The 3 N’s - Negotiation, Networking & No with Kathryn Valentine | 327

Summary

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
Episode: The 3 N’s - Negotiation, Networking & No with Kathryn Valentine | 327
Release Date: July 16, 2025

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Introduction

In episode 327 of This Is Woman's Work, host Nicole Kalil engages in a transformative conversation with Kathryn Valentine, CEO of Worth More Strategies. The episode delves deep into the three pivotal "N's" that empower women in both their personal and professional lives: Negotiation, Networking, and No. Through insightful discussions, practical examples, and actionable strategies, Nicole and Kathryn aim to equip women with the tools necessary to redefine and excel in "woman's work."

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The Importance of Negotiation, Networking, and No

Nicole Khalil opens the episode by highlighting the societal barriers women face in negotiation. She states:

“Don't be too aggressive. Don't take up too much space. Don't ask for more. Don't say no.”
[01:08]

These ingrained messages make it challenging for women to advocate for themselves effectively. Kathryn Valentine emphasizes that negotiation, networking, and the ability to say no are not just skills but essential elements for women to unlock their full potential.

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Challenges Women Face in Negotiation

Kathryn addresses a common misconception:

“Women are not bad negotiators. The problem is that we've been given tools for other people and then been told they should work for us.”
[09:20]

She explains that while women negotiate as frequently as men today, they are only half as successful. This gap isn't due to a lack of awareness but stems from using negotiation strategies designed for men, which often feel inauthentic and can lead to backlash.

Nicole adds a personal touch, sharing her experience of feeling inauthentic when using male-dominated negotiation scripts, which often resulted in discomfort and ineffectiveness.

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Strategies for Effective Negotiation

Kathryn introduces a three-part strategy tailored for women:

1. Think Holistically

   • Holistic Thinking: Instead of focusing solely on salary, consider a broad range of negotiable items that enhance overall well-being and job satisfaction.
   • Example: “We have a list of 76 things we've seen people negotiate, reminding us that there are many ways to claim our worth, expand our opportunities, and secure what truly matters in our careers and lives.”
     [13:31]

2. Ask Relationally

   • Relational Asking: Frame negotiations in a way that highlights mutual benefits and aligns with the organization's goals.

   • Research Insight: “Share what your past performances talk about that future goal that everyone's on board with.”
     [16:03]

   • Practical Application: Transitioning from a performance highlight to a request, ensuring the negotiation feels collaborative rather than confrontational.

3. Discuss Collaboratively

   • Collaborative Discussion: Approach negotiations as a partnership to solve problems together.

   • Mindset Shift: “It's not you versus me, but it's us versus the problem.”
     [18:00]

   • Scenario Example:

     Nicole presents a scenario where an employee feels overworked and wants to negotiate flexible hours without sacrificing income.
     Kathryn walks through a script illustrating how to present this request collaboratively, ensuring that both employee well-being and organizational needs are addressed.
     [19:23]

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Networking: Building a Diverse and Supportive Network

Kathryn emphasizes that effective networking extends beyond gender boundaries:

“The mistake I see people making is they build a same gender network. We don't want to ask only women what they're making. We want to ask some, ideally cisgender white men. And so building your network to be very diverse allows you access to a lot more information.”
[27:34]

She outlines two critical aspects of networking for women:

1. Close Professional Women:

   • Having a network of close professional women enhances success through robust information exchange.
   • Research Highlight: Women with such networks are 2.5 times more successful compared to those who rely solely on broad connections.
     [30:22]

2. Sponsorship Over Mentorship:

   • Sponsorship: Involves having a few strategic sponsors who actively advocate for you, rather than numerous mentors.
   • Actionable Tip: Instead of seeking multiple sponsors, focus on cultivating deep relationships with two or three key individuals who can provide significant support.
     [31:06]

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The Role of 'No' in Negotiations

The ability to say "no" is a powerful tool in any negotiation. Kathryn discusses:

“No is a complete sentence that was written by a man. No is not a complete sentence if you are a woman.”
[32:27]

She advises framing "no" in a way that minimizes backlash and maintains relationships:

• Alternative Phrasing: Instead of a blunt "no," consider phrases like:

