Getting Over 'Too Shy To Make Waves'

Those were the words describing a potential client from a referral source. She is “too shy and quiet to make waves.” It got me thinking, again, that everyone would like to earn more money but few are willing to do what it takes to make it so. Overcome by fear and doubt many of us sit back and let others decide for us what we are worth and that decision has ripple effects throughout our lives and our children’s lives.

Indeed asking for what you want is scary. As a person who spends a lot of time at my state capitol ensuring that women have equal opportunity to the fattest paychecks, I get scared. Knowing that not everyone agrees with me and that I am going to ‘make waves’ and maybe even a few enemies, I understand scary. I also know, just beyond scary, is freedom.  Consider these tips when its time to negotiate your salary or ask for a pay raise:

1. Accept your fear and move through it. Acknowledge that you are afraid, own the fear, allow it to express itself, embody it, breathe it, then step through it. It helps to practice asking for a raise or negotiating your salary with another person. As Mark Twain once said: “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”
2. Know what you want. Crunch the numbers. How much do you need to pay your bills and put money away for savings? Then pick a range of salaries that fall into your comfort zone. Commit to not accepting the first offer even if it is near the top of your range. When the offer is unexpectedly high you have undervalued your skills.
3. Believe in your own skills and abilities. Feel free to check out any online resources like salary.com or payscale.com. Use this information as intelligence collecting. Then decide for yourself what your skills are worth by understanding how your boss will use them. Assigning a value to your work helps. “My $40K salary will bring X dollars into the company”. “My $100K salary represents a 50% ROI for my employer.” The monetary value of your work is the amount of money the company will save, the new business you’ll bring into the firm, etc.
4. Know others have done it and you can to! The colleague that referred my work to a potential client soon emailed me back. It turns out the potential client was not too shy or too quiet to ask:

“Well – I sent off the counter offer and did ask for more $…..more than I was originally planning on asking for.

I ended up talking with a good friend of mine who is in the same field who moved to the DC area a year or two ago. That was really helpful. I looked at your friend’s website and some other sites as well.

I’m actually way above the average salary for the job I’m going in to…..but I have a lot of experience – and I have experience in other areas so that I’m going to be able to add value in other areas of their operations as well. That was what my friend _______ helped point out. So – it made me feel more comfortable justifying asking for a higher salary.”

Accept your fears, know the salary you want, believe in your skills and abilities. Know others have asked for more, got what they wanted, and so can you.

Join me September 18th in Minneapolis for Your Six Figure Success Story. I’ll be moderating a panel of $100k+ earners!

Let us know how it goes or what you think! We would love to hear from you.