Sometimes you want something, and it’s available on the cheap. That’s a great deal, but you might be able to do better. If you manage it right, you can get people to pay you to take it.
When I worked in my first major sales office, all the sales managers had a rotating duty to field a certain number of interviews. Since that was, in the short-term, time spent away from the revenue-generating activities you’d be getting commission for, most sales managers didn’t want to do it. I happened to love doing interviews, and I saw the long-term potential of being the one with the most influence over how new hires got distributed. So I absolutely wanted to do more of them while everyone else wanted to do fewer.
It seemed like a win/win, so when someone asked me if I wanted to do an interview with them, I said, “No thanks.”
Why? Why turn it down if it was exactly what I wanted? Because I knew I could get more opportunity out of the deal. I knew the other managers really didn’t want to do those interviews. So when I said, “No thanks,” I didn’t say it vehemently. I considered it, waggled my head back and forth a bit, and pretended to roll it around a bit. In other words, I landed on ‘no,’ but deliberately gave the impression that I wasn’t too far from a ‘yes.’
So then the haggling began. I let them ‘convince’ me to take on the roster of interviews, but only in exchange for the ‘draft picks’ of new hires (essentially giving me total control over which new hires went onto my team, instead of having to pick in turn) as well as a few choice territory swaps. Within six months, I had the highest-performing team in the company. Which also made me the highest-paid sales manager.
Other people’s desire to be rid of something is a powerful force. If it’s something you want, don’t ever forget it.
The Opportunity Machine 