December 15, 2023 – Price Negotiating Claire Stepanek and LA Times Columnist & TV Writer Doug McIntyre

December 15, 2023 – Price Negotiating Claire Stepanek and LA Times Columnist & TV Writer Doug McIntyre




Claire Stepanek – Founder and CEO of ergo – Pricing Platform 

A lot of the stereotypes about negotiations are completely wrong. People
think you have to play good cop bad cop or put on different roles when
you are negotiating, but none of that seemed true for me. I found that the
most successful negotiations were very simple when I was authentic.

Claire Stepanek

Claire Stepanek is the founder and CEO of ergo, a startup developing pricing software that gives consumers an option to negotiate pricing with retailers through an online software plugin. Stepanek came up with the idea for ergo while working on the supply chain team at Apple, which manages the vendors that make the parts that flow into Apple products, where she found the most successful strategy for often negatively labeled “stressful negotiations” was to be authentic and keep it simple. Claire and ergo’s vision is to build out analytics for stores so they can gain value while also boosting revenue and sales and learning about the market. The company is also working to get products and features out for the impending holiday shopping season.





Doug McIntyre – Long-time Columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News and Orange County Register and Author of Frank’s Shadow

How do you get published? Don’t give up. This book is a
testimony to
that. I literally started it 25 years ago!

Doug McIntyre

Doug McIntyre is the long-time columnist for the Southern California News Group which includes the Los Angeles Daily News and Orange County Register, as well as the creator of Red Eye Radio heard nationally on hundreds of radio stations. He also hosted a successful show on WABC in New York City and the long-running “McIntyre in the Morning” on KABC in Los Angeles. A television and film writer/producer, McIntyre has written for all the major networks, including the hit series, Married… With Children, WKRP in Cincinnati, Full House, Mike Hammer, and the award-winning PBS series, Liberty’s Kids. As an emcee, Doug has hosted evenings with Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, President George W. Bush, Betty White, Misty Copeland, John Cleese, John Glenn, Ken Burns, Malala Yousafzai, Colin Powell, Robert Redford, and many others. Doug and his wife, actress/writer Penny Peyser, wrote/directed and produced the award-winning documentary, Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon. New York-born and raised, Doug and Penny live in Los Angeles.