I’ve always understood that you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. As women, sometimes we don’t effectively use our natural negotiation tips to create the best possible outcomes for our lives, our work, our relationships and our families. As a result, we still get paid less than men for equal performance, and some of us continue to struggle to advocate for and receive the situations we truly deserve.

Here are my top three tips on negotiation.

1) Negotiation is based on how important something is to two parties: you and the other negotiator.

If you’re in a position to negotiate about a new job, consider the parts of the job that are most important to you. Is it your new responsibilities? the job title? Do you want job security? What about benefits? How about hours or flextime? Do you want extra managerial tasks? Are you looking for salary? is there a commission or bonus?

Consider all the parts that are a must-have for you, as well as the parts of the job you are willing to budge on. Then, come back to your potential employer with a package that outlines what you desire. If you add some items that you’re willing to compromise on, these will be the items you don’t feel so bad about discarding.

From the employer’s perspective, they’ll negotiate based on what they currently need and what you currently offer. If you’re demanding a higher salary and the employer needs someone with your current skill sets, they might not offer you a performance bonus or a regular opportunity for performance reviews. If you’re seeking health insurance as a major factor of you taking the job, they employer might give you better coverage but a lower salary.

All of these different elements require you to understand your own priorities before coming to the negotiation table.

Once you’ve figured out exactly what you need and what will make you comfortable for any situation, you may start thinking about items that are nice but not necessary: use those items when it comes time to discussing a package.

2) Give and take is an essential part of negotiation.

Once you know what you must have and what you’re okay giving away, you may start negotiating from a place of strength: identify, act, and speak with clarity about what you’re willing to give away and what you must demand. This gives the other party subconscious, kinetic and verbal cues about an item.

You will feel comfortable reciprocating with someone across the table because certain things you are fine “throwing in.” Everyone wants to feel like they’re getting a good deal so consider ways to make that deal happen. Be creative, if you need to: there are plenty of things to negotiate in a typical contract like terms, warranties, payment structure, personnel, specific tasks, and deliverables.

3) Negotiation is a process. A contract is the outcome. Keep the situation flowing but put final details into writing.

It’s so important to put details into writing, either at the actual table or shortly after a negotiation session. Write it down! Did you extend a certain timeframe or change the order of a procedure? Write it down! Did you give agree upon a specific payment plan? Write it down!

Incorporate all the disparate elements of your verbal negotiation into a written document and make sure you go over the items with the other party. In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to get lost in details or to gloss over something that might be important at a later date…. write everything down so all parties have access to notes that were discussed.

I encourage you to share with me your own tips on negotiation. I think the lack of training on this issue is a major stumbling block, especially for any woman who is navigating a situation where they would rather back away, keep quiet, or not provide important input that affects her.

Negotiation is merely what we do with children (”May I have a cookie?” -”Not yet, dear, but we’ll go together to the store this afternoon to find you a healthy snack”). Let’s extend our natural negotiation and communication skills out to the larger world.

Put in some comments about how you’ve negotiated something for yourself, your relationship, or your work.

If you create a product because of your own imagination and creativity, and you package it, promote it, and sell it, you fully expect to be compensated for it, right? It’s your intellectual property.

What happens when someone else takes that product and sells it on your behalf in a different country? What about if they don’t pay you for those “copies”, but they do receive revenue from sales and advertising placements that they’ve placed on those copies?

This is currently what is happening with the WGA. The writers in this guild, who are family members with regular bills to pay, just like you and me, depend on their writing ability to pay for their needs (medical bills, rent, mortgages, childcare, education).

The issue at stake is that the writers are not being compensated for their ideas, which are being ‘repackaged’ and sold over the internet, which is like a different country with no clear roadmaps. Downloaded videos are growing so quickly, there aren’t currently guidelines on how to pay the creative talent behind the screen.

Seven million copies of an episode of “The Office” were sold via iTunes, and NBC makes full length episodes available, with ads, on their website. “Don’t run ads in this and then not pay us for it,” was the general sentiment of Mindy Kaling, an actress, writer, and producer on the show (she was talking about the Youtube video where you can see her link to The Office is Closed but the principle applies to website downloads).

The average member of the Guild earns $5k each year, so don’t believe big media hype: the guild is made of working people who rely on their skills in screenwriting to pay for their groceries.

The future of the entertainment industry is on the internet and in other media like social networking sites, wireless, gaming, and user-generated content. Currently, writers are striking because they and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were unable to come to agreement on payments for internet-related broadcasts.

At core is the issue of who ultimately profits: is it big corporations or is it the workers who actually do the work? If the two sides don’t see eye-to-eye, a strike is inevitable as a way to claim rights and set the stage for future labor relations.

Joss Whedon, writer for Firefly, says “This IS a union issue, one that will affect not just artists but every member of a community that could find itself at the mercy of a machine that absolutely and unhesitatingly would dismantle every union, remove every benefit, turn every worker into a cowed wage-slave in the singular pursuit of profit. (There is a machine. Its program is ‘profit.’ This is not a myth.) This is about a fair wage for our work. No different than any other union. The teamsters have recognized the importance of this strike, for which I’m deeply grateful.”

There’s a live blog going on at www.unitedhollywood.com. Learn more about the strike at www.wga.org. If you’re in Los Angeles, they appreciate your support on the picket line.

There is an active video blog team covering pickets and getting the writers side of the story to the people. “Why We Fight” is must viewing! Send it to every human you’ve ever met. There’s also an official WGA YouTube page.

Got pictures from pickets? Post them to Flickr and tag them with WGA and Strike.

Got lots of Facebook friends? Invite them to join the new United Hollywood Facebook Group