Here are several insights from Ava Abramowitz, former United States attorney for the District of Columbia, current Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University Law School, and author of the Architect's Essentials of Negotiation. She formerly served as deputy general counsel for the AIA, and lectures nationally on negotiation, risk management, and assertive practice.

In your book, you discuss that in negotiation, it’s not so much what you say, but rather how you say it. I was wondering if you could expand on that?

My reaction to your question is counterintuitive, and goes against most everything that architects are taught in architecture school, so it’s going to take me a while to explain it. Let’s start with my husband, Neil Rackham. He wrote an article based on observation research, which is widely considered to be a classic in the world of negotiations, called “The Communication Behaviours of Successful Negotiators.” After he wrote that paper, Neil dropped all interest in negotiation. As he puts it: “It became clear to me that something happened between the parties before the formal negotiations began and that that 'something' was having a larger impact on the outcome of the negotiation than the negotiation itself." With that discovery, Neil became interested in sales. So what I will tell you is that, if you have not sold yourself well in the sales process, you cannot make it up in the negotiation process.if you have not sold yourself well in the sales process, you cannot make it up in the negotiation process.

And selling yourself well is not telling the buyer how wonderful you are, which is how it’s taught in architecture school, but rather it’s a question of finding out what the buyer’s problems are, and figuring out with them how you can help them resolve their problems. In other words, an architect has to flip his (or her) brain, so they wind up providing value not as they define it, but as their clients and possible employers define it. In other words, if you can provide value as your “buyer” defines it before you sit down to “negotiate,” you take a massive amount of stress off the negotiation process, if only because the buyer will have already made the determination that they need you as a result of the way you “sold” your services. If I were to teach architects anything, it would be first how to sell and only after how to negotiate. And so I urge all readers to learn about SPIN Selling. SPIN stands for “S: situation questions, P: problem questions, I: implication questions, N: need/payoff questions.” It was published 30-something years ago. It is still number one on Amazon in sales. It is the classic in the sales world.

Architects are taught to ask Situation Questions. “How many people are going to be living in this house?” “How many bedrooms does that mean you need?” Just factual situation questions. Or they are taught to ask Problem Questions. “Are adjacencies an issue in this house?” But they aren’t taught to ask Implication Questions. “If you’re that close to the children, will it impact the quality of your life with your husband?” Nor are they taught to ask Need-payoff Questions. On the contrary, they are taught to tell value, not to seek it out. “What benefits do you see of putting the children down the hall?”

In much the same vein, architects learn to skirt issues, issues they would do better to confront head on, albeit gently using their newly learned SPIN skills. “If money is an issue to you, since I’m your architect, it’s absolutely an issue to me. So let’s talk about quality in terms of budget, let’s talk about scope in terms of budget. Don’t differentiate between ‘the husband’s role is cost’ and ‘the wife’s role is quality and scope.’ Let’s make everything a shared problem, and let’s see what we can work out.” It’s a different way of addressing issues. The goal is to use SPIN to maximize shared understanding between the parties, with the result that you produce value that the other people want.It’s a different mindset, and it means you have to undo your education.

The risk in hiring is clearly on the buyer’s side. So what the seller should try to do, is try by their questions, by their insights, and by their analysis to prove to the other person that it’s low risk to buy them. This way prove that you’re truly interested in them, you truly get what they want, and that knowledge and know-how is what will make you less risky to (and more profitable for) them. Next time when you say, “I have a possible solution to your particular problem and I need to know how it would work for you,” and they say, “Damn! I wish I had thought of that,” know, at that very moment, you have proven your value. Think about it. Doesn’t it make sense? Yes, it’s contrary to how most professions are taught, but for any professional, for any architect, that’s what they need to know.

The way you phrase your question, “how do you negotiate salary?” indicates that you’re buying into the “dis-logic” of the profession, that it’s personal if you don’t get the salary you want, that they don’t value you. What can I do to increase my value? Wrong question. The issue is what can you do to be more valuable to the other person as the other person defines their needs. It’s not a narcissist statement about you. It is absolutely a statement about the person you are being hired to serve. It’s a different mindset, and it means you have to undo your education.

For years, I asked the AIA at their annual convention, “Could I teach sales?” And they responded every year, “Architects don’t sell. They market.” And I would say to them every year, “Markets don’t buy architectural services, people do.” Sales involves working with people. And there are ways to do it that are as consistent with the soul of the architect as well as consistent with the needs of others. It can be taught, it can learned, it can be practiced, and it is accessible to architects if they just look for it. Last year I taught Sales for the first time.

How do you translate all this when negotiating your salary? It’s a question of coming up with the buyer’s needs, and then saying, “You know, I may have an idea for you to consider. I had a client facing a similar problem. We did this kind of analysis. Will that help you?” And then, if they say yes, you say, terrific. How would it help you? What would it do for you? And let them talk themselves prove your value by addressing what they say, applying your knowledge in the process.into buying you, not you talking them into buying you. And, if they say no, you respond, “I’m so glad I asked. Why wouldn’t it work for you?” And then, you prove your value by addressing what they say, applying your knowledge in the process. It’s a different way of selling. It’s what you do when you have a high-end professional service to offer. Step back.

Just think about hiring an architect from the client’s perspective. When they hire an architect, whether it’s a firm hiring an architect, or a client hiring an architect, they’re buying a pig in a poke. They can see what you’ve done in the past, but they’re not really certain what you’re going to do in the future. It’s the same thing about lawyers; it’s the same thing about doctors. People buy on a hope and a prayer. They give us professionals a kind of trust that gets abused if we professionals don’t live up to it, or gets nourished if we do.

Would you say that in any negotiation situation for a new hire, the bulk of the work is going to be spent researching that firm, their projects, their direction, their history, and that will enable the new hire to successfully negotiate anything?

Can I put a little flip on that? It’s who the firm’s clients are that should be the focus, not just the firm. Look, most architects think they were retained to design a building. Big mistake. Architects are retained to resolve a problem facing the client, one which the client thinks a building may be the mechanism to resolve the problem. The more the architects understand the business of the clients, the more useful they are in their designs. And in the same way that the person who’s interviewing you has a client who has a problem the firm needs to solve, your goal is to help that interviewer learn to see you as a mechanism to solve the client’s problem, thereby eradicating a problem that the interviewer has himself. It requires you to think more about the client’s business implications and need-payoffs [for the employer], whether it’s a family or commercial entity, more about the issues facing them, and how can you use design to resolve those issues, than it is a matter of thinking about your fee. It’s a big flip of the brain, but each time, with practice, see if it doesn’t get easier.

Want to learn more about negotiation? Check out our tips and strategies here.