Pay Negotiation Secrets!

What feelings come up for you when you think about having to go in and negotiate your pay, whether that's for a new job in a new company, or it's for a raise, a promotion, or even a bonus? Do you know what the biggest mistakes are that leaders make when it comes to the pay discussion and whether or not gender issues or differences come into play? Lastly, Do you have an understanding of the misunderstandings of negotiation when it comes to your pay? Well, according to our powerhouse guest, John Gates of Salary Coach, negotiation is easy if you know what to do, what to say, and when to say it. Anyone can learn the skill, and once you know the skill, it can be applied to multiple areas of your work and life. Negotiation does not have to be a high-stakes game of chicken, and you don't have to go it alone. John is here to tell you exactly what it takes to be successful in advocating for yourself and understanding the motivations of the decision-makers, as well as how to negotiate in a collaborative way designed to make everyone happy when they say yes. So stay with us.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, Bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies, and stories. So if you're ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome, and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

John, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Well, thank you so much for the invite. I am excited to be here, and it should be fun talking with you today.

I am definitely looking forward to it because I think any and every professional, whether they are looking for a new job or they're looking to advance and salary up, so to speak, in their current job. They want to know how to do it effectively and successfully. So before we get into that though, I'd love for people to really understand a little bit about John Gates.

Okay, so you want to know the personal side, not the public stuff that's easy to get at. So I'm kind of an adventurer. I am— you see the dive helmet behind me. I'm not a diver, but to me that exemplifies adventure and kind of doing things that are outside the comfort zone. So one of the big goals that I have for myself is a freedom goal. I want to be able to live anywhere I want, work from anywhere that I want. And so I've spent the last year or so assembling this mobile office that I can take and work from anywhere, and it's perfectly comfortable. 3 screens, all fits in a backpack. And a big dream of mine is to live and work in the developing world. Need a strong internet connection to make that happen. But, and so I'm not necessarily tethered to one particular spot. I'm big, big into freedom. And that's something I help people to achieve as well, like financial freedom, the freedom to do what you want with your life. Once the money issues are sorted, a lot more options open up for you. So all that's, that's a little something about me. Another personal thing is I have 5 children, so 5 kids. 3 of them are adopted. I have 2 biological boys and 3 adopted girls. They're all adults now, but I don't know if it's the adoption or, or, or what, but the girls were harder, a lot harder.

Yes, I think my parents of 6 girls and 6 boys would tell you that as well.

Oh my.

But that's beautiful. That is wonderful.

You know, it's an interesting, super cool blended family.

Nice.

And I used to think that, you know, of the nature and nurture argument of how people develop, I used to think that nurture was the most important thing. After adopting 3 children and raising them, I have come to realize just how powerful biology is and who you become. Like, I didn't realize that was going to be so powerful.

That's beautiful. That is— what a lesson to learn amongst everything else that you're learning and you have learned as a result of taking in other children, blending the family. Oh, that's beautiful. I love— and I love the whole Freedom Goal. That's a Every one of us need a freedom goal for sure.

Yeah, I think so. Whatever freedom feels like to you, you should go chase that with all of your heart. Because like, if you feel enslaved at a current job, that's— sometimes jobs feel like a prison. I'm making so much money, but I work for a jerk. I can't afford to quit. You know, these kind of things happen all the time to everyday people, and you just feel miserable and in prison.

Yes. Well, and you know, you probably know the acronym JOB, just over broke. And what I'll, what I'll often tell people is it's more about just over broken. They have such broken spirits in so many cases that really they need to focus on exactly what we're going to talk about today and the theme that you brought up in regards to freedom. So we want to talk about negotiation. It's something so many people run away from. And yet, as I saw in everything that you do, it should be something that they embrace and they really just skill themselves up and, and welcome it. So let's start with what do you see to be the biggest challenges and reasons why so many individuals who many perceive as leaders even have issues and fears around negotiating?

