Some Negotiating Hits and Misses During My Career

When in private practice as an outpatient nutritionist in the 1980's, I was housed within a downtown 40-physician medical group. They didn't charge me rent or take a cut of my counseling fees. I can't take credit for that as a negotiated outcome; I was their very first nutritionist and they were just pleased to have me on-site.

Hit: I asked for and got third-party payment from their in-house HMO for my counseling services—what we now call MNT—and successfully negotiated reimbursement for weight loss counseling from the large local workers comp carrier.

Hit: Four years later, in 1987, the medical group's management offered me the newly-created management position of Director of Nutrition Services, as they signed on to offer Optifast, the medical weight loss program.

In addition to coordinating all the clinical, financial and operational aspects of the Optifast program, I oversaw nutrition counseling—I hired another nutritionist—and special projects, e.g., supermarket tours, health fairs, marketing and media events.

This was one of the most challenging and enjoyable roles I ever had in my dietetics career. And because the program was a separate profit center, it was like running my own business, which fed my entrepreneurial drive.

Hit: In one of my best strokes of salary negotiation, my compensation was a combination of a base salary plus a percentage of the gross sales of the Optifast supplement product. As a result—and especially after Oprah went public with her Optifast experience in 1988—my income as a dietitian fairly quickly grew to the the top 2% for my age group, according to ADA's salary grid at that time.

A few years later, I was planning my wedding and anticipating instant motherhood to my then-seven-year-old stepson. Knowing my limitations, I needed to scale back my full-time-plus hours.

My boss, the Chief Operating Officer, suggested I apply my marketing and media skills to help build the medical group's physicians' practices. After I hired and trained my successor for the Director of Nutrition Services role, I moved into my new role in the business development department as a Physician Services Representative. I negotiated to customize the job into 30 hours, working five shortened days a week, so I could pick up my stepson after school.

Miss: If I knew then (1989) what I know now about flexible work arrangements, I would have considered job sharing (two people in one full-time job) as an alternative to switching to a different professional part-time position. Job sharing would have allowed me to stay in the same enjoyable job, which continued to have growth potential and challenge, without the full-time hours.

Hit: As I prepared to move from my nutrition management job with its outstanding performance-based pay, to the 30-hour-week business development staff job, I successfully negotiated to pro-rate my pay plus the management-level vacation benefit of four weeks a year.  

By mid-1992, I'd made a move to new work outside of healthcare and was hired as the first Marketing Director for a 24-attorney, downtown Honolulu business law firm. This position had direct parallels to the marketing and business development work I did for physicians, and it was only three days a week, a plus for me.

Hit: I negotiated a starting pay package that was 14.5 % higher than their initial offer. After three rounds of interviews with different law partners, they extended the job offer through an upbeat telephone call, at the same time stating their starting hourly rate. When I expressed my disappointment at their pay offer, they wanted to talk further. I agreed and came in a day or two later with my salary requirements and a proposal for having them cover an expensive downtown parking space in lieu of medical insurance (since I was covered by my husband’s family plan). Got it!

Miss: I tacitly accepted the part-time factor as having its limits in employee benefits and failed to negotiate pro-rated vacation or sick pay.

Hit: Even though it was a part-time position, I asked for and received all-expenses-paid skills development training at professional conferences in Chicago and later, in San Francisco.

Hit: Another time, I made a request to represent the firm at a US-based gathering of an international law firm-affiliate group. Because of the time and distance, the firm’s attorneys weren’t interested in traveling to the east coast from Hawaii. Yet I didn’t mind going to the Ritz-Carlton in West Palm Beach for a stimulating law firm marketing meeting in their stead.

Hit: Occasionally, the work didn't require me to be in the office so I negotiated an as-needed telecommuting arrangement, including their purchase of the software required to link into the firm's computer system.

Hit: It was during my stint with the law firm, in 1993, that I started Work Options on the side to help others negotiate a flexible work arrangement. I struggled with a viable business model at first, but once it moved to the Internet in 1997 as WorkOptions.com, it grew to be very fruitful and is a consistent source of my current income. 

The law firm marketing job was a rewarding experience. Who would have thought working with attorneys would be so much fun? They and the staff were a friendly bunch, I loved the variety of marketing tasks, my bosses were happy with my initiatives and output, and the work environment was intellectually stimulating. My husband and mother couldn't understand it, though: “You're a dietitian; what are you doing at a law firm?” But I saw no need to limit my career moves if my skills and interests allowed for variety and new learning.

Yet by 1996, I'd been out of direct patient care for close to seven years and I missed it! So I stepped back into dietetics as a Public Health Nutritionist for a community health center which served mainly low-income immigrants. 

Hit: I negotiated a 7% increase above the starting salary offered.

Miss: I was applying for a dietetics job coming from a four-year stint as a law firm marketing director—talk about a disconnect—so I wasn’t as confident as I might otherwise be. In retrospect, after assessing my work output and contributions to the organization, I sensed I undersold myself.

Hit: But 18 months into the job, I was pretty bold in meeting with the Executive Director to propose a four-day workweek with NO cut in pay. That didn’t fly. Onto to Plan B: within the same hour of negotiations, I proposed a 5% cut for the 20% cut in hours, i.e., 32 hours a week. He agreed! That translated into a double-digit raise! See How to Get a Raise When You Negotiate a Part-time Arrangement for more on that. (New browser window opens to my WorkOptions.com Web site.)

Now you can benefit from my long-term experience and expertise in successfully negotiating a higher salary and other work terms. I invite you to explore my salary coaching services.