Pay UP! Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiation
By Kate Dixon
()
About this ebook
Just the thought of negotiating your salary can feel terrifying. But here's a secret: pay negotiation doesn't have to be scary.
For over 20 years, Kate Dixon has coached clients of all backgrounds through pay negotiations and worked inside all types of organizations managing pay and creating offers. Now, she's sharing her secrets about the process so you can confidently negotiate your package and earn what you deserve.
With the clear explanations, actionable tips, and valuable client stories in Pay UP: Unlocking the Secrets of Salary Negotiation, you'll learn:
- The terms and concepts you'll encounter — and what they mean for you
- What to research and how to find everything you need to know
- What to say and do (and what NOT to)
- How to shift your mindset to become more confident and competent
- What assumptions are holding you back and how to leave them behind
Whether you're a top executive or fresh out of school, this step-by-step system will help you create your negotiating plan from the ground up — starting with your research and ending with accepting your dream offer!
Kate Dixon has helped her clients walk away from negotiations feeling heard and valued — and you can, too. Are you ready?
Kate Dixon
Kate Dixon is the Principal and Founder of Dixon Consulting, a leadership development and total rewards consultancy that specializes in salary negotiation coaching, compensation solutions, as well as workshops and teambuilding for organizations of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 100 companies. Kate’s passion is helping diverse leaders around the world accelerate their results to become more successful and more fulfilled. She’s the author of Pay UP! Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiation, and creator of The True Leadership Workshop; Name Your Price: Setting and Raising Your Freelance and Consulting Rates; True You: Creating Your Personal Brand; and Your Best Year Yet: Action, Reflection, Achievement. Kate has spent the past 25 years working for and consulting with leaders in for-profit companies including Nike, Intel, American Express, Mercari, and Kaiser Permanente, as well as non-profits like The Learning Policy Institute, One Community Health, DePaul Industries, Period, and the Nike Community Impact Fund. She’s a certified coach, sits on the Forbes Coaches Council, and has been certified in compensation for over 20 years. Kate speaks for groups and gives podcast interviews on topics including salary negotiations, discovering your principles, authentic leadership, time management, leadership coaching, life planning, and gratitude. Kate provides advice about leadership, pay, culture, and organizations to subscribers at katedixon.org.
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Pay UP! Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiation - Kate Dixon
PAY
UP!
Unlocking Insider Secrets of
Salary Negotiation
KATE DIXON
Oceanside Press • Portland, Oregon
Copyright 2020 Katherine E. Dixon
All rights reserved.
So. The legalese.
I give advice and counsel, combined with opinions, notions, and hypotheses gathered from many (many!) years of experience. That said, none of what I say, write, teach, or believe should substitute for your own judgement and/or good sense.
While some of the work I do with clients can seem like magic, it really isn’t. It’s the combination of my clients’ motivation, hard work, insights, and dedication, plus a good bit of perspective coming from me.
Even though these techniques work for my clients, they may not work for you. I do not guarantee your outcomes or results. It’s really up to you, and how (and when and how hard) you choose to apply what you learn. It is my hope that reading these success stories will help motivate and inspire you to achieve your own personal successes. You are responsible for your own choices, actions, and results.
This book is only for informational and educational purposes and should not be considered therapy or any form of treatment. The information contained in this book is accurate to the best of my knowledge at the time of publishing. References are provided for informational purposes only, and readers should be aware that the websites listed in this book may change. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided here, neither I, my publisher, nor our collective affiliates or partners, assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident or another cause. We specifically disclaim any warranties (implied or otherwise) and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other loss or damage, including, but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages, whether direct or indirect.
Except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law, any reproduction, presentation, distribution, transmission, or commercial use of the concepts, strategies, methods, materials, and all trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property owned by Dixon Consulting, LLC (Kate Dixon
) in any media, now known or hereafter invented, is prohibited without the express written permission of Kate Dixon and Oceanside Press.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dixon, Kate, author.
Title: Pay up! : unlocking insider secrets of salary negotiation / Kate Dixon.
Description: Portland, OR : Oceanside Press, 2020. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020915257 (print) | ISBN 978-1-7346992-6-5 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1-7346992-1-0 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-7346992-0-3 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Wages. | Negotiation. | Negotiation in business. | Job offers. | Employment interviewing. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Negotiating. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Careers / Job Hunting.
Classification: LCC HF5549.5.I6 D59 2020 (print) | LCC HF5549.5.I6 (ebook) DDC 650.14--dc23.
For Steve, Liz, and Jay
Chapter 0
Introduction
Negotiating your salary can be terrifying. There are so many things to get wrong, you may not even know when you’re doing it right.
I understand that fear. If this will be your first time negotiating pay, your anxiety is probably off the charts. And if you’ve negotiated before, just knowing how much could be on the line can be breathtakingly scary.
Here’s a secret: pay negotiation doesn’t have to be scary.
What if I told you that you could:
Get tools and information about pay to make great decisions
Learn skills to negotiate, including what to say (and what NOT to)
Shift your mindset and be more confident and powerful during negotiations?
Guess what? You can.
I’ve coached clients on salary negotiation at all levels, from college undergraduates to top level (C-suite) executives. And I’ve worked for and consulted with all kinds of organizations on compensation, too. From nonprofits to startups to Fortune 100 companies, I’ve seen (and designed) just about every sort of pay practice there is. And I want to help you get more confident and competent — and get more of what you want and less of what you don’t.