I love this question because it helps me to address a lot of the misunderstandings that exist about negotiation. I think when I bring that up or when you bring it up, or even people see the subject Pay Negotiation Secrets, what is the mental or emotional image that pops into your mind when you're thinking about pay negotiation, I think most people see it as a conflict. It's a risky sort of duel. Like we're going to stand off 50 paces from each other. We're going to turn and shoot. We're going to see who kills the other person first, that it's competitive, that it's win-lose. In my book, when I wrote my book, I described it as You think negotiation's like strapping on armor, drawing a sword, and marching into an arena to duel to the death. Only you're going to face off against somebody like me who has 75,000 kills in my history, and you're a beginner. So it's like incredibly intimidating. It feels high risk. Just to most people, it feels like a high-risk game of chicken. Where, you know, I'm going to put out a number and maybe they'll take it and maybe they won't. And it feels so risky. And especially in this world right now that we're in where job offers are harder to come by, the— you're competing against hundreds of other people for a job. And when the offer finally comes, it's like, wow, if that's what I think a negotiation is, of course I'm going to say, maybe I should just grab this offer and be done with all of this uncertainty. I have that path right here. I could just reach over there and grab it. And I think that's what I'm going to do. And as I was researching my book and thinking about launching this business a few years ago, I reflected back on all of this stuff that I tracked when I was a head of recruiting for Fortune 500 companies. And in that, I realized that at least 80% of people don't negotiate at all. They're just accepting the first offer and they're following the path that I just described.

Is that from fear and desperation? What is that from? Exhaustion, I can see from what you just described.

Yes, it is.

Is it also fear and desperation?

It's all of the above. So the exhaustion is a big part of today's world where you might have been unemployed for a period of time and you're just tired. You're tired of that in-between feeling. You just want that uncertainty to just go away. And you, you have the power to dismiss it as soon as an offer comes in. You don't want to start over again. But here's the, the main driver, I think, is fear. So if, if I call you from your dream company, and I say, Bernadette, I've got this great job, I saw your, your LinkedIn profile, I would love to talk to you about joining our company, which, by the way, is your dream job. And then I say, but first, tell me about your pay expectation. And what emotions come up inside you when that happens? Right? Like, I'm afraid of losing the opportunity to meet, to proceed, to meet the hiring manager. I know I'm talking to a gatekeeper. I have to bypass this person. So because we have a fear of loss at this step, we value what's on the other side of the fence. We tend to lowball ourselves at this step. So we take a very conservative approach, thinking that, man, I just want the chance to interview for this. And then when the offer finally comes, that same fear of loss hits you. Like, the worst thing that could happen after all of that— you've interviewed, you've maybe gone through 7 or 8 rounds of interviews, you've, you've been in that uncomfortable in-between space Even if you got a current job, like, you've entertained the idea of moving on and now there's this discomfort in your mind. You just want to settle it so you're not having to please these people while you're still thinking, got one foot out the door. The worst feeling is, what if they take this away from me because I was disagreeable?

Right.

And I don't want to rock the boat. This was something, as I was researching my book, I asked men and women, who has the advantage in negotiating, men or women? And the men, some of the men thought that women had the advantage, but I'd say at least 3/4 of the men felt that men had the advantage. And I could explain why those other 25% thought women had the advantage, but I asked women the same question, and it was very interesting. Most felt that men had the advantage. And when I asked why, this was the telling answer. They said, well, men are apparently less concerned about messing up their relationships on the way in. And that led me to a bunch of follow-up questions, and I discovered this was a primary obstacle for women at all levels, including the executive tier.

I would agree.

They were less worried about getting the offer yanked at the finish line. They were more concerned about destroying or damaging relationships in the negotiation process. And so again, we're back to that mentality of it's a duel to the death. There's a winner, there's a loser, there's conflict. There, if I'm going to be an effective negotiator, I have to stand up for myself and I have to be assertive, which for some women turns into this bias of aggression, right? And they don't want to be perceived that way. Maybe they've been perceived that way before and it's really cost them dearly. They don't want to screw the relationship with HR. They don't want to mess up the the relationship with their new future boss. And so they become hyper-compliant, not realizing there's a way forward that actually builds the relationship.

