplate and negotiate them off.
And we'll talk about how to dothat, but, like you, it's going
to free up your time andwell-being and it's also going
to allow you to be more valuableto the company.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Super interesting to think about non-promotable tasks
, because sometimes those arethe things that we also enjoy at
the same time.
But to your point, we only haveso much time.
We have to negotiate it.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, and I think, if there are ones that you enjoy,
you know, keep some of those Joyin your life is important and
you know, from a corporateplatform you can do many things
that you can't do as anindividual.
So, yes, but also, are theresome on there that A are totally
draining you?
I bet there are, and two, youknow, maybe you focus that joy
(19:44):
on a couple of them and not on16 different committees.
So anyway, number one thinkholistically.
Do you want me to move tonumber two?
Yeah, let's do so.
Number two is ask relationally.
This is research done by HannahRaleigh Bowles out of Harvard
and Linda Babcock out ofCarnegie Mellon.
It shows that when women ask ina way that demonstrates both
that their ask is legitimate andbeneficial, they are not only
(20:07):
more successful in theirnegotiations but they virtually
eliminate the risk of backlash.
Virtually eliminate is from oneof the research studies done at
Georgetown on this.
So what I found?
and I don't do individualcoaching anymore.
But what I found when I didindividual coaching is women are
so busy and our brains are sofull that when you tell somebody
(20:27):
that they need to demonstratethat it's both legitimate and
beneficial, like eyes glaze over.
It's just a level two nebulousfor us to be able to put in.
So what we ended up doing overthe course of about five years
is creating a formula.
It's our trademark formula.
You can use it in almost anywork, negotiation, and the
formula is past performance plusfuture vision, plus your ask,
(20:53):
and then stop talking.
We added that one in in yearthree because, in an attempt to
make the negotiation partnerfeel comfortable, women would
start negotiating againstthemselves.
So now, at the end, what we dois we put in conversational
volleys that show that it's likeclearly the other person's turn
to talk.
So would it be helpful if Igive you an example?
Yes let's do so.
(21:13):
What is something that one ofyour audience members would want
to negotiate?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Okay, I think the perfect example is additional
team member support.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Great and what are for your audience?
What is like?
The key metric Is it?
I heard you say AUM earlier.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, I would say maybe client served.
Okay could either be advisorsif we're in the home office and
we're serving advisors, or itcould be if you're an actual
financial planner or financialadvisor.
It could be the end client, theinvestor that you're serving.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Great.
I'm going to give you anexample here To the audience
members.
If I use these termsinaccurately for your industry,
just breeze over it.
I'm sure you can fix it.
Also, understand that, like I,you know.
So what someone would say inthat context is, as you know, I
was able to serve 10% moreclients than we needed last year
(22:13):
, or then.
My goal was I was able to seemy goal by 10%.
I actually think that this yearI could exceed it by 15%, which
is something everyone wants,right?
This is the future vision thatwe're all behind.
In order to accomplish that, Iwanted to talk to you about
getting additional team membersso that I can delegate the lower
value task and really focus onthat high impact work, which is
(22:36):
what you hired me to do andwhat's going to get us results.
What do you think about that?
And so now let's have aconversation.
Actually, there's a team memberover here that has half
capacity because I was going tomove this over here, so let's
talk about that.
You know, I don't know wherethis would go.
Oh, what about a freelancebudget?
Oh, I guess we could get afreelancer to do that data entry
for you, especially because wedon't have a budget for, like,
(22:58):
another full-time hire, butfreelance budgets come from a
totally different bucket.
Like now we're going to have aconversation about how to
collaboratively solve thisproblem.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Right.
I love also that you couldprobably stretch that over time,
like it could be well, let'sfree up that half a person today
and assign that, and then wecan add the other person later
on in the year, et cetera, etcetera.
I also love how you broke thatinto tasks to make that more
reasonable and doable.
Interesting, and that lastquestion how might we make that
(23:31):
happen?
I can't remember your exactphrasing, but it was.
You really visually turned theconversation to the other person
.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Well, so you want to walk out and, by the way, the
average negotiation is 28 days,so this typically isn't going to
be one conversation but whatyou want to walk out with is
that plan that we haveco-created and that we both feel
good about.
And then, obviously, you'regoing to send an email
afterwards with what the plan is.
So now we have a paper trail,but any time that you hit a
roadblock like, oh, we can't dothat, now we're going to figure
(24:01):
out why.
So, oh, that's interesting, canyou tell me why?
Well, because budgets arelocked for six more months.
Okay, what do I need to do inthe next six months to
demonstrate that?
That's you know, to be readywhen that happens?
Oh well, you would need to do X, y and Z.
Okay, that sounds good.
Now you go do X, y and Z, sowhen budgets are unlocked in six
months, there's not aconversation anymore.
This is a predetermined thing.
(24:21):
Like, you are getting theresources that you need.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
And you've already proven your success Again.
You just keep that achievementup, which is part of your
formula Love that.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So then, do you want to do step number three?
Let's do three Yep.
Step number three is to discusscollaboratively, which we sort
of showcased earlier.
But when you do yourconversational volley, what do
you think about that?
What concerns would you have?
How could you see that working?
However, you want to end yourrelational ask.
When you do that, you're nowgoing to engage in collaborative
problem solving.
(24:57):
So what the issue we come upagainst is even people who have
been trained in integrativenegotiations, which is like
we're going to build the pie andthen split it.
Even people that have beentrained that way, when they
picture a self-negotiation, theypicture a winner-take-all one
person's a winner, one person'sa loser situation.
(25:17):
We really need to fight againstthat.
The mindset when you walk inthat room should be us versus
the problem, and the problem isanything that prevents you from
delivering your highest impactat your lowest stress level.
Problem for you, problem forthem, right, and so when you go
in with that very collaborativemindset, now we can start to
(25:37):
build it together.
Oh, okay, I understand that yousaid that that's not possible.
Do you have any other solutions?
Ok, well, that one might work,because here's this other
information I have that youdon't have yet.
Right, and now we're buildingthe solution together.
We also know the Ikea effectPeople are much more likely to
say yes and value things thatthey've built.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Interesting.
This is game changing.
It's really just blowing mymind this idea of that the end
of the day, the best thing forthe company is for me to do the
highest impact work at thelowest stress level.
That makes my problem theirproblem.
That is a reframe that I havenever heard.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, it's the best thing for the company.
It's also the best thing foryour clients, right?
It is not good for your clientsif you are exhausted because
you're doing I don't know, dataentry or whatever it may be.
Right, it's best for yourclients if you have extra energy
there so that when somethingunexpected happens, they can
call you and you're ready, likeyou have the energy to dive in
and figure out how to help themnavigate that.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Because I think, as women we're often we often feel
like it's only ourresponsibility.
I need to just buckle down, doall the things, do all the work,
never ask for help, et cetera,and getting out of it.
You just made my feelings ofoverwhelm part of my company's
problem?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yes, because it is.
I mean, one of the thingsthat's happening right now is so
.
Mckinsey just did this studyshowing that if women, if we had
true gender equity in theworkplace, it would add $28
trillion to the global GDP, andevery company wants a little
slice of that, but they cannotaccess a slice of that if they
can't advance and retain femaletalent.
(27:15):
If females continue to leave athigher rates or stay at the
bottom of those companies, thenthey can't get any of that
growth that they want.
So this is very much a, youknow, sort of a global problem
that companies have to learn howto solve, and the way that you
solve it is you allow women toaccess conversations that help
them deliver more at a lowerstress level, which are
(27:36):
negotiations that we havelargely been locked out of.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Absolutely.
I also think a lot of so muchof the mindshare that goes to
all of the sort of just being awoman in the workplace, stuff,
right, the double bindish, thefact that we have to learn how
to negotiate a little bitdifferently.
That being said, once we knowthis formula, we can just do it
and I get.
That's the power.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I didn't love the idea that I, as a woman, needed
to learn how to do somethingdifferent right, it was just
another burden and it kind ofticked me off.
But once I got into it Irealized that one once you teach
women to do this, they reportfeeling more authentic in their
negotiations, which means thatthey're much more likely to
negotiate Right.
(28:25):
So we see, you know, women notonly negotiating more
successfully, but not dreadingthese conversations the way that
they were when they had to suitup in armor.
That wasn't built for us.
Right now, it's just we'regoing to make everything better
for everyone.
Why wouldn't we have thatconversation?
We're going to make everythingbetter for everyone.
Why wouldn't we have thatconversation?
The other thing is a lot ofthese tools are actually best
practice negotiation tools.
(28:47):
Like you know, discussingcollaboratively is best practice
for all genders.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
It just happens to have an additional bonus for
women Interesting.
So discussing collaborativelyis always better for both
genders.
So, in other words, wheneverwe're negotiating as people,
when we're on the other side ofthe negotiation table, we're not
negotiating for ourselves.
We're hearing a team membernegotiate, even if it's male or
female.
