Day Five: Follow Up
So, you’ve asked for a raise. Maybe you got it right away, or perhaps you got shot down entirely. Either way, there are some things you should do.
If you got the raise, or they are taking it to their manager, send your boss a thank you note. It doesn’t have to be anything super formal, just an acknowledgment of their willingness to be helpful. Don’t send it for a few days, so they know you are sincere, but keep it short. An email is fine. I have gone with something like the following in the past:
Hey [insert manager's name here],
Thanks for taking the time out of your day on Monday to talk to me about my compensation. I appreciate your willingness to [give me a raise, talk with your boss, whatever].
Talk to you soon,
Keith
If you need to follow up on something in a week, I’d write a line about that in the email too – that’s it. Short, simple, and to the point.
What if your boss shut you down? I would begin by still sending a note thanking them for their time. It’s important to realize that there may be unspoken reasons as to why they were unable to help you. I would also take any critiques from the meeting (if there were any) and work to resolve them. At the same time, keep in mind that you will have to prove it to them at some point, so be proactive and find a way to document your improvement. This way the next time your annual performance review comes up, you can be better able to respond.
If things went really poorly, or even if you just don’t feel like you are getting paid enough, now’s the time to start thinking about looking for a new job. If you got a raise, even if it wasn’t what you were hoping for, you got a signal from your boss that they value you and would be open to increasing your compensation in the future. But if all you got was negative feelings from the meeting, with nothing to hope for in the future, there’s no reason for you to stay.
Day Four: Take a deep breath and ask
Today is the day. You’re prepared. You’ve justified. You’ve scheduled the meeting with your boss, and given him the heads up on what it’s about. Now it’s time to pull the trigger and ask the tough question.
Ask you boss (or your bosses boss, whomever it is you have the meeting with) what he or she can do to help you get the raise you want. Be ready for some push back, but don’t expect it. The fact is, everyone you work for has asked their boss for a raise at some point, and if they’ve been working for a while they probably have helped other employees get the raise they wanted as well. The trick here is to make the conversation a collaboration, rather than an adversarial situation. The other thing you need to do is get your boss invested in your success.
This is actually easier than it sounds – it’s all about the phrasing. Remember that your boss is not the person paying you (unless he’s also the owner), so you aren’t actually taking money out of his pocket. I’ve found that the usual progression of this stuff goes like this:
Keith: Hey John, how’s it going?
John (boss, not his real name): Pretty good Keith – you said you wanted to chat about your salary?
Keith: Yeah, I was hoping you’d be willing to help me get a raise. How do you feel about that?
John: Well you know that I value the work you do for us, so I’ll see what I can do. How much were you thinking?
Keith: I’ve done some research and gotten an idea of what the going rate is for my position, but I thought I’d ask you what you thought would be reasonable and go from there since I know those numbers aren’t always accurate. What do you think is reasonable?
John: Well, I think I can get my boss to sign off on a $3500 raise, how does that sound?
(If whatever they offer you puts you in line with what you would ask for, thank your boss and get the heck out of there. If it’s off by quite a bit, continue on)
Keith: It sounds good, but I was hoping for a number closer to $8000, based on my years of experience and the quality of my work. What do I need to do so you can get me that $8000 raise?
(That last question is key, because it shows you are willing to put forth some additional effort)
John: If I talk really fast, I might be able to convince my boss to move the raise up to $5000, but I doubt he’d be willing to go much further than that. Let me see if he’d be agreeable to another salary review in about 6 months, but to get anything out of that he’ll probably insist on some help with one of his special projects. Would you be willing to do that?
Keith: Absolutely!
Okay, so maybe you didn’t get the whole raise that you wanted, but you did get some of it, and a chance at more in relatively short order. Then what? Well, you have to close the deal – but more on that tomorrow. Do you have any other tactics you’ve used to pull in a raise?
Day Three: Schedule a Meeting
Okay – you’ve collected your thoughts, and hopefully convinced yourself that you are worth the money you are getting to ready to ask your company to give you. Now it’s time to let your boss know you mean business.
The first thing to do is figure out who you need to talk to about this. In some cases, your direct manager has a great deal of influence over your salary, sometimes not. If you think it’s someone other than your direct manager, pop in on your manager, let them know that you are about to ask for a raise, and then ask for their help getting you in to see the right person. More importantly, ask them for advice on how to get what you want. More likely than not, your immediate boss will have some inside track on how to do this whatever the ‘right’ way is considered to be at your particular company. You can also ask them for their support during the discussion, either by going to bat for you with the manager that can make salary decisions, or some other way. They’ll also hopefully be able to tell you if it’s a bad time to ask, and what would be a better time. Take their lead on this, particularly if they are sympathetic and you feel like they will support you in this discussion.
