Making Money, Creating Wealth
Browsing Category: "Career"
Three Easy Steps to More Cash
First, let me introduce you to the basic three steps:
- Create a Target that defines what you want, one that is clearly understood by all aspects of your un-conscious mind.
- Prioritize your Target —Flag it so that you will remain unconsciously focused on it while you get on with your normal activities.
- Resolve any self-defeating un-conscious habit patterns that can prevent you from achieving your target.
Think about driving a car…
Most of what you do requires little conscious attention. You attend to the traffic, what’s on the radio, the time, etc. You don’t pay much attention to the numerous minor steering corrections, evaluating your distance from the cars on your right or left, slowing to adjust to the car in front of you, etc.
Now, remember what it was like when you first learned to drive. Every single thing required a conscious decision. Remember how tiring that was? Didn’t your palms sweat? Didn’t you hold your breath a lot?
The difference is that now, through repetition, you have created unconscious habit patterns that operate automatically, making things much easier. Those unconscious habit patterns persist, seemingly forever.That’s why we say, “You never forget how to ride a bike.†You’re never going to forget how to drive a car, are you?
But driving a car is a simple example. And you’ve already accomplished it, most likely.
But what about the things you want—like more money—that you don’t yet have? What keeps stopping you from achieving that goal?
Some of your persistent, unconscious habit patterns don’t work well for you any more. They can automatically block you from getting what you want. They are probably even operating right now, keeping you from getting more money (or any other target).
For example, an infant learns to cry when it is hungry. Crying is very effective for an infant. Cry, and someone pretty quickly comes to meet your needs. But this automatic response loses its effectiveness as we grow older. Think of someone you’ve seen in your business life. They’re frustrated because they’re not getting what they want. Their voice gets louder, they get red in the face, maybe they even wave their arms around or pound on a table
Just like an infant when it is frustrated.
Why? The unconscious habit pattern they learned as an infant is still working — but now it’s working against them.
For you to be successful at things that seem impossible, those inappropriate unconscious patterns have to be changed into new habits that enhance your ability to get what you want.
I call that “resolving unconscious habit patternsâ€â€” Clearing the unconscious of whatever prevents you from achieving your target. It’s the third step in this magical 3-step process. It’s fun. And it’s very, very powerful. There you have it.
What Skills Will You Need For The Basic Achievement Three-Step?
You’re probably wondering what you’re going to have to pack to make all your dreams come true. Well, not much. Actually, they are very familiar skills that you already learned in school:
- reading
- writing
- editing
They also include two very important ones that you’ve learned simply by living:
- separating things into logical groupings
- being aware of whether things feel right for you or not.
The Five Steps to Getting a Raise
Moreover, amid a widening gap between the highest income earners and everyone else in the current economic landscape, you might find it frustrating to have to fight for a standard 3 to 4 percent salary increase.
So what can you do about it?
The following five steps offer you the best chances of getting a raise, while at the same time minimizing the attendant risks. If you follow them thoughtfully and sensitively, you’re likely to position yourself for a compensation increase in the short or medium term.
Here are the five steps:
1. Deserve a raise.
In order to get a raise, the most important thing to do is deserve one. Why? Under relentless pressure to satisfy insatiable investors, companies must achieve increased profitability quarter after quarter. To keep their P&Ls in fighting shape, they look for ways to eliminate all nonessential positions, through the application of technology, outsourcing, or just pushing employees ever harder.
While nearly everyone thinks he or she is performing well at work, the fact is that some are more central to the organization’s success than others. Your best protection is to make yourself as indispensable to the enterprise as possible.
More than ever, you should find a way to work on things that support how your company achieves growth and creates value. It’s incumbent upon you to know exactly how what you’re working on fits into the strategy of the company. If you don’t know, find out. If you realize your project is on the periphery, find a way to get involved in something in the center of the value-creation engine and corporate strategy.
Once you’re sure you’re working on the right things, work hard, be a team player, be positive, and take the appropriate amount of initiative.
2. Get the facts.
It’s also your responsibility to know your market value and how your compensation stacks up. You need to learn how your level, role, experience, and performance compare to the market.
To find out, talk to your company’s human resources professionals to understand the pay scales in the company. Also talk to recruiters and people from other companies in similar roles. Of course, never has so much salary information been so readily and publicly available — enter “executive compensation” in Yahoo! Search and you’ll get around 20 million results.
One easy-to-use, high-quality resource is Salary.com. This site includes a Salary Wizard feature and Career Resources center with information sorted by job type, level, ZIP code, performance, education level, and so on.
