Anne Fleming teaches women how to negotiate - Photo by Carolyn Speranza

As a 20 plus year marketing and product management veteran making six figures and travelling internationally for my employer, I had just returned home from an Asian trip when I knew it was time. Time to buy a new car. Excited about my new-to-me, ‘certified used’ BMW, I told my boss about my latest purchase. Matt asked if I had received a good deal.

“A good deal? Well, of course. I hired a negotiator and got the deal I wanted!”

Matt stared at me. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. After a lengthy and awkward silence, he said, “You manage a $30 million dollar business and travel the world by yourself. Why did you give your power away?” This single question ‘Why did I give my power away?’ literally altered the course of my life.

My global executive coach, Barbara Schwarck introduced me to the book Women Don’t Ask, co-authored by Linda Babcock. The book was a remarkable read and underscored research showing that while women have much success negotiating deals for our employers, when it comes to negotatiating outside the workplace many women aren’t comfortable and stay quiet or don’t ask for what they really want. In my case, I was quite capable of buying a car; I simply didn’t feel comfortable with the process and avoided its interaction by hiring someone to engage in the financial interaction on my behalf. Oh, did I say that my car salesperson was a woman? True!

The more I thought about it, I was not alone. In the United States, we do not bargain or negotiate in the mall or at the market like in Israel or China. We are a wealthy country and we are used to pulling out our Visa or debit card and paying the ticket price – on sale or not. Even at farmers market, most Americans don’t bargain – we don’t want to appear cheap.

Yes, in tough economic times we tend to bargain more – we hear more stories today of Americans ‘haggling’ over their bank/home payments or with utility or credit card companies to get better rates. Why is it that we ‘negotiate’ for our employer but we ‘haggle’ when saving money for ourselves? The word ‘haggle’ sounds nasty and cheap. Regardless, for most of us we negotiate at garage sales, when buying a home and when buying a car. Those are the major times when we negotiate outside of the professional workplace.

That being said, I started doing some research; just how many women were like me?  They may not hire a negotiator, but they have their husband, ex-husband, father, brother, boyfriend, or friend come with them to the dealership. I got my answer: 60% of the time women bring someone with them to the dealership (even when the car is exclusively for her), and when they do bring someone with them, 78% of the time it’s a man.

This stunned me. What was this all about? We women are the chief purchasing officers for over 80% of household goods and services in our country; we influence and have such buying clout. What could I do to assist in this area – the car buying process – to have women be more empowered? After all, we spend an estimated $200 billion a year at new car dealerships.

In October of 2008, I created and launched Women-Drivers.com® to address the hesitation many women experience when going to purchase a vehicle. The site connects women and families with Certified Women-Drivers Friendly™ dealers. Dealerships are recognized as women-friendly by consumers who rate their experience when purchasing, browsing and servicing their vehicles. The higher a dealers score, the higher they appear in the sites’ engine. Women are great information sharers and their real-time reviews assist future car buyers locate women-friendly dealers in their city.

Women-Drivers is a free resource that assists with the process of locating dealerships that already have a great relationship with women. As a leading market research provider educating those who serve the auto industry, it is our mission to transform the dealership experience for women by enriching and empowering their visit.

BIO: Anne Fleming once struggled with negotiating at a car dealership.
Now, she has vast knowledge in this area and shares her insights on negotiating and creating the best dealership experience possible. Anne’s goal is to empower women to take charge of their automotive experience and have it be rewarding each and every visit. Appearing in the Wall Street Journal, ABC News, USAToday, Anne has effectively used social networking to elevate her company to the national spotlight.

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In the beginning her coaching practice attracted women who were living small lives, preoccupied by things that didn’t matter. Brown now attracts women who want to move into a state of joy and who have a substantial effect in the world with their presence, their words, their work.

“There’s a whole secret dialog that goes with that,” Brown says, speaking from her own personal experience. It’s often the seemingly small unimportant things that are having a large cumulative effect. In her shower stall, for example there is room on the shelf for three items across. Four of those were hers, two were her husband’s. She put hers in the back so he could access his more easily.

One day she thought, “Forget that. I’ve got more stuff I need more room.” So she moved her stuff to the front. Result? He didn’t even notice. “That`s when I realized there were so many little things I was deferring. Things that had bothered me for a long time. I was doing all this so it would be more convenient for my spouse, dismissing what was best for me.”

This may seem insignificant but these subtleties accumulate and suddenly women find themselves at a place where they’ve lost themselves in the process. “Smart women think this doesn’t happen to them,” says Brown, “And yet it does. I speak about this in terms of integrity, keeping a wholeness about yourself and your needs, keeping promises to yourself. You don’t gain or lose integrity in one choice but in the many choices over time.”

Another way that women give away their power is in how they make requests of others. For example, when a woman wants to go to the movies she may ask her spouse, “Do you still want to go to a movie today?” Asking in this way defers her own needs. Instead Brown recommends saying, “I’m going to go to a movie do you still want to join me?” This puts the power back in your hands as no matter what he says you’re still going and don’t have to explain it. Contrarily, if you say you’re going to go that could be construed as a subtle diss to him. Asking in this way you’re neither deferring your power nor being over-controlling. “True power doesn’t need to control or accommodate,” Brown notes.

In her practice Brown teaches non-judgement. That means not judging your body, what you eat, how you react at work or at home. “Judgement and learning can’t co-exist. If you choose to go down the path of judgement you set yourself up to go to this moment again and again and get stuck. Once you choose learning everything opens up and becomes curiosity-driven. It’s a compassionate lens and everything is new. This works even if you feel you need to go to store and indulge.” Brown recommends looking at that experience and recognizing that you may need to do it to learn from it as an experience of contrast to behaviour you actually want in your life.

“Notice “what is” and that truth is neutral. If you’re fighting reality you’re spending a lot of energy fighting “what is” and that energy isn’t available for other parts of your life.

Brown considers herself fortunate to have had coaches who were excited with whatever she brought to them no matter how “negative” or extreme. “They thought everything was ‘awesome’. They were my compassionate witness and my unconditional champion.” We need constants like this in our lives, whether it be a coach, parent, or friend who teach us, believe in us and see every act we do as revolutionary and necessary for our progress so we can internalize these qualities for ourselves.

Kathrine Brown, North America’s most innovative weight loss coach, is the developer of the process Conscious Weight Loss: weight loss while life happens and the publisher of the ezine Wisdom Connoisseur: your voice of clarity on weight loss, which has subscribers in 10 countries.

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