How to Get What You Want
Your career isn’t built by waiting for someone to notice your value. It’s built by learning how to advocate for yourself with confidence.
You’ve been told your work will speak for itself. Yet despite doing everything asked of you—and more—you’re still feeling overlooked and uncertain about your next step. Leadership isn’t just about managing a team; it’s navigating the complexities of internal relationships and consistently advocating for your growth.
On Get What You Want, Susie Tomenchok is your silent partner, empowering you with the mindset and tools to negotiate your career—and life—with intention.
Unlike podcasts that focus on climbing the ladder or hustle culture, this show is for women who want to own their careers authentically. You’ll learn practical strategies for everyday negotiations, from asking for what you deserve to confidently handling tough conversations. Because negotiation isn’t just for raises or promotions—it’s how you navigate every opportunity in your career and beyond.
Susie is a negotiation expert who understands the challenges of being in a male-dominated industry and the struggles women face when advocating for themselves. She’s helped countless professionals unlock their potential and will show you how to do the same.
If you’re ready to stop waiting for your career to happen to you and start creating the opportunities you want, hit follow and join Susie each week to build your confidence, advocate for yourself, and finally Get What You Want.
How to Get What You Want
Reflect, project, and negotiate
Back when I was a technology sales executive, I used to label myself as 'not technical' every time I had a meeting with someone that I considered to be very technical, even though I knew a lot of things engineers knew. Until one time, a lawyer mistook me for an engineer, and it was a wake-up call to rethink how I articulate my skills!
In this episode, I unveil my journey of framing and qualifying my professional skills, urging you to reflect on how you project your talents. I guide you towards making effective tweaks in communication to ensure you're perceived the way you want to be.
I expose the art of advocating for oneself in critical professional negotiations, revealing how to understand the other party's needs while making your expectations clear. Drawing from my book, The Art of Everyday Negotiation Without Manipulation, I offer valuable insights that build your confidence, command respect, and shape you into the leader you're destined to be.
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🚀 Ready to Get What You Want?
Listening is great, but real change happens when you take action. Join my newsletter for exclusive negotiation strategies, scripts, and real-world case studies you won’t hear on the podcast. Sign up now at www.negotiationlove.com—it takes 10 seconds and will change how you view and negotiate forever.
📖 Continue Your Professional Growth with These Resources:
Get my Book: The Art of Everyday Negotiation without Manipulation:
www.susietomenchok.com/the-art-of-everyday-negotiation
Work With Me: Speaking, corporate training, and executive coaching:
www.susietomenchok.com/services
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Remember, negotiation is more than a skill—it’s a mindset.
💕Susie
www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok
Welcome to the Leaders with Leverage Podcast. I'm your host and negotiation expert, suzy Tomonczuk. It's time to be your own advocate and negotiate for what you really want out of your career, not simply the next role or additional compensation. I want to show you that negotiation happens each and every day so that you opt in and say yes with confidence. Together with other business leaders, you'll learn the essential skills you, as a leader, needs to become that advocate in growing your professional skills, to increase confidence, gain respect and become the future leader you're poised to be, and when you face a high-stakes situation, you're ready, no matter how high those stakes are. So let's do this. Let's lead with Leverage. Welcome. This is Leaders with Leverage. I'm your host, suzy Tomonczuk, and I'm so happy you're here. This is a solo episode And so often I just kind of jump on and talk about something that came to mind in coaching a person or talking to a team, and I just had to bring this topic up And I'll tell you.
Speaker 1:I'll kind of frame it for you by zooming back into my career and telling you a story about me. I was a sales executive and I sold technology. Basically, we used to send signals up into the satellites and we had these encoders and all this chain actually of hardware that would do all of the encryption and uplink and all the things for all the services. And so I was working with big media companies because they were taking our services And so often I'd have to bring engineers with me. And what I started realizing, or the thing I would do is I would go into a meeting, i'd be talking to somebody that's a CTO or somebody that's very technical, and I would say, well, i'm not very technical And I was just setting their expectations that I'm not the technology person. And so I would just say that. And as time went on, i started getting more familiar with our technology and all the things because I was with the engineers all the time. So it took a long time. I'm not an engineer, i'm not just naturally tech savvy, but I do catch on and I really listen. Well.
