Talkin’ Shop

This might be the most helpful thing I’ve posted on the blog so far.

The day after Thanksgiving, Dylan Meconis, Erika Moen, Bill Mudron and I got together and decided to talk about comics, being professional freelancers, getting comfortable with the business of art and how awesome Steve Lieber is.

Dylan will have the full podcast here later this week & Erika has the full 2.5 hours of UStreaming Fun here.  I’ve edited a version that highlights all the great information Dylan, Erika & Bill shared about being professional freelance artists.  Here:

What makes this so helpful, in my humble opinion, is that all of the advice is coming from people who make their living as professional freelance illustrators and comics artists.  They talk about everything from how to start your next big project to how to talk to clients about work, the benefits of working with other freelancers and what to be on the look out for if you decide to post your work on collective sites.

I’ve been wanting to do something like this since earlier this year when a reader approached me at MoCCA asking for more practical information about working as a freelancer.  I think this podcast is a great start for that conversation and I’m looking forward to tricking folks into doing many more.

[The audio levels can be a bit goofy; we used the internal mic on one of our laptops & the fan really kicks in toward the end.  The version posted here clocks in at around an hour; if you want to download it go here.]

$$$

If you haven’t already found it in your internet adventures, might I suggest you scurry over and check out Freelance Finances.

And by “suggest” I mean “get your ass over there now.”

It is, very simply, a blog about how to keep more of your money in your pocket.

Money can be scary.  Not having enough of it, knowing what to do with what you have, avoiding having less of it: these are common problems.  But people will more readily give you their complete sexual history than talk openly about b-b-b-budgeting.

As a freelancer, you don’t have a choice.  You’re in business for yourself and if you don’t pay attention to your money, you won’t be a freelancer for long.

Paying attention to your finances also means that you’re becoming a better negotiator.  Think about it: are you going to be a better negotiator if you know rent is covered this month or if you have no idea how you’re going to pay all your bills?

With your finances in order you’ll be more confident about negotiating because no one job will make or break you; you’ll have a strong back up plan.  And as we all know, a strong BATNA makes for a more successful negotiation.

Regardless of where you are right now financially, you can’t improve if you don’t start paying attention to the scary.  So, go, check the blog out, and start making yourself a wealthier negotiator.

Charming Negotiator is Charming

NEWS FLASH

“Charming People Make Better Negotiators.”

I know.  It is a horrible realization.

In addition to getting The Girl, having the Best Car & being the Nicest Person you’ve ever met, those charming kids get to be better negotiators.

Why?

Well, because charming people are charming.

You want to talk to them; you want to spend time with them; you even want to be them, much as you might not always want to admit it.

When negotiating with a charming counterpart, you can end up feeling like the odd kid out, working twice as hard and getting half as far.

Basically, you end up being Eric Stoltz at the beginning of Some Kind of Wonderful: a good guy that ain’t gonna win.

But only if you are totally unaware of your surroundings and unwilling to value your interests over your ability to make the other kid laugh at your awkward jokes.

Here is how to negotiate with a charmer and win:

1.  What are you interested in?

I know I talk about interests as if they are going out of style; I am intentionally trying to beat you over the head with the idea that what you are interested in is the most important part of the negotiation.

I do this because it is the easiest thing to forget.

No matter how smart you are, how prepared you are, or how many times you’ve negotiated in the past, you will eventually try to negotiate from a place of fear.

The best thing you can do to help yourself in this situation is to make it a regular practice to set aside 30 seconds in each step of a negotiation and ask yourself, “What are my interests?  Does this serve my interests?”

Knowing what you’re interests are and if you’re staying true to them can help you resist that gravitational force of charm.

2. Don’t agree.

In negotiations, particularly those that happen over an extended period of time, a natural tendency is to agree to all of the little details that lead up to be the “Big Deal” in an effort to get to the heart of what you’re most anxious about.

Who cares who pays for shipping?  So long as you get what you want in the end.  Right?

Wrong.

Getting those little things off the table quickly can do two potentially destructive things to your negotiation: (1) it’ll leave you less to negotiate with and (2) it can leave you carrying more of the load than you intended.

A negotiation is not just the end result. It is a process, and like all good processes there are many jobs to divvy up.

By agreeing early and often to the smaller details, you can end up at the “Big Deal” further away from your interests than where you started: because you’ve taken on all of the “smaller” details,  you now have 542 steps to get to where you want to be, instead of the 42 steps you started with.

Those smaller details can be excellent bargaining chips; who pays for shipping might appear to be a minor detail in the beginning and a much larger issue later on in the negotiation.

