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Victoria Pynchon of SheNegotiates.com shares her top tips for getting what you want at work.

Master the Art of Negotiating

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Meet Victoria Pynchon!

Victoria recently answered questions from the members of Connect: Professional Women’s Network. Here is some of her most popular advice!

Victoria is an author, attorney, mediator, arbitrator and negotiation trainer and consultant, as well as the co-founder of She Negotiates Consulting and Training, with business partner Lisa Gates. Although her focus is now on closing the wage, income and leadership gaps for women, she’s been training lawyers and business people of both genders in mutual benefit negotiation strategies since 2005.

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Determine your worth. When negotiating a salary or a raise, it’s best to land ONE high number, not a range. That number is based on your research, your accomplishments and your future potential. Go to the Free Resources section of SheNegotiates.com to download “How to Source and Research What You’re Really Worth.”

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Aim high with your starting salary. By the time you’re eligible for a raise, the only salient factors will be your on-the-job performance and your existing salary. Your existing salary is an extremely strong anchor that will influence your perceived market value throughout your employment. ALWAYS seek the highest entry salary, even if small raises are given after.

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Go beyond the salary. Benefits should be part of the first conversation about salary. The more working parts to any deal, the easier it is to trade across issues, i.e. trade something of high value to you and low cost to your employer.  

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Push for a performance review when you start a job. Start with three questions: 1. How are performance reviews handled and how often? 2. What are the metrics used for performance reviews? 3. What are the specific expectations that will lead to advancement?

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When you don’t get a raise. If they’re not ready to increase your pay now, ask to revisit the issue in three months—and then ROCK IT for those three months!  

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Evaluate your workload. Take a look at your original job description, rewrite it to reflect the new duties you’ve taken on, re-title yourself and then benchmark what should be your new position at payscale.com or glassdoor.com. Check out free materials on researching your true market value here.

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Discuss a raise when offered a promotion. Explain that you’ve researched the market value for positions similar to the one you now have and that the average pay is $X. Stress your loyalty to the firm, and remind your employer of everything you accomplished that resulted in the promotion. If they’re not ready to increase your pay now, ask to revisit the issue in three months. 

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Suggest a more appropriate workflow. Sit down with your employer to talk about work assignments. Outline your highest-value tasks to the company, then mid-value and then low-value. Be a problem solver. Be prepared to suggest that the low-value tasks be assigned to a lower-paid person so that you can continue to give 100 percent of your full value.

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Negotiate a telecommuting agreement. Don’t fall into the trap of taking a pay cut because you’re working fewer hours. You can and should negotiate to maintain your current salary. The trick is to shift your employer’s thinking from hours spent to results produced. Emphasize your track record for efficiency and quality, not to mention the benefits of working without interruption.

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Evaluate pay when transitioning from employee to consultant. Move from focusing hours to value pricing. If you are working project by project, you can make separate proposals for each one. For example, “Based on the parameters of this project, I can do it for $X amount.” For your own benefit, I would track the time you spend to give you the data you need to adjust your per-project fees.  

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Negotiate hourly to project-based pay. If you work project by project, you might say something like, “I’d be willing to work the first project for $X/hour, but I will be moving from hourly to a project basis in my consulting practice. Let’s use this project as a pilot so that we can make adjustments for the benefit of both of us.”

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Negotiate a salary when making a lateral move or changing careers. A new position with a learning curve does not mean you’re starting from scratch. You have the entirety of your career, education, experience, skills, strengths and future potential. Focus on the strategies, projects or process improvements you envision bringing to this new position.

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Remember the cardinal rule of negotiating. Never negotiate against yourself by saying, “I’m asking for a $6K raise, but I’ll negotiate.” It signals that you’ll accept less, and probably way less. If you want to signal your flexibility, demonstrate it by putting other compensation elements on the table, like travel, continuing education and vacation.

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• Always negotiate your salary—when you start a job, when you take on several new duties and when you get a promotion.

• Discuss your pay any time you make a lateral move, change careers or transition from employee to consultant.

• Never sabotage your negotiation by indicating that you’ll take less than what you’re asking for.

NEGOTIATING 101:

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ResourcesSheNegotiates.com – Tools and support to help women negotiate for what they’re worth.

PayScale.com – Information for employers and employees on market rates for various jobs.

GlassDoor.com – Anonymously posted salaries, reviews, interview questions and more.

Advice from the members of Connect: Want a raise? Here’s the script! 5 Steps to Getting the Raise You DeserveOnly 1 in 4 Women Asked for a Raise This Year

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Join the conversation!Connect: Professional Women’s Network, Powered by Citi, is an online community on LinkedIn that helps women achieve the careers they want and discuss the issues relevant to their success.

For more great insights from Victoria, check out her advice in Connect discussions here, here and here.

Visit linkedin.com/womenconnect for more information and to join the group for free!

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