I want you to touch on that, but I have a couple of questions based on what you've already covered. So if someone were to go in and they were to lowball themselves, here they have this wonderful resume with all these experiences and accomplishments and accolades. What is the perception? How is it received by someone like yourself put in, in a recruiting position when someone actually lowers their value or lowballs themselves? How do you receive that?

Okay, so that's a really good question. I think sometimes it might be perceived as desperation, and that's never a good thing. It does not add to your value. Actually. So I think, I think it is important to come across as somebody who has options and choices instead of somebody who is desperate, who has no options and has no choices. So that lowballing behavior is the behavior that the person with no options pursues. And think about this, if you had 3 or 4 companies coming after you, you wouldn't see the need to do that, right? And so it's the evidence in my mind, as the guy on the other side of the table, it's the evidence that you have no options. And when, when somebody starts to show up that way, it makes me wonder, what's wrong with this person? Why do they have no options? Why isn't there a line? The resume looks good, so why isn't there a line out the door? And it starts to nag me a little bit. Now I start to wonder, where's the flaw that other companies have seen? And it just leads me down not a great path. Now you might be watching this thinking, well, that's stupid. I'm just telling you not the way I think, but the way other people in my role think, right? And so it is very important that you show up with a degree of confidence As if you are somebody that has multiple suitors and that strengthens you quite a bit and not just on the money front, but it adds to your credibility as somebody who's a high performer.

Mm-hmm.

You know, high performers are never on the market for very long. Mm-hmm. Now that's not always true. If you're watching this and you've been unemployed for 9 months, it doesn't mean you're not a high performer. It just means we're in a really crummy market right now. Right now, for a hiring manager who's thinking about you, they don't have the same perspective. They don't realize that the market is as soft as it is. And so if you come across as somebody who has no options, that's going to lead them down this train of thought. And it reduces your value.

If someone is very high potential, they have that resume, they have the experience, the market is soft, they aren't getting multiple options presented to them, but they do want to show up as if, you know, they would have multiple options. What do you coach them to say or how or to position to that individual so they can see that there is worth there and value there?

Of course. Very good question. There's a couple of things that I would say. If you're senior, if you are, let's say, the head of a department or above that, I would suggest that if you are laid off or in between, start a consulting business even if you have no clients. Because then now the company that wants to hire you has to lure you away from your consulting business. They're in competition. Companies want to be in competition with somebody or something. The person who has nothing on the table is, is that way. So when somebody calls you and they say, Leanne, or Joe or Amy. I saw your resume, I saw your application. When's a good time for us to connect for a 20 or 30-minute exploratory chat? Don't say, I'm available right now, let's do it. Don't say, every day this week is open, every day next week is open. You're starting to show them that you got nothing going on. Instead, say, well, my calendar is really tough right now, but if you give me a couple of options, I'll do some calendar surgery for you because I'm really interested, want to have this conversation. I'll move things around to make sure that we can have the time together. So you tell me what's good for you and all. I, you know, so you see what's going on here. It's a different positioning and Don't think that if you're incredibly available, that that's an asset, because it is not, right? And so there's that. Another thing you can do when they start talking to you about timing, or they're talking to you about money, if you've got, if you've got an interview pipeline that's full, or even phone screens, or you're interviewing next week, you drop these breadcrumbs in the conversation. Like this: How much money do you need to make, or what's your pay requirement? Instead of saying what your pay requirement is, you can say, well, I'm actively discussing this with other companies who have similar roles, and the range that I'm discussing with them is between here and there. So you're just dropping these little breadcrumbs all through the conversation that you have a lot going on, that you're in demand, that they have to compete against something. And if you've got a current position, they have to compete against that too. And you should remind them that you're not, you're not in any, you're not in any big hurry to leave, but you would, you would do that if it was the right situation, but only then. And These are different ways that you can stack the deck in your favor. You're doing little things to create leverage for yourself.

Yes. That's fabulous. That's fabulous.

