Let’s Work on Getting You a Raise

As my new friend Arina Nikitina tweeted me after the previous article on optimizing spending, making more money is absolutely key to paying of your debt quicker.

If all you ever do is cut back on your expenses, you’ll be on that hamster wheel your entire life.

Spend money, cut back. Spend money, cut back. Spend money, cut back. It’ll never end.

The only way to break out of this cycle to to begin to increase your income. There are a couple of simple ways to do this. We’ll talk about the first one today and the next one tomorrow.

By far the easiest way to do this, that most people just plain overlook, is by getting a raise at your current job.

The vast majority of us have jobs where we get paid either an hourly wage or a fixed salary, both of which are able to be modified based on performance, etc.

In the past two years since I write this post, I’ve personally been able to raise my annual salary around $15,000, which makes a pretty huge difference.

What Would Your Raise Need to Be to Make a Significant Life Difference?

Let’s be honest. If you’re working on paying off debt, you’re probably not buying a luxury yacht anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean you can’t think about what kind of raise you would need to get in order to make a significant difference in your life.

My question to you is, if you got a raise, how much would it take to change your life in a significant way?

• How much would it take to eradicate that debt in just a couple of years?
• How much would it take to get you into a better car?
• What do you need to buy that dream house in a beautiful neighborhood?
• What do you need to be able to achieve your travel goals?

$3,000, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000?

All of these are doable, and I’ve seen them all happen first-hand. And the best thing about getting a raise is you go through the process once, and you get paid for the rest of your life.

You can literally spend 5-10 hours making this happen, and it can make a six figure difference in your life. Show me something that will make a bigger impact!

But getting a raise doesn’t happen in the way most people approach it. It doesn’t happen with a super awkward salary negotiation conversation where emotions are high and tempers are flaring.

It happens with a strategic approach to providing as much value as possible to the company you work for. Let’s examine that process now.

(Spoiler Alert: Coming up later this year I’ll be going much deeper into this topic)

How to Get a Raise Without the Worry

Getting a a raise first comes down to getting over a few mental barriers that most people have. These are little scripts that we have buried in our subconscious that tell us things like:

• I’m too young to get a raise
• I haven’t been here long enough
• I don’t have enough skills to get paid more
• I’ll get fired if I ask for a raise

Go ahead and get over these scripts right now. You’ll never get a raise if you don’t believe you will.

The worst thing that’s going to happen is your employer will tell you “not yet” and they’ll likely applaud your ambition in that case as well as give you ways that you can improve.

If you’re reading this post, you’re in a league of people unlike the rest. You care about your betterment and want to be highly successful with your career and your life. You likely deserve a raise, so get after it.

Don’t Do What Most People Do

Most people go into asking for a raise by doing just that, and only that.

They passively bring up that they would like to be paid more to their manager, get told no, do nothing more about it, and then complain that they don’t get paid enough.

Here’s the thing…

If you want to accomplish a goal, whatever that goal is, you have to get really intentional about it. Getting intentional means you have to create a strategy and execute that strategy until you’ve completed your goal.

It’s not a failure until you’ve stopped trying.

A goal won’t just happen on it’s own. No one is going to do it for you.

That’s no different for getting a raise. If you want this to happen you’ve got to get strategic about it.

Discover and Document Your Value

One of the first questions you’re going to get asked when you being your process to get a raise is something along the lines of “Why do you feel you deserve a raise?”

You want to be overly-prepared for this question, because it’s what is going to determine if your manager thinks you’re serious and willing to put in some effort, or if you’re just complaining.

Sit down and take some time to think about this question.

How have your responsibilities and skills changed over the time since your last pay increase (or since you were hired if you’ve never gotten a raise)?

• What certifications have you gotten?
• What skills have you learned?
• What results have you achieved for the company?

This last question is huge. Always remember that this isn’t about you. It’s about the business value you provide to your company. I can’t say that enough.

Being able to document and explain the value you provide to your company and how your skills have increased is a huge step in the right direction. This makes things so you’re not just asking for a raise blindly. You’re actually providing physical evidence that you are now much more valuable than you were.

Once you’ve created this list, compare your role to similar roles on websites like these to answer the question – “What am I worth?”

• Glassdoor.com
• Salary.com
• Payscale.com
• Indeed.com

We often sell ourselves short when determining how much we are worth.

Doing this kind of research will help give you quantitative data when making this determination. This goes a long way when trying to justify your raise request to your employer as well.

This will also help you determine what your “ask” salary number will be, which is what you’ll use to begin your salary conversation.

Provide Value and Get Yourself Noticed

Before you ask for a raise, you want to make sure that you’re providing the highest amount of business value possible to your company and that your manager is aware of that fact.

Set up a recurring meeting with your manager and ask what types of projects you can work on in order to help meet the current goals of the business.

Make sure your projects are completely aligned with those goals. If you’re working on anything you shouldn’t be, replace those projects with ones that provide a high amount of business value.

You can even bring ideas of your own if you have any. This is a great way to show a level of proactive business involvement and ambition.

