Key Insights on Negotiation from Top Contract Experts with Roma Khan and Nada Alnajafi

Hello my fellow negotiators. Did you know I once had a.

Listener share that after listening to our podcast, she was able to negotiate a $53,000 raise. And you know what I told her? Where is my commission? Just kidding. But the real story is this was after years of being too afraid to negotiate. But after listening to a couple of episodes on Salary Negotiation, she felt equipped with with the confidence and tools to ask for the payment she deserved. And that, my friends, is the power of negotiation. And through a subscription to our new membership community Negotiate Anything Premium, we're taking that power to the next level. With customized playlists based on our most popular topics, you'll be able to find the episodes you're looking for much faster and much easier. A tool that comes in handy as you're getting ready to prepare for an important negotiation. Even I find myself asking which episode should I listen to before heading into a high stakes negotiation? And you might be saying, but Kwame, you're the ones having the conversations. But I forget. So I listen to the episodes multiple times.

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It is good to have both of you here. So, listeners, let us set the stage. This is a different one because usually it is one on one, but now we have three people at this party and what we'll do is first we'll have Roma introduce herself and then Netta is a fan favorite and she will introduce herself after Roma. So Roma, how.

How would you get us started?

By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Absolutely. Thank you, Kwame. I am Roma Khan, the contracts queen. I'm the founder and CEO of Crush Contracts. We are a contracts services company. An immigrant, I'm an in house. I was an in house lawyer. I'm a transactional attorney by training and now an entrepreneur. I live in Chicago and I have to say I love contracts.

Well, considering your choice of and your and your status as the queen of contracts, I would think it would be.

Weird if you didn't.

Right. Well, thank you for coming. And Neta, please reintroduce yourself to the audience.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me back on the Negotiate Anything podcast. I'm so excited to be here. My name is Netta Al Nedjafi. I'm an in house attorney. I work as senior corporate counsel for Franklin Templeton and in addition to that as my night job and weekend job. I'm the founder of Contract Nerds, which is a community and online resource and media publication company that provides information and materials and learning tools all about contracts. So much like Roma, I also love contracts and I also wrote a book called Contract Redlining Etiquette. So I love to nerd out specifically about the redlining and negotiation process.

Love this. And listeners, if you haven't checked out Net as earlier episodes, check those out. And I've told you this before, but you're the only person I know who's focused and like specialized in redlining contracts negotiations. That's so important. So yes, if that resonates with any of you, make sure you check out contracts nerds. And all of that is work. So I think a good place for us to start is just getting a baseline understanding of what we are even talking about when we talk about contract negotiations because different professionals use contracts in different ways. And what was surprising to me is how inclusive this community of contracts professionals are. And so when you think about contract negotiations, what does that mean to you and who is involved in that?

That's a great question. I've been negotiating contracts for many Years before I even went to law school, I was a realtor in Southern California. I used to live in LA back in the day. Ned and I learned the negotiating contracts. When you buy a car, there's a contract. So there's so many people involved in negotiating contracts. I had not met a lawyer negotiating contracts until I actually graduated from law school and then was negotiating contracts, you know, as a JD and then as a lawyer. So the contract negotiation world is very big. And I actually have to maybe disagree with you a little bit to say it wasn't as inclusive and to, you know, a great part. It still isn't. A lot of lawyers think that they are the ones who can negotiate contracts. Whereas most of the world negotiates contracts without lawyers. Whether it's construction, you know, sales, anybody that doesn't have an in house counsel. So it is becoming more inclusive and I have to, you know, credit you and Netta for that. Since I've been your follower and been seeing what you've been doing, I've seen that you guys have created a very inclusive community and energy of contracts professionals, lawyers and non lawyers and everybody who is negotiating contracts. So I think the state of the contracts affairs is great now and it's only getting better. You know, I'm doing my part, we're doing events, we are all trying to bring everybody together and innovate and simplify contracts so anyone can do it. My philosophy is that contracts are not legal documents, they are business documents. They're business deals on paper. And when you look at it from that perspective, then you see who can negotiate them and who can successfully negotiate them. And are lawyers sometimes even necessary to negotiate them. And when you start thinking like that, then you really do become inclusive and you're bringing business in and stakeholders in and legal then becomes the council and allows the deal to happen. So I think it's great. I think the state of contract negotiation is great right now.