Yeah, I've been a recruiter for 30 years and risen up to become the head of recruiting for multiple Fortune 500s. And so if somebody had a question about like, why do recruiters behave this way? Why am I being ghosted? Why does this happen and not that? When should I follow up? All these things. I know the answers to this stuff. I've got a map to the minefield of all these conversations.

That's fat. I love it. Now, I also want to ask you about a comment you made earlier before we move on. And that is— and actually, it'll segue into another question I wanted to address. You mentioned about the fact that women tend to be concerned that they're going to come across, you know, aggressive as opposed to even assertive, right? And I definitely understand from a woman's point of view that that would be a woman's viewpoint. Do you see that to still be a a bias or even a, you know, unknown bias that if I were to be assertive and claim my value, my worth, and ask for a price point that could be, you know, high, even higher than maybe a published range, and I am assertive around that, is there still these biases that exist that automatically go to the B word or the aggressive word? Yes.

The answer is yes. You have to be— that bias does exist. I've seen it operating and it's really unfortunate. So, what that means though is that there's a different way you can approach salary negotiations that don't come across this way. And that's The Salary Coach method I've created is a high collaboration path. It is not this making demands. In fact, I strongly recommend you avoid ultimatums unless you're at an impasse and you cannot accept any other way.

Right.

So, and that's what most people think negotiation is. Like, there's so much bad advice in the world about pay negotiation. And some of the worst is this, and it might seem familiar: know your worth and demand your value. People say that stuff all the time as if it's nothing to do that. For women especially, that's an incredibly, incredibly risky approach. You should not do this because that bias that you mentioned does exist. It might not always activate in the person that you're dealing with, But if it does, it can really damage you. And the reason why women, I think, tend to avoid negotiations is because they think that that's what they must do. And there is a different way. There is a different way. And so what I teach people how to do is to collaborate on a package that's going to work for everyone. And this, this process tends to— the company has money on the table. That they can throw in. The process safely tests what money is on the table, what could be included. That lets you scoop that stuff up. And I'll tell you this, most C-suite people are leaving at least 6 figures on the table like this without even knowing they're doing it.

Wow.

Most mid-career people are leaving 5 figures on the table without knowing they're doing it. And so I teach people how to safely explore in a collaborative way what's flexible, what's not flexible, what could be, what's possible, all that stuff. And now you're working together with the person who wants to hire you to create a package that's good for you and good for them. It doesn't come across as demanding. Or assertive, right? It's like, you want to hire me, I want to be there, I have this obstacle, can you help me to solve this problem? You see how that's very different than I'm worth X and you're gonna pay me X or it's goodbye, right?

So it's a matter of engaging them collaboratively to solve problems address, address questions or concerns or thoughts that someone might have, as opposed to just making statements and, and making demands of someone.

Yes, yes. Now, your value is— when, when I say know your value, know your worth, all these kind of things, very often people are basing that on what the market will pay them or what they think they're worth in the market and so on. The true maximized value that you can get out of any one company is not always what the market will pay you. They will have their own internal economy, their own maximum of what they could offer you. And so if you want to work at that company, the trick to getting the best offer is not insisting on what the market will pay you, but discovering what the max is that that company will pay you. It's very— it's a nuanced idea, right? But it takes— once you get that and you, you discover a company that wants to hire you and you want that job, the goal now is to maximize what they will pay you for that job in their culture and everything else. What the market will pay you is irrelevant. And introducing that as an ultimatum just creates risk.

And it's unrealistic too, because the market value also is about geography. It's about, you know, so many factors that may not play into the company and the job that you're looking for right now.

