From the course: When Negotiation's about More than Money: How to Negotiate (Almost) Anything

Plucking up courage

From the course: When Negotiation's about More than Money: How to Negotiate (Almost) Anything

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Plucking up courage

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- So the first step in any negotiation is deciding to do it. And deciding, I would say, is the biggest step in getting a pay rise because if you don't ask, you don't get. Now, obviously, we do get pay rises sometimes, but to get a pay rise that bigger than anybody else's or to get a decent pay rise, you're almost certainly going to have to ask for it. So to encourage myself to ask for a pay rise, I would use the line they're probably laughing at me. I would probably use the line in my mind that my boss can't believe what good value I am, can't believe how cheap I am, can't believe that I've never asked for a rise. And if you start from that point of view, it makes it much easier. But I would also say to myself that it's a game and they kind of know it's a game. To me, it might feel really, really personal, but to my boss, it's a game. How can I keep all of these people happy for the minimum amount of pay? So when you say, "I'd like some more money," they're thinking, "Oh, well at least one of them has woken up and asked for money, but thank goodness, the other ones haven't, so I'll just have to deal with this." So to them, it's a game they play all the time. So just because to you, it's a big, scary moment, you don't have to worry so much. Tell yourself that to your boss, it's a game, and that you're going to play that game and remember to be nice. All the way through this process, we don't want to criticize the company, we don't want to say that we hate our job or the boss is being unfair, we've got to be nice and we can do that. So that's the first thing, you can ask for a rise, if you do it in a nice way, they're only thinking of it as a game, it's going to be fine.

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