Salary Negotiation Reflection

Not related to salary specifically, but negotiation in general. You mentioned the power of words which in my current role is absolutely critical. Whether I am negotiating on price points with suppliers, or playing the politics game amongst the corporate hierarchy - how I phrase something is EVERYTHING. Simply removing the "likes" and "umms" from my vocab when speaking with valuable contacts makes me sound far more knowledgeable about topics I have zero clue about.

In regards to your statement about negotiations being too easy and leaving something on the table... very possible that you could have gotten more. Did you ask for a number above what you really wanted? (Wanted 100k, but asked for 125k ?). When negotiating anything, the most important aspect in my experience is knowing all of the details and comparisons for other products (aka your competition in the job market).

Personal story, this past weekend I went car shopping with my dad and in stereotypical fashion, the car salesman tried to fudge some numbers about cost and comparisons with other cars. We knew EVERY package and option available, their real price points (MSRP, Invoice, & average negotiated savings) as well as performance specs across EVERY car at the price point we wanted. And boy, did we rip into the poor bastard. Negotiating your salary (or anything else for that matter) is just like buying a car. Know your real market value, in your case it would be how much everyone in your role is being paid for the duties entailed, and you will enter negotiations confident and ready to get what you want. Hopefully that is how your discussions went :)