One time early in my career as a professional speaker I had a call from the Iowa Hog Grower Association and they wanted me to do a banquet speech for their members at an annual meeting. They were working on a limited budget and I quoted my fee and estimated expenses and try as we might we still ended up about two hundred dollars from what he would give and what I would take. I’d never tried this before but I asked him, “Do you have many hogs there in Iowa?” He laughed and said, “We’ve got more hogs in Iowa than in any other state in the Union.” And I said, “Then one or two wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference to you then.” He said,”What do you want?” I said, I love baby back ribs and bacon and my wife loves hams and I just remembered that I would be driving into Des Moines with an empty trunk in my car.
He said, “I’ll fix you up.” And he did. My wife and our extended family and a few other families in our neighborhood ate really high on the hog for a couple of weeks after I got back home. Mmmmm Mmmmm that was good eatin’. Just thinkin’ of it makes my mouth water.
You know life can be a whole lot better for a lot of people if we’d just do a little negotiating and keep our minds open to possibilities.
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