That's such a great answer because I have to disclaim and we talked about this before the episode. I just always thought about contracts from a legal sense and I was thinking who else would deal with contracts? That's my own lawyer bias. So my more inclusive perspective on contracts came in large part from folks like Netta and Laura Frederick. So learning more about it was really inspiring for me and I think for me, especially as a content creation creator, it's helped me to create more content that speaks directly to the needs of all contract professionals negotiating these deals. And that's a major paradigm shift. Not legal documents, but business Documents that is really powerful. And Neda, I want to pass the ball to you. When we're thinking about this contracts negotiation, where's a good baseline for us to start? And maybe this is a good opportunity for us to talk about the role of redlining to a certain extent too.

Absolutely. So I'll say in the more micro setting of negotiating contracts as an in house attorney or in the commercial setting, let's say you're representing a business. The contract negotiation can start as early on as the sourcing point of the RFP process. When you're selecting a vendor to work with, when the customer reaches out to you and you begin the sales cycle all the way through the contract being finalized and executed by all involved parties, that entire process, which even includes drafting the initial template, having those initial conversations, commercial negotiations with pricing, the length of the contract, the details of the services, or the features of the product, that all of it is part of the contract negotiation process because it all will ultimately lead you to determine what the contract itself will look like, whether it's the business requirements or the legal requirements, what will make the project successful. So I always encourage my internal business clients to get legal involved as early as possible because the negotiation process does start so early on. And I would say with my internal business clients, those can be really anyone in the corporate environment, from marketing to IT engineering, product design, hr, it's anyone in the business is a part of the contract review and negotiation process. And the way that I like to think about it is as the lawyer, who do you need to get this contract done? Because us as lawyers, we cannot, we don't initiate the contract and we're usually not the end user of the services or products coming from the contract. We are an advisor. We're a part of the negotiation process. So I need to work closely with my internal business client to understand what they're looking for, what the risks are and how to help them out.

I've got a quick story for you. So I was at this keynote and I talked to a listener and he said, kwame, I love the podcast, but my favorite part, man, I love those commercials.

And I said, I don't think this.

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This ads for you. And for the rest of you, I'll see you in premium. Oh, this. Okay. All right. So I agree with you 100% with everything that you're saying. And now let's go back to that term paradigm shift. I think as people are listening to this, it's a massive paradigm shift just to recognize how many people touch this contract in different ways, even if it is not respected as a contract at this point. And if I'm. If I'm hearing. I've heard this with some of my clients in different parts of the business. Business. And it's. I think, honestly, they forget that I'm a lawyer as they tell me these things when they say, when we talk about legal, it's usually not in a positive sense. And when I think about each of these. These characters in this role we might have. Marketing involved, sales involved, procurement involved. All of these different roles. When we say, hey, we need to get this other person involved early, their response might be, ew, not them. Okay, so how. How do we get people to buy into this. This collaborative internal model of contract negotiation if they feel as though it might be more efficient to do it solo?