Instead, call those details out, list them off and save them for later, when you know more about what you’re doing.

3.  Repeat after me.

With charmers, speed is their greatest advantage: in, out, and on their way.

Talking to a charmer, your initial reaction is thrill (“they’re talking to me!”), followed by a need to impress (“OMG, she’ll totally love my hedgehog anecdote!”) and a desire to appease (“if I say yes now, she’ll say yes later”).

While natural, these reactions are completely unhelpful.

If you not believe me, please go watch any of Mr. John Hughes’ films: giving in early doesn’t help, it only makes you Molly Ringwald.

What to do?

Repeat what they are saying.

Often times people say ridiculously stupid things that we don’t immediately recognize as ridiculously stupid.  Repeating what is said (and agreed to) can help on a number of levels:

>>You buy yourself time to think.  A few seconds is sometimes all it takes for you to realize, “NO!  I do not want to do that thing you just said!”

>>Hearing yourself say something can often put the idea in a new perspective. Having to say the words out loud requires a bit more thought than saying, “Sure!”  You are your best counsel; listen.

>>You make them hear what they’re saying. Charmers don’t always mean to be jerks; hearing you say what they’re asking from you might help them realize that the request is too broad or demanding.

Pay attention to the basics of negotiation and no one can best you.

Not even That Guy.

Thanks!

For sticking with me through November.  I just got done with a whole heap of mighty big negotiations at work and am looking forward to having time to sit down and write for the blog again.

That night is not tonight, however.  Tonight is for skirting my dish washing duties (I made the turkey!) and watching silly movies.

Tonight is also a night for roaming around the internet entertaining yourself while the tryptophan takes over.  To that end, I give you this.  Bookmark it and read it the next time someone gives you an “opportunity” they’ll pay you for with “exposure.”

In my name

The Program on Negotiation at Harvard recently (a while ago) started a (somewhat) daily blog.  It’s mostly edited versions of longer articles written by the professors that teach PON classes.  The posts have enough to spark your thinking and get yourself chewing on how you’d tackle that particular issue.

Professor Subramanian is one of my favorites.  He taught a good portion of the classes I’ve taken through PON and he’s good.  This post is from a longer article he wrote on the complexities presented when negotiating through agents.

Agency negotiation (which is what I do) can be difficult because there is a lot of translation that needs to happen, and like everything else in life, it doesn’t always happen well.

And you know what?  A LOT of negotiations in art involve agents in one way or another.

So, here’s what I want you to do:

1.  Go read the article.  (It will take you 10 minutes if you are very very very slow about it.)

2.  Think about a negotiation situation where you would use an agent or where you would be negotiating with someone else’s agent.

3.  What are things you could do before the negotiation to avoid the problems of miscommunication & agents acting too much in their own best interests?

4.  No, seriously; what are they?  Write them down in a free form brain storming.

5.  Do the same thing regarding stuff you could do while those problems are happening; what could you do?

6.  Look at the lists (or clouds, or spider webs, or poems; whatever) you’ve created.  What do you NOT know?  What do you wish you knew about dealing with those situations?  Where does your brain get stuck?

7.  Discuss below.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Make mistakes!

An important reminder: no one does this negotiation stuff perfectly all the time.  No one.

The point of this blog is not that you do everything perfectly every time and completely free yourself from the realities of the world.   It is, instead, to give you something else to consider.

I operate off of the belief that knowing something is better than hacking away on your own.  And, that once you have an idea, you can look at it, squint, turn it on its head and figure out just how it’s going to work for you.

I spent a very long time in my early professional career fighting against my personal style of negotiation, that is, what came naturally when I was in a conflict.

I do not scream or yell and I tend to not be good at the hard and fast line in the sand without any context.  So I didn’t think I looked like what negotiators looked like in popular culture.

I am not, as the kids say, a hard ass.

But I’m firm in my convictions, unwilling to be bullied and unimpressed by puffery.

So I started studying negotiation as A Thing.  And I slowly came to the understanding that my style was just fine; I needed to be aware of certain things more than others, but they didn’t get things that came naturally to me, so: Even Steven.

This blog is my attempt to convince you that your style is just fine and that there are things you should be aware of.

I screw up in one way or another every day.  I write all of those screw ups down in a notebook and try not to make them again.  Sometimes I do, though.  Sometimes a lesson takes a couple of experiences to settle in.  That’s life.

So, make mistakes.  Make lots of them.

Please.

I’d much rather you try than you hold back from fear of screwing up.

Gettin’ Fancy with the Negotiation Skillz

Way back when we started hanging out, I talked a wee bit about the concept of “anchoring.”

