The #1 Way to Get a Raise – with Total Integrity

“I just believe that the way that young people’s minds develop is fascinating. If you are doing something for a grade or salary or a reward, it doesn’t have as much meaning as creating something for yourself and your own life.”

Steve Wozniak

For several decades, I’ve have helped a wide-range of individuals in how to find the work that is most meaningful for them. I’m not a float across the room in a saffron robe to hit the gong kind of guy. Orchestrating practical success is just as critical in finding happiness with one’s work. Getting paid one’s true worth is especially difficult for individuals where the job is treated as an expense as well as in industries that are shrinking rather than growing.

When a client asks the best means of getting a raise, I begin with many of the common ways people go about this pursuit with often negative outcomes. When someone gets a new job and takes a counter-offer, he or she is now the disloyal member of team. Often, the organization is buying time to find a suitable replacement. Another big problem emerges from the “entitlement” presentation. You’ve worked at the organization for a really long time without an adequate raise. Employers don’t respond well to the entitlement, victims, and martyrs. If you’ve waited to let your frustration with pay grow to this point, you have waited way too long. Consequently, there is a tendency to overreach in asking for a raise. You want to make it as easy as possible for a boss to raise your income.

First remember this basic behavioral fact in sales:

Human beings are hard-wired to think about something other than themselves for a maximum of 15-seconds. This is why making pitches are such an ineffective way of selling anything.

If people are always thinking of themselves, than it is much healthier to not make the raise about you. Speak to his or her expectations and needs.

Be gracious. Be appreciative.

Make it clear that you enjoy working there. Tell them what kind of money you want to make and ask the question,

“What kind of problem can I solve, money that I can bring in or expenses can I save in order to make that?”

Now, zip it! Every time you try and explain your request or point-of-view, you lose power. Let the boss ask clarifying questions. Stay on point. Unless you have uncovered a significant income disparity with peers, be prepared to earn the raise. More often than not, organizational leaders welcome conversations like this. Ask, in detail, what you can do to become more valuable. Identify particulars such as time lines, deliverables, anyone that can help you as well as any other actions that can increase the probability of success.

Afterwards, send thank you note and include the agreement.

Now, go do it.

Businesses are about making and saving money.

Non profits are about finding and making good use of money.

When talking about money, center your attention on generating or saving more money and it will become easier for them to give you exactly what you want. And, if they won’t, that is important information.

Simple?

I worked with the CEO of a well-known, category-leading firm in the entertainment industry. Whenever I visited her company, I witnessed the chaos and energy that is so typical of the type of business she ran. But, what struck me the most was the fact she was always sitting in the middle of this vortex as calm as Bhudda. One day, I asked how she did it. Her response? “Early on, I knew that if I made too much of every transaction, I would be crazy. So, I adopted one simple philosophy that has always worked. It is,

“You either get the part or you don’t.”