You know, it's a great question. When I first started my contracts job as a contracts manager job, and I would hear this like, oh, don't send it to legal. Oh, God, it's going to legal. Okay, okay, legal, can you help us? But they just had this disdain. They knew it was going to come back super red. It was not going to be on. They would, you know, and this was the sales side, so you could just see their frustration and their panic every time they saw a very red line contract. So I started learning. I realized, like, I'm gonna have to do some things to bridge that relationship first before I was even going to get the contract out to them. So turn adversaries into advocates. Find out what they're about. Why are they stressed about this? I mean, for me, so say, you know, for my. Maybe the legal department, it's like, oh, we need to push back. We need all the best terms before the stakeholder. It could be the mortgage, it could be that commission check. So they are not going to look at it from the perspective we are. So we need to first learn their perspective. So I started reaching out to all the stakeholders and saying, hey, I'm new. I want to understand what your priorities Are why do you need these contracts signed a certain way? I'm going to teach you a little bit about me and our legal department's standards. And so, you know, why, if I push back why and if anything, if you could actually do the first level of negotiation, it would help quite a bit. And it worked. You know, I would do some lunches with them and I learned quite a bit about the department. I would learn about the services that they were selling and same way they learned about us, inner workings of our legal department. And then it started to make sense. I mean, we at that time had a contract management software that was built in house. It was, you know, it's 2011. So I also had to explain to them that when you submit something and this was, you know, installed before I came, so I say it's not. I didn't do this. But it does take a time for a time period for it to cycle through all these stages. So if you are waiting on something, this is why, the why behind what was happening. So that was the one thing. It was education from both sides and then empowerment to the other side. And when the contract was done, you know, they were very happy and they would, you know, I started getting the name contract screen because I was starting to process contracts a lot faster. I built a lot of good relationships with the sales side and I started getting more into the business they were in without overtaking it, because in the end, they're the sales. This is their. What they do. And we can't act like we know better. Only we care about the company, only we care about the risk. And somehow they're out there to destroy the company. Like, these are the things I would hear from other councils in other companies, because I consulted quite a bit after that job and the attitude is like, oh, they never understand. They, they, they don't talk about them as they. What they do is what pays the bills and gets our paychecks going. So we are doing this together. I think setting aside ego was an important thing. Just like you were saying, only we can do contracts. No, everybody can do contracts. We didn't. We weren't born with this knowledge. We too learned and we didn't learn this in law school. So I can tell you that lawyers, just because you're a lawyer doesn't mean you know how to do contracts. You actually learn this on the job. So the idea that only we can do something and they can. We have to start, you know, getting away from that. Of course, we have an expertise on certain clauses in certain areas but most of it they can do. And then also not making them handicap. Whereas you've kind of created this dependency and bottleneck in your department. So now you're the only one doing everything. And they're waiting on their contracts. And then let's say the CTO needs this contract first, then you gotta delay everybody else's, and now everybody's upset. So also learn to delegate and, you know, give people their contracts back faster and use technology to do that. This way they can see where the contract is. Maybe they can themselves negotiate the contract, create playbooks. So education, import empowerment, and ego. If you can kind of check all those three I think you can do, you can do that better.

I will also add that just because legal has a bad reputation at the company you're working at doesn't mean that it needs to stay that way. I have changed the minds of my internal business clients at every company that I've worked at. It's really easy to rebrand the legal team because it's not hard to beat the sort of, you know, lack of sufficient care that maybe legal has done in the past. For example, respond to your client's emails the same day or the next day, they will think that you are the best lawyer they have ever worked with. All you have to do is respond to them.

Why?

Because your clients want to make sure that you're paying attention to them. And one of the key things that they care about from you is speed. We as lawyers care about quality. On the business side, they care about speed. So even if you don't have the full contract review done or you don't have all the answers, pay attention to them. Send them a response and let them know you're working on it in a timely manner. And they will just be so happy that you're paying attention to them. And they will. That will start to build the trust that Roma's talking about and give you the opportunity to teach them, to work with them and to get those wins. And whenever you can get those easy, quick wins in, show your value early on, they're asking you for a template. Show them how you redrafted the 10 page template into only 5 pages. Why? Because you want this to be closed faster for them and they're going to love working with you so you don't have to be, you know, stressing yourself out too much or feeling like, oh, you need to get contracts signed in one day. Just respond to them and communicate with them in a timely manner. And that will really go a long way in helping develop that relationship and change the internal company's branding of the legal department.

And I'd like to add something to that. It's setting those expectations. Right. There's a balance to that. If we are. I have a habit of an OCD of immediately responding to an email and I'll be working on something. You also want to balance it out. You know, when somebody sends a contract, set the expectations, it's going to be turned right in a day or two, or if I can do it sooner, I'll do that. So they're not pinging you in those two days, but touch base with them if you're not going to be able to do it in two days or within a day or, you know, don't set too high, too hard and too easy expectations of people. So you're absolutely right. Like, you know, you have to do the rebranding of the legal department and it's always going to be something. There's always going to be something. You can't come in and say, everybody loves legal. You know, you, you have to play the part to continuing it that way. And if they don'. Legal, like, I love how Netta put it, like, you have to help rebrand it and change that relationship by being responsive to people.