Anchoring is what happens when one party in a negotiation names a price, a due date or a list of deliverables.  That number is the number all other suggestions, negotiations, conversation and demands will be measured against.

Once an anchor has dropped it is very hard to move, even when it’s wrong.

Anchoring is a simple concept, but it can be hard to wrap your head around.  Once you understand it, though, it can be one of the easiest ways of controlling a negotiation and protecting yourself from less than honorable counterparts.

“But Katie,” you’re thinking, “why would I ever want to anchor?  It sounds complicated and fancy.”

My friend, have you ever gone to a comic book convention?

Because there are anchors dropping all over the place at comic book conventions.  For instance:

Buy my book!

Erika Moen, whose book is awesome

Most books at conventions regardless of quality, style or manner of publication come with one common feature: a price.

A price is a seller’s anchor.  It sets the most anyone will pay for the book.

If the price is $10, no one is going to walk up and offer $20 to buy one, but they might try to offer less.

Let’s say I want to buy 15 of those $10 books for resale at my comic book shop.  I don’t want to pay you $150 for the books because I won’t be able to make any money off of the sale (that price anchors me, too).  Instead, I offer you $75 for 15 books, or 50% off cover price, an “industry standard.”

Now, because you know I am a local vendor who trucks these books back to her store in her personal car, that I made back my costs for the con in the first 3 hours and that you could move 15 books all on your own, you counter with a perfectly reasonable $100.  I accept because blindly following “industry standards” without any context is, ehem, silly.  [cough, cough, hint, hint]

In our negotiation you and I used the price (a.k.a the anchor) as a hard reference point that we did not question and it informed our offers to one another.

That’s what an anchor does.

And that’s why you want to be thoughtful and intentional when you have to anchor.  If you anchor too low in a situation like this, you make it harder to break even or to build a nest egg of profit to fund future projects.  It also makes it harder to quickly figure out a mutually beneficial deal with a really big customer (like that shop owner).

Draw me a picture!

Dylan Meconis (lutherlevy.com) & Kate Beaton (harkavagrant.com)

Now let’s talk about an area where a lot of folks let their fans do the anchoring: convention sketches.

Very basically speaking, it is good to anchor when you know a lot; it is not good to anchor when you don’t know a lot.

Why?

Well, when you are well informed, you tend to know more about the actual cost of things, so you tend to be able to better gauge what is and isn’t a “good” deal.  When you are underinformed, but eager to negotiate (that is, you want something), you can under or overestimate the value of things.  That inability to estimate often translates into paying too much or charging too little if you make the first (anchoring) offer.

At conventions, who has the most knowledge about the value of a sketch?

Well, that artist knows how much time it will take, how valuable that time might be to her in relation to other things she might be doing, how many other people have asked for sketches and if her arm is about to fall off.

The fan asking for the sketch likely knows how flipping nervous they are to ask for it in the first place, what they’re going to do with it, how much they personally value that artist’s work and how much cash they have left in their pocket.

If the artist anchors, she runs the risk of asking for too little money for the work (because who knows, maybe the fan has $75 set aside specifically for a commissioned sketch from that artist).

If the fan anchors the artist might be left in a position of having to entertain an offer of “two bottle caps, half a candy bar and my undying love and affection, ohmygod!”

Neither person is in a perfect position to anchor because both people know a lot about their perception of value, but not a whole bunch about the other person’s.

What to do?

Drop a hook: something that sets a bare bones floor but clearly communicates you’re interested in negotiating. A sort-of anchor, if you will.

For the artist that might be something like a sign that says, “Sketches: $10 and up, depending on awesomeness” or when asked for a sketch replying “Well, how much were you wanting to spend?”

For the fan, that might be approaching the artist and saying, “I wanted to get a sketch from you to give to my girlfriend for her birthday; she loves Thomas Jefferson.  What would be the difference between a $10 sketch and a $25 sketch?”

What not to do: not say anything about money because you’re too embarrassed.

Seriously.  No more signs that don’t have some sort of price on them and no more getting upset because the elaborate thing you described but didn’t ask the price of that took 30 minutes to draw costs $20.

So what are we going to do at the next convention?

Wear a super fun outfit of ridiculousness: CHECK.

Find lots of nifty comics: CHECK.

Have a lot of fun despite whatever environmental temperature related fussage is happening: CHECK.

Negotiate intentionally & respectfully: you-bet-your-sweet-CHECK.

Let’s Just Say

Let’s just say that you booked a job two months ago.  At the time it seemed far off in the distant future.  But now, in October, that November 15th deadline is looking less and less attainable.

