Today\u2019s expression is to leave something on the table. How did you hear it before? Americans, collectively <\/span>, leave millions of vacation days on the table. In fact, I\u2019m embarrassed to say that last year, even I left about five vacation days on the table, and I love my vacation. When you leave something on the table, you fail to claim it for yourself <\/span>. It might have been available to you <\/span> had you taken it, had you claimed it, but because you didn\u2019t you missed out <\/span>. In my case, I was being offered about 25 vacation days per year, but I only actually took 20. I was offered 25, it was there for me to take, but I only took 20, so I left five days on the table.<\/p>\n If you go into a negotiation with another party, you want to get as much advantage for yourself as possible. Otherwise, you\u2019ll leave something on the table, and you don\u2019t want to do that. So let\u2019s think about a few times when you might be in a negotiation. Imagine you get a new job and it\u2019s time to talk about how much you\u2019ll get paid by your new employer. The new company has an amount that it\u2019s willing to pay you, but of course they don\u2019t tell you that. They make an offer, which is usually\u2014at least in many jobs in the US\u2014a little bit less than the maximum they\u2019re willing to pay <\/span>. Pretend <\/span> an employer offers you a salary of $7,000 per month, but they\u2019re secretly willing to pay you a maximum of $8,000 per month. If you accept the $7,000 offer right away <\/span>, you\u2019re leaving money on the table. If you negotiate a little bit, you might be able to get more\u2014who knows, maybe even the full $8,000. Again, here in the US, studies generally show that women are more reluctant <\/span> than men to negotiate their salaries, so women tend to leave money on the table for their reluctance to negotiate.<\/p>\n When you go into a negotiation, your objective is not to leave anything on the table. If you ever have any sales training <\/span>, then you know that sooner or later <\/span> you have to ask for the sale. You have to ask the customer to buy; you can\u2019t just assume <\/span> the customer will approach you first <\/span>. In sales, you don\u2019t want to be too pushy <\/span>, but if you don\u2019t ask the customer to buy, you\u2019ll be leaving some sales on the table.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to college and you don\u2019t at least try to get a scholarship <\/span>, then you might be leaving some money on the table. If you\u2019re selling a house, you want to make sure the house is clean and all the small repairs are done <\/span>. If you don\u2019t, then you\u2019ll wind up leaving some money on the table because buyers will pay less for your house.<\/p>\n Sometimes in negotiations, as a sign of good faith <\/span>, you want to leave a little something on the table. In these cases, you may decide not to quite take everything you might get. And by doing so, you build goodwill <\/span> with the other party. You may consciously decide <\/span> to leave a little something on the table, just so you\u2019re not perceived as trying to take advantage <\/span>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Monday; we have a quote of the week. I was reading an article about France, and in France, they prize their culture <\/span>, so they tend to protect cultural institutions <\/span> from competition. One example is bookstores. They want to preserve traditional bookstores <\/span> in France. And the French Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, had a good quote about the pleasures of bookstores <\/span>. He said: “On the internet you can find what you look for, but only in a bookshop do you find what you were not looking for.” That goes for libraries, too. There\u2019s a way of finding exactly what you want when you\u2019re searching online, but the pleasures of just stumbling upon <\/span> something new, something you weren\u2019t looking for\u2014that\u2019s what\u2019s nice about walking around a bookstore or a library. The article I was reading was about a French law that doesn\u2019t allow discounting books <\/span>, which is not necessarily something I favor <\/span>, but I can appreciate the sentiment <\/span> behind the quote. Once more, “On the internet you can find what you look for, but only in a bookshop do you find what you were not looking for,\u201d and that was by the French Minister of Culture Franck Riester.<\/p>\nQuote of the week<\/h3>\n
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