  • “Doesn't seem like this is the right fit right now.”
  • “Let's revisit this later.”
  • “Can you tell me more about that?”
    [31:34]

• Maintaining Relationships: By offering solutions or recommendations even when declining, women can preserve their credibility and keep doors open for future opportunities.
  [34:22]

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Practical Examples and Application

To illustrate the negotiation strategies, Kathryn walks through a practical example where an employee seeks to reduce evening work hours without losing income. She provides a step-by-step script demonstrating how to:

1. Highlight Achievements:

   “As you know, last quarter I was able to exceed the sales target by 10%.”
   [19:28]

2. Present the Request Relationally:

   “In order to do that, though, I wanted to talk to you about working the hours when I'm most productive. Can we talk about some of this evening work? Do we need that all the time or what if I just stop work at 6 every day? What do you think?”
   [19:28]

3. Propose a Collaborative Solution:

   “What if we just run this experiment for a month and see how it goes?”
   [21:23]

This approach not only addresses the employee's needs but also reassures the manager of continued productivity and commitment.

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Conclusion and Resources

Nicole wraps up the episode by reinforcing the significance of the three "N's" and encouraging women to advocate for themselves unapologetically. She quotes Becca Lee:

“The ocean does not apologize for its depth, and the mountains do not seek forgiveness for the space they take.”
[35:51]

Key Takeaways:

• Negotiation: Approach with a holistic mindset, focusing on mutual benefits and long-term satisfaction.
• Networking: Build a diverse and supportive network, emphasizing sponsorship over mere mentorship.
• No: Use strategic phrasing to maintain credibility and relationships while asserting boundaries.

Resources Mentioned:

• 76things.com: A comprehensive list of negotiable items beyond salary.
• WorthMoreStrategies.com: Kathryn Valentine's website for additional resources and coaching services.

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By embracing these strategies, women can redefine "woman's work" on their own terms, ensuring their efforts are recognized and valued both personally and professionally.

Transcript

[Nicole Khalil]

Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

[Katherine Valentine]

Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast.

[Nicole Khalil]

And breathe.

[Katherine Valentine]

Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.

[Nicole Khalil]

1-800-Contacts.

[Katherine Valentine]

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[Nicole Khalil]

I am Nicole Khalil, and I could probably fill an entire episode with the things women have been taught not to do. Don't be too aggressive. Don't take up too much space. Don't ask for more. Don't say no. And if you do ask for more or do say no, please, for the love of all things holy, do in a way that makes everyone, everyone else, comfortable and friend. All of that makes it really hard for women to negotiate. So on this episode of this Is Woman's Work, we're talking about three words that all start with N. Words that increase our personal power and, not surprisingly, are some of the biggest game changers in a woman's career and life. And those three N's are negotiation, networking, and the word negative no, because too many of us walk into negotiations with hesitation and apologies. Or worse, we don't walk in at all. We underestimate what's possible. We leave opportunities on the table and play by outdated rules that were never designed for us in the first place. And too many of us feel like we don't have time for networking or avoid it like the plague because we picture a room full of strangers with name tags where the game is to see who can ask what do you do while shoving a business card in your hand the absolute fastest and using the word no. I mean, most of us have been programmed to default to yes to the point that we feel guilty saying no even when it's the most obvious answer. And when we do say no, we often soften it, explain it away, and sugarcoat it so much that it barely sounds like a no at all, which is why we're talking to Katherine Valentine, CEO of Worth More Strategies, who helps organizations advance female talent and sees firsthand how these three ends, or lack of them, influence a woman's ability to get what they want. Katherine has worked with companies like JP Morgan, KPMG and Bain, and her experience has been featured in places like the Harvard Business Review, the Wall street journal, and Fast Company Company. She also has a list of 76 things that you can negotiate besides your salary, helping to remind us that there are many ways to claim our worth, expand our opportunities, and secure what truly matters in our careers and our lives. Katherine, welcome to the show. And I'm going to dive us right into the topic of negotiation. Why is it important for women to learn this skill and are we really all that bad at it?