We're going to be more open tothat negotiation if it is
addressed in a collaborative way.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, I don't want to say always, just from a
research perspective.
That's the thing that we gettouchy about, but overall that
is what you would expect.
So Harvard's program onnegotiation teaches this tactic
to all genders in almost allscenarios, because we know from
research that when we use thisapproach, overall we do better.
(29:38):
Now, there might be a coupleone-offs that somebody can come
up with where this one's notgoing to work as well, but
overall, yes, you would expectall genders to have better
outcomes when they do this.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
When people go into negotiation, how do you suggest
they prepare for that experience?
Let's talk about it as I'mnegotiating either for a team
member or even just payfinancial compensation.
Should I have sort of, should Igo over what I really want and
pad the request so that I cancome down?
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (30:12):
So what you're asking about right now is anchoring.
Are you familiar?
Yeah, so for anyone that's notfamiliar, an anchoring bias is
the first number that you hear,tends to be what you keep in
your mind and everything else iscompared to that.
So, yes, we do want to ask formore than we absolutely need,
because that number is going toget pulled down between, oh,
budgets or oh, timing or oh, weapproved you for this, but then
(30:35):
we shut down all hiring acrossthe company, whatever it is.
So you always want to overshoota little bit so that when you
land in a place that everyone'scomfortable, it's still a place
that you can do what you saidyou would deliver.
If you only ask for the verybaseline of what you would need,
then when it gets negotiateddown, you now have a high target
but not enough resources.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's interesting.
I was always negotiatingresources every year for large
product teams or largeinvestments, and how are we
going to build this new thing?
When I was in my corporatecareer and absolutely you kept
some padding in there.
You knew it was going to comedown, of course, but you also
wanted that top number, thatinitial number, to feel somewhat
(31:17):
reasonable, right, sometimespeople would throw out a number
and say I need 100 people andpeople would look at that and go
well, that's just crazy.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Like, how do you even know it's 100?
Right, it's too round, doesn'thave any thought into it.
The other thing that I wantedto mention only because you said
earlier you know what if you'renegotiating pay, one of the
questions I get a lot is if I'mnegotiating pay, should I give
the number first?
Should I not give the numberfirst?
Who gives the number first?
And the answer on that is ifyou understand the bargaining
zone.
So if you understand what themarket bears, what the range is
(32:01):
for, whatever it is you do, thenyou give the number first, go
high, but give the number first.
If you don't understand thebargaining zone, therefore, you
carry the risk that you're goingto give a number that's outside
of it to your point.
The 100 people, right, that'soutside of the bargaining zone.
In that scenario, you actuallydon't want to give the number
first.
You want the other people togive the number first, because
(32:22):
if you go outside of thebargaining zone, it really takes
away a lot of your credibility.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
So how do you know?
What is your advice for helpingpeople figure out if they are
being paid a market wage?
How do they know that zone?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
It's a great question .
So if someone were to say, whatdo you think is the number one
structural thing that's holdingwomen back right now as far as
pay goes, it would beinformation asymmetry, because
if you look at also how networksare built right, we tend to
network with other women notexclusively, but majority, which
(32:59):
means that we're all talking toeach other.
So if our numbers are off,they're all off collectively,
right?
Here's what I would recommend.
One do your online research.
It's not.
Don't stop there, please, dearGod, don't stop there.
But like, spend an hour or twojust to get a sense of where
we're going.
And I have it's helpful.
(33:19):
On my website you can access alist called the Ultimate Guide
to Benchmarking that has like 50or 60 different sources you can
go to, depending on what yourindustry is and what your level
is and all that.
The other thing I would say istalk to peers, and if that is
sketchy where you are, then talkto former peers.
Former peers are my favorite.
They don't have the dog in thespine, they don't care.
(33:41):
But they can tell you what theymade last year or what they made
three years ago.
Ditto with mentors.
Sometimes, if you're at thesame company, they will tell you
, which is great.
Sometimes you need to talk tomentors that are outside your
company and they're happy toaccess their networks to tell
you what they're hearing.
Recruiters are very goodresources if you have or know or
(34:02):
can build a relationship with arecruiter and then, depending
on where you went to school,career services can be very
fantastic.
There's certain places likeHarvard and Wharton that have
very robust alumni salarydatabases and then also
associations.
So if you are a member of and Idon't know what it is in your
world, but women in wealthmanagement, a member of and I
(34:23):
don't know what it is in yourworld, but women in wealth
management a lot of times thosecan be excellent places to find
you know what those numbersreally are.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Oh, I love that.
One of the things I've alwayswondered is if the alumni
networks were strong enough,right, and how you sort of know
that with those career databases.
How do you judge some of thosesources?
A little bit of practice, firstof all.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
it's a question of whether or not they have them.
A lot of places just don't havethem.
So if they don't have them,that's not going to be yours.
The second one is I think ofthis as a triangulation like
that can't be your only input,but if you have, maybe one
former peer told you somethingand then you heard something
from you know the onlineresearch says it's this, and
then you know the onlineresearch says it's this, and
(35:04):
then you know what the alumnicareer service says is in that
world, great.
If one of those numbers isreally far outside of the other
ones, I would just ditch it.
Right?
We're trying to find things sothat together we can piece it.
The other thing I would say isto the point we made earlier.
(35:24):
When you're talking to folks,don't just ask about pay, ask
about their overall compensation, and then I would say is there
anything else you've negotiatedfor that has been really helpful
to you, right?
This is how people find outthat, actually, like, their
company has paid for all oftheir peers cars and no one
right?
Like these are the things thataren't written into the offer
but are casually happening andformally happening that we want
to know about.
The other thing I would say iswe have a whole online course
(35:45):
that will guide you through theeight-step process to negotiate.
If that's helpful to you, youcan find it on our website.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Oh, that's great.
You just hit on something whichis related to all of the
non-base pay elements, andearlier in the conversation you
mentioned stock options and thatwomen tend to have
significantly.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
I think you said 80% less or so 80% less than our
male counterparts.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
How do we find that out?
What do we do?
When we do find it out and weneed to create a change, how do
we handle that?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
so how you find it out is we can't just rely on
online sources for ourbenchmarking.
Like you have to create thatnetwork of peers and I heard you
talk about this, um in yourprevious networking uh podcast
where, for women, why we don'tjust want, like, a vast network,
we also want an inner circle ofother women.
Um, that's a great place tostart.
(36:46):
And then you want to make surethat you talk to some men.
Please, like, have some,whether it's advisors or
sponsors or mentors or whoeverit may be.
Like we form our peers.
Again, I think are an excellentplace there.
But we want to.
Benchmarking isn't ananalytical online thing.
It is a network relationshipthing thing.
It is a network relationshipthing.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
How do we handle a negotiation where we are, where
we need to make a change right?
We took too low of an offer.
Essentially, now we have foundout that everybody around us is
getting more stock options thanwe are and we need to fix it.
Is getting more stock optionsthan we are and we need to fix
it.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
So what pops into my mind is negotiation.
I helped a woman with who wasat Uber, gosh, I don't know
eight years ago or somethinglike that.
She was in a similar situationand what she did is she used the
relational ask formula.
So she went in and she said asyou know, my market is up X
percent to last year.
I think that we can get it up Ypercent to next year.
(37:50):
What that would justify is, youknow, this market rate.
However, I believe so much inthis organization and in the
growth that we're going toachieve that I want more skin in
the game.
So I want to talk to you abouta compensation package that
looks like this, and I want toweight a lot of it towards
equity, because I believe inwhat we're doing.
And they ended up giving hersomething like two to three
(38:13):
times more equity than they gavethe average person in her role,
which, as you can imagine, wasworth a lot when she cashed out
last year.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
My goodness, what a success story and how brave of
her also to one position it thatway.
Do so and have the guts to say,yeah, this is gonna work out
for me.
I mean, that is bravery anddedication and knowledge, right?
Such great confidence too inthere.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Isn't that one of the ?
And again, this is your area,not mine, but isn't that one of
the women in investing thingsthat we take on a little bit
less risk in overtime?
Yeah, she didn't fit thattypical mold.
She was very comfortable withcalculated risk.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, well, and actually what the data would say
on investors and risk is thatwe are risk aware.
We are better investors thanmen.
So if you have, for example, afinancial advisor who's picking
your stocks and your securities,you really want that person to
be a woman.
They are a better investor thanmen, and the ideal is actually
(39:15):
a two or so person investmentteam or more investment team,
but a blended gender investmentteam does the best.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Isn't that cool.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, that is really cool.
Yeah, it's also.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I think the situation I would prefer to work in Right
right, most of us want to workwith people who understand us,
know who we are, know where wecome from, work with other
people like us and then, when itcomes to the actual choosing of
the investments, that blendedteam, blended gender team, is
really ideal.
I love that.
That blended team, blendedgender team, is really ideal.
I love that.