Let’s say you were uncomfortable taking the job.  Let’s say it’s not work you particularly like, but it’s money and it was an easy way of getting the client to stop pestering you.

Let’s say the job is easy, something you could do, but it will take a good amount of your time and the pay, while in real cash money, isn’t overly fantastic.

And, let’s say, since we’re sayin’, that the client is a bit, er, demanding.  You are the artist that took this job after he hunted and hunted and he wants to make sure you understand everything he needs.  Everything.

Let’s also say you’ve been offered other, higher paying, more satisfying work.  And you cannot do both.  You must choose.

After long, thoughtful consideration, you determine the best thing to do is to cancel the previous job and say yes to the better paying job.

You have to say no to someone you already said yes to.

Well, crap.

You likely feel a bit guilty and concerned what the ramifications of your backing out will be. But, unless you want to do the thing you just determined you cannot do, you’re going to have to have this no-fun conversation.

Before you jump into how to have the conversation, be honest with yourself about a couple of things:

• You’re doing this for you.  It might very well be in everyone’s best interest that you’re backing out.  But you’re not being altruistic.  You’re doing this for yourself.

• There will be negative consequences from your actions.  You can mitigate these  in how you handle the conversation and yourself, but you will not be able to completely negate them.  Accept that now, or don’t do it.

• You are not the first person in the universe to have to back out on something.  You are not special and are therefore not deserving of the guilt and self-flagellation you are likely giving yourself.  You are not saying “no” to a combined cure for cancer, AIDS, poverty, war and hang nails; get over yourself.

By fabian_wolf via Flickr.com

OK.  First things first:

If you signed a contract, haul it out and look at it.  Read it (for not the first time!).  Determine what it says if you back out before the project is complete.  You should read the whole sha-bang, but the following sections will likely be helpful: “Termination,” “Damages,” “Limitation of Liability,” or, if you have one, “Failure to Perform.”

What happens?  Do you have to pay them money?  Do you have to find a replacement?  Will they charge you for finding a replacement on their own?  If you cannot answer these questions or if reading the contract produces more questions, talk to a lawyer.

Now.  Don’t think you have to come to them crawling on your knees over broken glass if it says so in the contract.  The contract is a baseline of what will happen if you two can’t figure anything else out.  It’s good to know and understand, but it is not the end all be all of the universe.

Next, know why you’re saying “no.”  Sounds simple, but you need to understand your “no” inside, outside and upside down.  This will help you with a couple things:

1. You won’t be as likely to back down from your “no” if you know why you have it.  You are more likely to be talked out of doing something if you feel guilty about having to do it, even when you know it is the right thing to do.  But when you have a firm understanding of exactly why you are doing what you’re doing, you are less likely to be swayed by emotion (yours or someone else’s).
2. You’ll be better able to explain yourself when the other side questions why you’re backing out.  It is better to prepare for those questions than it is to fumble and say “Uh, well, um, I just don’t wanna, I guess.”
3. It’s respectful to have answers when disappointing someone.  To suddenly stand up, take all your toys and go home without any explanation is unprofessional and it will come back to haunt you.  Stick to your “no” but behave politely and treat the other person with respect. It is easier to do that when you understand why you’re saying “no.”

By dpup via Flickr.com

Whenever possible have these kinds of conversations face to face.  When that is not possible, use the phone.  Resort to email only if it means that doing something else will result in someone you love being tortured and killed horribly.

Hard conversations are hard.  They are made worse when the other person is left to wonder about what you meant by “always” and why you used the word “flabbergasted” three times in two paragraphs.  Don’t be the Post-it Note Break Up Guy; man/woman up and do the thing right.

Do your best to come to the table with alternatives for the person.  You might not always be able to do this, but when you can, do.  Think about the other person’s interests and provide alternatives that address what they want.

Alternatives can be recommending another artist for the job; they shouldn’t be a way to strong arm you into doing the job under different circumstances.  Be creative about coming up with alternatives; use what you know about their interests and BATNA to guide you.

Coming to them with alternatives shows that you’re a professional and that you’re trying to leave them in as good a position as you found them; no worse.  It’s not always possible, but it’s worth a shot.

By glassblower via Flickr.com

The other nice thing about coming to them with alternatives is that it gives them the opportunity to say “no” to you.  Weird?  Not entirely.

Being able to reject the idea of someone who just disappointed you is psychologically satisfying.  It can also improve your recollection of the event later on: “Sure, he bailed but we weren’t really seeing eye-to-eye on the project anyway; it was for the best.”

Saying “no” is rarely fun, but it’s often necessary, and it can be done well: firmly, professionally & respectfully.