[Katherine Valentine]

Nicole, thank you so much for inviting me to join the show. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. The thing that I, that I always try to convey whenever I'm doing a training on negotiation or speaking or even coaching is we have more influence than we think we do. And so because of societal concepts of gender and we can talk about toy coding studies and all of that stuff, I can go very deep on the nerd if we want to go there. But because of those things, we have been taught from a young age that our job is to be focused on others, to respond when others need us, to make sure that others are comfortable. And one of the things that I love the most about giving women a gender specific negotiation skill is that there's more that we can influence and change about how we experience our daily lives than most of us were raised to believe.

[Nicole Khalil]

Okay, so this question was triggered as you were talking and I swear I'm going to connect it back to what you were saying. But what is the purpose of a negotiation? At least in my mind. I've always thought about it like the goal is to create a win win. But if we as women are undervaluing ourselves or putting the needs of everyone else at the forefront, is part of the problem that we go into negotiation without even having that result or that outcome in mind? Is my question making any sense? I'm kind of thinking out loud.

[Katherine Valentine]

It does. And so I don't get to do as much one on one coaching anymore. Now I do mostly large groups. But when I did one on one coaching, it was really interesting to me. When I started, I assumed we would spend most of the time in the brass tacks of how we do this. Instead, we actually ended up spending the majority of the Time removing that concept of, like, we are undervaluing ourselves and really getting clear on what is it that would make my day better, what would allow me to deliver more impact, what would lower my stress, what would bring me joy? And when you can remove all of the sort of handcuffs and you think very broadly about what it is that you can negotiate, it really starts to light people up. I had one woman negotiate a $2 million inventory system, one woman negotiate fertility benefits, and one woman negotiate a new chair. Granted, I did not know chairs could be this fancy. It was worth more than her monthly salary. But that new chair changed a lot of how she experienced her day. And so I think working us through, kind of removing those societal things and saying, okay, if you're in the driver's seat, if I gave you my magic wand, what would your life look like in a year? And once you dive into that brainstorm, okay, now what are the pieces we can pull apart that we can actually negotiate?

[Nicole Khalil]

And I have to imagine when we think about the things that would make our day better or would make us better, the other part. So that's a win for us. The win for the organization is that we are more productive, more engaged, and we show up better. Better. Right. Like, I have to imagine in all three of those examples that you gave that at least an element of the negotiation was how it was going to make a difference to the person they were negotiating with. Yes.

[Katherine Valentine]

Huge. And so my personal view is that we have unrealized value sitting all over our organizations because we haven't equipped women to have these conversations. And so let's run through those three examples. Right. The woman who negotiated the inventory management system and ended up enabling her team to get the same amount of work done in 40% less time. So all of a sudden, they added in a lot, a layer of strategy. And if you can think about inventory management at a retailer that had a huge impact on the company's cash position, that's monumental for a business. Right. We're going into Q4 thinking we're going to have no money, and now we have an extra couple of million. Okay, Huge for them, huge for her. The one with the fertility benefits ended up taking that job, and she's now she's the chief marketing officer. That company has taken off. I mean, they're in my fridge right now. They're probably in yours. And then the last one was actually, that was somebody who ended up negotiating with me. I was president of an organization at that point in time. This woman was responsible for collecting our accounts Receivable. She was pretty, a fairly average player to that point in time, but I noticed that she couldn't sit for longer than maybe half an hour. And so we had a discussion and it turns out she had scoliosis, which she hadn't disclosed to the company. And, and she didn't really want to talk about it, but the company issued chairs meant that she was in so much pain she couldn't get anything done. And so as soon as we had that negotiation and she got the chair she needed, she was a star player, star player for us. And those are the types of things that, to your point, most of the employee employer negotiations you'll do actually are a win win, because what's better for the employee is usually better for the employer.

[Nicole Khalil]

Okay, now you mentioned a couple things already, but I'm curious, based on your research, what is actually holding women back from negotiating? Because I'm guessing it's a little bit more complex than just one thing. And are we actually bad at it or have we not been taught the skill? Or do we do it differently? Or is the way we do it not commiserate with what people are used to? I mean, I'm throwing thoroughly curious about what's happening when women attempt to negotiate.

