1-Day Intensive Workshop · Online & In Person

Every hour you invoice,
you put a price tag
on your freedom.

A full-day intensive for freelancers and independent consultants who want to stop selling time and start negotiating agreements that reflect their real value — and change the relationship with their clients for good.

Reserve My Seat — €499,99 See the Program

"Whoever sells their time sells their freedom."
— Jacopo Romei, TEDx L'Aquila

📅
1 full day · 9:00 – 17:30
🌐
Online & in-person editions
👥
Small cohorts · max 20 participants
📗
Book included

The Problem

The way most knowledge workers
negotiate is broken.

You're a skilled professional. You have rare knowledge and real expertise. Yet somehow you end up in the same trap: quoting hourly rates, justifying your effort, defending your time. Something is wrong — and it's not you.

"How many days will it take?"

You're asked to account for your time, not your impact. But the value you generate has nothing to do with hours spent. The wrong question leads to the wrong contract.

Fixed price or daily rate — both feel wrong

Fixed prices punish complexity. Day rates commoditize your expertise. There is a third way — and it starts with a radically different kind of agreement.

You're negotiating with the wrong person

The person across the table often can't say yes. Without the real decision-maker, any agreement is just a draft — and a fragile one at that.

You keep undercharging

Not because you lack confidence, but because your contracts aren't structured to capture value. The architecture of the deal is the problem — not you.

The Eight Principles

A framework built on real negotiations.

Extreme Contracts is not a script or a technique. It's a set of principles distilled from real-world knowledge work engagements — each one tested, each one actionable, each one challenging some assumption you probably hold right now.

Principle 01

SKIN IN THE GAME

"If you fail, I fail. If I fail, you fail." The most powerful move in any negotiation is to share the risk — and align everyone's interests with the actual outcome, not the effort invested.

Principle 02

IN THEIR SHOES

We tend to see what we want to see. The ability to step fully into your counterpart's perspective — not just intellectually, but emotionally — is what transforms a deal into a collaboration.

Principle 03

TALK TO THE GRINDER

Trust doesn't exist between organizations. It exists between people. "Never trust the words of a man who is not free." Negotiate only with those who can actually say yes — and mean it.

Principle 04

VALUE-CENTERED

What is the value at stake? That's the only question that matters. Contracts built around value — not effort, not time, not deliverables — create agreements everyone genuinely wants to honor.

Principles 05 – 08

And four more.

Explored together during the workshop. Theory only makes sense in context — which is why all Eight Principles are practiced through real cases and live exercises, not slides.

The Program

One day. Eight principles.
Real deals.

The workshop alternates between conceptual depth and hands-on practice. Expect to be challenged, to roleplay real negotiations, and to leave with tools you'll use the very next day.

09:00 – 09:30

Opening: Why conventional contracts fail

  • The time-for-money trap and why knowledge workers are most vulnerable to it
  • What a contract is actually trying to do — and what it typically fails to do
  • Self-diagnosis: mapping your current negotiation habits and assumptions
09:30 – 11:00

Part I — The Negotiation Landscape

  • Upstream vs. downstream: where most negotiations go wrong before they even start
  • Your backup plan is your upper hand: leverage, BATNA, and the Tao of Negotiation
  • Trust as the ultimate contract: from trust batches to trust streams
  • Interactive exercise: What would you do if you were them?
11:15 – 12:30

Part II — Three Real Cases

  • Xrother and the Tender: Skin in the Game and value-based pricing in a multi-million-euro deal
  • T-actix and Software: collaborative contracts in a software development engagement
  • Anonima Armonisti: a music collective and an extreme agreement for live concerts
  • What each case reveals about the Eight Principles in practice
13:30 – 15:00

Part III — The Eight Principles in Full

  • All Eight Principles — from conceptual framing to real-world application
  • Which principles are most relevant to your specific situation
  • Live negotiation simulation: apply the principles in pairs
  • Group debrief: what worked, what didn't, and why
15:15 – 16:30

Part IV — Designing Your Extreme Contract

  • Identify your most important current or upcoming engagement
  • Apply the principles: redesign the agreement structure from scratch
  • Peer review: challenge and improve each other's proposals
  • Exit status: how to define and measure success in your contract
16:30 – 17:30

Wrap-Up: Open Q&A and Next Steps

  • Open Q&A with Jacopo on your specific situations and challenges
  • Resources, further reading, and community
  • Your 30-day action plan

Is this for you?

This workshop is not for everyone.

Extreme Contracts is for knowledge workers ready to rethink how they negotiate — not looking for a sales script, a pricing formula, or a shortcut.

✓ This is for you if...