Absolutely right. Absolutely right. Now, you can use market data to create that sense of competition that we talked about. But it's that competition leverage that helps you to maximize the offer they would make. So they may not be able to match what other companies are doing or what you think the market is or anything like that. One of my, one of my favorite things to happen, in fact, when I'm a recruiter on the other side of the negotiating table, the candidate says, well, I've done my research and this is what I'm worth. I can debunk that really, really, really easily. Show me the research. Oh, you're pulling that salary survey? Well, you know, I know how the sausage is made. And let's say you're, you're the head of supply chain, right? Every company has a different way that they value that role. And a survey is going to be a mismatch, you know, a mishmash of all these companies reporting how much they pay their head of supply chain. But what if they value— like, in one company it's a super strategic role, in another company it's an order-taking process, in the third company it's got 4 people reporting to it, and another company it's got 44 people and it's core to the business strategy, or who knows what, right? So, right, all this stuff gets thrown in a blender and out comes a number, and this is what the survey says. Yeah, well, I can say to that candidate, like, well, okay, I appreciate you've done all this research, but we've also done research and we know who we're competing against, and this is how we value the role in the market. So that is, it is what it is, right? Right.

Your degree too of the fact that a candidate, let's just break it down very simply, say that they're wanting $150,000, the company's offering $100,000. And what they should also be looking at is the intangibles. They should be looking at, you know, is this culture going to be something that I'm more suitable for? And that's going to be, you know, that's going to develop me and advance me and, and be healthy for me. And this other company, there, it's going to be a lot more demanding, a lot more you know, competitive within the, you know, within the room, so to speak. So doesn't that also come into, into play?

It can. If I'm coaching somebody to negotiate pay, I would shy away from that discussion with the company that you're thinking about. But personally, like, let's say you've got 2 or 3 opportunities that you're weighing and one is super comfortable. It's got all those positive characteristics that you just mentioned, but the pay is less. You would rather work there. So let's say you decide that's the company you're going to pursue. Well, I would leverage the higher offer from another company, or the higher quote from another company, to maximize what this company will actually pay you so that you can have everything you want— the, the good paycheck and the good culture. I would advise anybody not to, not to chase— don't, don't say yes to a company that you don't ultimately want to fit into. That's a mistake I have made, and many people— like, if you look back on a long career, you can find almost anybody you talk to will say, yep, I joined that company because of the money, and boy, was that a mistake.

It's so true.

Guilty.

Guilty as charged.

Everybody, everybody who's been working and has been through a few career transitions has made that mistake.

Right.

And so you, you absolutely should prioritize the fit and the opportunity, and then you can always maximize the money from that.

So what are the ins and outs, and what are the differences when it comes to gender and negotiation?

Hmm. Well, when it comes to the Salary Coach Method, there really aren't any. The process that I've built works for both men and women, and it takes the risk out of the conversation. So the biases that usually work against women are addressed when using the Salary Coach Method because now they don't get labeled as aggressive when they're merely being assertive. But what I— it's a case-by-case basis. Like, you can— we can take these two, you know, boxes, the, the, the male and female boxes, or the blend of the, the spectrum, or however you want to look at it. But I interact with my clients as individuals with their own personalities and their own strengths and their own set of anxieties. And we've been talking like in broad brush terms here, but I don't want to say if I have a female client, this is the way I do it. That's not the case. So I want to understand because I've got some female clients who are extremely confident, not anxious. They are willing to learn and try different scripts that I put in front of them. And, and others who are highly anxious about this conversation. And so I'm taking a slightly different approach with them, but ultimately I'm not negotiating for someone. So I have to learn how their voice operates.

Mm-hmm.

And how their personality and their fears operate.

Right.

And then I customize the approach so that first of all, it's going to be effective with somebody like me. Secondly, it's going to be comfortable for whoever they are.

It's—

it comes out natural. It's their, you know, their words, right? Their, their style, their personality. And is— this is really important. I don't want people to think that if they're going to follow The Salary Coach method that they have to become me.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

You will be you, 100% of you. And, and we work together to discover what is the right approach for you so that you can do this for yourself, not just this one time, but every other time after. And this is a skill that anyone can learn, right? And that everyone should learn, because if you don't, like, it's okay, you're going to be just part of that 80% group that never negotiates, and, and you, you're going to leave lots of money on the table. Yeah, there was a, there was a bit of research I stumbled on as I was writing my book And that is, if you take a college graduate and that college graduate negotiates an extra $5,000 in their salary at the beginning of their career, there were two different research papers written on this. One suggested that if you extrapolate that through a 30, 35-year career, that the person would be leaving between $1 million and $1.5 million of value on the table if they didn't get that extra $5K. Another person approached it slightly differently and said, all things are the same, the person who gets $5,000 extra at the beginning of their career can retire 8 years sooner with the same nest egg.