This book will help you understand — and negotiate — your entire pay package (including pay, benefits, and relocation), whether it’s your first job out of school or it’s your last job before retirement.
To succeed in any sort of pay negotiation you need great tools and skills, plus the right mindset to give you the best chance at success. This book will absolutely help you do all three of those things. And I’ll answer the most common questions my salary negotiation clients (and complete strangers!) ask me.
WHY SHOULD YOU NEGOTIATE PAY?
In the U.S., negotiating is expected, especially at higher levels of the organization. The fact that lots of other people don’t doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!
Negotiating your pay certainly won’t count against you, either, as long as you’re not a jerk (more on that later). Why not try it?
A 2019 study by Jobvite found that 83% of job seekers who tried to negotiate pay were able to get higher pay (and 34% of those got more than a 10% increase!). Even if you don’t get additional money or better employment terms as a result of your negotiation (and I bet you will), it’s valuable to get experience with pay negotiation. The more you do it, the more comfortable and effective you’ll be.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
Some of the cool stuff you’ll learn in this book includes:
What information you need to get when you’re preparing for your negotiation (and where to get it)
What those compensation and benefit terms really mean, and which ones you can negotiate
How to figure out what you’re leaving behind with your current employer, and how to leverage that into more money and/or equity
How to sort through your offer to really understand it
Best practices in pay negotiation
What to say (and what not to) in your negotiations
How to end your conversations with your recruiter or hiring manager
What you shouldnever do in your negotiations
The role your clarity plays in your negotiation process
How to step back and not take things personally (it can be done!)
How to shift your mindset and get out of your own way
The best way to prepare for your negotiation conversations
…and how to put everything together so you’re at your best in your negotiations!
I’M SUPER-SMART AND BUSINESS-SAVVY! WHY DO I NEED SALARY NEGOTIATION ADVICE?
I get this question a lot. The truth of the matter is salary negotiation is hard.
It’s hard because it can be emotional. It’s hard because many of us have been socialized not to advocate for ourselves financially. It’s hard because it involves money. And it’s hard because it involves a technical discipline most people have never been exposed to before. Plus, everyone thinks they should already know how to do it, so they don’t spend time learning and preparing.
Trust me. You don’t want to just bumble through.
Smart, business-savvy folks need this book because…
You’re nervous about salary negotiation.
Yup! You’re nervous because this is a big deal! The thing to remember is that both you and the person you’re negotiating pay with both want the same thing: for you to come to work for the company and for you to be happy about it (because they’ve offered you the job, you can assume they’re happy about it). Just knowing you have that common ground can make the process less nerve-racking. At least a little.
And the more you know about how all of this works, the more confident — and competent — you’ll become.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
You’re not supposed to be a compensation expert (unless you are, then see below). The person negotiating pay with you knows that.
But you do need to be informed (be prepared to geek out!) and know how to ask good questions. There are tons of those here, too.
Negotiating your pay won’t count against you as long as you’re not a jerk.
You know too much.
There’s such a thing as knowing too much. Those of us with backgrounds designing pay programs or negotiating pay from the talent acquisition side know oodles about how companies pay people. And we might get our brains bent by trying to figure out exactly what’s going on behind the proverbial curtains.
If you know more than your fair share, just stop. We’ll talk about how to get out of your own way in the Mindset section, which will help lots if you’re in this situation.
You have no clue what to ask for.
Whether this is your first rodeo or your tenth, there are likely to be things you haven’t considered, or items you don’t know to ask for. And companies will often ask you what you want before they tell you what they’re going to offer.
Your job is to understand at least a bit about the market for the job you’re looking at, and to know what’s important to you.
The best thing you can do here is to make sure you do your homework. You’ll get great tips on what different parts of your package really mean, what’s common to negotiate, and how things typically work inside of companies.
You don’t actually think you deserve what you’re asking for.
Especially if you’ve got self-esteem issues or if you’re negotiating with an organization with a strong social mission, this can be a real sticking point.
Remember, you’ve got a great background and expertise the organization needs, or you wouldn’t have the job offer. Of course, don’t let that take you over the top to obnoxious; calm confidence works well.
What you’ve tried before hasn’t worked.
Nobody nails it on the first try (at least not without the tools you’ll learn here). If you’ve tried — and failed — with salary negotiations in the past, you could use some help to figure out a successful game plan. The most common salary negotiation fails are:
Going in without knowing what you want (more of everything
isn’t a strategy)
Going in without a game plan (just because you think well on your feet doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prepare)
Going in with a chip on your shoulder (salary negotiation is not the Hunger Games, and it’s definitely not personal)
You’ll find so many strategies, ideas, and tactics that work for my clients here, you’ll never have to use your tried-and-un-true ways again.
You’re worried they’ll withdraw the offer.
Don’t worry. Really. Companies expect you to negotiate, as long as you do it in good faith (and aren’t a jerk). I’ve never in my very long career seen an offer withdrawn because a candidate negotiated their offer.
You just want it to be over.
I hear you! But stick with it – negotiating pay can’t actually go on forever, even if it seems like it does sometimes. If you can focus on that great new job waiting for you on the other side, the momentary discomfort of negotiating your pay package won’t be so bad.
And once you’ve done your prep and practiced what you’re going to say, the prospect of a negotiation conversation won’t seem so intimidating. I promise!
You know you need help.
Yes, you do! I’ll be with you every step of the way,