The Good Girl's Guide to Negotiating: How to Get What You Want at the Bargaining Table [Hardcover]

Leslie Whitaker (Author), Elizabeth Austin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2001

Lively and invaluable and based on advice from experts in the field and many real-life examples, this guide shows women how to develop expert negotiating skills. Emphasizing what women bring to the table, such as listening astutely and empathy, and teaching readers how to recognize and control traits that undermine their abilities, such as the tendency toward avoiding conflict and sending internal self-defeating messages, the authors show women how to negotiate to their best advantage in any bargaining situation. Every woman has felt ripped off at least once in her lifetime. This book will enable women to flex their negotiating muscles in many tough situations. Whether in the office, on a car lot, or dividing up household chores, negotiation skills play a role everywhere. The authors write in a highly accessible, woman-to-woman tone.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Whitaker, a reporter at Time and ghostwriter of The Beardstown Ladies' Commonsense Investment Guide, and Austin, a contributing editor at Self, know from firsthand experience that many women don't negotiate effectively. Whitaker says she never considered requesting more than a flat fee for her work on the Beardstown book, but later rethought her position when the book became a bestseller, reaping countless profits for the packager. Whether accepting a new job, closing a real estate deal or considering volunteer projects, women should not fall into common traps of giving up too easily, acting overly nice or selling themselves short, Whitaker and Austin urge. Writing in an upbeat style, the authors provide lots of morale-boosting examples of women who have managed to conquer their weaknesses and adopt winning negotiating strategies, along with studies demonstrating the differences between how men and women negotiate. Careful preparation, listening to the other party and patience are key negotiating strengths common among women, they say. They also offer many standard tips for specific situations, such as negotiating on the phone, advising women who need time to think out their negotiating strategy to simply say it's not a good time to talk and to call back when they're ready. (Mar. 6) Forecast: The message that women can be good girls but not end up as doormats may hit home for many readers, especially if the authors make their case on national television as planned. Still, given the competition, and the familiarity of much of the advice, the book's success is likely to be modest.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Journalists Whitaker and Austin, once victims themselves, now set the scene for win-win negotiations, and they impart their advice with a chuckle. Three powerful and natural female instincts, they say, can be deployed to best effect when negotiating: empathizing with the other side, listening to your opponent, and interpreting nonverbal cues. Plus, specific remedies are gladly given for such commonly negative negotiation events as car purchases, prenuptial agreements, and salary talks; and they even offer pointers on how not to cry (looking up at the ceiling is their major advice on that score). Start with baby-sitter bargaining--and graduate to practicing unlocking deadlocks. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company (March 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316601055
• ISBN-13: 978-0316601054
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,409,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A former reporter for Time Magazine, Leslie Whitaker specializes in writing about workplace issues and other financial topics in a way that is especially accessible to readers. Her savvy yet straightforward advice can be found in her blog and the four books she has co-authored, including The Good Girls Guide to Negotiating.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars You Can Find Better Negotiating Books, August 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Good Girl's Guide to Negotiating: How to Get What You Want at the Bargaining Table (Paperback)

Exhibiting all the traits of a "good girl" and fuming from my last job review, I thought this book would be a perfect weekend read. By the end, I was bored and this book has been tossed into my pile of rejected paperbacks.

This book is more successful in listing personality traits of a "good girl" rather than giving effective strategies that are sure to lead to bargain table success. There are some negotiating tactics, but they aren't anything new (listen, know how to say no, get things in writing, shop around, think before you sign, etc). Once I finished the book, I knew what made me a "good girl," I knew there were a lot of women like me, and I knew in what situations "good girls" failed, but I still didn't have an applicable strategy for remedying these issues.

For instance, the authors recommend researching your expected salary before negotiating your next job contract. This isn't new advice, and I still didn't know where to turn for this information -- coworkers, online, library? There are a few cases where the authors give resources -- but they are ones I am already familiar with or are too obscure to be useful (what numbers to call when barganing for a casket, find out what your car is worth with the kelly blue book).

And be forewarned, the entire book consists of hundreds and hundreds of anecdotes. It is the reader's responsibility to figure out how to apply other women's successes and pitfalls to herself. While sometimes entertaining, this approach is not going to transform a "good girl" into a negotiating shark.

There are few good points in this book but most of it is just common good sense.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful information, March 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Good Girl's Guide to Negotiating: How to Get What You Want at the Bargaining Table (Hardcover)

My spouse and I used this book recently in buying our new minivan. The information about buying cars in the "Good Girls" book was very helpful in our negotiations with the car dealers. Using the tips in the book, we were able to get exactly what we wanted at a price well below sticker. The book made us much more confident in dealing with the sales people, and I felt that we were very well prepared, thanks to the information included in the book. This book isn't just for good girls, but for anyone who wants to learn how to negotiate better. I'm very glad this book came along just as we were buying a new car, and I think that it would be very helpful for anyone who will be buying a car, a new home, or doing anything that requires good negotiating skills.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing, August 18, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Good Girl's Guide to Negotiating: How to Get What You Want at the Bargaining Table (Paperback)

The book tells you what women do wrong but it does not really teach you how to do it right. The authors interview a lot of people who may know something about the topic but they do not do so in depth. They then string together a lot of quotes without real analysis and practical how to. I should have known from the introduction that the authors were not experts in this area.