[Kim_Bruning]

I've negotiated with some very large companies at times.

No one can operate a company as a single giant monolith. They're all subdivided into departments or subcompanies or subunits in some way or other. And these subunits often have more or less leeway and authority to act by themselves (depending on the exact organization).

My favorite story is when the manager across from me happened to have signing authority for the relevant subunit. So he just grabbed a sheet of A4 out of the printer, scribbled down what we agreed upon, put his signature under it, and handed it to his secretary "Please file this in Kim's file". Didn't even blink. <5 minutes. Legally binding written contract.

Another time I made a cultural mistake, I actually gave a Very Large customer my best offer upfront (negotiating as a small company owner this time). I should have tacked on 20% or so, just to give the manager something to negotiate over. Lesson learned: Big company managers aren't just able to negotiate; some actually almost feel cheated if you don't give them anything to negotiate over! ;-)

[scarface74]

Now, I could negotiate to an extent with a smaller company where I would be a “special snowflake”. If they were looking for someone with my combination of skills.

But the company changing events I did at the smaller company I worked at from 2018-2029, gets me an attaboy for adding 5% to my divisions revenue, a message on our Slack channel and life goes on.