[Katherine Valentine]

This is a great question because there's a lot of either misconceptions here or things that have were true but have since been updated. So let me pull apart three that you just said. The first one, which you hinted at, is that women are bad negotiators. We're not. We're very, very good negotiators. The problem is that we've been given tools for other people and then been told they should work for us. And I'll peel that apart in a second. The second misconception is when you said what's holding women back? So 20 years ago, women were negotiating far less than men. At this point in time, research shows that women are negotiating as often as men are, but were only successful half as often as they are. Okay, so now it's not an awareness gap, which is what it was, but now it's a, a skill gap. And the reason why there's a skill gap is because if you are to Google how do I negotiate, you're going to come up with all these articles. Those articles are all going to recommend tools that were built for men and just assume that they should work for you. Which, I mean, I've been doing this for 10 years and frankly, it still ticks me off because you, I live a couple hours away from Augusta, like you could never imagine going to the Masters and all of these men being handed golf clubs for the average 5 foot 2 woman and being told go have a good day or like the uproar that would ensue. Yet that's what we're doing to women every day is especially in negotiation. Although I would argue in a lot of sort of business skill areas we're telling women, oh, this worked for all those people over there, so of course it should work for you. That's not how this works. And we can talk about what gender specific negotiation skills are, but that's the problem is we haven't given women the right tools to be successful in this.

[Nicole Khalil]

And I do want to go into what they actually are, the right tools. And a kind of follow up question is, is the problem when we do it the way it's being told or being done by men, is it because it feels inauthentic for us? Is it because when we do it that way we get perceived differently than a man would when they do it that way, Is it something that I'm not thinking of, like why can't we just follow the same script as our male counterparts?

[Katherine Valentine]

Have been two reasons. So the one that's usually highlighted in the research is because of the risk of backlash. So the world expects you to be others focused if you come in with a certain stance that's all about you. We have been, I mean we've been cultivated since we were 18 months is the first time that you see this in children. But we have been cultivated for that to cause fear and that fear causes backlash. So the first reason is because of societal concepts of gender cause backlash. The second reason though, and the one that's not as popular in the research, but I saw this in coaching. And so it's so interesting with you as a coach that you've probably also seen this, which is that when we tell a room of a hundred women to go in and say honestly what was recommended in the Wall Street Journal article on negotiating, I deserve to be paid more, of those hundred women, probably ninety or more are not going to want to say that. And so what we've seen in our research is a, we can eliminate the risk of backlash, but B, we can also just make it feel more authentic, which means you're more likely to do it and more likely to be successful. And that's what we want.

[Nicole Khalil]

Yeah, it's anecdotal, but that speaks to my experience where somebody has told me, typically a guy, you know, this is the way you do it or this is the way you say it. And my brain goes, yeah, I could say it that way, but I, I would want to throw up in my mouth a little bit. You know, if I did say it that way, it wouldn't feel right. It wouldn't feel good. And I have to imagine that the inauthenticity or whatever icky feelings I'm having about it would show up in some way.

[Katherine Valentine]

Those icky feelings are telling you something important. And what those icky feelings are telling you is that he could go in and say it that way. But if you did, you're facing a risk that he doesn't face.

[Nicole Khalil]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so how should women negotiate? What do we need to know that's different?

[Katherine Valentine]

