Negotiation is more than winning—it’s about creating value for both sides. Many business owners struggle with negotiations, relying on outdated strategies that often lead to conflict or lost opportunities.

Whether you're dealing with vendors, partners, or internal stakeholders, your ability to negotiate directly affects your bottom line and professional confidence. In this episode, you’ll learn how to negotiate with clarity, calm, and confidence — even if you don’t consider yourself a “natural” negotiator.

Host Paul Sweeney shares a powerful and practical conversation with Wendy Minne, an experienced corporate manager turned business coach. Wendy unpacks why negotiations feel so uncomfortable for many of us, and how mindset shifts and a structured approach can help you get better results without burning bridges.

You’ll discover:

• Why many business leaders avoid negotiation — and how to reframe it
• The “cost of not negotiating” and how it quietly drains your business
• A simple three-part framework Wendy uses to help clients prep for tough conversations
• How women in particular can navigate common negotiation traps

Whether you're renegotiating contracts, managing procurement, or setting client expectations, this episode will equip you with tools to advocate for what you want — and feel good doing it.

Books mentioned in the episode:

The Third Alternative by Dr Stephen Covey

Conscious Business by Fred Kofman

Another great book to check out:

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury

Check out the previous episode featuring Wendy: Ep 110 The Journey from Corporate to Small Business

Wendy Minne is accredited in Organisational Coaching and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation. Her activities include coaching senior manager initiatives as well as young leader development. Wendy benefitted from coaching during her corporate career, and she is passionate about coaching for success at all levels.

Wendy’s area of specialisation in coaching is supporting leaders and potential leaders, particularly engineers, through change and transitions. It can be confronting when engineers transition from being the expert to leading others. They step back even further from their area of expertise when they are leading leaders.

Wendy has a corporate background that includes extensive experience in leading teams through change and transition. With her understanding of the business environment and her coaching skills, Wendy supports clients through a journey of self-discovery to find strengths-based solutions and develop as leaders.

www.novamentis.com.au

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Email wendy.minne2@gmail.com

Phone 0413 433 808

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

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If you're a small or medium-sized business owner, this episode could save you from costly legal missteps that threaten your business's growth—or even its survival. Legal expert Matthew Fornaro joins the podcast to highlight the essential contracts and legal strategies that many entrepreneurs overlook in their rush to launch or scale. Whether you're just starting out or already running a business, you’ll learn how to lay the legal foundation to protect your operations, reputation, and revenue.

What You'll Learn:

• Why your business plan is a legally powerful document—not just a planning tool
• The 10 contracts every small business should have in place
• How missing legal steps early on can hurt your chances of getting a loan or surviving an audit
• What to know about doing business across state or national borders
• The difference between minimum compliance and real protection
• How to set up a business structure the right way from the beginning

Matthew also shares personal stories from his own transition from big law firms to running his own legal practice, plus practical insights from mentoring business owners like you. If you've ever wondered whether your contracts, agreements, and structures are truly protecting your business—you can’t afford to miss this episode.

Matthew Fornaro is a seasoned business law attorney and founder of Matthew Fornaro P.A., serving South Florida since 2003. He specializes in contract disputes, with expertise in intellectual property. Additionally, he mentors entrepreneurs, teaching programs like FastTrac NewVenture and the Jim Moran Institute.

Subscribe to the Fornaro Legal newsletter and get the eBook 10 Contracts Every Business Needs

www.fornarolegal.com

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If you think pay is just about numbers, think again. In today’s talent-short market, the way you compensate your people could be the reason they leave—or why they stay and thrive. In this episode, Trudy MacDonald, award-winning business leader and Managing Director of TalentCode HR, pulls back the curtain on remuneration. She explains why most businesses are getting it wrong and what you can do to build a pay strategy that actually works.

Whether you're struggling with attracting top talent, keeping your best people, or motivating your team to hit new levels of performance, this conversation is your wake-up call. Trudy shares real-world insights and practical steps that will help you stop the guesswork and start building a smarter, fairer, and more effective approach to pay.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why traditional pay models are failing in today’s workforce—and what’s replacing them
• The biggest mistakes leaders make when designing salary and bonus structures
• How to create a pay framework that motivates performance without damaging culture
• What it means to move from “paying for presence” to “paying for value”
• Why market benchmarking might be misleading—and how to use it the right way
• How to talk about money openly with employees and build trust in your remuneration process
• Trudy’s go-to framework for strategic remuneration design in small and medium businesses

Pay isn’t just a cost—it’s one of your most powerful business levers. Done right, it drives retention, performance, and loyalty. Done wrong, it quietly erodes your culture and profitability. Trudy MacDonald offers a fresh, human-centric take on how business owners and leaders can rethink pay to fuel growth and keep their top talent engaged. If you want your team to work like they own the place—start by paying them like it matters.

For another great conversation, check out Trudy's previous episode here Ep 152 - From Burnout to Brilliance: Transforming Workplace Culture

Trudy MacDonald has worked extensively with Boards, leaders and leadership teams over the past 20 years and is a sought-after coach to leaders across industries.

She is an experienced CEO, an established business leader and thought leader in the areas of strategy, people, and culture. She specialises in empowering organisations to become great by maximising the performance and productivity of their people.

She is a multi-award-winning speaker having been honoured as “Speaker of the Year” by the world’s largest CEO network – The Executive Connection (TEC). Trudy is a regular speaker to Leaders and Boards and regularly presents on the topics of strategy, high performance organisations and leadership at Industry Associations, Conferences and Corporate Events. Her career is founded on an education in Organisational Psychology and spans Australia, New Zealand, the USA and parts of Asia.

www.talentcodehr.com.au
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