How to Get What You Want
Your career isn’t built by waiting for someone to notice your value. It’s built by learning how to advocate for yourself with confidence.
You’ve been told your work will speak for itself. Yet despite doing everything asked of you—and more—you’re still feeling overlooked and uncertain about your next step. Leadership isn’t just about managing a team; it’s navigating the complexities of internal relationships and consistently advocating for your growth.
On Get What You Want, Susie Tomenchok is your silent partner, empowering you with the mindset and tools to negotiate your career—and life—with intention.
Unlike podcasts that focus on climbing the ladder or hustle culture, this show is for women who want to own their careers authentically. You’ll learn practical strategies for everyday negotiations, from asking for what you deserve to confidently handling tough conversations. Because negotiation isn’t just for raises or promotions—it’s how you navigate every opportunity in your career and beyond.
Susie is a negotiation expert who understands the challenges of being in a male-dominated industry and the struggles women face when advocating for themselves. She’s helped countless professionals unlock their potential and will show you how to do the same.
If you’re ready to stop waiting for your career to happen to you and start creating the opportunities you want, hit follow and join Susie each week to build your confidence, advocate for yourself, and finally Get What You Want.
How to Get What You Want
The art of winning
Prepare to transform your negotiation skills and steer yourself to victory even in high-stakes situations. Today I will unveil the power of "CLA", a negotiation strategy that's all about understanding conditions, leveraging strengths, and advocating for yourself. In this episode, we're not just talking about boardroom scenarios, we're exploring how these negotiation principles apply to everyday situations - from making your case for a new role to navigating difficult conversations at work or even at home.
As we journey through this episode, we dive deeper into the importance of being your own advocate, because nobody knows what you need better than you. We delve into how to confidently express your needs and wants, and say goodbye to feeling overwhelmed or unprepared in high-stakes scenarios. The power of negotiation is a secret weapon that we all possess, it's just about learning to use it. And that’s precisely what we’re doing today! So, strap in for a deep dive into negotiation 101 with a powerful twist - the 'CLA'. Remember, negotiation isn't just a skill, it's a lifestyle!
_____________________
🚀 Ready to Get What You Want?
Listening is great, but real change happens when you take action. Join my newsletter for exclusive negotiation strategies, scripts, and real-world case studies you won’t hear on the podcast. Sign up now at www.negotiationlove.com—it takes 10 seconds and will change how you view and negotiate forever.
📖 Continue Your Professional Growth with These Resources:
Get my Book: The Art of Everyday Negotiation without Manipulation:
www.susietomenchok.com/the-art-of-everyday-negotiation
Work With Me: Speaking, corporate training, and executive coaching:
www.susietomenchok.com/services
_____________________
Remember, negotiation is more than a skill—it’s a mindset.
💕Susie
www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok
Welcome to the Leaders with Leverage Podcast. I'm your host and negotiation expert, suzy Tomonczuk. It's time to be your own advocate and negotiate for what you really want out of your career, not simply the next role or additional compensation. I want to show you that negotiation happens each and every day so that you opt in and say yes with confidence. Together with other business leaders, you'll learn the essential skills you, as a leader, needs to become that advocate in growing your professional skills, to increase confidence, gain respect and become the future leader you're poised to be, and when you face a high-stakes situation, you're ready, no matter how high those stakes are. So let's do this. Let's lead with leverage. Welcome, i'm Suzy Tomonczuk. We've tuned in to Leaders with Leverage, so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:This is a solo episode. Last time, if you didn't catch it, it was only like seven minutes. I talked about stakes And it just pauses really quick. Go back and listen to that one, just because it's applicable here. But I wanted to give you two kind of concepts to think about. So last time I talked about the stakes and how we define stakes in every situation And it should really come from us And that's a really important thing to consider. But then, once you identify if the stakes are high, it's moving through the situation to get the best results you possibly can. And that's where I'm going to introduce you to this idea.