If your direct manager is the one who sets your salary, you’ve probably got an easier time getting a raise than someone else might. The best way to broach the topic with your manager will probably depend on the person, but I generally go with a short email like this.
Hi John,
Do you have 15 minutes later this week to do a quick review of my performance and perhaps discuss a salary bump? I checked your calendar and it looks like you are available Wednesday at 3 and Thursday at 2:15. Which time is better for you?
Thanks,
Keith
Yeah, that’s it. I wouldn’t get into the nitty gritty over email, but I feel like it would be a really bad idea to catch your boss by surprise. But you also want to add two possible times to add that extra bit of seriousness and give you a bit of control. You don’t want the conversation to be right as the boss is running out the door on Friday or whatever other free minute they might have to spare.
Sounds simple, right? It is, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easy. Remember, you’re asking your boss for a favor, and in turn will hopefully get them invested in you as a person and not just as a producer of work. The worst thing you could do is make this a you vs. your boss issue, because then you’ll never get what you want. While your boss might have control over your salary, they will still have to jump through some hoops to get you a raise in most cases. And they will probably still have to talk their boss into it as well.
Day Two: Collect, Consider, and Compile
Yesterday we talked a bit about figuring out how much you’re worth to your company, with the goal of figuring out how much we can ask for during a discussion with our manager about salary. Today, we need to talk about building your case for that new, shiny salary we all want.
The goal here isn’t what you might think though – we’re not hear to talk about how good you are at the job you have. Rather, we want to collect two pieces of information:
- Things you do better than anyone else they would hire to do the job
- Proof that if they were to go out and find someone else, they’d have to pay them what you’re asking
Hopefully, your boss already likes you and knows that you are valuable to the team. If not, instead of asking for a raise you might consider just going out and finding a new job. Now, the idea isn’t to threaten your boss (actually, you want to get them invested in your success, but that’s a topic for another day), but rather to let them know that you are informed about the prospects for someone in your position, and to share that information with them in case they were not aware. If the conversation goes well, you may not even need this info you are preparing, but it’s good to have because much like yesterday’s salary research, it will give you some additional confidence that you are worth it.
For part one, you need to be able to demonstrate a proficiency that lacks elsewhere on your team. Maybe you’re not the highest producing developer on your team, but you’re the person the oil that greases the process for everyone else. Or perhaps you’re the team member who sticks their neck out to deal with troublesome customers so issues don’t get escalated to management. Or maybe you are the go-to guy when all hell breaks loose. Your boss probably already knows what it is they hired you to do, so highlight those things that you do without even being asked. And then write them down to bring with you to the meeting, because during stressful discussions like one regarding salary, it’s hard to remember some of these things. For each of the things you do like this, write down a specific example that answers the who, what, and why. Who did it impact? What was the end result? Why should your boss care? Cover those three things and you’ll find it much easier to talk about with your boss.
The second part is a bit harder – you need to demonstrate to your manager that the salary you’re asking for is the going rate for someone with your skills and experience. Print out some of those graphs and numbers on glassdoor.com and salary.com if you need. Check out freelancer websites (if the work you do is also done by freelancers) and quote some of the rates they are asking for similar work. This info you shouldn’t need at all during your meeting, unless the discussion starts to go in the direction of ‘other people would be willing to do it cheaper,’ but you should have it on hand none the less. Comparisons (like what they do at stores when they have a sale – leaving the original price on the tag to make the product look like a good deal) can be very valuable as a selling tool, particularly if you decide to ask for a bit less than the going rate.
Now that you’ve done these two things, prepare the info in a way that you would feel comfortable handing it over to your boss. Yes, for the most part they are you personal notes – but if your manager asks to see them, or wants you to forward them a copy after the meeting, you should be prepared to do so. This will show that you’re serious, which can be to your advantage.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about how to start the discussion, and cover some tactics you can use to get them working for you rather than the company.
Day One: Finding Out What To Ask For
The hardest part about asking for a raise, other than actually asking, is figuring out whether you have any chance of getting it, and how much to ask for. This can be a tough thing to figure out, but there are data points available for you to use.