Can you address if and howwomen should change their
(39:57):
approach based on who's on theother side of the table?
And I think this is one of thecommon questions you get Is
there a difference that weshould take when we're
negotiating with a man versus awoman?
Speaker 1 (40:04):
So I love this question because, when I was
doing the research, the endproduct of my research was I
made like a quick three-pageguide for any women that went to
my business school who neededto negotiate, like here's what
you need to know, and I expectedto have to make two guides
here's what you need to knowwhen you're negotiating with a
woman.
Here's what you need to knowwhen you're negotiating with a
man.
Now, obviously, we know thatgender is not binary, but the
(40:26):
research looks at it that way,so that's how I'm, that's the
lens I was taking to it.
I was delighted to find that,actually, the experience is
based on who we are, not who theperson is.
The downshot of that means thatwe're just as likely to receive
backlash from other women as weare other men, because the
backlash is how society sees us,not how like not who we're
(40:51):
negotiating with.
The upshot, though, is that weonly need one strategy, and
that's the kind of thethree-pronged thing we just
talked about.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
So really, what we're talking about through all of
this is that women are facingthe double bind.
It's that we are being heldagainst a gender stereotype, and
when we action outside of thatgender stereotype is really when
we are creating issues orhaving more kind of pushback.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yes, and I don't know if we've updated how we think
about the double bind.
Perhaps we have, but when Ifirst came across the double
bind, I was, you know, young andin the workforce and trying to
figure out what was happening tome, and I just found it so
freaking, depressing.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Like oh shit, I can't win.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
The way in which I don't feel like this is the
double bind is you can win.
You are better Once we stripthis away.
You are a better negotiatorthan your male counterpart and
actually you know, let's justgive you the tool that allows
you to strip this away in everyconversation.
Here it is Think holistically,ask relationally, discuss
collaboratively.
Oh, that actually feels evenbetter.
(41:59):
To you, great Added bonus.
So I think the thing that kindof blows me away about
negotiation is if the thing thatkind of blows me away about
negotiation is if the worldmaybe it's media, maybe it's
experts, I don't know but if theworld had done, if, right now,
when you Googled how do Inegotiate, you actually got
advice for how to negotiate as awoman, I think women would love
(42:22):
negotiation because we'rereally good at it.
It's just that we've beenhanded the wrong tools and they
backfire on us, which makes usnot want to do it.
Once you have the right tools,this is fun.
It's great.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
It's so interesting.
You know, earlier we talkedabout those advisors and getting
the bad information right.
And what I hear from advisorsall the time is, when they've
been trained by, generally, menand they're still hitting their
head against the wall trying todo it the way that the man
advisor is telling them to, theyare burned out, they're just
(43:03):
it's awful, right, it feelsawful, it feels yucky, it's not
working well for them.
And when they finally get sofed up that they turn the other
way and say I'm just going to doit my way, I am going to lean
into who I am and do it my way,suddenly their success just
skyrockets because they havefigured out how to do it inside
(43:26):
of this feminine energy side ofthemselves.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yes, and sometimes I mean, I live down the road from
Augusta and one of the things Ithink about is like what pardon
my language here but like whathellfire would be unleashed if,
for the Masters, every year, wegave every single golfer a club
that was made for the averagefive foot four woman.
Like who's going to play theirbest game?
(43:51):
No one.
And also how pissed are theygoing to be Extremely, but like
we do this to women every day, Imean, it's even the temperature
of the buildings, my goodness.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
It's the health care that has never been built for us
, right?
And yet we are 50, 51% of thepopulation.
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Breast cancer studied in men until the 90s.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Okay, what?
Who thought this made sense?
Oh, we don't study differentdrugs on women, even though we
know that women have differenthormones.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, why would we?
That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Basic, so basic.
Yeah, these are the things thatwe talk about in my circles of
girlfriends all the time.
We're just it's mind blowinghow much of the world has been
created this way.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
And I think, when you combine awareness with hope,
that's when, to your point oflike the people who decide just
to do it their way and all of asudden they break through, like
when you can combine those twothings together, that's where
the magic really happens.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
I love that because of the positivity that that is
bringing Well if we just hadawareness, who would get up in
the morning, Like you know.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yes, I think Gloria Steinem said you know, the truth
will set you free, but first itwill piss you off.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Seems right.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
It does.
I think being mad was part ofwhat drove me for Muriel Network
and it's really kind of turned.
I've tried to turn some of thatsort of PTSD in some ways from
being in a corporate career forso long into this wonderfulness
of teaching others.
Going back a little bit to thedouble bind, one of the
(45:31):
techniques that I talk a lotabout is the framing technique,
and it's really part of yournegotiations, really your second
step, which is framing what I'msaying in a way that it becomes
a bigger issue.
It's a matter of values, it's amatter of ethics, it's a matter
of whatever fairness to allemployees.
That we do ABC right.
(45:53):
Even that's a negotiation.
But that's that second step ofyour negotiation conversation.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah, and I think you know, sometimes I talk to
people who, when they saynegotiation, they're thinking of
like that big conversation atthe end of the year or something
like that and much to the wayyou just used it.
We negotiate every day, all thetime.
Who's going to get credit forthat idea in the meeting?
What resources do you have?
When's the deadline, what youknow, all of those things right.
And if you think about kind ofthe cumulative effect of the
(46:22):
micro negotiations that you doevery day across the many years
of your career, that's a realthing at the end.
And so understanding, you know,building that negotiation
muscle so that it doesn't weighas heavily on you every time it
happens, but you get the credityou deserve and the resources
that you need to deliver theimpact you're capable of.
(46:43):
That's some real magic.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
That is some real magic.
Love it.
One of the things we weretalking about before we kind of
came on was around the financialadvisor marketplace and how
you're starting to get calls fordoing events for financial
advisors who are invitingclients to these events.
Tell us a little bit about this, so.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Shelby.
My business was built onhelping companies advance and
retain female talent.
So you know, for example, Iwork with JP Morgan.
We do a workshop, multipleworkshops, every year to give
women women-specific tools, andthat's what I knew, that's what
I was building.
And then all of a sudden, Idon't know, maybe six months ago
(47:25):
, maybe 12 months ago, I startedto get calls from folks in the
financial service industry whichI am only starting to know more
, like you know a ton about, I'mlearning all the pieces and
they would say, hey, can youcome in?
And I'm like, sure, how manyemployees do you have?
And they're like, oh, actuallyit's because we're trying to
attract female clients, and ittook me a minute to understand
(47:50):
why.
But then, to your point, once Istarted to learn about the
feminization of wealth, it wasoh, they need to attract women
with money and, by the way, italso appears that they need more
female advisors from theoutside.
That's what I'm right.
But when you want to attractfemale clients, my content is
really good for that Right,let's what I'm right.
But when you want to attractfemale clients, my content is
(48:11):
really good for that Right.
Let's talk about negotiating asa woman.
Let's talk about networking asa woman.
Let's talk about timemanagement as a woman.
Those are sessions thatpotential clients wanted to come
to, which helps the firms.
But it wasn't really until youand I were chatting earlier that
I was like, oh, this is thevalue they're getting for that.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
That's right, because they're trying to attract high
income corporate executive womenas their clients.
I mean it's a brilliantstrategy.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Also.
Those rooms are really fun tobe in.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I bet.
I bet with those leaders.
It's been incredible as I'velearned and met with so many
advisors in the last six months.
The other thing I'm seeing fromadvisors really successful
female advisors is niching down.
So, for example, I know of onefemale advisor and I've met her
just a couple of times, but sheis out of Nashville and she
(49:05):
specializes in specialtyphysicians.
Primarily it's female surgeonsLike that is her client base.
Isn't that so cool?
That's so cool.
So this niche down is reallycreating these new pockets of
people that they can reallyattract and then, yeah, your
content would be amazing for herclientele.
(49:25):
So many of them are reallywanting to work with women.
The women advisors love to workwith women.
Women clients love to work withwomen advisors.
There's too few of them.
I love this idea of bringing inthe content that could be
created there.
It's been really fun, I bet, Ibet.
Well, we are definitely likeright here at the end of time
(49:47):
and out of time, any other kindof last thoughts that you'd like
to share with our audience?
Speaker 1 (49:53):
You know what, shelby , I just really appreciate the
opportunity to have thisconversation with you.
It's always like I know theresearch and the content, but
the specifics of any oneindustry, you know that's not my
expertise.
You know that's not myexpertise, and so it's always
fun to get a mind who knows thespecifics so well and just to
like collaborate and nerd out alittle bit on it.
(50:14):
I think for any listeners whoare interested in learning more,
I created this list of 75things you can negotiate.
It's taken us almost a decadeto put together.
You can download that for freeby going to our website at.
You can download that for freeby going to our website at
worthmorestrategiescom.
So W-O-R-T-H-M-O-R-Estrategiescom.