Absolutely. And what we're recognizing is that we have these external negotiations with the. The other side, Right. Maybe the other company. And then we have internal negotiations amongst ourselves within our departments and then inter departments. But then we always have this ongoing negotiation of the relationship. And I think that's part of the thing that we miss. And so, Roma, going back to what you said, turn adversaries into advocates, I think that's powerful and we can't. That doesn't happen by accident. It takes an intentional, concerted effort to make that happen. But then, like Netta said, over time you can rebrand the legal department, but it takes time and it takes consistency, it takes communication and it takes care. But if you can do it, it works. And just putting a bow on everything that both of you said. Deals move at the speed of trust. And if there is a lack of trust within our team, our cohesive negotiation team that involves people from different departments, our deals are going to be slow and inefficient. But if we build into those, invest into those relationships, that's time well spent because we'll get it back on the back end. And let's talk about some more of the challenges that you all have seen in the contract negotiation world that you are actively trying to work against. And you, I'VE already seen it in both of your careers. You're. You're doing incredible things to. To change narratives, to fix problems and move the. The industry and the profession forward. But what are some of those things that you have intentionally tried to work on and what are some things that we still need to work on as an industry?

We have a lot to do. But there are things that I have definitely improved when it comes to negotiations. You know, I was. I started off my. My life was just in general, like, we'll take it or leave it. You know, that's. That's the starting point. And where I am today, you know, a great example is my event, right? I mean, I announced it on January 17th, I think, or 15th. And thereafter, I got pulled into some other, you know, community service work, and I had very little time to then come back and close deals. We got Deloitte as a partner and a host, and we got massive, you know, CLM vendors as. As sponsors. And it all came through a lot of talking and a lot of negotiating and, you know, patience. So I'm very proud of myself today, where I am, where I was, you know, 15 years ago when I first started doing deals, and I was like, oh, you know, another will come and, you know, this is the right thing, is the right thing. And I didn't realize that it wasn't actually winning, it wasn't actually getting us the deal. The focusing more on the deal and the outcome was important and just picking up lessons in life. You know, the older you get, you get wiser, you become more patient, and you really start looking at things from the other perspective. I think they. A big challenge is when people start in. This depends on where their first job is. I think I was spoiled because I started off at a Fortune 30 company and I was like, well, everybody wants to do business with us. So I didn't have that mindset of negotiating. We just kind of got it done. And then, you know, the internal and the external negotiation really didn't matter because I was, you know, starting point. My managers would. Then they had this attitude that we had to push back and be the. The bad cop, and then they would sweep in and be the good cop. So everybod loved them and hated us. And I figured that out, you know, within a couple of months. And that's when I started doing the relationship building. I just went out of the, you know, my own to reach out to the individuals. And I realized that relationships is really what makes the deals, you know, happen. So ego and then respecting the counterparty not looking at them as somebody less than you, you know, even if it's a vendor, treat them with respect. You know, these are some of the lessons that I've learned. I think being mindful of where the other party is coming from is something I had to just learn with life and experience. Right? If I didn't understand where they were coming from, I wouldn't know. So one thing I started doing was as soon as I could get a contract and the other side, I would immediately look them up on LinkedIn. So I knew what role they were in, how big the company was, what kind of mindset they were coming in. So their red lines were, you know, too soft or too, you know, put. If they're pushing back too hard, then I just knew what that was. So I. Then I would say, do I really want to put push back on this? Or, you know, is this person. A lot of times, a lot of inexperienced new lawyers will come on and they work for a law firm and they're just so like, you know, you know, their attitude is very different and they don't understand that this is impacting the client. So then I would then start mitigating and then relying on our internal stakeholders to take the deal forward. I've many times taken the deal to negotiate to a certain point. And I said, okay, this is where I'm going to step back. Because people become defensive when their lawyers involved. I feel like the lawyers are taking it to. And I myself intentionally removed myself from the conversation and told the business guys, empowered them and say, you go take it to your other guy or girl. And then they can. You guys can negotiate it yourselves. And that actually helped quite a bit. So not always being in the center, not always getting the credit for the work, just being okay with it as long as the deal gets done. Those are some of the lessons that I learned. And there's still room, you know, we're all still learning. I think every industry has its own set of the things to consider when you're negotiating. It's different when you're negotiating a tech contract versus a manufacturing contract. When you're doing food manufacturing, you're oftentimes dealing with farmers and food distributors. And they're not at the same ex, you know, like, experience or education level as you as a lawyer are. So you have to simplify things for them without being condescending. And I learned that too. You know, I would just kind of like, well, this is how it's done. And they're like, we know what that means. You don't have to go down to that level. So. So those are some of my lessons that I've learned, and this is how I improve my negotiation. But I believe there's still a lot more to cover.