The first thing to figure out is how much your counterparts at other companies make doing a similar job. You may think that your job is unique, but I assure you it isn’t. The first thing to do, assuming you don’t know how much your coworkers make, is to hit up a site like salary.com or glassdoor.com. If you’re at a smaller company, salary.com is probably a better resource, because it aggregates H.R. data from across the country to determine salary ranges for lots of different jobs. If you work with a larger firm, glassdoor.com may actually offer you a window into what the salaries are of people in your current company that are doing your same job. Either way, these numbers should only be used to give you a general idea of what you can get on the open market.
The second thing you should do is figure out if you are a top line employee, a bottom line employee, or a cost center. A top line employee is someone who actively makes money for their company. These people have the best chance of getting a raise because it is easy for them to quantify what having them does for the business, because they are bringing it in. They may be salespeople, or they could be the one providing service to the customer (as in an industry like consulting). Usually, these people can discuss raises with their bosses on a purely financial level. “I did $5,000,000 worth of business for the company last year and I feel like I deserve a bigger raise,” is something they might consider saying to their manager.
A bottom line employee is someone who saves the company money. These people have a harder time getting a raise because it’s harder to quantify their value to the company, but it can be done. These people might be administrative, finance, I.T., or any other of the support organizations within a company. If they are lucky, these people can discuss raises on a financial level, but more commonly they can discuss raises based on performance. “I saved your salespeople 200 man hours last year by implementing easier to use sales software and I feel like I deserve a bigger raise,” is something they might say during their salary review.
A cost center is an employee who costs the company money but is (hopefully) vital for some other reason. These employees have the hardest time getting raises, because it is very difficult to quantify what they provide to the organization that someone else could not. They might be janitors, office administrators, secretaries, or cafeteria workers. Usually they are significantly separated from the company’s primary business. Generally, these individuals can only discuss their personal performance, rather than their impact on others, during a salary review. “I made sure there were always pencils in the supply cabinet and I feel like I deserve a bigger raise” is something they might say during a salary review.
Okay, but here’s the kicker – any employee of a company can fall into more than one of those above slots. A normally bottom line employee, when on a call to help one of the salespeople with their computer, might help that salesperson land a big deal. It’s a big sliding scale. Ideally, you should be able to determine your value to the company in monetary terms, but everyone should be able to figure out how much time they are saving the company. Even a cost center employee could frame their job as a cost savings – without the janitor cleaning the bathroom stalls, more employees would get sick, which can be very costly for an organization.
The third thing you need to do is figure out exactly how much you are worth to the best of your ability. This has two purposes – it gives you ammo for your inevitable discussion with your manager, and it adds to your confidence that you actually deserve this raise. That is, assuming, that you determine you are as valuable as you think you are. If something comes up short, I would suggest taking a step back and figuring out how to increase your value to the company before continuing down this path.
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about collecting more discrete performance data to be presented during your salary discussion.
You want a raise?
Do you want a raise? Okay, so maybe that’s a silly question – everyone wants a raise. The fact is, if you’re at all interested in personal finance, all of the discussions hover around two points:
- Spend less than you earn
- Earn more
Seriously, those are the only two things that you can do to be financially independent. I’ve spent a bit of time talking about ways to increase your income outside of your primary career, but I think it’s time to discuss what might be called the dark side of ‘working for the man’ and talk some about asking for a raise.
Honestly, this topic is more complicated that you’d probably like – so this is going to be one of those mini-series like you see on TV, just hopefully with better acting (but probably not). I have quite a number of thoughts on the topic, although I’ll be the first to admit I’m no expert even though I’ve had some success getting sizable raises in the past.
Starting tomorrow, I’m going to have a 5 day series around this topic. Here’s what I plan to cover:
- Figuring out what you are worth the company and how much your skills go for on the open job market
- Collect info on what you do, how you’ve been performing, and how you’ve been making (or saving) the company money
- Scheduling the meeting with your manager
- Meeting Day – what to say and how to say it, the psychology of asking for a favor and getting your manager invested in your success
- Following Up – What should you do next, and how to be prepared for the next time
Do you see anything I missed? Let me know if there are other things you think I should be covering as well.
Doing it like strippers do
If you’re coming into this piece from Moolanomy, please check out some of my other pieces while you are here. Some of my most popular ones are Never Move For Money!, Fixing your W2 Withholding for Fun and Profit, and Sales, lies, and videotape.
I was talking with one of my readers today and he made a great point about yesterday’s post – I could have gone much further with it than I did. Rather than leave so much unsaid, I decided to do a follow up piece for today. Particularly since I have yet another bachelors party to go to this weekend.