Speaker 1:And so years went on and I realized I kept saying I'm not technical but I really could answer the questions. And I remember one day I had brought an engineering person with me and I remember thinking they were answering the questions and I was like, oh, i know all the answers to this. It's so interesting. And I started understanding when I needed to bring them into the meetings and when I didn't, which they didn't mind as long as I wasn't answering the questions wrong, but I still led with. I'm not technical And I had to really make an intentional shift to do that.
Speaker 1:So I'm kind of sensitive about that because what I realized is I was working with this lawyer one time and I was answering a question. This was like one of my favorite memories of my career actually, because I'll never forget if in cases listening Justin Smith brilliant guy really, really love working with him And I remember he said to me were you a schooled engineer? And I was like, oh my gosh, like he thinks I'm technical And it just was kind of this aha moment for me that I needed to drop that kind of label I was giving myself I was. It was out of wanting to be vulnerable and tell people kind of project who I am, so that they would just kind of know where I sat. And I see when people do this now. So I'm working with this guy and it was the first session we had together And I just started noticing he said a couple of things to me. He said I don't want to sound arrogant. But and then he didn't sound arrogant. He just told me the facts of the situation, that he was the one that figured out this very complicated situation, and then later in the conversation he goes well, i don't want to sound cocky, but and he tells me a story And I said time out, stop qualifying, stop projecting this insecurity that you have. Hey there, love this podcast. I'm taking 10 seconds out of this episode to ask you to leave an honest review. More reviews on the show help us to reach more professionals who are ready to lead with leverage. Now let's continue the conversation.
Speaker 1:People will hear feedback about them and it might be that you're too direct or you don't think very, you don't use succinct, you don't have succinct answers to things, and they will then kind of make that a part of their language, that they talk to people and they'll say, well, i don't really answer questions well, but let me try to answer this for you. And what that does is it kind of seeds this idea about the person, about you, that you don't want people to think about you, so you're giving them a nugget that you don't want them to. You don't want to be a perception of you And you're allowing that to happen a lot sooner in the relationship. So I guess I just wanted to come on and say think about how you're qualifying yourself, how are you framing your talents? Think about the things and the way that you say things. Are you framing something in a way that you don't want people to get to know you in those first conversations, making these tweaks to who we are and thinking about what we're projecting, because the perceptions that people get of us aren't just from their experience of us, they're also through what we communicate to them, and when we say these things out loud, we hear it and we perpetuate something about us. But we're also giving them a little piece into something that maybe we're working on or that we're insecure about, and it might not help us to tell them that. So I'm not saying drop it all the way. Maybe it's a good strategy in early in your career or at a time when you're taking on a new role in your in discovery mode. But be aware of maybe it becoming a habit where it just becomes your thing that you say at the beginning and think about how you're qualifying, how you're framing yourself to others. So that's all I just wanted to bring on and come on and say that, because I think it's a really powerful thing that people need to remember and be reminded about. So I hope this was helpful.
Speaker 1:If you think, if you hear somebody do this, share this with them And it's a win-win right, it's. It's. It helps them be thoughtful about what they're doing and how they're projecting themselves, but it also helps them see that you think about them. So do that, because that investing in others is a way of building your influence and building a relationship of trust. So do that and join me next time.
Speaker 1:Make sure you follow. If you follow whenever there's a new episode, you'll see it pop up for you, and so I don't want you to miss it. I'm on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. If you have something you want me to cover, if you have a question, i'd love to hear from you. So thanks for joining me.
Speaker 1:This has been Leaders with Leverage. I'm Suzy Tomacek. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Leaders with Leverage. If you're ready to continue your professional growth, commit to accelerating your career development and say goodbye to that anxious feeling in your stomach anytime you need to advocate for yourself, then get my book The Art of Everyday Negotiation Without Manipulation. In this book you'll learn the essential steps to take before entering into any negotiation or conversation, any interaction. In your day to day, you'll discover what the other party really needs and be clear about what you're going after. You'll bust through your fears and boost your confidence and embrace that negotiation truly happens all around us. Head to the link in the show notes for more, and you can even get a bonus if you buy it today.
