Negotiating While Black: Be Who You Are to Get What You Want

A real-world, one-of-a-kind resource for anyone who has ever been underestimated, overlooked, or misunderstood at the negotiating table—whether you’re haggling for a car, asking for a promotion, or advocating for your kids—to help you leverage your unique strengths and walk away with the best deal possible.

There’s no shortage of negotiation books that advise you to “get to yes,” urge you to “never split the difference,” and entreat you to “ask for more.” But none of them take into account the very real implicit bias in the room when a non-white, non-male negotiator sits at the table. Simply put: a one-size-fits-all negotiation style doesn’t work in a complex, multifaceted, multicultural world. The only constant in every negotiation is you. So you’d better learn to leverage who you are to your advantage.

Negotiating While Black is the book lawyer and mediator Damali Peterman wishes had existed as she was faced with the kind of situations that other negotiation scripts just don’t consider, like navigating workplaces where she was the only Black woman or advocating for her young son in his all-white classroom. Drawing on decades of training and experience as a negotiator in high-stakes situations, Peterman has developed successful strategies that will help you become the best communicator that you can be—like the Foundational Five skills all negotiators need, and the Negotiation Superpowers that will lift you to the next level. She also takes readers out of the boardroom and into real life, showing the application of negotiation and how everything is potentially up for discussion—from the trade-in value of your car to the permission for your kid to use the employee bathroom in the back of the store.

At every step, Peterman acknowledges that the unique way you show up in the world will impact your negotiations in all sorts of surprising ways…and that this can in fact be a good thing. Because when you show up prepared and proud of who you are, you’ll reap the rewards.