Stripper Lesson #1 – Be Shameless
Strippers, like most other entertainers, have to have little or no shame, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to do what they do. While I’m not suggesting everyone run around naked, there is a lot to be said about being shameless, particularly when you’re talking about personal finance and entrepreneurship. Not only do you have to go out and ask for what you want, but you have to believe that you deserve it. There is no question that strippers believe they are worth whatever money you pay them to do their thing – follow their lead on this, they are on to something.
Stripper Lesson #2 – Be Aggressive
Strippers are nothing if not aggressive – they come right up to you and expect that you will hand over your hard-earned money to them, just because they are naked and in front of you. When was the last time you were that aggressive about getting exactly what you wanted? I’m willing to bet that whatever it was, you found a way to get it, didn’t you? It’s amazing was a bit of assertiveness can add to a situation, particularly if you are self-employed, or are trying to be.
Stripper Lesson #3 – Don’t Sell Yourself Short
Strippers will do different ‘things’ for differing amounts of money. A great example of this is that for a $1 (or a $5 if you’re in Vegas), the dancer will do something a bit special for you. However, if you wanted a lap dance for the same amount, they’d laugh in your face. They have a number in their head about what they think their ‘value’ is, and would rather walk away than accept less than that. This is a concept that freelancers and your regular old workers could both learn from – if you are willing to walk away from a job unless you got a raise, you’re a lot more likely to get that raise. Why? Because no one is going to value you more than you do, so if you don’t think you’re worth it, they won’t either.
Stripper Lesson #4 – Keep ‘em Coming Back
Once you’ve got someones attention, you have to hold on to it. If you start out strong, but end weak, your customer is going to remember the ending a lot more than the beginning. Strippers (well, the good ones at least) know this, so they save their best ‘tricks’ for near the end of their dances. Then you go back to your friends telling them how “it just kept getting better and better!” Can your employer (or customers) say the same thing about you?
Stripper Lesson #5 – Get Good Help
This is more of a strip club lesson, but it still applies. What is more important to a strip club than the strippers? The bouncers and bartenders. The bartenders lubricate your wallet, so you end up spending more, while the bouncers make sure nothing gets out of hand. Sometimes, the bouncers and the bartenders are the same people – I find that is particularly true in my professional life. The people I rely on most both break down barriers for me, and make sure that things don’t go too far down the wrong path.
Stripper Lesson #6 – Do It Low and Good
Okay, so this has a bit of a double meaning when you’re talking about a stripper, but the idea here is that you want to find something that you do well that is sale-able and has a low cost of entry. Writing, programming, photography, graphic editing, housekeeping, landscaping, and yes, stripping, all qualify here. I touched on this a bit yesterday, but anyone who wants to be wealthy needs to have something that one thing that pushes them over the edge. Either you have to spend less, or earn more. I’m firmly in the earn more camp – so figure out a way to do it!
Stripper Lesson #7 – Do It Like You Love It
I don’t know many strippers, but have you ever met (or heard of) a stripper who wasn’t at least a bit proud of their work? They certainly seem to be when they’re at the club – most of them walk around flaunting their stuff, daring you to look at them so they can pry a few more dollar bills out of your wallet. If you enjoy what you do, you’re going to do it better, and your customer or employer is going to be happier with what you’ve done. This is key, particularly if the work you are doing is something after your “real job,” because if you don’t love it, you won’t keep it up.
So, I guess the question is – are there any more lessons we could learn from strippers?
Invest in others
Yesterday I talked a bit about investing in yourself. I want you to make yourself another promise. All that stuff is great, and I think you should just go out and do it. No excuses. There’s something else you should be doing as well, before you even start thinking about becoming wealthy.
Invest in someone else.
This may seem crazy – I mean, how does this have anything to do with being wealthy? My definition of wealth is doing what you want, for whom you want, when you want. Life is about service and the people who are the wealthiest are providing some sort of amazing service for others. I don’t expect people to do that right away. I just expect them to serve someone.
I’m not talking about making them dinner or folding their socks (although Mom’s get tons of points in this regard), rather, I’m talking about finding some way to help someone in a meaningful way every week. Maybe you teach a coworker to do something they needed to know and didn’t before. Or you volunteer to speak on a college campus about something which you are knowledgeable. You could volunteer at a soup kitchen, teach a free yoga class, or maybe just listen to someone who’s having a rough time.
In the long run, these investments always pay dividends – ones that are even harder to predict than the ones from investing in yourself. You never know, one of those kids in that college class might start the next Fortune 500 company, and have such respect for you that you get asked to be on the board of directors. Someone in that soup kitchen might get back on their feet, end up your neighbor, and become a lifelong friend. Who knows? The only thing I know is that none of that will happen if you don’t spend a bit of your time on others.
