Anything can be accomplished if you can take it one small step at a time.
You are not going to be able to negotiate if you are unclear about your next small goal. A sales process usually have several interactions, and you don’t need to jump into bed with the meeting planner on your first date.
Set lots of small goals, instead of the big overarching book-paid-gigs one. Negotiations, where one or both negotiators enter the ring without knowing what they want, are not all that rare.
If you don’t start any interaction with a goal in mind, you can’t know what worked. So make smaller goals. Here are some ideas:
- Find out if an organization or association hire speakers.
- Get the name of the person who handles meeting planning in an organization.
- Get them to tell you why they hire speakers.
- Get them to tell you which speakers they have enjoyed having on stage.
- Get them to tell you their concerns about hiring speakers.
- Get to understand their concerns so well that you can repeat them back and get a ‘That’s right!’
Feel free to add your own.
A goal does not need to be large, like ‘I want to walk away from this deal with a $5000 US contract’. If it is, you’re going to experience a lot of failing. And I don’t want that for you.