So one thing I talk about a lot, one of the challenges that I see with contract negotiations is that we don't really have formal training as lawyers for negotiation skills. Most of us learned how to negotiate on the job by watching someone. We mimic what our boss did. We trial and error, we guess maybe we Google, but we haven't sat in formal negotiation training programs. And a lot of law schools, at least when I went to law school, didn't even have negotiation as a class. So we come into the work space and we're negotiating. Think for some people, their first time, like, I've. I've negotiated, you know, sales deals and things like that from other jobs I had before I was a lawyer. But as an attorney, it's very different because you're not talking just about numbers or widgets. You're talking about the very detailed, complex clauses around liability, right? And so you're looking at every comma and the way it's placed, and how do you negotiate where a comma should go? You know, no one's ever taught you that. And so you rely on what you're observing or what you're experiencing. And that leads to lots of lawyers having different styles or different expectations about the negotiation process, but also thinking that because you saw someone do it, that that must be the right way, but it's not necessarily the right way. And so what I try to do, for example, with contract redlining etiquette is I try to. To set the foundation from the very beginning as like a reset. Here is the most efficient way to redline contracts. And we start from the beginning, and we start doing formal training programs around that and making sure that we're educating lawyers about not just law and legal skills, but also the business skills and the communication skills, because all of these different elements play a part in the negotiation process. So to go back to what Roma was saying, a lot of what we do is we're educating. We're educating our internal clients, and we're also educating our counterparties. Don't forget that they are learning how to negotiate from us. So when you're negotiating with someone, you're like, why are they doing this? Why can't they disagree? Why are they being so difficult? Why are they trying to bully me? Instead of getting upset and taking it personal, just remember that's how they learned how to negotiate. They think that's the right way. They think that's the best way. This is an opportunity to teach them differently. You know, control your response and respond in the way that if you were teaching to a class of law students or contracts professionals, this would be the. The best method forward. And it's hard, especially when, you know, I know. Kwame, you talk a lot about how, you know, conflict resolution. It's difficult when it gets very tense or awkward or there's silence. But I've learned that it is possible if you pay attention to it and you practice it over and over again. You're very mindful of it, that you can sort of get control over the situation and then help educate everybody who's involved in the negotiation process on really how to get the deal done. Let's move the negotiation forward. Let's not delay it unnecessarily. And that's what's important to our internal clients as well.

So many gems here, team. This is great. So let me go back. I'll pull out some highlights that I really liked. So, Roma, I love that part where you talked about sometimes making that tough call of subbing yourself out, like, recognizing that sometimes as lawyers, we have an intimidating presence that can be off putting for the other side. So no matter how warm and compassionate it's you are, they will still say that you are a lawyer. It's like if you have a. Like a really, really nice nurse who is also a vampire. So, yeah.

No, I don't trust you. Like, their guard goes up, right?

Yeah, exactly. And I think it's important to be humble enough to accept that dynamic and recognize when you add value and when you might take it away. And I think, especially when you're negotiating on a team, that's something that we need to pay attention to. Sometimes we might not be the best person, and that is okay.