(50:34):
Secondly, to Shelby's point ifyou're part of a women's
organization or part of anorganization that is trying to
attract more women, pleaseconsider recommending me as a
speaker, just to help us getmore resources to these women.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
I would love that.
I think that would be a great,a great win for everyone.
And Catherine, by the way, Iwould nerd out with you anytime
because, if you've listened tomy other podcasts, I'm
constantly bringing up data.
I'm constantly a little datanerd about it.
So we were in good company andthis was just a delight.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Hey everyone Shelby here.
I am so thrilled that we justhad that conversation with
Catherine Valentine and I amincredibly blown away by her
approach and how authentic andamazing it feels for women.
It is really everything that weare trying to do with Muriel
Network.
At Muriel Network, we aretrying to create commonality
(51:36):
amongst women in a verymale-dominated industry.
I'm bringing to you hopefullyor at least I hope I'm bringing
to you the stories that willinspire you, the stories that
will teach you things and liftyou up and help you do more
every single day.
If you're not yet a member ofMuriel Network's community,
please reach out.
You can find us at MurielNetwork M-U-R-I-E-L Network dot
(52:01):
com.
I hope to see you there insidethe network soon.
If right now, when you Googled how do I negotiate,
you actually got advice for howto negotiate as a woman, I think
women would love negotiationbecause we're really good at it.
It's just that we've beenhanded the wrong tools and they
backfire on us, which makes usnot want to do it.
Once you have the right tools,this is fun.
It's great.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hi, I'm Shelby Nickel .
Have you ever had a greatconversation with a colleague or
a girlfriend and you leave withan energy, boost of inspiration
, ready to fight another day?
Me too, and that feeling wasthe inspiration for this podcast
.
I'm a 25-year corporate veteranwho climbed the corporate
ladder to reach top levels attwo broker-dealers, and often I
found myself being the onlywoman in the room.
I saw women advisors andcorporate leaders burned out,
(00:54):
overlooked and generally wantingto have more impact.
And it's not just about us whowork within the wealth
management industry.
It's about the untappedpotential of women as investors
within the wealth managementindustry.
It's about the untappedpotential of women as investors.
In this podcast, we tell thestories of women who are winning
clients, leading organizations,doing things differently and
bringing new energy to theirwork.
(01:15):
There's a quote that inspiresme by Muriel Siebert, the first
woman member of the NYSE.
She said when a door is hard toopen and nothing else works,
sometimes we just have to rearback and kick it open.
Welcome to the Muriel NetworkKick it Open podcast.
Our goal with Muriel Network isto close the gaps on women in
(01:43):
senior leadership and thegender-based wealth gap, and so
our guest today, catherineValentine, is an expert in
negotiating, and negotiatingwell is critical, of course, to
landing the role or winning theclient, creating your balance in
life and certainly, earningmore money.
Catherine is the CEO of WorthMore Strategies, where she helps
(02:05):
organizations advance femaletalent.
A top-rated speaker, herclients include companies like
JPMorgan, kpmg and Bain, and herwork has been featured in the
Harvard Business Review, theWall Street Journal and Fast
Company.
She started her career atMcKinsey Company, where she
became one of their youngestindustry advisors.
(02:27):
She lives in Atlanta with herhusband and two sons.
Those two sons put herleadership skills to the test
every single day.
Welcome, catherine.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Shelby, thank you so much for the opportunity to be
here.
I'm excited to have thisconversation with you.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Great.
Well, before we get started, Ijust wanted to start off with
this text that, when I announcedI was doing Muriel Network and
to a group of my girlfriends whowere all senior vice presidents
at one of the firms that I wasat, one of them sent to me
talking about content and shesaid it was all about
negotiation and how importantnegotiation was.
(03:04):
And her text read you know,before I had my daughter, a
friend had said to her so to myfriend that your entire life
will be a negotiation from hereon out.
Think about what we do when wenegotiate with a toddler or God
forbid, a teenager.
Women are uniquely positioned toactually be rock stars at
negotiation if they just leaninto what they do all the time
(03:27):
without realizing it.
The same fundamentals applyfiguring out what's important to
the other party, trading for it, body language I mean, we all
have a mom glare and the silenceis legit one of the most
impactful ways to gain leverage,just to name a few Rock your
work life like you, run the hellout of a household and you'll
be fine.
(03:47):
That was my friend's text,because we were all talking
about what are the key elementsof work life that can be hard
for women and negotiation alwayscomes up.
What did you think about thattext?
I know you read it and you justheard me read it here.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I think that text is spot on, and what we know from
research is that once we removesome of the roadblocks which
we'll talk about in a second andhow to remove those but women
are better negotiators than menin almost every context.
We're absolutely better whenwe're negotiating on behalf of
others, because that actuallyleverages societal concepts of
gender instead of having themwork against us.
(04:26):
Where it gets a little bittricky is in gender
non-congruent negotiations,specifically those that happen
in the workplace.
So if you think about when mennegotiate for flexibility,
they're at a higher risk ofbacklash than women are, and
when women have traditionalcareer negotiations promotion
resources pay.
Those are the places that get alittle bit trickier for us.
The good news is, as yourfriend, pay.
Those are the places that get alittle bit trickier for us.
The good news is, as yourfriend pointed out, we are
(04:49):
fundamentally excellentnegotiators.
The sort of roadblock we haveis one that is created by
society, and it's one that wecan get around pretty easily
once you know what the tricksare.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh my gosh.
So how did you become anegotiation expert?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Oh, so many good stories come from massive
failures, right?
So I was getting my MBA and Iwas negotiating with the.
So I was getting my MBA, I washaving my MBA internship, which
is essentially a three-month jobinterview, and I finished my
three-month project in fourweeks, which was faster than
(05:29):
they ever had anyone do.
I was, like you know, I'd beentrained by McKinsey.
I was very clearly on strongfooting, and so I decided what I
wanted to do was to negotiateto be placed on another team
halfway through the summer sothat I could get to know more
people and sort of understandthe organization better.
And so I did what any, I think,well-intentioned person would
(05:51):
do in that situation, which is,I decided that over the weekend
I was going to get trained up onnegotiation and then I was
going to have this conversationon Monday morning.
So I went to the Barnes andNobles, which were like on every
corner.
I bought the books, Iunderlined them, I highlighted
them, I Googled how do Inegotiate?
I put all the informationtogether, synthesized it, I
wrote out a script.
You know, one would argue I'venever under prepared for
(06:12):
anything.
We'll put it that way.
And so I went into the meetingon Monday morning we had started
at 10 am and I asked to beplaced onto another team.
By 10.06, it was clear that Ihad somehow offended this person
.
I had not intended to and I hadno idea how I had, but I had.
And by 10.10, I was being toldthat I was no longer a culture
(06:36):
fit and therefore would not begetting a job at the end of the
summer.
So I went from top of the pileto bottom of the pile in less
time than it takes to get alatte.
At the end of that then you know, if I wasn't going to get the
job, then the internship didn'tmake sense.
I needed to go find a job andso, as a result of that, I was
(06:58):
then escorted out of thebuilding by security because
that was their protocol.
I mean huge Fortune 10 company.
Their protocol is if you're nolonger employed, you're going to
sort it out.
But it was one of those thingswhere it's like, oh gosh, 20
minutes ago I was one of theirtop candidates and now I am
sitting in my car with a box ofstuff trying to figure out what
the heck just happened to me.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Wow, I mean, I can't even imagine that must have felt
like such whiplash.
It feels like such anoverreaction to your ask as well
.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow, yeah.
So at that point in time I wasin a fortunate position because
I had a year of business schoolleft and I went to Northwestern,
where you know there's a numberof very famous negotiation
professors there, including somethat are on retainer.
You know Google for all oftheir M&A like big, big players.
One of my professors did a twobillion dollar acquisition when
(07:53):
when I was working with herRight, and so I went to her and
I said do you have any idea whathappened to me?
And she said no, but there's abunch of new research being
pumped out right now betweenHarvard and Carnegie Mellon on
the impact of gendernegotiations.
Which, shelby, they didn't lookat that until like 12 years ago
, that's crazy too.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I mean, we have been in the workforce for a long time
and nobody thought we shouldlike look at these things.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Right, and so I just dove into the research and I did
that for a full year and what Ifigured out by the end of the
year is one negotiation isgendered, which is kind of
obvious once you say it out loud.
But to anyone that Googles, howdo I negotiate?
You're denying that gender's inthat, because no one is giving
advice that's gendered.
Right now, we're all assumingthat what works for white men
(08:40):
works for everybody.
The second thing I learned isthat most of the advice out
there is for white men.
We don't say it's for white menbut it is.
So, even like?
The Wall Street Journal ran anarticle last year that said the
advice given by the expert wasgo in and say, and I quote I
(09:18):
deserve to be promoted.
Oh, we can't say that.
No, we can't say that solutionthat has been proven by the top
universities in the world.
People in the academic worldknow about this.
