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# The Negotiation That Changed Her Career
- URL: https://highness.themesbykyle.com/the-negotiation-that-changed-her-career/
- Published: 2026-10-07T12:24:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-07T12:24:00.000Z
- Description: A procurement director on the one conversation she wishes she had had ten years earlier, and the three questions she now asks before she asks for anything.
- Author: Odette Marsh
- Tags: Power, Work, #Import 2026-11-05 19:32

Hanne Lindqvist has spent twenty years on the other side of the table. As a procurement director she has been asked for more money, more time and more patience by thousands of suppliers. She has said no, politely, to most of them. So when she describes the one negotiation she lost, and what it taught her, it is worth listening.

**You say it was a salary conversation. What happened?**

I was thirty-four and I had been promoted twice in three years. I went into the room with a number in my head and I made the mistake of saying it first. My manager said “That seems fine,” very quickly, and I knew instantly that I had pitched too low. I spent a decade making up the difference.

**What would you do differently?**

Almost everything, but mainly I would ask a question before I named a figure. I would say: what does this role look like if it goes very well? Because the answer tells you what the company is really prepared to pay for.

**You now teach negotiation to junior colleagues. What is the first thing you tell them?**

That it is not a performance. The people who do it badly treat it like a confrontation; the people who do it well treat it like a collaboration. You are both trying to arrive at a number you can live with for the next two years.

> Whoever names the figure first is not always losing, but they are always giving away information.

**Is there a script?**

There are three questions, and I ask them before any negotiation, whether I am buying or selling:

1. What does success look like for you?
2. What is the constraint you cannot move?
3. If we could change one thing about this arrangement, what would it be?

The answers tell you where the room is. Nine times out of ten the constraint is not the money.

**Any advice for people who find it uncomfortable?**

Everyone does, including the people who look comfortable. The discomfort does not mean you are doing it wrong; it means you are doing something that matters. Prepare, say the number out loud to a friend, and remember that the worst they can say is no.

**And if they do?**

Then you have learned something. You ask what would need to be true for the answer to be yes, and you go away and make it true. Half the raises I have given were the second conversation, not the first.