Speaker 1:I'm laughing because I put my three fingers up, if you can only like, if you're not looking at me on YouTube, and if you are, you see how awkward I look. I have my three fingers, my three middle fingers, up and like in a claw, and so this is called claw. And every time I say I'm going to go claw And the only reason I'm going to do that is because I want you to remember this, because if you I do something silly, you're more likely to remember it. So claw is CLA, so it's not even spelled like claw, but we're just going to pretend it is. And when I love about the analogy of a claw, like digging in, i think that it's really goes hand in hand. So claw is really the best practice. The best practice is that you can put in place when you're facing a high stake situation. Especially when you're facing a high stake situation, you can use it for every situation that you go into. But claw, claw People. I can just envision people are going to walk up to me and show me the claw That will make my day. If you see me and you've given me the claw, you have to go to YouTube to see the official way to make the claw And I have such long, skinny fingers that you know you really have to work at it. Anyway, i always laugh with my girls that I can just make myself laugh and nobody's here and I'm still laughing Because I can feel you laughing with me. I guess that's what I'm going to, that's what I'm going to believe.
Speaker 1:Okay, so claw, claw, CLA, c is for condition, so that when you think about condition, it's the situation that you're going to walk into. The L is the leverage And those are the factors at play that you should consider before you walk in. And then the A of claw is advocate, and that's the adjustments that you need to make to be at your best. And to me, advocate is a verb, it's walking through, it's having the courage, because so often the thing that gets in our way and a negotiation is ourselves, and we could go through the condition and the leverage and really prepare, but then at the last minute boy, we are our own worst enemy sometimes to give ourselves enough excuses that we just say not right now, we put it off. So advocate is really taking action. So let's talk about the conditions.
Speaker 1:What kind of situations do I want you to consider to be things that could be high stakes And we might not consider that? All right, let's identify the obvious ones. High stakes situations buying a car, buying a house, so accepting an offer or negotiating an offer for a new position that you really want, a divorce, saying no to a friend, breaking up with somebody all these situations that we would just absolutely understand that they're high stakes. But what situations sometimes are high stakes for us and we don't have to tell people maybe we feel embarrassed that they are, but they are and all of these could be like a difficult conversation with somebody that works for you. You like them a lot, you get along with them, their intentions, you understand their intentions, but they're just not meeting expectations. It's so you just put it off. Then you've put it off too long. We all do that. So a difficult conversation with your partner something you've just been putting off or with your kids I have 20 year old kids and some of those conversations can be really difficult.
Speaker 1:A high stakes situation for the organization, a peer connection, and that can sound really simple. But what if you don't respect your peer? I'm working with a client right now and I'm actually working with two peers and man. They do not see the world from the same perspective and they value very different things. Just them connecting was a huge commitment for both of them. In fact, who was going to ask the other? So a peer connection can be high stakes depending on the situation. A quick update to a senior leader that might just seem mundane to some people, but maybe you got a bad review or you did something that they didn't really appreciate and now you have to give a quick update. So that quick update feels really heavy and you're nervous about it.
Speaker 1:Internal networking I put this on here and I'm like how could somebody have high stakes with networking? Just to be totally honest. But I'll tell you I work with people. When I talk about networking and some of the things, somebody will be like, okay, i finally asked that person and I got a coffee with them. It wasn't hard, but it took me a whole month to ask them. Then they come to me and like, okay, now I got it. What do I say? So that can feel like no judgment here. I put that on there because I've seen it. So those are just some of the examples. So, as you can see, it can cross the gamut When you think about conditions.
Speaker 1:It can change depending on how the other person shows up. So you could have a low stakes situation that suddenly turns into high stakes. Maybe it's a project update that you have a weekly update every week and this one time a new stakeholder shows up who has high influence in the organization and suddenly it's high stakes for you Because people are siding with that person, they throw a wrench in the project and all of a sudden you're like crap, i got to take control of this meeting and this project again and figure out how do I get people aligned. So that's what I mean about conditions. So I'm going to give you some things to consider in the condition. So, when you've identified that something's high stakes for you, taking a few minutes before you go in and consider the condition, so being really clear about what your best possible outcome is for that situation and just making sure that you know what that is for you. Hey there, love this podcast. I'm taking 10 seconds out of this episode to ask you to leave an honest review. More reviews on the show help us to reach more professionals who are ready to lead with leverage.
Speaker 1:Now let's continue the conversation, thinking about who might be able to support you or advise you on it, who can give you some kind of context that is unrelated to the situation, or somebody that's close to it that might be able to give you some right in time advice. When we're facing something that's high stakes, sometimes we don't want to talk to anybody about it because it's making us really nervous, but sometimes that's the best time Thinking about. Do you need to have any pre-conversations with that person? Is there something you should do to get them ready or not? But just think about that. What are the power dynamics at play? Do you have influence in this situation? Do they? What could happen? What could change? And then, what's your value? What are you bringing to the conversation? Why is this important to you so you can get your confidence up and that what you're saying will hold a lot of strength, and what's the value that you bring that to them? What is that? So that's the condition. That's looking at the situation and and taking a few minutes to ask some questions to consider Before you go in, so you can get kind of your head straight. So claw, that's the C. The L in claw is leverage. So the leverage is you know who has the strength in terms of the, let's just say, terms of. But that's really broad as I'm relating it here to leverage, because leverage is a pretty broad topic.