They've known about this foryears, but it hadn't been
translated to the professionalworld, which is how I derailed
my career because I didn't knowabout it, and so my job now is
just to bring the insights towomen who can use it tomorrow to
(09:39):
negotiate more pay, moreresources, that promotion,
whatever it may be the work lifescenario that you need to be
able to be successful.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh, I love it.
It's so reminiscent of what Isee all the time in the
financial advising wealthmanagement community and
specifically, I hear it a lotfrom women advisors, and women
advisors are often called intotheir, whomever their leader is,
if they have you know kind of aboss, or it might be somebody
in their, in their home office,and or they go to attend a class
(10:11):
and they're going to be trainedon you know how to do, how to
grow their business and they'llbe brought in and the usually
white man will say do thesethings, say this stuff.
And if you say these things,that's going to close the deal
and the woman I'm talking withwill you know, take the note,
because she's still polite, takethe note, look at it and go.
(10:33):
There's no way I can say that.
It's like so much of the advicewe get is built for that white
man, of course.
And we're working in financialservices in an industry like
many that was created by men forthe male advisor, for a male
client, and now you've got thisfeminization of wealth and, oh
(10:57):
gosh, the whole world isshifting.
Like what does this look like?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And I get so excited about what you're describing
because I feel like I'm one ofthe spokes on that wheel, which
is that, to your point, mostbusiness skills were created for
white men and we talk aboutthem as if we are all white men.
But we now have really robustresearch and we have a number of
research partnerships where wecan talk about training folks on
(11:23):
how to negotiate as a woman,how to network as a woman.
I mean to your previous podcast.
It's different, right.
How do you do time managementas a woman?
Any time management book youpick up that's written for a man
is going to ignore 54% of thethings that we do on a weekly
basis.
Any system that was built forsomeone that does that much less
(11:44):
work than I do is not going towork for me.
And so there's all these littlethreads of places where we're
being trained, we're being giventhe wrong tools you know, and
so I think part of this podcastis let me give you some more
tools.
You don't have to use them, butat least in your arsenal you now
have something that was builtfor women and you can pick and
choose what feels right to youin any specific case.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Okay, so let's get into it.
How, what does the research saythat we should be doing?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I love this part.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Me too.
So at this point in time, I'vereviewed about 13,000 pages of
academic research and it comesout very clearly on.
There are three things that weshould do.
One is think holistically.
Two is ask relationally.
And three is discusscollaboratively.
Do you want me to dive in eachof those?
Yeah, let's dive in.
(12:41):
Yeah, okay, let me give you alittle bit of a foundation and
then I'll dive in.
So where backlash comes from forwomen is backlash comes from
societal concept of gender, thatwe need to be others focused.
Add that into a scenario wherepeople come into a negotiation
believing that it's you versusme.
(13:02):
Those two things will neverinherently go hand in hand.
Right, those are always goingto clash, which is why, when
women negotiate for others, youknow if you're doing a deal,
negotiation or something likethat we're extremely good at
that because we don't triggeranything.
It's when you're negotiating onbehalf of yourself that you
tend to trigger these societalconcepts of gender which lead to
(13:23):
backlash.
So that's kind of thefoundation of what we're dealing
with here.
So then step number one thinkholistically is and I feel like
you handed it at the top of theepisode but 82% of people that
we talk to when we saynegotiations, think about base
pay, and that is absolutelysomething that you can negotiate
.
But I would encourage you tothink even bigger than that,
(13:45):
right?
So we have a list of 75 thingsyou can negotiate.
The work of Claudia Golden, whojust won the Nobel Prize, shows
that if you do want to maximizefor your financial future, you
will actually negotiate careerprogression before negotiating
base pay.
Right, it's the differencebetween, like, a 2% bump and a
20% bump.
But the other thing that wefind in our research that I
(14:06):
think might be particularlyhelpful to wealth advisors from
my understanding of wealthadvisors, so please step in is
that women are given fewer stockoptions, but also fewer
resources to do the same job.
So women, for example, aregiven team sizes that are 25 to
40% smaller than their malecolleagues.
(14:27):
Women are given stock optionsthat are 80% less than their
male colleagues, right?
So if we're talking about thewealth gap, it's so much broader
than just base pay.
So things I would think aboutwhen you're thinking about what
you want to negotiate is onewhat would help me be more
successful in this role?
Two, what would reduce mystress?
(14:47):
Three, what would bring me joy?
Right, so I've worked withpeople that have negotiated
certain locations, certain teamsizes, what they will do for job
responsibilities, what theywon't do anymore and who it's
going to go to Fertilitybenefits hours is a big one.
Also calendars.
Like I have worked with peoplethat have negotiated that they
(15:09):
do not work the month ofDecember because they believe
that that's when the bulk oftheir children's memories are
being made and also, frankly, incertain industries there's not
as much work happening.
Then, from your point of view,what kind of things do you think
financial advisors cannegotiate outside of just base
pay that would be helpful totheir career well-being?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, I think there's a couple of things.
One is that our community isboth people in home offices so
think corporate leaders, who youare very well accustomed to,
just like all corporate leadersand then financial advisors.
Financial advisors,specifically, could be
negotiating absolutely theirhours and their time off and
definitely the activities thatthey're doing.
(15:53):
So, for example, some of themost productive advisors and
teams even if you usetraditional metrics of AUM or
client served, et cetera theyhave distributed the work across
some other people.
They might have a paraplannerwho's doing the 80% of the
financial planning work and thenthey're just coming in on the
(16:15):
top of that and doing the reallycritical elements for them.
They don't have to enter allthe data themselves, et cetera.
So I think there's some thingsthat financial advisors there
can negotiate.
I loved your conversation aboutthe 75 things because it really
spoke to me.
You know I read Indra Nooyi'sbook and.
(16:37):
I remember this stood out to meso much as I read her book it's
probably the number one thing Italk about, I mean, out of her
enormous book, her enormouscareer.
But one of the things thatstood out was how she didn't ask
for the corporate jet.
All of her peers were using it,and it wasn't until finally her
calendar between her family andwork got so terrible that then
(16:58):
she felt forced to ask for it.
And then she was given it.
It was just never offered toher and she didn't want to step
out and ask for it.
And then she was given it.
It was just never offered toher and she didn't want to step
out and ask for it.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Well and think about all those years where she was
taking 50% more time to get toeveryone.
Like what impact was she notdelivering because of that?
Like the company lost out onthat one too.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
That's right, yeah, and I think she lost out.
She was such a worker, she justput in tons of hours.
But to your point?
A worker, she just put in tonsof hours.
But to your point, she couldhave been putting in tons of
hours on something else, not onthe travel activity.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So, so to your point.
I do think when you're thinkingholistically on negotiations,
you know what can, what can Iask for that would allow me to
deliver more impact?
Deliver more impact?
And part of that is looking atwhere I'm spending my time.
What can I reallocate somewhereelse that will free up enough
time that I can do more of thehigh impact work that I'm?
Maybe I wasn't doing when I was22 and started, but I'm capable
(17:56):
of doing now better for you,better for the company.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, absolutely, and I love how you just phrase that
as how can I give up somethings so that I can do more for
the company?
Right?
I talk with a lot of women,especially the higher ranking,
say SVPs, evps.
Everybody is feeling burnout,we all feel this achievement and
(18:19):
hustle culture norm, and so Ifeel like you can avoid some of
that if you can ask for some ofthis help.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Well, and if you want , you know if I can nerd out
with you here first.
Yeah, I don't know if you'veread the no Club yet.
This is Linda Babcock WineGartner.
There's two other authors on it.
But basically what they lookedat is non-promotable tasks, and
women are asked to do 200 hoursof non-promotable tasks every
year.
That is a full month of work.
(18:49):
It is very much contributing toburnout, is contributing to
limited talent from a companyperspective, and so to your
point.
One of the big solutions onthat is figure out what
non-promotable tasks are on yourplate and negotiate them off.
And we'll talk about how to dothat, but, like you, it's going
to free up your time andwell-being and it's also going
to allow you to be more valuableto the company.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Super interesting to think about non-promotable tasks
, because sometimes those arethe things that we also enjoy at
the same time.
But to your point, we only haveso much time.
We have to negotiate it.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, and I think, if there are ones that you enjoy,
you know, keep some of those Joyin your life is important and
you know, from a corporateplatform you can do many things
that you can't do as anindividual.
So, yes, but also, are theresome on there that A are totally
draining you?
I bet there are, and two, youknow, maybe you focus that joy
(19:44):
on a couple of them and not on16 different committees.
So anyway, number one thinkholistically.
Do you want me to move tonumber two?
Yeah, let's do so.
Number two is ask relationally.
This is research done by HannahRaleigh Bowles out of Harvard
and Linda Babcock out ofCarnegie Mellon.
It shows that when women ask ina way that demonstrates both
that their ask is legitimate andbeneficial, they are not only
(20:07):
more successful in theirnegotiations but they virtually
eliminate the risk of backlash.