Yeah. And you know what? It's a. It's a. It's all a united front. It's like chess, Right? I always look at it that way. We also don't want to look too soft and too friendly. I mean, our role is an advisor's role, and we have to avoid any conflicts of interest. So there comes a point where here, here's my recommendation, here's my advice. How, how it's conveyed can be the difference maker. Right. So I can keep writing emails back and forth with the other counsel, or I can give my internal, you know, clients and stakeholders the information and say, I've already sent this information. Now I'm going to Back off. And I need you to close the deal. Because they don't disagree with us. They say, hey, you're right, Roma. We don't want to give these terms away. But if I keep pushing for it, then I'm that vampire. But if I become too soft, then, you know, it doesn't look right for our company's image as well if you were to do future deals. So it is important to do that. I wanted to add a couple more points to this topic. One thing I discovered, negotiating. And I remember that, Netta, when you were talking about the indemnity clauses. So this is a 10 years ago, and I was consulting at a major international bank, and we were negotiating a contract, a vendor contract that has been going on for three months at this point. And we had come down to, by the time I came in to help them to the liability clause. And this was around, hey, what if there was a data breach? And this is like, you know, 10 years ago. So we were still kind of coming around the concept of data breach. Chase had just had that breach. And there was just so much back and forth, back and forth, what you would do, what you wouldn't do. And I had this aha moment, and I reached out and I said, you know, let's just all put the corporate lawyer stuff aside. Let's look at the person, the individual that will be impacted by this, right? Don't we all want to do the right thing for that person? And then it was dehumanizing the contract piece. So I'm like, your company will be fine. Our company will be fine. Sure, we'll pay some fines, so we'll take care of this. But the person who just lost their data, maybe their bank account, they're the ones to really care about, right? So if the solution is, you know, you should provide this, this and this remedy when the breach happens and you're pushing back. I ask you, if somebody did this to you, if your bank was negotiating this, wouldn't you want them to fight for the same stuff for your individual rights? And it made all the difference. Difference. I mean, from there on, I started taking these complex dry clauses that were being pushed back and forth and to humanize the contract, look at the. The total impact on human beings from this contract and see if we can, you know, and then all it does is like a perspective shift, right? It chills people out. You start thinking about, you know, it's, I'm not the lawyer for this company. I'm trying to do the best deal possible. And it starts to Again, make advocates out of those adversaries because then they talk to their teams and explain it to them. So humanizing contracts is a big deal. And it also reminds me too, if I become too like, if I'm pushing back too hard, I'm like, no, I need to get this term. I'm like, but who does it benefit at the end of the day? Right. You know, people think corporate lawyers don't have souls and we're not helping the world with what they're doing. And I disagree with that. You know, we help make deals happen that create products and solutions that help people on a day to day basis. So if we look at ourselves that way and we negotiate contracts in that manner, we will make the best deals for our clients, for our employers and for the people are ultimately using that product and service.

I really like that point of humanizing the contract because again, whether it's a contract negotiation or just a difficult conversation in general, a lot of times we lose that humanity. We start focusing on winning and at the expense of other people and potentially our souls in the process. So I think that's powerful. And I also think when we think about redlining, redlining is, it's so important. It's like the last little percent. But like we win and lose on those terms, it could be really dangerous. Now, Netta, with your approach, one of the things I really appreciate is the fact that you do bring humanity to redlining. And in the past it was so, and in many current situations it's so cold and calculated and almost abrasive. So how do we balance advocating for our clients and what it is that we want to need out of these contracts with that human element as well?

Absolutely. You know, I think it's, it's a good reminder that the, your contract redlines are a negotiation tool and we really want to use it as a tool to help drive the negotiation forward. And one of the biggest ways, you know, it's my rule number one in contract redlining etiquette to really exude that collaborative spirit is to include explanatory comments with your red lines. So the red lines are like the markups where you're changing the language of the contract, you're proposing changes to it, and then there's the explanatory comments that are usually in the margins that, that you use to explain proactively why you're proposing this change. And when we do that, we're, we're negotiating, we're negotiating with the red lines, we're negotiating with the explanatory. Comments with the COVID email that we're going to attach the document to. It's all part of the negotiation process. And I always advise to draft your explanatory comments like you would in email. They should be professional, they should be concise, they should be clear. And we've seen a shift from a more competitive type of negotiation style, which is more traditional for lawyers to have. We see that a lot in the litigation space, especially to a more collaborative negotiation style. And there are studies that show that whether you're competitive or collaborative, you're going to be successful in the negotiation. However, with the collaborative approach, you're also creating a long term relationship. And when you're too competitive, you're kind of throwing that long term relationship out the wind and you're saying, I don't care about the relationship. I care about this deal only. And there are times where that's appropriate. But in the commercial contract space, when you're negotiating deals for two companies to work together, to do something together and be successful together, you do want to keep the long term relationship in mind. So when we apply these best practices to the redlining process, and it's more than just what does the contract language say? It becomes why and what does it it mean and why are they asking for this and how does this help them and how can it help me? Then you're seeing the bigger picture and you're really, you're, you're closing the deal. You're having a better contract and a better relationship overall.

