You work hard for a living. You know what you’re worth, and you can prove it by pointing at the results. So why, then, is it still so difficult to negotiate that raise you’ve earned with your own blood, sweat, and tears? Try these tips when the time is right, and you could be smiling an even bigger smile on payday. By Dave Luis
“I’ve been looking at the team’s salaries,” the new boss said to me. “There are huge disparities between pay and responsibilities and I think we need to review things.”
I went ice-cold. I’d been with the company for just eight months and they really didn’t pay well. My ends didn’t meet. In fact they barely spoke to each other and on the odd occasion they did meet, it was only to wave goodbye to each other. I couldn’t afford to take a knock in salary.
“Must I do more?” I was working flat out but I would just have to suck it up and put in extra hours. She turned to me and put her hand on mine as if to calm me, and said: “Dave, you can’t possibly do any more than you already do! I meant that there are people on this team doing nothing and being paid huge sums for it.”
I’ve never been a good judge of my own worth, and this crazy salary conversation was proof. It took my boss’s fresh eyes to reveal this.
A few months later, after team mates had been redeployed and the workload redistributed, I had another meeting with her.
“Can we talk about a raise? Um…I need to earn more…” I asked.
Well, that went down like a ton of bricks. Completely unsure of myself, and still not feeling I brought value to the company, I was hardly in a position to start negotiating higher pay.
Months passed. I racked up successful campaigns and projects, and finally management took notice and I got a raise. But on the way to getting it, I nearly burned myself out. Doing so would have taken my lack of self-worth and fears of not delivering and turned them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
After getting that raise, it took a few months of looking at how I fitted into the bigger company picture and what I should have been doing (a lot), versus what I actually did (a whole lot more) to understand that I was doing a damn good job, and that I got that raise because I deserved it, not because I asked for it.
What I learned through this personal revision was to speak with a confident voice, especially when talking to management, and to have numbers, facts and figures ready to back up what I was saying. I had been hired to do a job and to keep up with what that job required. I researched and read all the articles and thought pieces I could find online, to learn what the industry was doing and where it was heading.
I networked with people in agencies, getting advice and asking questions about how they built campaigns and serviced clients. I learned that at the office nobody knew my role better than I did and that made me feel the confidence I spoke with.
I’ve since moved on, and up. Earning more and doing less tasks, but enjoying more success by doing a few key focused tasks. I am no longer the Jack of All Trades. I delegate and say “No!” to tasks that are not in the scope of my job. This has freed me up to take on more responsibilities in line with my career path. I am more confident in what I do and I innovate and deliver. Finally, I know my worth!
I’ve made a short list of tips to help you negotiate that crazy salary conversation:
- Know your worth: Check out local online salary surveys and speak to people doing the same job in other companies, so you know the salary benchmark.
- Timing is everything: The best time to ask for a raise is right after you’ve completed a successful project. Don’t wait for annual reviews.
- Prove your worth: When you sit down to talk to your boss, have the stats, facts and figures of your most recent successful projects on hand.
- Be confident! Don’t be shy, timid or too embarrassed to ask for a raise. Be as confident in yourself as you are in the quality of your work. If you don’t believe in yourself, how are you going to sell your boss on the idea of a raise?
- Take on more responsibility: Sometimes it’s a waiting game. If the timing is not right for you to get that raise, offer to take on some more responsibilities so that when it is time to talk raises, you’re right up there, at the top of the list.
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