In this post, I’m sharing a real-life story of a counteroffer gone wrong, and one thing that you can do to avoid this, and turn it into a successful counteroffer instead of a flop.
 

So, stay tuned.
 

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If you do love reading, let’s get back to it…

We offered a candidate a position two years ago. He declined it. And said, “Well, it was a respectable offer.“
 

He couldn’t accept it, given his current salary. Our offer. was too low.
 

Okay. That’s fair enough, so two years later, the company he works for shuts down, and he’s out of a job, and what do you know? He immediately comes back to us, willing and ready to take our offer.
 

Because in a month, he’d be completely out of work, so just to clarify here. We paid pretty well in this situation, so it’s not like he was getting jipped.
 

We had a good salary., and it was above market value, but there will always be better out there, so if you’re willing to look and negotiate, you will always find a higher salary.
 
 

 
 

Since we already knew this guy, and we’d already interviewed him, the team had already met him, and we’d already invested resources, we wanted to offer him the job.
 

Since he came back accepting of our offer., we offered him the position, so he said, “Okay, great,” and he verbally accepted.
 

We were excited to hire him, but then, after agreeing, and this is where he made his mistake, he started to change his mind.

He came back with: Oh, but can I actually have five weeks vacation instead of four?
 

We said no.

Then he came back, and he’s like, oh, but actually I have some other people who want to make me offers, so I need to take some more time to think about this.
 

The hiring manager, at this point, was starting to get pretty annoyed, he said, but I think he was really just pissed off.
 

It’s okay to negotiate,, but how you go about it is really the most important thing. I completely understand somebody wanting to negotiate a higher salary., especially if they are in demand, and they are getting other offers.
 
 

 
 

There is no question that you should be doing that, too, and I encourage my clients to do that. The problem here is, that the mistake he made was saying yes too quickly.
 

He was acting in a rush to get the offer secured, when really he was just going to make us wait around anyway, and he was going to put more demands on the offer.
 

We decided to put an expire on the offer of one week, so that he could truthfully decide on his feelings, and he could have time to think about it.
 

Remember, when you get an offer, you do not have to accept it right away, or say yes right there and then.

Always sound excited about it, and say, “This looks great. I am going to take 24 hours to look it over. I hope that’s all right with you. I just want to make sure I have all the information.”
 
 

 
 

Meanwhile, you’re saying this in a very upbeat, very excited tone of voice, but you’re not committing to anything yet, because if you do have other offers, and you want to come back after and negotiate, it’s going to be a lot easier if you haven’t already said yes, and you’re not going to upset anybody.
 

That’s the big takeaway here.
 

Never commit too soon, unless you are absolutely sure, because going back and forth like that looks bad, and feels bad for everyone involved.

 
 

If you like to dive deeper with me, I have a free cheat sheet for you. It’s 35 questions to ask to find out if the job is right for you or not.
 

Click below to grab it now. It’s absolutely free.
 
 

 
 

In This Cheat Sheet You’ll Find:

 

• The 5 lines that catch most people off guard in salary negotiations.

 

• Word for word scripts to respond to each of the 5 common objections.

 

• A practice sheet so that you can be ready for any curve ball.

Do you know one person who could benefit from the information in this post? If so, do your friend a favour and share this info with him/her.

 

And remember, the current system isn’t perfect, but you can outsmart it. I’m here to prove to you that you do have what it takes.

 

I’ll see you next time and I can’t wait!

 

In Work & Life

 

I’ve got your back

 

XO Natalie