  • You're a freelancer or independent consultant selling knowledge, not time
  • You feel you consistently undercharge for what you deliver
  • You're tired of defending your rates instead of demonstrating your value
  • You want to turn clients into genuine collaborators, not just buyers
  • You've lost deals because your proposal felt "too different"
  • You're willing to put skin in the game and rethink your risk
  • You work in software, consulting, design, training, or any knowledge-intensive field

✕ This is not for you if...

  • You want a step-by-step negotiation script to memorize and repeat
  • You want to be told exactly what to charge
  • You sell products, not knowledge or services
  • You believe contracts are just legal formalities to sign and forget
  • You're not willing to challenge your current assumptions
[ YOUR PHOTO HERE ]

Your Facilitator

Jacopo Romei

Author · Speaker · Extreme Contracts

Jacopo Romei is the author of Extreme Contracts: Knowledge Work from Negotiation to Collaboration and one of Europe's most distinctive voices on how independent professionals negotiate, price their work, and build lasting client relationships.

He has facilitated workshops and spoken at conferences across Europe — from Italy to Sweden, Portugal to the UK — working with software teams, freelance consultants, and organizations that want to move beyond adversarial contracting.

His TEDx talk at L'Aquila — "Chi vende il proprio tempo vende la propria libertà" — sparked a conversation that continues to this day: that selling time is, at its core, selling freedom. Extreme Contracts is his practical answer to that provocation.

10+
Years of XC
🌍
International
TEDx
Speaker
📗
Published Author

What Participants Say

From people who've been in the room.

Real quotes from workshop participants and readers — across Italy, Sweden, Portugal, the UK, and beyond.

"[Paste tweet from @GregerWikstrand here]"

Greger Wikstrand

@GregerWikstrand · Workshop participant

"[Paste tweet from @aleron75 here]"

@aleron75

Workshop participant

"[Paste tweet from @duarte_vasco here]"

Vasco Duarte

@duarte_vasco · #NoEstimates

"[Paste tweet from @mathiasverraes here]"

Mathias Verraes

@mathiasverraes · Consultant & DDD

Investment

One day that changes how
you negotiate. Forever.

Both editions — online and in-person — deliver the same full experience. Same depth, same exercises, same Jacopo. The format is the only difference.

🌐  Online Edition

€499,99

+ VAT where applicable · per person

  • Full 1-day live session via video conference
  • Interactive exercises and breakout rooms
  • Copy of Extreme Contracts (digital)
  • Session recording access (30 days)
  • 30-day post-workshop Q&A with Jacopo
  • Certificate of participation
Register — Online →

📍  In-Person Edition

€499,99

+ VAT where applicable · per person

  • Full 1-day workshop in the room with Jacopo
  • Hands-on exercises and live negotiation roleplay
  • Copy of Extreme Contracts (physical + digital)
  • Coffee, lunch, and all printed materials included
  • 30-day post-workshop Q&A with Jacopo
  • Certificate of participation
Register — In Person →

Group rates available for 3+ participants from the same organization.  Get in touch →

FAQ

Questions.

Is this workshop based on the book?+
Yes — and it goes further. The book is a companion, not a prerequisite. You don't need to have read it beforehand. Every participant receives a copy (physical for in-person, digital for online) so you can deepen the experience after the day.
Is the online edition as good as in-person?+
Genuinely, yes — with a different texture. Online sessions use breakout rooms and collaborative tools to replicate the interactive quality of being in the room. Many participants prefer online because it removes travel friction and allows people from different countries to join together.
I'm a salaried employee, not a freelancer. Is this relevant?+
The principles are designed for knowledge workers who negotiate the terms of their engagements — but many apply whenever you're trying to align interests and create agreements that actually work. If you manage external suppliers, run internal negotiations, or are thinking about going independent, you'll find plenty here.
What if I can't make the next date?+
Get in touch at jacopo@scalingtales.com and we'll keep you informed about upcoming editions. You can also register your interest to be notified as soon as new dates are announced.
Can my company book a private edition for our team?+
Yes. Corporate editions — private, tailored to your team and context — are available. These can be adapted to your industry, your typical contracts, and your specific challenges. Contact Jacopo directly to discuss.
Is there a money-back guarantee?+
That would be very Extreme Contracts of us, wouldn't it? Yes — if by the end of the morning session you feel the workshop is not for you, let Jacopo know and you'll be refunded in full. No awkward conversations, no fine print. That's what Skin in the Game looks like in practice.

Stop selling time.
Start negotiating value.

One day is all it takes to rethink how you work — and what you're worth. Seats are limited to keep it real.

Reserve My Seat — €499,99 →