Also ask how you can make your manager’s life easier. This never hurts when you’re asking them to “go to bat” for you in a salary conversation.

Do this every couple of weeks and make sure you’re staying on track and providing the value you should be providing in your position.

Once you’ve established a good rapport and have shown some value, you can being the compensation adjustment talks.

How Can We Make This Happen?

It may take a couple of months until you’re ready to begin discussing the fact that you would like a raise, and this is absolutely fine. You’re going to be in much better shape after you have demonstrated your value.

Once you’re ready, approach your manager with the number you determined when doing your salary research. It’s important that you determine what you would like to be paid based on your research.

If you let the company determine this for you, they’re likely to pay you less than what your number would be. You want to do what is called “anchoring” in this case.

Assuming you have been able to justify a salary range that is ideal for you and that is fair to your company, you want to start your discussions at the top of that salary range. You’ll likely work down a little bit from there, but your ending number will likely be far higher than what your company will offer you.

Again, you want to be in control of this process. If you let someone else control it you’re less likely to get the result you want.

The key phrase when you begin your discussion is this:

“I feel like I’ve come a long way in the last couple of years. I’d like to explore a compensation increase to something in the [$$$] range. How can we make this happen?”

The phrase “How can we make this happen?” does a lot of things.

• It puts you on the same team working towards the same goal
• It’s open-ended and avoids a Yes/No response
• It helps you begin to determine next steps to get your raise

It’s possible your manager may not be ready to give you a raise yet, or they have to go through some sort of approval process.

When this happens, use the phrase “What’s the next step?” Again, this forces a response and keeps the conversation moving.

It’s possible you’ll need to learn some additional skills or wait a bit, but that’s OK. The process is still moving forward, and remember it’s always on you to keep it that way.

What to Do If They Say “No”

From this point, you’ll usually be able to determine if you’re on the path to getting a raise, or if you’re going to get a “No.”

Getting told no is nothing more than getting told “not yet.”

Your goal here is to continue to conversation. Make it clear that you’re committed to being a high performing employee and ask what you need to do in order to get to that number.

Use the phrase “What can I do to get to this level of compensation?”

Determine what steps you need to take, set up arrangements to take those steps, then make sure you circle back with your manager once you’ve taken those steps.

Continue to relationship with them along the way in order to make sure you’re providing as much value as possible to the company.

Nailing Your Salary Review

You’ll likely have some sort of formal or information conversation when you are getting your compensation increase.

This can be a little bit of a nerve-racking situation. It can often be full of executives and people you don’t work with on a daily basis.

Try to get your manager to participate with you if you can. They’ll be an advocate for you and can often make you feel much more comfortable in this sometimes awkward situation.

They may ask you to justify what you are asking for.

This is where your research and documentation comes into play. Bring your research from the websites listed above, and bring the comparison documentation of how your skills and responsibilities have changed over time.

This takes the pressure off of you when they ask you these questions. All you have to do is refer to your documentation, and you’re golden!

Stick to the numbers you initially determined in your research. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you deserve.

If your employer tries to downplay your research, politely remind them that this is data from several independent sources. This is also a good point to bring our your skills and responsibilities documentation to justify your comparisons.

It’s possible there will be some back and forth during this process and you’ll likely end up with a number that is fair to both sides.

Just make sure before you accept anything that you don’t feel like you’re “settling” for something that is far lower than what you initially determined. This is likely going to be your salary for years to come. You want to make sure you’re happy with it.

Tip: You can also negotiate on different things such as vacation time, company vehicles, tuition reimbursement, paid mobile data plans, etc. These are other ways you can improve your expenses without asking much of your employer.

Be Gracious

One final point that I want to make here is to be gracious to your employer. They are not your enemy. They are your lifeblood and help make sure you have the lifestyle you want to live.

Always be gracious, polite, and thank them for what they have provided to you.

You never want to get into an “us vs them” mentality with your employer. This is a great way to hate your job and your life, and it’s not going to get you a pay increase any time soon 🙂

Personally, without the company that I work for, I know I would be in a far different situation than I am. I’m very gracious every day to have them in my life.

Put Your Extra Towards Your Debt

It’s likely going to be a couple of months before your raise kicks in, but once it does make sure you’re putting the majority of it towards paying off your debt.

It’s OK to reward yourself a little but, but be sure not to fall into the trap of thinking “I’m making more now, so I can spend more.”

This kind of mentality will get you into debt further.

Put that extra money towards eliminating your debt. Make sure you stay on track towards that goal.

Making More on the Side

Let’s review how far we’ve come. So far we have:

• Created a payment plan to pay off your debt quickly
• Optimized your spending to plug the leaks in your cash flow
• Taken steps to get you a raise to increase your income

Next up is continuing to increase what you pull in to make even more money.

First, we’re going to take a look at freelancing, which we’ll talk about tomorrow, and I’ll reveal a world-class resource to help you get started making your own money on the side.

Be on the lookout for that. We’ll talk soon

– Cody