So at this point in time, I've reviewed about 13,000 pages of academic research, plus we've done our own. And what the research really boils down to is we think of it as a three part strategy. So part one is think holistically, part two is ask relationally, and then part three is discuss collaboratively. Would it be helpful if I kind of dive into each of those, please? So on the think holistically, this is a little bit of what we were talking about at the beginning, where, you know, a lot of people go in. So I started a lot of my talks with this one picture and I say, what do you think she's asking for? And 82% of our audiences say salary. And the response to that is like, salary is just the tip of the iceberg when you think about what you can negotiate. And, um, in fact, we actually at this point in time have a list of 76 things we've seen people negotiate, which I'll offer to your listeners at the end. But when you're thinking about a negotiation, when we say think holistically, it's. I would recommend that you ask yourself, you know, what could I ask for that would help me deliver more impact? Because a lot of times we can monetize that. What would reduce my stress, what would bring me joy? And then I would just honestly cross reference with this list and see if there's anything else on there that you might be missing. So we don't want to just go in and ask for, you know, simply a raise. We want to go in and ask for a package of things that overall are going to increase our happiness among a variety of different areas. So that's tip one. Tip two is ask relationally. So the research on this, which is, this is my favorite research, the research on this shows that when women negotiate in a way that is seen as both legitimate and beneficial, we and this is a direct quote from the research, this one's Georgetown, virtually eliminate the risk of backlash. The problem with that is that you tell a really busy woman that she needs to figure out how to demonstrate this and like her eyes glaze over. We're too, we're too busy to do this. And so we've created a formula that allows you to check those boxes, which is that when you're negotiating, share what your past performances talk about that future goal that everyone's, everyone's on board with. Usually it's the reason that your job exists, like it's in the job description. Then make your ask and then finally stop talking. What we've seen is that women are so wonderful that in an attempt to make their negotiation partner feel more comfortable, they'll actually start negotiating against themselves. Instead, we want to end that with something like what do you think? Which makes it clear it's the other person's time to talk.

[Nicole Khalil]

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[Katherine Valentine]

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[Nicole Khalil]

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[Katherine Valentine]

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[Nicole Khalil]

Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving.

[Katherine Valentine]

Visit strayer.edu Jack WelchMBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chevin as many campuses, including.

[Nicole Khalil]

At 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia. On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this.

[Katherine Valentine]

So whether you're sharing the streaming password.

[Nicole Khalil]

In the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[Katherine Valentine]

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[Nicole Khalil]

Completely to my personal experience in negotiation and in sales. I talk way too much. I'm trying to over explain and address any potential questions that could possibly come in. Like I can remember vividly when we were selling our house, Jay, at one point, my husband looked at me and he was like, so stop talking. I. Yeah, anyway, okay, so what's the. The third step?

[Katherine Valentine]

And then the third one is to discuss collaboratively. And it's a little bit of what you hinted at before, which is that there is a perspective that you can or sometimes even should negotiate aggressively. And what we find is that's an unfair playing field where women are set up to lose. What actually women tend to do better at is a collaborative negotiation, or, to your point, a win win. And so the easiest way I think of to talk about this is when you're going into negotiation, it's not you versus me, but it's us versus the problem. And the problem that's is anything really that prevents you from doing your best work. So it's a problem if you're exhausted. It's a problem if you don't have the resources you need. It's a problem if there's some, I don't know, political or team dynamics. Right. The company is paying you X to deliver Y, and if you are delivering Y minus 20%, but could deliver Y plus 40%, like, the company would be better off to help you get to that point.

[Nicole Khalil]

Okay. So I love these three steps. They make sense to my brain. Can you maybe walk us through an example of how we would think through or deliver these three steps? Because, as you said, we're so busy, it's like, crazy. But we might not have the time to figure out how to negotiate on our own behalf.

[Katherine Valentine]

I love this. Let's almost kind of do a script. Um, what scenario do you want to toy with?

[Nicole Khalil]

So let's say I am in a job where I am feeling overworked, exhausted, and it's not necessarily that I want to get paid more and keep doing. It's like I want to scale back, but I don't want to lose income. Right? So, like, I think of meshing a few people that I coach in my mind, but it's like the people who are still working in the evening or after their kids go to bed on the weekends, they're always on call via email, and they're just freaking burnt out and exhausted. But they're doers and they get things done. And they have a strong reputation in the company. So compensation isn't even the thing that they're the most upset about or bothered by. It's the I don't have a life outside of my job type thing.