Wow.

If that $5,000 grows with every promotion, with every job change, it's— filters through the 401k match and the incentive payout calculation and all this stuff. And so if you're just starting or if you're in your peak earnings years, it's very important. And I'll tell you this, if you go through the process and you get the maximized offer, the company is still excited to have you. They don't feel like you've twisted their arm. In fact, 2 days after you join, they're going to forget all about all the stuff they gave you.

Right. Right.

It doesn't— it becomes irrelevant to them.

Right.

They're just happy they got you and you're there delivering the results you were hired to give.

Wouldn't you also say that the skills and qualities that go into negotiating, you're going to be using, you know, every day of your career, whether that's, you know, trying to influence even people at your— in your house.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, you know, this is really strange too, because a lot of my clients are expert influencers already, or they negotiate multi-million dollar deals all of the time. One of my clients recently was actually the head of recruiting for a company, so she had my job. But here's, here's where it gets complicated. You can be really good at negotiating but really bad at negotiating your salary. Mm-hmm. Because the stakes are personal, right? If you are the head of business development, and right now I've got two clients that have that title, they know how to negotiate. But it's like if your boss comes into your office and says, you know, if you screw up this deal, you're fired. That's how it feels when you're negotiating your pay. Right. And so like the stakes are just so oppressive, it pushes people into this corner of, you know, I'm— I think it's best if I just take the offer. It's crazy how much emotional pressure gets put on somebody when the pay discussions start to happen.

And it doesn't have to be, according to, according to you. Thank you, John. Now, I want to— one, I have information in regards to your book because you mentioned it multiple times. So for those listening, his book is Act Your Wage, and you can go and pick that up. I have a tiny— you can pick it up on Amazon. And at the same time, you can go to tiny.cc/ActYourWageBook and pick that up from John, as well as be sure to go to salary.coach and learn all about John's services he provides. The ways to engage with him and the work that he's done. It's very impressive. But John, what would you say would be kind of the number one thing you would suggest to anyone listening, whether they are in career transition or they're in a role and they're looking to go and have this type of collaboration, as you call it, to discuss their pay, what would you suggest they do?

Well, there's a couple of things that, that come to mind. One is that the negotiation process begins the very first time you start talking about money, and that's not always at the offer stage. So if you're in this and you want to really maximize what you're going to get, you can reach out to me and have a chat with me, no problem there. But the most power that you have in this entire process is between when you get the offer and when you say yes.

Okay.

Most people give up all that power by saying yes immediately. So what you should do instead is buy yourself a couple of days. Say, thank you. Thank you for giving me this offer. I'm really excited about the possibility of working with you. I'd like a couple of days to review this with my family and other stakeholders that are in my life. 'And I might respond with a few questions if that's okay. So let's reconnect in a couple of days and I'll tell you what I'm thinking.' So if you can use that precise script or something very similar that feels comfortable for you, you can buy a couple of days. And then if you want to engage me, that's a good time to do that. You can reach out and say, 'John, I've got an offer. What can we do to make this better?' And then we can meet and talk about it. But there you can, you can go through the book and the book walks you through that as well. That's an easy way for you to get grounded on the Salary Coach method.

Again, on his website, salary.coach, he also has a way for you to set up and schedule with him a consultation. So be sure to go to salary.coach and look at that. Like he said, if you happen to be in the process, or you do have an offer already that you just want some input on, reach out and see how he can support you. And, and you can work with him. John, thank you so much. This has been fabulous. What a powerhouse conversation with John Gates of Salary Coach. So be sure to reach out to salary.coach should you need any support from John, and be sure to follow Shedding the Corporate Bitch podcast. On any one of your podcast streaming services and on YouTube, our Shedding the Corporate Bitch YouTube channel, so you don't miss a single episode or a single expert guest like John. Until next time, take care.

Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Want to dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to learn more about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.