Negotiate With Data

How to write yourself a contract

Negotiation is Sales

You are the Product

Stay Friendly 😊❤️🙌

Framing The Ask

Make Bad Thing Go Away

  • Strongest emotional resonance
  • Easiest to get budget approval
  • Bad thing must be agreed upon as Actually Bad In Manager's Perspective

Make Good Thing Happen

  • Weaker emotional resonance (but still there)
  • Hard to get budget approval unless about explicit goals
  • Must be Necessary or Required In Manager's Perspective (not Nice to Have)

Your Goal Is the Value Narrative

If they don't see it: you failed (not them)

Success in negotiation is owned by the seller

Make Bad Thing Go Away

  • Cloud Spend (down)
  • Product Integration Spend (down)
  • Time From Spec To Deploy (down)
  • Errors, Bugs that Cost Money or Cause Churn

Does Not Count As Bad Thing (Because Capitalism)

  • Employee Attrition
  • Internal Product is Hard To Use
  • Not Enough "Control" Over Component
  • Have To Buy A Product over Built In House
  • Hard To Use Syntax
  • Hard To Read Syntax
  • Old, "Clunky" Technology
  • Inelegant Code, "Bad" (unqualified) Code
  • Product Is Inaccessible To Disabled People 
  • Anything that needs to be "rebuilt"
  • Employee Satisfaction/Morale is Low

Make Good Thing Happen

  • Successfully Launch New Line of Business
  • Successfully Launch New Feature That Drives Revenue
  • Successfully Meet Quarterly Goals Tied To Revenue
  • Replace Expensive Internal Project With Inexpensive External Service
  • Replace Non-functioning Production Line Process with Functioning Production Line Process

Does Not Count As Good Enough Thing For Raise (Because Capitalism)

  • Organization seems more organized
  • Product is more accessible to disabled people
  • Bugs fixed that do not impact spend or churn
  • Wrote clean, readable code that follows best practices
  • Wrote code that every engineer on the team likes
  • Wrote code that satisfies that one perfectionist on the team
  • Delivered a feature with extra bonus functionality that was not spec'd
  • Built a side project for the company unrelated to the bottom line
  • Helped junior developers on your team

Say This Practice Pitch Out Loud:

"I estimate I've saved over $100,000 in cloud spend this year with improvements to services I made. I would like this information factored into my raise."

Everything Comes Back To Goals

Say This Out Loud

I want to negotiate a bonus structure that is tied to performance related to company goals

Say This Out Loud

I want to know what concrete goals I could deliver on that would be worth more money in my contract

Say This Out Loud

What are our biggest cost problems related to cloud spend?
If I reduce that spend, how much of that could I recoup as a quarterly bonus?

Say This Out Loud

If I could solve this problem for you this quarter, how much would that be worth on top of my current salary?

Say This Out Loud

If I could get this project out the door for you this quarter instead of next quarter, how much would that be worth on top of my current salary?

Say This Out Loud

For my current contract rate, I can't give you any more bandwidth. If you need more, we can renegotiate a quarterly bonus structure in order for me to take on this extra work.

For your manager, this is like hiring a part time contractor

Define The Data

Say This Out Loud

How will we both know I've delivered what's agreed upon?

This is where you define the objective requirements for delivery.

Say This Out Loud

What are the objective requirements for this performance bonus?

Say This Out Loud

As soon as we have this in writing, I can start on this goal.

Say This Out Loud

Delivery Date for this goal will need to be an offset (amount of time starting) from the date I sign the contract, as I can't begin without this in writing.

Remember:

  • You can't start until you have it in writing, like it's a work order
  • The contract MUST contain the objective deliverables (or they'll argue to pay you less)
  • Objective deliverables must be LEAD MEASURES (actions) and not LAG MEASURES (like revenue)

These are just "your company's policies" on doing work (but the company is you and you're the CEO)

Cover Your Ass

Seriously

CYA Behaviors

  • Save all contracts, agreements, task assignments, conversations related to performance, and emails on your non-work computer
  • Take screenshots of all deliverables and task completions and make copies of them on your non-work computer
  • Take screenshots of the acceptance of all deliverables (merged PRs, emails saying "this is great, thanks", any concrete acknowledgement that you delivered something) (non work computer)
  • Save your deliverables themselves on your non-work computer (excluding code merged into the main codebase because NDAs)

The Bonus Conversation

It's not a single meeting & your boss is not your enemy

Meeting One: The Lowball

  • They'll try to prove you shouldn't get the full bonus (it's your boss's job)
  • You have the proof that you should, and the contract
  • "The contract terms clearly state that these deliverables were subject to this rate. I'll need to you revisit this given these screenshots of me meeting your criteria and you accepting."
  • "We can bring HR in to help make sure senior leadership understands the contract obligations, if you don't have the ability to approve this bonus. It's ok, it happens."

Your direct manager has less control than you think, you must arm them and work with them to take your fair share.

Meeting 2: The Decision

  • If you have a contract with defined deliverables, your company legally must pay you for the completion of deliverables.
  • Binding arbitration is more friendly to workers than you might believe, especially if you have a contract. An arbitrator does not legally have the power to void a contract's terms excepting when you company is declaring bankruptcy.
  • Bring in HR to begin this process if your boss can't get your contract paid- they need help from the rest of the team to argue with the person denying your claim.

Binding Arbitration

  • Read your employment contract
  • Have a lawyer on hand- sometimes a 250$ letter can net you 20k from your company
  • It's basically just "faster trials with no jury" but it's not the company paying to get out of all legal disputes.
  • Doing this is not interpreted as a hostile act if you can depersonalize it and defuse the strong emotions, but if you make it seem like you're "suing your boss for being a jerk and denying your bonus" it can turn ugly fast. You don't want it to be ugly. 

Contracts and Agreements and Covering Your Ass is all the price of admission

it's why we get paid the medium bucks

Capitalism is harsh, but it is the system you live under so you must model reality according to how things work under it