What Are Your Skills Worth?

Will Rogers is credited with saying “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

One way I know to short-circuit this is by learning from other people’s bad judgments. I do this by reading. And reading A LOT.

Learning hard lessons by reading how others dealt with things has helped me avoid some hard lessons and has also allowed me to move quickly through those hard times.

The issue with reading a lot is having accumulated plenty of knowledge but not putting it into practice.

One way I try to put what I read into practice is to share what I have read and learned with others. I do that through this blog, with my friends, my networking groups and in my masterminds.

The Perception Of Value

We are paid based on the perceived value we bring to a transaction.

If we have one year of experience, we likely bring less value to a job as someone with two years of experience. The other person is perceived to be bringing more value to the company and therefore would be paid more.

This is have hiring typically happens.

What if, like in college applications, we share with the hiring manager that we bring more to the table than just one year of experience?

A college applicant with a 4.0 GPA out of a possible 4.0 with no extra curriculum activities is more likely to be passed over for the 3.75/4.0 musician who also played two years of JV soccer and was a manager for the soccer team as a junior and senior.

Why? The second person brings more to the table than just intelligence (as measured by GPA).

When we show a hiring manager or a client the “extra” we bring to the table, our perceived value will increase.

The Power Of Negotiation

In Business Brilliant by Lewis Schiff*, he writes that in “the words of one popular negotiating guide, your salary discussion may be the only chance you ever get to make money at the rate of $1,000 per minute.”

How is it that we talk away from making $1,000 per minute?

Because “if you have ever accepted that first offer without even asking for more, you almost assuredly walked away from a significant pile of cash.”

This power of negotiation is something most of us were never taught in school.

Remember this, in life NO ONE is responsible for you but you.

You and your choices have led you to the place you are now and the only way to change your pay (contract work, vacation time, schedule, workload, etc.) is through the power of negotiation.

We do not have because we do not ask.

If you do not ask, the answer will always be no. If you ask, you have a fighting chance that the answer could be yes.

Do not fear to ask or negotiate. This applies to a client proposal or a salary negotiation.

During a job interview

If you have a job and are up for review and are told you can only get between 1-5% increase, ask for 6% or for something else.

If you are being hired at $50,000 starting salary, ask for $55,000. You can phrase it any way you want. You could try, “Based on what we talked about and the requirements of the job and the skills I bring to the job, I was thinking this job was in the $55-$60,000 range.”

The hiring manager has more room than they let on.

During a client proposal

Focus on the value the client will receive as a result of working with you. Then base your price based on the resulting value.

If your service can improve their bottom line by $10,000, you can reasonably set your price at $5,000. You make money and the client receives a 100% return on their investment.

Eaves Dropping

During my last vacation in New Hampshire, I was walking back to my rental house near Lake Winnipesaukee. I overheard two women talking about one of their jobs and how they were not making what she thought she should be making.

She said that men are more likely to make more because they ask for more. As I caught up to them and passed them, they quieted for a moment and then resumed.

I heard their conversation for another minute or so.

I wanted to stop and open my Kindle App on my phone to share “Chapter 3: Save Less, Earn More” of Business Brilliant by Lewis Schiff with these ladies because this is where Schiff discusses the 1995 work of Linda Babcock.

Babcock was an assistant professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University. She surveyed graduates and found that men made 7.6% more on average. She included some additional questions that showed 57% of men asked for more money but only 7% of women did.

So 93% of women and 43% of men lost out on $4,305 (the average pay increase those that negotiated were able to get).

According to Babcock’s salary survey, the so-called gender cap was actually a negotiation gap.

Know Yourself And Know Your Value

No matter what skills and abilities you have, you can negotiate.

Realize that each type of work has its ranges.

No matter how many years of experience you have, you cannot reasonably negotiate a $1 million salary as a teacher in the public school system.

Do your research on what the market can bear and negotiate!

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