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By Root 689 0

a reason even you didn't think of for you to keep your mouth shut. Others may talk you out of an assertive approach because they believe—consciously or unconsciously—that a strong move by you ultimately threatens them. Several years ago, when one of my friends got her first crack at running a magazine, she was upset to discover after she started that her title was editor rather than editor-in-chief. She raised the issue with the editorial director of the company, with whom she'd already established a nice rapport. The woman explained that it had always been standard policy of the company president to start new editors that way. Once the editor had proven herself, earned her stripes, if you will, she'd get the better title. Well, this didn't sit well with my friend, and she said she'd have to talk to the president. Immediately, the editorial director began to dissuade her. “No, no, I wouldn't do that,” she said. “It's very important to him to bestow the editor-in-chief title when he feels you're ready. You'll upset him if you ask now.”

Not wanting to rock the boat, my friend chose to wait. When the editorial director left the company a year and a half later to start her own business, my friend still hadn't been “bestowed” with the editor-in-chief title, so she worked up her courage to ask the president. He gave her the title immediately, and it was clear from his nonchalance that it had never been an issue with him. She realized that the wait-till-you-earn-it advice had been the editorial director's way of preventing her from advancing too fast.

THE PERFECT WAY TO ASK

Just about everything I've learned about asking has come from watching some of the dynamic women who sell space in magazines to advertisers. Being by nature a tentative asker myself, I have observed them work their magic—and then I've tried out their strategies in my own life.

According to popular belief, the editorial and sales sides of magazines should never mix. In fact, in the industry they are referred to as “church and state,” and it is considered sacrilegious for one side to attempt to influence the other. At the first out-of-town sales conference I attended, as one of three representatives from the editorial side, my boss strongly urged me to steer clear of the sales staff, particularly after dinner. He seemed to be implying that if I wasn't careful, they would get me drunk, take lewd photographs of me, and threaten to pass them around town unless I ran an article staling that cigarette smoking actually healed cancer cells and reversed the signs of aging.

But I found myself drawn to women in sales because of their gumption and joie de vivre, and many of my friends today are saleswomen from various magazines I've worked at.

These are the principles I've learned from them:

Rule I: Discover the Other Person's Secret Greed

Before you ask someone for anything, you must figure out exactly what she feels greedy for Yes, you have your needs, but the way you get a yes is to make the other person feel that it's her need you will really be taking care of.

This is often referred to in the world of sales as “finding the hot button,” but this tends to sound a little slick. I think it's easier for a good girl to get into the concept if she considers it on more of an emotional plane: discovering what the person wants and providing it. After all, we're trained to please, and we should use that instinct to look for the other person's needs.

A person's secret greed might seem obvious. But you should always do a little detective work to see if there's something operating on another level. Watch, ask questions, snoop around. Once, when I was going through the interview process for a job, I made a few discreet inquiries about the politics of the place and learned that the man I would be reporting to was new, an outsider, and was having trouble with one of the top people on his staff. In my follow-up letter to him I stressed how terrific it would be to be “on his team.” I was offered the job, and though I decided not to take it, I later heard through the grapevine