If you work in a public company, be sure to study your company’s proxy statement, where the compensation of your own top executives is detailed. This will help you understand the pot of gold toward which you’re striving so hard.
3. Talk to your boss.
Now you’re ready to have the tricky compensation conversation with your boss, and it’s imperative to be sensitive: Asking your boss for a raise is one of the most delicate conversations you can have.
It’s well known that managers find giving performance reviews anxiety-producing in the extreme. They find compensation discussions even more stressful. So make sure you have this talk in a constructive manner by putting the conversation into a broader context.
Talk about how your work fits into the company’s strategy. Discuss how you see your contribution and performance. Solicit his or her feedback. Share your findings from step 2, and ask what he or she thinks your expectations should be. Don’t be pushy, but be clear that compensation is an important part of the overall equation for you.
Make sure to communicate that there are other important dimensions as well, such as feeling that you’re making an important contribution to helping the company win; enjoying and respecting the people with whom you work; and continuously learning and growing. Your boss will almost certainly respond better when compensation is “on the list,” but not at the top of the list.
There’s one other thing to recognize, however — your boss probably feels the same way about his or her compensation that you do about yours. The ability to give you a raise is likely to be constrained by your boss’s own compensation, as well as by approved salary ranges for different employment levels. But here’s the key: If you conduct this conversation well enough, you might even be able to arm your boss with the approach to have the same discussion with his or her boss.
4. Take on a special project.
If your compensation is locked-in for 2007, and it may well be, another approach is to come up with a special project that you can offer to lead. Assuming that you now fully understand how your job and work fits into the company’s strategy, you should be able to devise a viable effort that would further support the strategy.
Suggest to your boss that you lead this special project — and if you’re successful, that you be eligible for a special performance bonus.
5. If all else fails…
If your salary is locked-in, the pot of gold isn’t all that enticing, and there’s no real opportunity to be rewarded in the way you think you deserve, then it may be time to consider looking outside the company for a different opportunity.
Obviously, this should be a last resort if you like the work you’re doing and enjoy and respect the people with whom you’re working.
By Jim Citrin
Why Women Get Paid Less
Dear Cathy: I think that women’s unwillingness to “rock the boat” is a big reason why, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the wage gap between college-educated women and their male counterparts has actually gotten bigger since the mid-’90s. A decade ago, women earned 75.7 cents for each dollar paid to a man. Now it’s 74.7 cents.
“Talk to your sister and help her try to figure out why she puts up with this,” suggests Barbara Stanny (www.barbarastanny.com), a career counselor based in Port Townsend, Wash., who specializes in women’s pay issues. “Women often get paid less because we allow it. Why doesn’t she value herself enough to mind that she’s making less money than her peers?”
Encourage her not to put off dealing with this. In the course of her coaching work, Stanny says, “I met one woman who tolerated being paid less than the men she worked with for decades, until she was 48. When she finally got around to confronting her boss about it, he said, ‘You’re right.’ This woman said to me, ‘Just imagine how different my life would be now if I’d done that 20 years ago.’ ”
Remind your sister, too, that even though she apparently feels her present pay supports her current standard of living just fine, she needs to think about what kind of retirement she wants: Defined-benefit pensions, company-matched 401(k) contributions, and Social Security benefits are all based, directly or indirectly, on the level of her income during these prime earning years.
You might also get your sis a copy of Stanny’s book, Overcoming Underearning: Overcome Your Money Fears and Earn What You Deserve (HarperCollins, $24.95). It’s packed with terrific down-to-earth advice, including these tips on asking for a raise:
1. Research the going rates in your field, by checking out salary ranges in want ads and on Web sites like salary.com. Then ask for the high end of the spectrum. It’s easier to negotiate down than up.
2. “No” often means “Not now.” Even if a pay hike just isn’t in the budget at the moment, that doesn’t mean it never will be. Don’t get discouraged.
3. Negotiate more than plain dollars and cents. Your total compensation might include other items you may want more of, like performance bonuses, profit sharing, paid time off, flexible work hours, tuition reimbursement, and club memberships.
4. Act confident (even if you don’t feel it). Communicate with authority. “Perceived confidence has a big impact,” Stanny says.
5. Remember, the best time to negotiate is when you have other offers.
6. Have points prepared and build a case around your value and what you bring to the company.
In your sister’s case, that sounds like plenty. Good luck to her!
By Anne Fisher (Copyrighted, Fortune. All rights reserved.)