Speaker 1:So first one is batna. I talked about batna earlier. Batna is the best alternative to a negotiating agreement. So if this person says no, or this person's difficult, what are your alternatives? And even if it's maybe your alternative is you ask somebody else. Maybe your alternative is you escalate to your boss. What are the things you're gonna do if this doesn't go right? Considering those and going down the path will make you more prepared. if those things kind of go sideways and you need to Do that, what are their interests? Even considering their interests will increase your results. What are this? What are your stakes? What are the stakes? Why are they high? Is it because of the business? Is it because of you? Is it for the team? Kind of identify what is heating up those stakes and How will you stay objective in the moment, how we stay clear and how will you push through?
Speaker 1:What will you use? What language do you use? How will you frame it? How will you frame the ask? How will you move into it? And then, how will you reframe if, if they don't See exactly the same way that you want them to see? and how will you listen Really intently.
Speaker 1:And then the last part of claw claw, claw. I have to work, make sure that's consistent, is advocate and that's moving forward. But thinking about what. Are they going to be there posing arguments? What are the counter arguments? What are they gonna say? Are they gonna get defensive if you're giving tough feedback? What are those gonna do and how are you gonna address them? What factors will hijack you? is it somebody that gets you mad immediately when they're just kind of like, put you off pre, think about those things and then in that moment you can go. Okay, there's that, there's that emotion in me. I'm just not gonna ignore it and try to stay to my plan. What issues might arise? how are you gonna zoom out? How are you gonna see it from a different perspective so you can regain your objectivity in case you do get a little bit triggered?
Speaker 1:and Then, what is your, what is your plan? How are you gonna talk it through? So that's really thinking about what is going to move you through and then how are you going to get to the end? How do you want to end that conversation? And that's so important because we often don't know when they're ready to say yes. And when we identify when we get to the end, then we can make sure that we reiterate And that's so important. We believe that people understand us like 80% or 90% of our message, but the research shows that people only really understand or see IDA-IDA with us 20% of our message. Like that's crazy. And people that know us really well it only goes up to 30. So that just tells me be really clear about your communication, ask open-ended questions and make sure you listen, because when you're objective and you've done this claw, you can really listen to what's going on with the other person so that you can really help them through to get to the end that the clear end that you've identified of where you're going. So that's claw. I can't wait to see you do your own claw. If you have, maybe I'll put a picture.
Speaker 1:Use claw, think about those things before you walk into a meeting and see if it works for you. I'd love to hear about it. Tell me how it works for you. I find that this is amazing how, when you have intention and you take just a few minutes, this doesn't have to be exhaustive, it doesn't have to be hours. You could spend 10 minutes and jot these things down, and that will give you better results In every situation. The condition is any situation, and it's about considering how you can be at your best, and that's what we're solving for That's claw. Claw How you can be at your best in every situation, because that's the thing that changes. You're always the same, so you need to be adaptable.
Speaker 1:In that, thank you so much for joining me. I can't tell you how wonderful this has been to just hear from you and just know that some of these ideas are really landing. So feel free to reach out. I'm on LinkedIn. You can message me, give me some questions you want me to address here. I would love to hear from you and hear what's on your mind And tell me if claw has been something that has had miserable success for you.
Speaker 1:Share this podcast with anybody that you think would benefit from it, and thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you And I want to remind you that you are important, so don't forget to embed negotiation every day so that you can be your own advocate and really hone your own value. Thanks, thanks for listening to this week's episode of Leaders with Leverage. If you're ready to continue your professional growth, commit to accelerating your career development and say goodbye to that anxious feeling in your stomach any time you need to advocate for yourself, and get my book The Art of Everyday Negotiation Without Manipulation. In this book, you'll learn the essential steps to take before entering into any negotiation or conversation, any interaction. In your day to day. You'll discover what the other party really needs and be clear about what you're going after. You'll bust through your fears and boost your confidence and embrace that negotiation truly happens all around us. Click to the link in the show notes for more, and you can even get a bonus if you buy it today.