Virtually eliminate is from oneof the research studies done at
Georgetown on this.
So what I found?
and I don't do individualcoaching anymore.
But what I found when I didindividual coaching is women are
so busy and our brains are sofull that when you tell somebody
(20:27):
that they need to demonstratethat it's both legitimate and
beneficial, like eyes glaze over.
It's just a level two nebulousfor us to be able to put in.
So what we ended up doing overthe course of about five years
is creating a formula.
It's our trademark formula.
You can use it in almost anywork, negotiation, and the
formula is past performance plusfuture vision, plus your ask,
(20:53):
and then stop talking.
We added that one in in yearthree because, in an attempt to
make the negotiation partnerfeel comfortable, women would
start negotiating againstthemselves.
So now, at the end, what we dois we put in conversational
volleys that show that it's likeclearly the other person's turn
to talk.
So would it be helpful if Igive you an example?
Yes let's do so.
(21:13):
What is something that one ofyour audience members would want
to negotiate?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Okay, I think the perfect example is additional
team member support.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Great and what are for your audience?
What is like?
The key metric Is it?
I heard you say AUM earlier.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, I would say maybe client served.
Okay could either be advisorsif we're in the home office and
we're serving advisors, or itcould be if you're an actual
financial planner or financialadvisor.
It could be the end client, theinvestor that you're serving.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Great.
I'm going to give you anexample here To the audience
members.
If I use these termsinaccurately for your industry,
just breeze over it.
I'm sure you can fix it.
Also, understand that, like I,you know.
So what someone would say inthat context is, as you know, I
was able to serve 10% moreclients than we needed last year
(22:13):
, or then.
My goal was I was able to seemy goal by 10%.
I actually think that this yearI could exceed it by 15%, which
is something everyone wants,right?
This is the future vision thatwe're all behind.
In order to accomplish that, Iwanted to talk to you about
getting additional team membersso that I can delegate the lower
value task and really focus onthat high impact work, which is
(22:36):
what you hired me to do andwhat's going to get us results.
What do you think about that?
And so now let's have aconversation.
Actually, there's a team memberover here that has half
capacity because I was going tomove this over here, so let's
talk about that.
You know, I don't know wherethis would go.
Oh, what about a freelancebudget?
Oh, I guess we could get afreelancer to do that data entry
for you, especially because wedon't have a budget for, like,
(22:58):
another full-time hire, butfreelance budgets come from a
totally different bucket.
Like now we're going to have aconversation about how to
collaboratively solve thisproblem.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Right.
I love also that you couldprobably stretch that over time,
like it could be well, let'sfree up that half a person today
and assign that, and then wecan add the other person later
on in the year, et cetera, etcetera.
I also love how you broke thatinto tasks to make that more
reasonable and doable.
Interesting, and that lastquestion how might we make that
(23:31):
happen?
I can't remember your exactphrasing, but it was.
You really visually turned theconversation to the other person
.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Well, so you want to walk out and, by the way, the
average negotiation is 28 days,so this typically isn't going to
be one conversation but whatyou want to walk out with is
that plan that we haveco-created and that we both feel
good about.
And then, obviously, you'regoing to send an email
afterwards with what the plan is.
So now we have a paper trail,but any time that you hit a
roadblock like, oh, we can't dothat, now we're going to figure
(24:01):
out why.
So, oh, that's interesting, canyou tell me why?
Well, because budgets arelocked for six more months.
Okay, what do I need to do inthe next six months to
demonstrate that?
That's you know, to be readywhen that happens?
Oh well, you would need to do X, y and Z.
Okay, that sounds good.
Now you go do X, y and Z, sowhen budgets are unlocked in six
months, there's not aconversation anymore.
This is a predetermined thing.
(24:21):
Like, you are getting theresources that you need.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
And you've already proven your success Again.
You just keep that achievementup, which is part of your
formula Love that.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So then, do you want to do step number three?
Let's do three Yep.
Step number three is to discusscollaboratively, which we sort
of showcased earlier.
But when you do yourconversational volley, what do
you think about that?
What concerns would you have?
How could you see that working?
However, you want to end yourrelational ask.
When you do that, you're nowgoing to engage in collaborative
problem solving.
(24:57):
So what the issue we come upagainst is even people who have
been trained in integrativenegotiations, which is like
we're going to build the pie andthen split it.
Even people that have beentrained that way, when they
picture a self-negotiation, theypicture a winner-take-all one
person's a winner, one person'sa loser situation.
(25:17):
We really need to fight againstthat.
The mindset when you walk inthat room should be us versus
the problem, and the problem isanything that prevents you from
delivering your highest impactat your lowest stress level.
Problem for you, problem forthem, right, and so when you go
in with that very collaborativemindset, now we can start to
(25:37):
build it together.
Oh, okay, I understand that yousaid that that's not possible.
Do you have any other solutions?
Ok, well, that one might work,because here's this other
information I have that youdon't have yet.
Right, and now we're buildingthe solution together.
We also know the Ikea effectPeople are much more likely to
say yes and value things thatthey've built.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Interesting.
This is game changing.
It's really just blowing mymind this idea of that the end
of the day, the best thing forthe company is for me to do the
highest impact work at thelowest stress level.
That makes my problem theirproblem.
That is a reframe that I havenever heard.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, it's the best thing for the company.
It's also the best thing foryour clients, right?
It is not good for your clientsif you are exhausted because
you're doing I don't know, dataentry or whatever it may be.
Right, it's best for yourclients if you have extra energy
there so that when somethingunexpected happens, they can
call you and you're ready, likeyou have the energy to dive in
and figure out how to help themnavigate that.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Because I think, as women we're often we often feel
like it's only ourresponsibility.
I need to just buckle down, doall the things, do all the work,
never ask for help, et cetera,and getting out of it.
You just made my feelings ofoverwhelm part of my company's
problem?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yes, because it is.
I mean, one of the thingsthat's happening right now is so
.
Mckinsey just did this studyshowing that if women, if we had
true gender equity in theworkplace, it would add $28
trillion to the global GDP, andevery company wants a little
slice of that, but they cannotaccess a slice of that if they
can't advance and retain femaletalent.
(27:15):
If females continue to leave athigher rates or stay at the
bottom of those companies, thenthey can't get any of that
growth that they want.
So this is very much a, youknow, sort of a global problem
that companies have to learn howto solve, and the way that you
solve it is you allow women toaccess conversations that help
them deliver more at a lowerstress level, which are
(27:36):
negotiations that we havelargely been locked out of.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Absolutely.
I also think a lot of so muchof the mindshare that goes to
all of the sort of just being awoman in the workplace, stuff,
right, the double bindish, thefact that we have to learn how
to negotiate a little bitdifferently.
That being said, once we knowthis formula, we can just do it
and I get.
That's the power.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I didn't love the idea that I, as a woman, needed
to learn how to do somethingdifferent right, it was just
another burden and it kind ofticked me off.
But once I got into it Irealized that one once you teach
women to do this, they reportfeeling more authentic in their
negotiations, which means thatthey're much more likely to
negotiate Right.
(28:25):
So we see, you know, women notonly negotiating more
successfully, but not dreadingthese conversations the way that
they were when they had to suitup in armor.
That wasn't built for us.
Right now, it's just we'regoing to make everything better
for everyone.
Why wouldn't we have thatconversation?
We're going to make everythingbetter for everyone.
Why wouldn't we have thatconversation?
The other thing is a lot ofthese tools are actually best
practice negotiation tools.
(28:47):
Like you know, discussingcollaboratively is best practice
for all genders.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
It just happens to have an additional bonus for
women Interesting.
So discussing collaborativelyis always better for both
genders.
So, in other words, wheneverwe're negotiating as people,
when we're on the other side ofthe negotiation table, we're not
negotiating for ourselves.
We're hearing a team membernegotiate, even if it's male or
female.
We're going to be more open tothat negotiation if it is
addressed in a collaborative way.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, I don't want to say always, just from a
research perspective.
That's the thing that we gettouchy about, but overall that
is what you would expect.
So Harvard's program onnegotiation teaches this tactic
to all genders in almost allscenarios, because we know from
research that when we use thisapproach, overall we do better.
(29:38):
Now, there might be a coupleone-offs that somebody can come
up with where this one's notgoing to work as well, but
overall, yes, you would expectall genders to have better
outcomes when they do this.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
When people go into negotiation, how do you suggest
they prepare for that experience?
Let's talk about it as I'mnegotiating either for a team
member or even just payfinancial compensation.
Should I have sort of, should Igo over what I really want and
pad the request so that I cancome down?
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (30:12):
So what you're asking about right now is anchoring.
Are you familiar?
Yeah, so for anyone that's notfamiliar, an anchoring bias is
the first number that you hear,tends to be what you keep in
your mind and everything else iscompared to that.
