What Men Do to Outearn Women

Mad Men, that great reminder to the nation of life before feminism, perfectly illustrates our persistent failure to negotiate our true market value. In that, not much changed between Peggy Olson’s second season job search and our own lateral moves today.

Simply put, we continue to accept unequal conditions in the workplace serving lesser clients for lower pay, fewer promotional opportunities and far less respect than our work product deserves.

Peggy, who worked her way up from secretary to copywriter with the mentorship and sponsorship of the fatally handsome and deeply flawed Don Draper, learned a few things during her first job search that men in the workplace have known since they first gathered together to raid the next village.

Know When It’s Time to Leave

Peggy had been putting up with marginalization at Sterling Cooper Draper Price her entire career. Still, she was doing better than 99.9% of 1967 women just to have a professional rather than a clerical job.

She owed much of it to Don Draper and she was loyal to him because of it. But like too many women today, she didn’t give herself enough credit for her own success.

At the time of her search, she’d become her own woman, doing as well or better than her colleagues. Nevertheless, Don and everyone else continued to treat her as a second class citizen. Other people took credit for her work and she often wasn’t assigned the plum jobs because “the client won’t accept a girl on the team.”

Still, it didn’t occur to Peggy to explore outside opportunities until she met with a former colleague who, like Don, mentored and sponsored her. Unlike Don, however, her former colleague didn’t have anything to lose by counseling Peggy to do the right thing by her career rather than the right thing by her [office] man.

He told her to leave.

Learn What You’re Worth in the Open Market

When next we saw Peggy, she was offering her valuable services to another ad agency. The shock on her face to hear her work described in glowing terms tells us everything we need to know about her failure to adequately prepare for this lateral (or promotional) career move.

Peggy’s work was so good there was “buzz” on Madison Avenue about her. So much buzz and such good work, that her new employer wanted to nail her down before she had time to research her value.

Had she picked up the telephone and asked “around town” what people of her caliber were making and what Sterling Draper competitors were saying about her work, she’d have asked for more.

We know that because of what happened next.

Confidently Ask for More than You Want

Peggy’s prospective employer asked her what she wanted and she couldn’t even say the words. Instead, she pulled a piece of paper out of her purse, put a job title and number on it and pushed it across the formica.

How do we know she asked for too little?

Because her bargaining partner didn’t just accept her number without negotiating, he raised it by $1,000 to keep her from learning how much more she could make if she interviewed with another ad agency. If it wasn’t clear to Peggy from his negotiating behavior, it was clear when he told her his offer was conditional on her immediate acceptance.

Boy! That felt good, right? Sure it did. But that’s when she should have known she could have done better. It was not the time to let him put a ring on it. It was time for her to shoparound.

Which leads to the next lesson.

Don’t Say “Yes” to their First Offer

Men negotiate. They do not accept first offers.

They counter. If they’re surprised, as Peggy was, they temporize.

Here’s how to do that.

Let me think about it. I appreciate such a generous offer. This isn’t an easy decision for me to make. Let me get back to you next week.

Counter, Counter, Counter

Peggy was caught unaware and unprepared.

She should have re-anchored because she started negotiating too low. Her prospective employer wasn’t being generous. He was trying to get a great talent for less than he believed she was worth. If he didn’t think she could get more elsewhere, he wouldn’t have asked her, as he did, not to interview with anyone else.

Peggy should have temporized and started making phone calls to fix the problem she caused by not doing her homework. She needed to learn what her true market value was. Once she’d done that, she should have taken more meetings and gathered more offers.

A good negotiator would only then return to her first bargaining partner to tell him she aimed too low. She’d been offered more by the competition and she’d still love to come and work at his shop but it’s going to cost him more.

This time, she won’t start too low. She’s going to ask for more than her highest offer elsewhere because she already knows how much the first guy wants her.

Here’s where women routinely choke.

“What if he says no?” they ask. “Won’t I have blown my chance to get what I want?”

No. He wants you. They want you. They negotiate. They “get” the game. It doesn’t offend them. It’s how business is done.

If you meet a brick wall, don’t let the conversation be shut down. Say I’m certain we can find a way to satisfy your needs and mine at the same time. Say there’s a lot more value in this deal than salary alone and then talk about bonuses, promotional opportunities, flex-time (it’s 2012, not 1967), and account assignments.

When someone who’s negotiating with you says “no,” they’re just out of ideas. They were saying “yes” 30 seconds ago and they’ll say “yes” a minute later if you give them reason to.

Ask yourself this question: what if there is nothing wrong with you or any other woman in the workplace?

Let’s review.

Know when it’s time to move even if you feel grateful for early favors. If your career has reached a plateau, you likely know whether it’s done so because you’ve started calling it in or you’ve hit a barrier.

Learn your true market value before you have your first lateral or promotional interview. You can do this online at sites like glassdoor.com, but you can also do it by picking up the telephone and asking a competitor who’s at your level out for coffee.

If you’re in a profession where you have a public reputation — attorney, copywriter, engineer, you name it — find out what your reputation is. If it’s low at the moment, you might want to stay where you are for a little while longer to get it back up to top notch. If it’s high, it’s a perfect time to leave the place where they take you for granted.

Confidently ask for more than you want to give yourself bargaining room and to “anchor” the negotiation in your favor. A first offer (or a re-framed offer under new circumstances) sets the bargaining range and will influence the final number in your favor throughout the course of the negotiation.

Don’t let “no” stop you.

Continue negotiating while at the same time letting your bargaining partner know you’re optimistic about finding a way for both of you to get the highest value available out of each of you.

If you’d like to learn more, come on over to our tree house at She Negotiates Consulting and Training.