Hi Reader,

Our Gentle Power Podcast guest this week, Angela Liao, has negotiated from every seat at the table. She spent years on the supplier side in Asia, negotiating on behalf of manufacturing companies with customers like Apple and Google. After Asia, she went to work at Tesla in the US, then to Google, where she now leads device strategy and negotiates manufacturing partnerships.

Having been on both sides of high-stakes business negotiations, Angela has developed a keen sense of what companies actually care about in these types of deals, what gives each side their leverage, and why companies with the biggest brand name don’t always hold the most power.

Below are some of our top takeaways in our conversation with her.

For the full episode, check out the Gentle Power podcast.

Quick note: this is a sponsored newsletter, and we're excited to share this one because we actually use Lovable ourselves. We built our own website, www.YourNegotiations.com, with it, and it's genuinely one of the easiest and most important tools we use for our business. If you check them out below, it means a lot to us and helps keep our newsletter going.

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​1. The side that seems weaker often isn’t

Most people assume that if you’re Google or Apple, you walk into any supplier negotiation with all the power.

But as Angela explained, the best suppliers get to choose which customers to prioritize for scarce resources. Because a good manufacturer with strong technical expertise, a specific manufacturing capability, and a long track record in the industry is hard to find, the ones that check these boxes hold a lot of power. When multiple companies are competing for capacity from the same manufacturer, that manufacturer decides who gets it first.

This pattern shows up in job searches too. Candidates who assume a top company automatically has all the leverage are limiting their own negotiation potential. Sometimes you’re the rare candidate with a specific background, sometimes the team has been searching for months, sometimes you just applied at the right company at the right time. You almost always have more leverage than you think.

2. Asking Culture vs Guessing Culture

In many Asian business cultures, hierarchy matters significantly, and maintaining harmony across all parties is very important. You show respect to people who are older than you, even if they’re on the other team or in lower roles. It's much more common to communicate with inference and subtlety than with direct statements, and saying no outright can be interpreted as an aggressive move. (This is Guessing culture.)

In the US and much of Western Europe, the expectation is directness. You're expected to ask for what you want, and say no when you mean no. (This is Asking culture.)

Angela shared a moment from her Tesla days: a German supplier flatly rejected a 5pm meeting request, then proposed 5am on Angela’s time zone. No softening and no apology. They knew Tesla needed the deal and held the meeting on their terms. Blunt, but entirely clear about where the leverage sat.

The risk in any cross-cultural negotiation is applying the wrong frame. What reads as hesitation in one context might be a firm no in another. What sounds evasive might be respect. Knowing which world the other side is operating from is key to your success in the negotiation.

When job searching, the asking vs guessing cultures can differ even across industries and companies. When in the job search, it's worth reaching out to those you're connected to who work at the companies to get a better understanding of how you should be communicating with the recruiters, hiring managers, and their teams. You want to make sure you're speaking the same language.

3. An aggressive opening tells you something useful

In a negotiation Angela led, a large contract hinged on how two companies would split a government incentive available to both parties for entering a new market together.

The other side came in asking for 100% of it.

Before treating that as just an aggressive move, Angela read it as information: that government incentive was clearly their top priority. If they were willing to anchor that hard on one term, they were probably more flexible elsewhere.

She also flagged the other side of anchoring. There’s a point where you go far enough that the other side doesn’t push back, they get offended. The relationship frays before you’ve gotten to anything real. Ultimately, it's important to read the room well. Aggressive anchors are often not meant to offend you, rather treat them as a map into the other party's priorities. And if you give them what they want, they may be a lot more open to giving you something else that's important to you.

4. When the negotiation gets stuck, stop fighting over the same term

The negotiation over that incentive ran for months. Both sides were at a wall.

Angela’s team made a decision: let the other side have more of the incentive. But they didn’t walk away without getting what they needed. They locked in commitments around their share of future product generations and a per-unit incentive on everything shipped.

The other side got what they cared about most in that moment, and Angela’s team got what they actually needed for the long term. Neither side felt cheated, and the partnership held.

This is one of the most underused moves in negotiation. If something matters more to the other side than it does to you, use that. Let them have it, and ask for something more valuable in return. The deal gets bigger than the contested term.

5. You can’t negotiate what you haven’t clarified

One of the most consistent patterns we see with our clients: they walk into an offer negotiation without really knowing what they want. Not broadly, but specifically. What life stage are they in? What are they optimizing for over the next three years?

Angela made the same point from her side. Base versus equity versus flexibility versus benefits: none of those are the same ask, and which one matters most changes with where you are in your life.

We had a client once who was about to become a mom. Every conversation centered on one thing: she wanted the company to cover a parental benefit while she traveled for work. It was a real need. But when we worked through her full priority list, something shifted. That benefit cost a few thousand dollars a year. We focused first, instead, on her total compensation, and managed to add more than $40K to her offer, which more than made up for the bespoke benefit.

Getting clear on what you actually want before you start negotiating is an underrated but important chunk of the work.

Listen to the full episode on the Gentle Power podcast.

Warmly,

Gerta & Alex​
​Founders, YourNegotiations.com

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $250 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.