[Katherine Valentine]

This is one that's very familiar. So, yes, let's do this one. I'm going to take a leap here just for time's sake. So if we were coaching, what I would do is coach you through. Okay, what does that life look like? What are the things that are most important? I will say, having done a number of workshops now, most of the time what I hear people say is it's the evening work. Like, it's the evening work that is eliminating my life and eliminating my rest time. So I'm going to go and just make an assumption that that's the thing that would be most helpful in this scenario. I'm also just going to make an assumption that you're in sales, because you mentioned it earlier and because I need kind of a job to do this. So you're in sales, you're exhausted because you're working a lot of nights. So the way that this. First of all, what you would do is you would take some time to really brainstorm. And I think a lot of times I like to do it with a friend because they have a new perspective. But to brainstorm what it is you could ask for, then you're going to make your relational ask. In this case, it's going to sound something like this. Hey, manager, as you know, last quarter I was able to exceed the sales target by 10% this quarter. I think we can do that again or I think I can do that again. In order to do that, though, I wanted to talk to you about working the hours when I'm most productive. Can we talk about. Let's talk about some of this evening work. Do we need that all the time or what if I just stop work at 6 every day? What do you think? And so now we're going to have a discussion. And one of the women that I worked with had that discussion. And what she learned back was that her manager was really concerned because her team was in charge of getting out a full company report first thing Friday morning. And they worked on it into the night, Thursday night. And he was like, well, what about the report? And she was like, that's a great point. We actually don't get the data for that until Thursday at noon. So what if I can guarantee you that I will do whatever is needed in whatever hours to make sure that that's still what the company needs it to be? And her manager was like, okay, the other thing that might happen is your manager's like, I don't know. I'm still really nervous. At that point in time, you can just propose an experiment. I understand you're really nervous. It's really important me to do great at that, this job. And. And I'm concerned that my exhaustion level is starting to mess with that. So what if we just run this experiment? What if we do it for a month and see how it goes? What we've learned with experiments is it's a lot easier for people to say yes to, and then, frankly, a lot harder for them to go back and say no to, because most of the time, there is no fire that would make them concerned about that decision. So, Nicole, what'd you think about all that? Did that? Yeah.

[Nicole Khalil]

Phenomenal. And I love the positioning it as an experiment because it gives anybody on the other side who might be concerned or worried sort of this future out if it doesn't work out. And it gives you the freedom to test out what it is that you want. And most of us, because we're so good at getting things done and making things we want to work, we'll figure out how to make it work.

[Katherine Valentine]

Which I think is another thing that I always like to bring into kind of the workshops and discussions is we know that superstars matter a lot to companies. And so the other thing that sometimes I like to think about is, especially for the women that come in that are a little bit tired, is, sure, we could negotiate less on your plate, or we could negotiate more resources. Like, what could you do if you had three people on your team? What could you do if you had access to 50% of this assistance time? What could you do if you. I like to negotiate for those things. We also know from the research that we women tend to be given fewer resources than men. So this is Laura Cray out of Berkeley, but anywhere between 25 to 40% fewer team members and things like that. And so bringing that into the negotiation allows us to deliver the impact we're capable of without giving away our market value.

[Nicole Khalil]

I wonder, and this is a little bit of a offshoot of what we're talking about. I don't know if there's any research that backs this up, but I do find a good chunk of women feel undervalued or underappreciated in their jobs. And you just said, and I agree, you know, being a rock star puts you in a really good position to negotiate. What if you're in a position where you are a rock star, but you might not be being perceived? Or people might not be aware of all of the value that you add when you go into a negotiation?

[Katherine Valentine]

So I love this question, because one of the things that we see and it's not just women, but one of the things we see, and I think women struggle with it a little bit more, is not wanting to brag, which is fine. Unfortunately, you're not the star of your manager's life. Your manager is the star of your manager's life. And so it's really easy for them not to know what you did or they knew what you did, but now they've forgotten it or they didn't see it, or they didn't understand how important it was. And so part of it is communicating how much value you're delivering. And I think it lands best. People rate you higher on leadership skills if you can deliver it. When you explain what the impact is on somebody else, the client, the team, the department. So, as you know, I exceeded my revenue target by 10% last quarter, which allowed the department to hit our department level goals. Right. Those types of things are really powerful and you're, you can say them in that way while also being others focused, which I think I would argue for plenty of people, is very authentic. And so it doesn't feel ick, but it allows you to share those wins. It's also why we start the relational ask with sharing your wins.

[Nicole Khalil]

Yeah, Great language. I wish I would have had that way earlier in my life because I was one of those people who just thought if I put my head down and did the work that everybody would notice.

