Interview: From Marketing Expert to Supervising Producer

Michelle Larkin began her career in marketing and promotions. Since then, she has branched out and explored several different options in different industries. She has held managerial positions. Alongside owning her own networking company, she is currently working as a Supervising Producer for a new and upcoming television talk show. This past week, I have had the opportunity to interview Michelle Larkin of Cynergy Media Group.

When asked if she has ever used any dirty tricks when negotiating a deal, she answered no. She has never used dirty tricks to win a negotiation, but she has left out general information. Michelle believes that, upon meeting, the other person should take the time to do the research and not expect her to have it all done. She has come across situations where she was expected to carry the responsibility as informant, and that is unacceptable.

For the most part, Michelle is able to separate the people from the problem when negotiating a deal. She goes on to say that it is business and it is easier to stay focused on the money or the objective. People are just the resources. She focuses on what obstacles she will have to jump over to get what she wants.

Through the last several months, Michelle has had to use positional bargaining in a professional environment. She had to build a relationship between a creator of a show and an owner of a production company. The creator of a new show had an idea, the connections and the talent. What he lacked was a production company to get his show in front of the right people. The owner had the resources but not the product. Michelle had to negotiate between the two to get the job done. She had to make them both realize how much they needed each other and for them to recognize the long-term benefits.

Michelle’s favorite skill to use to influence the way people think in a negotiation is finding out what is most valuable from listening. Another example comes from this television show is working on. The creator of the show needed to feel that the production company had value. So, what Michelle did is provide support outside of meetings. She goes out of her way to keep up with the client, with check ups, and makes sure that the connection she built between him and the production company is still strong. 

When asked if there was an example of a situation that she found very difficult to settle a negotiation, a story from her past experience came to mind. A new boss came in a changed her positive working environment to a negative environment. Before the new boss came in, Michelle was interviewed for the same position because she was a good performing employee at the company. But she was hired over because the other person had a degree. Since the first day the new coworker arrive, they clashed because the new coworker felt that she did not need to respect Michelle. Michelle tried to negotiate by saying, “If I did x,y,z then will it help you respect me. I am not trying to take your job, I am just trying to make it work.” She then went on to offer to work on a different project and her coworker still didn’t want her to be there. Michelle was trying to be passive aggressive. Michelle and the coworker could not separate the emotion from the objective.

This interview was very interesting because she has had the opportunity to work in different industries. Because she has worked in different environments, she can use her various experiences to build a strong foundation in her negotiation deals.