Categorized | Blog

Do you need help with negotiating in the salon or in salary discussions?

Have
you ever had the feeling someone is pulling the wool over your eyes?  Or that you’re not quite getting a fair
deal? 

 

My
good friend Ruth was telling me recently about a time when she felt just like
this.  And it related to something I’m
sure is dear to all of us… a trip to the hairdressers!  So at the time she was having her hair cut in
one of those fancy salons, not because she thought the hairdressers were any better,
but simply because it was close to her office.

 

Ruth
had been going to this place for a few months and in her recent appointment,
the (male) salon owner jumped in at the last minute to finish off the blow
dry… No major problem for Ruth… except for when she went to pay and
discovered there was a celebrity surcharge on her tab!!

 

Now
a couple of things spring to mind here… Firstly, why is it that women’s hair
cuts –  an essential service by any
measure – cost so much?  A male friend of
mine was complaining the other day that he had to pay $20 for a cut.  Seriously.
He nearly fell of his chair when I told him women routinely pay ten
times this much!  (By the way if you’re
sick of spending a fortune on your hair – or you can recommend a good quality
or good value hairdresser anywhere in Australia – I would love you to share your
secrets on our Help Us Find the
Hairdressers that don’t break the bank!
blog… together let’s start an
uprising on this!)


But
the second and more important point is this: if you found yourself in this
situation, would you complain or refuse to pay for this additional “service”
that you hadn’t even requested in the first place?  I reckon most of us would tell everyone we
ran into for weeks afterwards about the injustice of it, but would be too
embarrassed to “make a fuss” in the salon!

 

It
might seem like a trivial story to be sharing with you, but the reality is our
ability to negotiate a fair price at the salon is not that different to
negotiating fair pay at work or a fair price on a purchase.  Study after study has shown that women on
average aren’t as astute at negotiating as their male counterparts.  Our style, personality and upbringing all
play a part… and as a result women often miss out on getting a fair deal.

 

If
this scenario has struck a cord with you, and you’re in Sydney on the 20th November, you must join us at our next sphinxx development day where Candy
Tymson will be presenting a learning session on Negotiation: the secrets men
don’t want women to know.

 

We’ll
also be hearing from a woman who’s a gun negotiator, Cassandra Kelly, who’s day
job before starting her own corporate advisory firm in Australia included
negotiating deals and multi-million dollar acquisitions for Deutsche Bank in
New York and London.  Cassandra now
advises Australian companies and CEOs on how they can get the best deal at the
negotiating table and you can have the chance to tap into her advice and
experiences – and ask any questions you like! – in our Take the Lead session at this next development day.

 

I
don’t know about you, but I think it’s time to rethink the way we approach
every negotiation, from the salon to the salary!


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