[Katherine Valentine]

We were trained that way in school. Of course we all thought that.

[Nicole Khalil]

Yeah, yeah. A decade later I was like, shit. Nobody noticed. Anyway, so I teed up this episode that we were going to cover three ends. Where does networking play a part in our ability to negotiate?

[Katherine Valentine]

This is one of my favorite overlaps because the thing that's tough in negotiation, that no matter how many times I lay in my bed at night thinking about it, I cannot solve is the information ASM symmetry. The company is always going to know more than you know about what your peers are making, what other people in the industry are making, all of that. And we can do a lot of things. And we have a benchmarking 101 resource I can share with you. We can do a lot of things to help you get some of that information, but you're almost never going to know as much as they do. One of those hacks, though, is your network. And so if you can imagine going into negotiation, if you can ask somebody at your company who's left your company what they were making, what they saw at their new role, or if you can ask and it gets a little tricky Depending on your company culture, but peers or your alma mater or something like that, those are all really important. The mistake I see people making is they build a same gender network. We don't want to ask only women what they're making. We want to ask some, ideally cisgender white men. And so building your network to be very diverse allows you access to a lot more information.

[Nicole Khalil]

Again, anecdotal, but I had an experience recently where I connected with a cisgender white man who had spoke in an event that I was being offered to speak at. And so I was able to connect with him and find out a little bit about what he got and what he got paid and all of that. And I can't even begin to tell you how helpful that was going into that conversation and then that negotiation, because inevitably they asked whether or not I was willing to negotiate, which most people do when you're booking speaking engagements. And I have the tendency to be too willing or too flexible. And so just a comment on having that network and having that information is super helpful.

[Katherine Valentine]

I also think that flexibility and just, you know, also for women who aren't. But that flexibility evolves based on where you are. Right. So when you're just starting out and speaking, you have a lot more flexibility. Right. And I'll negotiate for video footage and I'll negotiate for. Blah, blah, blah. I'll negotiate to do a breakout session because I want to meet more people. And then as you get more established, you're less willing to negotiate on those things. And I think we see it with women in the workforce where for some people, if your caregiving responsibilities have really spiked, the pay might not be the thing that drives your happiness for the next 12 months. It's. It might actually be something else. And that's okay. Your goal doesn't have to be. My goal doesn't have to be someone else. And you don't have to carry the burden of the gender wage gap on your back by yourself. It also might be that you're really excited about learning more about this project and that's what you want to negotiate. I mean, our goals don't have to be the same as each other, or the same can change over time, too.

[Nicole Khalil]

So when we are maybe getting tactical about networking, it's, you know, not just other women. You said that. Is there any other advice about the types of people we want in our network?

[Katherine Valentine]

There's two things. I do a workshop on networking, specifically as a woman. And when you. A lot of it is what you would expect, it's Gender neutral. But there's two things that have really popped in the research that I think are helpful for women to know. The first one is that, and this is based on work by Brian Utsi at Northwestern. He analyzed over a million emails to look at, like to map all of these networks. And what he found is that women who had networks that resembled the most successful men, which was very broad, a lot of connections, were 80% less successful than women who had that network, plus a network of close professional women. And so the sort of first point on networking for women is having a network of close professional women allows you to be 2.5 times more successful because of the information exchange available there. So that's one thing that you don't want to ignore. The second thing is that, and you know, I'm sure you've, you know this probably even better than I do, but women are over mentored and under sponsored. And so finding sponsors is critical. And I think sometimes when I meet with women, they say, okay, well, I'm going to go talk to all these people about being sponsors. And it's like, no, no, no. When your sponsor calls, you have to drop everything and do what they need you to do. So, so we don't want 10 sponsors. We want like two, maybe three very strategically placed ones. And there's some research out of Stanford that we could talk about about how to find those people. But those are the two top lines I would give on networking specifically as a woman.

[Nicole Khalil]

Okay, and then what about the word no? Where does no play a part in negotiation and when do we use it? Like, I think sometimes there's the tendency to empty threat and obviously that doesn't work. You'd want to say no unless you're willing to stand behind your no. Where do we leverage no in our negotiations is my question.

