Using AI to Negotiate Brand Deals

PodcastLeadership

Jan 6

Episode 915: Show Notes

November 2024 was the very first time I used AI to negotiate a brand deal and it was absolutely game-changing! I don’t think every single business needs a brand deal, but if you’re a coach or consultant, partnering with brands that offer something complimentary to what you do is such an incredible way to expand your reach and position you as an expert.

Even with all of the positive things it can do for your business in mind, many people are scared to negotiate those deals. Negotiating is so important because it helps you secure fair compensation for your work and gives you the opportunity to align expectations early. There’s something about self-advocating to increase your revenue that makes you feel so powerful! And you can leverage AI to help you do that. Let’s discuss how.

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How to Leverage AI to Research a Brand Deal

I used AI when I had already received the deal but it can be used at a much earlier stage as well. AI can be used to pitch your idea or even enhance your existing pitch to make it align better with the brand’s ideal customer! Your understanding of who the brand’s ideal audience is will help them convert faster. You can even use AI to research the brand. You would be shocked at how much ChatGPT knows about companies! With that being said, you also need to do your homework on the brand because you will definitely get better feedback from AI if you feed it your knowledge too. What I like about AI specifically is that it helps to enhance any existing ideas, find holes in them, and make improvements to them! Ask it specific questions, and when it spits out responses, don’t just run with them. Make adjustments to better suit your voice.

How to Interact with AI to Optimize Your Results

Now, I’m going to walk you through my exact prompts, how AI responded, and how I adjusted it along the way. I want you to get a better understanding of how to interact with AI to get a better result. The first thing I did was read through what the brand wanted and asked AI if the proposal was fair. It gave me some suggestions; including negotiating a higher rate or limiting the exclusivity and deliverables. It then told me how I might phrase my counter offer and I adjusted it so that the original offer wasn’t rejected. It’s important to find the balance between softness and firmness while still incorporating your voice in the offer. Once I had made all of these adjustments and been specific about what I would and wouldn’t say, I had to do very little editing to the proposal AI had given me. Within a couple of hours, the brand had accepted the offer, which was double the original!

Getting Third-Party Perspective Through AI

What should you do if your offer isn’t accepted off the bat? I suggest going back to the same AI thread you created! A lot of people create brand new conversations with AI or abandon it altogether, but why not utilize this tool at your fingertips? What I would do is put the brand’s response into AI and ask it what to do next. The goal of AI at this point is not to have it respond for you, it is simply to get a third-party perspective. At this point in the negotiation process, any sort of objection to your suggestion can feel quite personal and can lead to some reactionary responses. That is why the third-party perspective is so important! In the past, I’ve tried to get that feedback from other people in my team and close circle, but obviously, AI is a lot more objective. You can then take that more neutral response and decide what you’re going to do with it. It can help you craft responses that are non-confrontational, even when things get heated.

Mistakes to Avoid When Using AI to Communicate

When using AI for communication, there are some mistakes I see people make that are definitely worth talking about. The first one is relying too heavily on the content without personalizing it and making it sound like you. Right now, AI is very distinguishable. Relying on it too heavily will give you away and turn people off. People also often assume that AI is right, but that isn’t always the case! While it’s getting better at fact-finding, when dealing with numbers, for example, it can be incorrect. Even if it looks like it could be true, double-check it!

Be sure to inject your own voice. If you utilize it so much, you may forget what your voice sounds like and that is a sign that you should walk away for a little bit. You still have to continue to hone your skills because AI is there to compliment them, not replace them. Now and into the future, AI can be a secret weapon for you. It can make you look like even more of a pro without feeling intimidated by negotiations. You can utilize AI to make brand deal processes easier with every single step.

If you want to use AI more in your business and you want more prompt engineering to help you ask better questions and accomplish more in your business, I highly encourage you to check out Your Digital VA ChatGPT Prompt Vault, which is actually included in the Co-op! I can’t wait to help you with prompt engineering!