So, yes, we do want to ask formore than we absolutely need,
because that number is going toget pulled down between, oh,
budgets or oh, timing or oh, weapproved you for this, but then
(30:35):
we shut down all hiring acrossthe company, whatever it is.
So you always want to overshoota little bit so that when you
land in a place that everyone'scomfortable, it's still a place
that you can do what you saidyou would deliver.
If you only ask for the verybaseline of what you would need,
then when it gets negotiateddown, you now have a high target
but not enough resources.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's interesting.
I was always negotiatingresources every year for large
product teams or largeinvestments, and how are we
going to build this new thing?
When I was in my corporatecareer and absolutely you kept
some padding in there.
You knew it was going to comedown, of course, but you also
wanted that top number, thatinitial number, to feel somewhat
(31:17):
reasonable, right, sometimespeople would throw out a number
and say I need 100 people andpeople would look at that and go
well, that's just crazy.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Like, how do you even know it's 100?
Right, it's too round, doesn'thave any thought into it.
The other thing that I wantedto mention only because you said
earlier you know what if you'renegotiating pay, one of the
questions I get a lot is if I'mnegotiating pay, should I give
the number first?
Should I not give the numberfirst?
Who gives the number first?
And the answer on that is ifyou understand the bargaining
zone.
So if you understand what themarket bears, what the range is
(32:01):
for, whatever it is you do, thenyou give the number first, go
high, but give the number first.
If you don't understand thebargaining zone, therefore, you
carry the risk that you're goingto give a number that's outside
of it to your point.
The 100 people, right, that'soutside of the bargaining zone.
In that scenario, you actuallydon't want to give the number
first.
You want the other people togive the number first, because
(32:22):
if you go outside of thebargaining zone, it really takes
away a lot of your credibility.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
So how do you know?
What is your advice for helpingpeople figure out if they are
being paid a market wage?
How do they know that zone?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
It's a great question .
So if someone were to say, whatdo you think is the number one
structural thing that's holdingwomen back right now as far as
pay goes, it would beinformation asymmetry, because
if you look at also how networksare built right, we tend to
network with other women notexclusively, but majority, which
(32:59):
means that we're all talking toeach other.
So if our numbers are off,they're all off collectively,
right?
Here's what I would recommend.
One do your online research.
It's not.
Don't stop there, please, dearGod, don't stop there.
But like, spend an hour or twojust to get a sense of where
we're going.
And I have it's helpful.
(33:19):
On my website you can access alist called the Ultimate Guide
to Benchmarking that has like 50or 60 different sources you can
go to, depending on what yourindustry is and what your level
is and all that.
The other thing I would say istalk to peers, and if that is
sketchy where you are, then talkto former peers.
Former peers are my favorite.
They don't have the dog in thespine, they don't care.
(33:41):
But they can tell you what theymade last year or what they made
three years ago.
Ditto with mentors.
Sometimes, if you're at thesame company, they will tell you
, which is great.
Sometimes you need to talk tomentors that are outside your
company and they're happy toaccess their networks to tell
you what they're hearing.
Recruiters are very goodresources if you have or know or
(34:02):
can build a relationship with arecruiter and then, depending
on where you went to school,career services can be very
fantastic.
There's certain places likeHarvard and Wharton that have
very robust alumni salarydatabases and then also
associations.
So if you are a member of and Idon't know what it is in your
world, but women in wealthmanagement, a member of and I
(34:23):
don't know what it is in yourworld, but women in wealth
management a lot of times thosecan be excellent places to find
you know what those numbersreally are.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Oh, I love that.
One of the things I've alwayswondered is if the alumni
networks were strong enough,right, and how you sort of know
that with those career databases.
How do you judge some of thosesources?
A little bit of practice, firstof all.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
it's a question of whether or not they have them.
A lot of places just don't havethem.
So if they don't have them,that's not going to be yours.
The second one is I think ofthis as a triangulation like
that can't be your only input,but if you have, maybe one
former peer told you somethingand then you heard something
from you know the onlineresearch says it's this, and
then you know the onlineresearch says it's this, and
(35:04):
then you know what the alumnicareer service says is in that
world, great.
If one of those numbers isreally far outside of the other
ones, I would just ditch it.
Right?
We're trying to find things sothat together we can piece it.
The other thing I would say isto the point we made earlier.
(35:24):
When you're talking to folks,don't just ask about pay, ask
about their overall compensation, and then I would say is there
anything else you've negotiatedfor that has been really helpful
to you, right?
This is how people find outthat, actually, like, their
company has paid for all oftheir peers cars and no one
right?
Like these are the things thataren't written into the offer
but are casually happening andformally happening that we want
to know about.
The other thing I would say iswe have a whole online course
(35:45):
that will guide you through theeight-step process to negotiate.
If that's helpful to you, youcan find it on our website.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Oh, that's great.
You just hit on something whichis related to all of the
non-base pay elements, andearlier in the conversation you
mentioned stock options and thatwomen tend to have
significantly.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
I think you said 80% less or so 80% less than our
male counterparts.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
How do we find that out?
What do we do?
When we do find it out and weneed to create a change, how do
we handle that?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
so how you find it out is we can't just rely on
online sources for ourbenchmarking.
Like you have to create thatnetwork of peers and I heard you
talk about this, um in yourprevious networking uh podcast
where, for women, why we don'tjust want, like, a vast network,
we also want an inner circle ofother women.
Um, that's a great place tostart.
(36:46):
And then you want to make surethat you talk to some men.
Please, like, have some,whether it's advisors or
sponsors or mentors or whoeverit may be.
Like we form our peers.
Again, I think are an excellentplace there.
But we want to.
Benchmarking isn't ananalytical online thing.
It is a network relationshipthing thing.
It is a network relationshipthing.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
How do we handle a negotiation where we are, where
we need to make a change right?
We took too low of an offer.
Essentially, now we have foundout that everybody around us is
getting more stock options thanwe are and we need to fix it.
Is getting more stock optionsthan we are and we need to fix
it.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
So what pops into my mind is negotiation.
I helped a woman with who wasat Uber, gosh, I don't know
eight years ago or somethinglike that.
She was in a similar situationand what she did is she used the
relational ask formula.
So she went in and she said asyou know, my market is up X
percent to last year.
I think that we can get it up Ypercent to next year.
(37:50):
What that would justify is, youknow, this market rate.
However, I believe so much inthis organization and in the
growth that we're going toachieve that I want more skin in
the game.
So I want to talk to you abouta compensation package that
looks like this, and I want toweight a lot of it towards
equity, because I believe inwhat we're doing.
And they ended up giving hersomething like two to three
(38:13):
times more equity than they gavethe average person in her role,
which, as you can imagine, wasworth a lot when she cashed out
last year.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
My goodness, what a success story and how brave of
her also to one position it thatway.
Do so and have the guts to say,yeah, this is gonna work out
for me.
I mean, that is bravery anddedication and knowledge, right?
Such great confidence too inthere.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Isn't that one of the ?
And again, this is your area,not mine, but isn't that one of
the women in investing thingsthat we take on a little bit
less risk in overtime?
Yeah, she didn't fit thattypical mold.
She was very comfortable withcalculated risk.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, well, and actually what the data would say
on investors and risk is thatwe are risk aware.
We are better investors thanmen.
So if you have, for example, afinancial advisor who's picking
your stocks and your securities,you really want that person to
be a woman.
They are a better investor thanmen, and the ideal is actually
(39:15):
a two or so person investmentteam or more investment team,
but a blended gender investmentteam does the best.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Isn't that cool.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, that is really cool.
Yeah, it's also.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I think the situation I would prefer to work in Right
right, most of us want to workwith people who understand us,
know who we are, know where wecome from, work with other
people like us and then, when itcomes to the actual choosing of
the investments, that blendedteam, blended gender team, is
really ideal.
I love that.
That blended team, blendedgender team, is really ideal.
I love that.
Can you address if and howwomen should change their
(39:57):
approach based on who's on theother side of the table?
And I think this is one of thecommon questions you get Is
there a difference that weshould take when we're
negotiating with a man versus awoman?
Speaker 1 (40:04):
So I love this question because, when I was
doing the research, the endproduct of my research was I
made like a quick three-pageguide for any women that went to
my business school who neededto negotiate, like here's what
you need to know, and I expectedto have to make two guides
here's what you need to knowwhen you're negotiating with a
woman.
Here's what you need to knowwhen you're negotiating with a
man.
Now, obviously, we know thatgender is not binary, but the
(40:26):
research looks at it that way,so that's how I'm, that's the
lens I was taking to it.
I was delighted to find that,actually, the experience is
based on who we are, not who theperson is.
The downshot of that means thatwe're just as likely to receive
backlash from other women as weare other men, because the
backlash is how society sees us,not how like not who we're
(40:51):
negotiating with.
The upshot, though, is that weonly need one strategy, and
that's the kind of thethree-pronged thing we just
talked about.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
So really, what we're talking about through all of
this is that women are facingthe double bind.