[Katherine Valentine]

So one of the common tendencies I see is that people see reaching an agreement as the goal that is not the goal. The goal is for you to be satisfied with the agreement that was reached, even if the answer to that is, hey, you know what, there's not overlap right now, so let's come back to this in six months or something like that. The other thing that I would say to your no is, and if I see this sort of Pinterest thing again, no is a complete sentence that was written by a man. No is not a complete sentence if you are a woman. No with a period is an invitation for backlash. And so I tend to want to do say things like, doesn't seem like this is the right fit, right now or let's revisit this later or hey, can you tell me more about that? And once I learn more, either we see some overlap or we don't. And it's an agreement to disagree on this thing right now and that's okay.

[Nicole Khalil]

So what about when you're in a negotiation with somebody where you feel like there is no potential that you're going to get anywhere that you're going to feel happy about?

[Katherine Valentine]

Yeah. So I actually worked with a woman who had, who was in a situation like that about six months ago. And for her it was a real, a lot of it was the mindset work on not reaching an agreement is okay. She was in a job that she was, you know, okay with and somebody had approached her and they, and they couldn't come to and she was like, well, should I, should I just take this job that I'm not sure about and make less? And it's like, why would we do that? And so what I would say there is, for most of us, we're in an industry, we're going to work in that industry. We live in a city, we're going to live in that city. Like, the overlapping networks are pretty impressive. And so I don't think we ever want a no walk away because it's a long game. I think we always want a. I've really enjoyed meeting you. I'm so excited about what you're doing. I'm not sure that this is the right fit at this time. And I want to make sure that you get somebody in this role that's going to help you achieve those goals immediately. So here are a few people I can recommend or if I can be helpful to you, please let me know.

[Nicole Khalil]

So, Catherine, you just said it. I was going to ask, where does recommending other people or other solutions help in either just your credibility or even for future opportunities? I find I do that a lot. Like I say to people, 70% of the people who reach out to me for coaching, I refer to other coaches because we're not the right fit for each other in some way or timing or what have you. And I feel great about being able to do that. And I just wonder if it's a value add or to our benefit in negotiating to do something like that.

[Katherine Valentine]

It is. And I think once you flip the perspective, it becomes pretty clear, which is that when you go to someone and ask them for something, it doesn't matter to you that it's that person at that time. It matters to you that you have a solution to your problem. And so if someone says no to you but gives you a solution to your problem, you're good. That's all you needed. The other thing we see from the research is if you use the word because people are much more likely to accept your no. Even. Even if. And I love this part. Even if the reason has nothing to do with the ask, No, I can't do that because it's raining outside. Like, something happens in people's brains where they hear the word because, and they're like, oh, check, they thought about it. And so I would recommend, like, you know, think about throwing out a because if you can. And then if you have a solution, even better, because then you actually get crazy credit for helping that person solve their problem.

[Nicole Khalil]

Okay, Katherine, I have 1 million more questions, and unfortunately, we are out of time. But I want to give people the best ways to find and follow you. So first, 76things.com is the place where you can go to get that list of all the things that you can negotiate besides just your salary. And then Katherine's website is WorthMoreStrategies.com either way, great way to get in contact with Katherine and get more resources about her work. Katherine, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your expertise today. And did I miss anything?

[Katherine Valentine]

No. Nicole, thank you so much for inviting me on. This was really fun.

[Nicole Khalil]

My absolute pleasure. Okay, friend, if there's one thing I hope you take away from this conversation, it's the asking for more. Building powerful connections and standing firm in your nose are not just skills. They're necessities. Because for too long, we've been told that wanting more is greedy, that taking up space is unbecoming, and that negotiating is something that we're bad at. But the truth? Women are uniquely suited to think holistically, ask relationally, and discuss collaboratively, as Katherine taught us. So whether it's asking for that flexible schedule, pushing for the title you deserve, or negotiating your way into making more money, do it without apology. As Becca Lee so beautifully put it, the ocean does not apologize for its depth, and the mountains do not seek forgiveness for the space they take. And so neither shall I. And I don't know about you, but that sounds like woman's work to me.