Invest in yourself
Saving money is a great goal. I encourage everyone to save money ‘off the top’ of their income – don’t even include it in your budgeting, because that will almost guarantee failure. But before that, I want you to promise yourself something.
Promise to invest in yourself.
Personal finance blogs all over talk about the saving, making more money, and spending less than you earn. These are all great things. But rarely do they talk about investing in yourself. And I think you should do this before you save a cent.
A great example of investing in yourself is schooling. Getting your high school diploma, going to college, getting your M.B.A. Anything like that. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about something a bit more esoteric. I’m talking about taking a portion of every paycheck to make yourself better. Maybe you spend $50 on a few books from the Personal MBA’s reading list (and actually read them), maybe you take a cooking class from a local chef. Or if you’re shy, maybe you take some dancing lessons to learn how to be more comfortable with people in a social setting. It doesn’t really matter what you do, just that you do it. If you do just a little bit every week (or month, or whatever), rather than just resting on your laurels, not only will you learn something, but you’ll become a better person. And heck, what is living all about anyway if it isn’t that?
Writing this blog is part of my daily self-investment. I did a lot of writing around the ‘net in the late 90’s, before people even called these things blogs. Back then it was ezines, or whatever. I was OK at it and I had some success, but the bit of money I made really wasn’t the important thing that came out of it. The important thing was that I learned how to write. And more importantly, how to think like a writer (since you could argue that my English teachers taught me the mechanics). Writers, I’ve noticed, see the world colored by the topics about which they write. And the act of writing actually creates enlightenment, because it causes the brain to reorganize just a bit and look at things under a slightly different light.
The best part of investing in yourself is that it pays off in tiny little ways that are hard to quantify. You will seem just a bit more interesting than others. You’ll actually have enlightened opinions to share during a conversation. And just maybe that conversation will be during a job interview and that opinion will net you an extra $5000. Maybe you’ll be able to volunteer for a special project at work because you know how to write. Who knows? But don’t wait, start investing in yourself today.
Do you actually make a living?
I always thought that the term ‘making a living’ was kind of silly. It’s a turn of phrase that made a lot more sense when people generally manufactured things to make money, but what does it mean today? Very few of us actually build tangible goods anymore, something my father has equated with the downfall of our economy.
I like to take a more holistic approach to the concept – I think you need the following components to do more than merely survive:
- Enjoy what you do
- Do it in the service of others
- Be able to save for your dreams and the future
- Earn enough to live where you work
If everyone in the world were to look at their jobs in that light, I think a lot of them would fail on one or more points.
Enjoying what you do is critical to being wealthy – the old adage of ‘life is a journey’ definitely applies here. If you hate a third (or more, if you work a lot) of your existence, what the hell are you doing? I’ve heard people say you can either work for fun or work for money, but I think that’s crap. You can work for fun AND money, you just might have to work a bit harder than you think. But that’s OK – if you really enjoy it you won’t mind at all. If you love to cook but can’t get a high paying job as a chef, start a restaurant! I don’t know anything about starting a restaurant, but there are so many of them around I can’t believe it’s an insurmountable challenge. If you hate what you do, you’ll never be wealthy, regardless of how much money you have.
The second bullet is kind of strange, but I threw it in there because it meshes well with the concept of wealth not being just about money and getting rich. Successful people, I have found, are doing what they enjoy and at the same time are serving others. I’ll use the restaurant example again here – you aren’t just cooking, you’re feeding people – making them feel good. A great restaurant makes you want to come in, makes you feel great while you’re there, and makes you long to come back. If the people working there hate their jobs, you’ll never get that kind of feeling. It just won’t happen.
If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you either have a spending problem, aren’t making enough money, or both. To actually earn a living, you should be able to afford living where you work and to save for the future. If you can’t do those things, ask for a raise, and don’t take no for an answer. You’re worth it, trust me.
If you have all four of those components in your career, congratulations, you’re making a living. Do you think there’s anything I missed?
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So, you want to know what's up with the brackets in the name? "Curly brackets (also called braces, or "squiggly brackets") are sometimes used in prose to indicate a series of equal choices" and "Square brackets are mainly used to enclose explanatory or missing material usually added by someone other than the original author, especially in quoted text." So basically, if you really want to be wealthy in life, you have to figure out how to get happy. Since that whole spiel would make a crappy name for a blog, I decided to do something a bit creative with some brackets.
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