It's that we are being heldagainst a gender stereotype, and
when we action outside of thatgender stereotype is really when
we are creating issues orhaving more kind of pushback.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yes, and I don't know if we've updated how we think
about the double bind.
Perhaps we have, but when Ifirst came across the double
bind, I was, you know, young andin the workforce and trying to
figure out what was happening tome, and I just found it so
freaking, depressing.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Like oh shit, I can't win.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
The way in which I don't feel like this is the
double bind is you can win.
You are better Once we stripthis away.
You are a better negotiatorthan your male counterpart and
actually you know, let's justgive you the tool that allows
you to strip this away in everyconversation.
Here it is Think holistically,ask relationally, discuss
collaboratively.
Oh, that actually feels evenbetter.
(41:59):
To you, great Added bonus.
So I think the thing that kindof blows me away about
negotiation is if the thing thatkind of blows me away about
negotiation is if the worldmaybe it's media, maybe it's
experts, I don't know but if theworld had done, if, right now,
when you Googled how do Inegotiate, you actually got
advice for how to negotiate as awoman, I think women would love
(42:22):
negotiation because we'rereally good at it.
It's just that we've beenhanded the wrong tools and they
backfire on us, which makes usnot want to do it.
Once you have the right tools,this is fun.
It's great.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
It's so interesting.
You know, earlier we talkedabout those advisors and getting
the bad information right.
And what I hear from advisorsall the time is, when they've
been trained by, generally, menand they're still hitting their
head against the wall trying todo it the way that the man
advisor is telling them to, theyare burned out, they're just
(43:03):
it's awful, right, it feelsawful, it feels yucky, it's not
working well for them.
And when they finally get sofed up that they turn the other
way and say I'm just going to doit my way, I am going to lean
into who I am and do it my way,suddenly their success just
skyrockets because they havefigured out how to do it inside
(43:26):
of this feminine energy side ofthemselves.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yes, and sometimes I mean, I live down the road from
Augusta and one of the things Ithink about is like what pardon
my language here but like whathellfire would be unleashed if,
for the Masters, every year, wegave every single golfer a club
that was made for the averagefive foot four woman.
Like who's going to play theirbest game?
(43:51):
No one.
And also how pissed are theygoing to be Extremely, but like
we do this to women every day, Imean, it's even the temperature
of the buildings, my goodness.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
It's the health care that has never been built for us
, right?
And yet we are 50, 51% of thepopulation.
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Breast cancer studied in men until the 90s.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Okay, what?
Who thought this made sense?
Oh, we don't study differentdrugs on women, even though we
know that women have differenthormones.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, why would we?
That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Basic, so basic.
Yeah, these are the things thatwe talk about in my circles of
girlfriends all the time.
We're just it's mind blowinghow much of the world has been
created this way.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
And I think, when you combine awareness with hope,
that's when, to your point oflike the people who decide just
to do it their way and all of asudden they break through, like
when you can combine those twothings together, that's where
the magic really happens.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
I love that because of the positivity that that is
bringing Well if we just hadawareness, who would get up in
the morning, Like you know.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yes, I think Gloria Steinem said you know, the truth
will set you free, but first itwill piss you off.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Seems right.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
It does.
I think being mad was part ofwhat drove me for Muriel Network
and it's really kind of turned.
I've tried to turn some of thatsort of PTSD in some ways from
being in a corporate career forso long into this wonderfulness
of teaching others.
Going back a little bit to thedouble bind, one of the
(45:31):
techniques that I talk a lotabout is the framing technique,
and it's really part of yournegotiations, really your second
step, which is framing what I'msaying in a way that it becomes
a bigger issue.
It's a matter of values, it's amatter of ethics, it's a matter
of whatever fairness to allemployees.
That we do ABC right.
(45:53):
Even that's a negotiation.
But that's that second step ofyour negotiation conversation.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah, and I think you know, sometimes I talk to
people who, when they saynegotiation, they're thinking of
like that big conversation atthe end of the year or something
like that and much to the wayyou just used it.
We negotiate every day, all thetime.
Who's going to get credit forthat idea in the meeting?
What resources do you have?
When's the deadline, what youknow, all of those things right.
And if you think about kind ofthe cumulative effect of the
(46:22):
micro negotiations that you doevery day across the many years
of your career, that's a realthing at the end.
And so understanding, you know,building that negotiation
muscle so that it doesn't weighas heavily on you every time it
happens, but you get the credityou deserve and the resources
that you need to deliver theimpact you're capable of.
(46:43):
That's some real magic.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
That is some real magic.
Love it.
One of the things we weretalking about before we kind of
came on was around the financialadvisor marketplace and how
you're starting to get calls fordoing events for financial
advisors who are invitingclients to these events.
Tell us a little bit about this, so.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Shelby.
My business was built onhelping companies advance and
retain female talent.
So you know, for example, Iwork with JP Morgan.
We do a workshop, multipleworkshops, every year to give
women women-specific tools, andthat's what I knew, that's what
I was building.
And then all of a sudden, Idon't know, maybe six months ago
(47:25):
, maybe 12 months ago, I startedto get calls from folks in the
financial service industry whichI am only starting to know more
, like you know a ton about, I'mlearning all the pieces and
they would say, hey, can youcome in?
And I'm like, sure, how manyemployees do you have?
And they're like, oh, actuallyit's because we're trying to
attract female clients, and ittook me a minute to understand
(47:50):
why.
But then, to your point, once Istarted to learn about the
feminization of wealth, it wasoh, they need to attract women
with money and, by the way, italso appears that they need more
female advisors from theoutside.
That's what I'm right.
But when you want to attractfemale clients, my content is
really good for that Right,let's what I'm right.
But when you want to attractfemale clients, my content is
(48:11):
really good for that Right.
Let's talk about negotiating asa woman.
Let's talk about networking asa woman.
Let's talk about timemanagement as a woman.
Those are sessions thatpotential clients wanted to come
to, which helps the firms.
But it wasn't really until youand I were chatting earlier that
I was like, oh, this is thevalue they're getting for that.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
That's right, because they're trying to attract high
income corporate executive womenas their clients.
I mean it's a brilliantstrategy.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Also.
Those rooms are really fun tobe in.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I bet.
I bet with those leaders.
It's been incredible as I'velearned and met with so many
advisors in the last six months.
The other thing I'm seeing fromadvisors really successful
female advisors is niching down.
So, for example, I know of onefemale advisor and I've met her
just a couple of times, but sheis out of Nashville and she
(49:05):
specializes in specialtyphysicians.
Primarily it's female surgeonsLike that is her client base.
Isn't that so cool?
That's so cool.
So this niche down is reallycreating these new pockets of
people that they can reallyattract and then, yeah, your
content would be amazing for herclientele.
(49:25):
So many of them are reallywanting to work with women.
The women advisors love to workwith women.
Women clients love to work withwomen advisors.
There's too few of them.
I love this idea of bringing inthe content that could be
created there.
It's been really fun, I bet, Ibet.
Well, we are definitely likeright here at the end of time
(49:47):
and out of time, any other kindof last thoughts that you'd like
to share with our audience?
Speaker 1 (49:53):
You know what, shelby , I just really appreciate the
opportunity to have thisconversation with you.
It's always like I know theresearch and the content, but
the specifics of any oneindustry, you know that's not my
expertise.
You know that's not myexpertise, and so it's always
fun to get a mind who knows thespecifics so well and just to
like collaborate and nerd out alittle bit on it.
(50:14):
I think for any listeners whoare interested in learning more,
I created this list of 75things you can negotiate.
It's taken us almost a decadeto put together.
You can download that for freeby going to our website at.
You can download that for freeby going to our website at
worthmorestrategiescom.
So W-O-R-T-H-M-O-R-Estrategiescom.
(50:34):
Secondly, to Shelby's point ifyou're part of a women's
organization or part of anorganization that is trying to
attract more women, pleaseconsider recommending me as a
speaker, just to help us getmore resources to these women.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
I would love that.
I think that would be a great,a great win for everyone.
And Catherine, by the way, Iwould nerd out with you anytime
because, if you've listened tomy other podcasts, I'm
constantly bringing up data.
I'm constantly a little datanerd about it.
So we were in good company andthis was just a delight.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Hey everyone Shelby here.
I am so thrilled that we justhad that conversation with
Catherine Valentine and I amincredibly blown away by her
approach and how authentic andamazing it feels for women.
It is really everything that weare trying to do with Muriel
Network.
At Muriel Network, we aretrying to create commonality
(51:36):
amongst women in a verymale-dominated industry.
I'm bringing to you hopefullyor at least I hope I'm bringing
to you the stories that willinspire you, the stories that
will teach you things and liftyou up and help you do more
every single day.
If you're not yet a member ofMuriel Network's community,
please reach out.
You can find us at MurielNetwork M-U-R-I-E-L Network dot
(52:01):
com.
I hope to see you there insidethe network soon.
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