You know, one of the tough things about interviewing people like you is that both of you say things so incredibly profound that it makes it hard for me to end the interview. I just want to keep going. But I know Kai will bust through this wall demanding my ATT attention any moment now. But this is so great, so, so good. I appreciate both of you coming on today and sharing your wisdom. I love getting really in depth with these contract negotiation terms and tactics and everything. And I know a lot of folks are saying, okay, how can I get more Roma? How can I get more Neta? So before we go, Roma, please shout out your company and your conference. And Neta, please shout out contracts nerds, too.

Well, thank you, Kwame. I think that, like I said, we should try to. I know you're very busy, but we should try to do like, these monthly sessions because this has been so much fun talking about contracts and life and kids, you know, we could definitely keep going. So thank you for having, you know, us on this show and having me today. I'm excited to tell everybody about our contracts conference that's coming up June 21st in Chicago. It's Crush Contracts Academy. It's a full day of clean courses on negotiation, contract data and mergers and acquisition, and then legal operations and stakeholder relationships. And we also built these classes called CLM Maximizer, because our goal with this event is for education and technology adoption. We can't do contracts without technology. Now everyone should be using some sort of technology to review contracts or at least manage them them and process them. So there's a lot of like, you know, doubt or question or just misinformation out there. So we created these workshops. They're called CLM Maximizer, where the speakers will address pain points regarding contracts and how they've solved them with aclm, any clm. And it's really informative. We're excited about that. Our keynote speaker is Cliff Stein. He has the recent general counsel of the Chicago Bears. We're very excited to have him. And he's speaking on Crushing Negotiations. I think Kwame, you and Cliff have to meet soon. I cannot wait for this. The two of you talking and then just me sitting back and just listening to that conversation.

Thank you. Yes. I wish I could come this time around, but next year, 2025, we'll make it happen.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you for that connection. I'll reach out to him and get him on the pod and Netta, bring us home, my friend.

Yes. So I am super excited for Romacon Crush Contracts Academy conference coming up and I'll be speaking on the Crushing Negotiations panel and doing an introduction. I'll be there virtually. So I hope to see all of you who buy the virtual tickets there again, you can get find resources about contracts through Contract Nerds. You can go to the website www.contractnerds.com. you can also check out my book called Contract Redlining Etiquette, which is available on Amazon and through the Contract Nerds website. We have webinars and on demand recordings all about different contracting skills and redlining and negotiation skills. So please come find us and reach out on LinkedIn. And thank you so much, Kwame, for having us back here today.

And I would like to add that all in person attendees are getting a copy of Neta's book, the Contract Redlining Editor.

That's right.

We are conscious of the amount of the product people generate and give out at events and we didn't want to just make more plastic that just sat on landfills. And we love her book and we thought, you know, be great if we just gave that book as part of the the gift bag. So if you come and you attend, then you'll get a free copy of her book.

And Kwame wrote the forward to that book.

So look at that. That is right.

That's cool. Very cool. Awesome. Well, thank you both for coming on. This was a lot of fun. Can't wait to have you back.

Wait, wait, wait wait, wait. Now, before you sign off, I have something to tell you that I've never told you before. Just kidding. I've told you before, but you should listen to it again. I want you to know about Negotiate Anything Premium. Imagine all of the things that you love about our traditional feed, plus so much more. I know you like our traditional feedback feed because you're at the end of the episode. And with Negotiate Anything Premium, you'll get more bonus content you've been asking for, more of the expert insights that you can't get anywhere else, and more exclusive behind the scenes access into every conversation. Are you ready to get more of what you want out of your life, career and every conversation? With Negotiate Anything Premium, you'll have access to more high level custom design content and insights giving you the tools you need to negotiate higher salaries, better deals, and better relationships in your life and career. Once I had a listener share that Negotiate Anything helped her to negotiate a $53,000 raise. Could this be you? What would that mean for your life? I've seen firsthand the impact this model has had on my life and the lives of of my corporate clients and I am confident that it can do the same for you. Are you ready to negotiate more of the best things in life? Click the link in the show notes to learn more.

I'll catch you later.