How to Get a Pay Rise Without Making it Awkward #24

After all, all art is experience.

Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of The Company Doctor. I'm George Cloade, and while I'm no stranger to awkward conversations, when it comes to asking for a pay rise, even I need a little guidance. Luckily, The Company Doctor Gary Gamp is on hand with a definitive plan to make that potentially toe-curling conversation a bit easier and set you on the path to earning the salary that you deserve.

George, hello, how are you?

I am stupendous, thanks, how are you?

It was a test. I'm so good, I'm— if I was any better, I'd be twins. When I say that at home, people go, what does that actually mean? I don't think I've heard it before. But it means I'm as good as two people, right?

Ah, I see, yeah, nice.

I think that's what someone told it to me once, I just liked it. Yeah, I like it. Anyway, I'm pretty good. Great. And I'm really excited to talk about this topic, which will scare the bejeebers out of managers. Yes. How to get a pay rise without making it awkward.

Yeah, because it is awkward.

It is awkward. And if you're a manager, you're thinking, please don't tell them. Yeah. Don't tell them this.

You sort of rely, as a manager, I guess you rely on it being awkward so that people don't do it.

Yeah. I remember actually, I worked, it's a good point actually, I worked at a company once when they had something called a critical hire process. It wasn't to do with pay rise, it was to do with employing people. It was the same thing. And their goal was to make it as difficult as possible that you'd have to really want to hire someone. Otherwise you just wouldn't go through the pain. I think it's a bit like that.

Right. Deliberately difficult. But we have the, we have the, we have the secrets.

Luckily we do. And it's always in the coming towards the end because we know last time when we gave the secrets of networking towards the end. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we're learning. This is a learning process for us. We realized that if we give the secrets away in the first sort of 2 minutes, people would just switch off.

Well, what we don't know actually is if they did or they didn't, in truth. They probably switched off anyway. Anyway, we don't care. We're going to keep putting it out there and we hope that people enjoy what we're doing. And we're getting good feedback on it, I must say. Good. So the first part I want to talk to you about is, well, I've got a question for you actually. I like to ask you a question when you don't know they're coming. Yeah, I don't like that. And here's my question. When do you think is the best time to get a pay rise?

I would say after you've been there for a long enough time to sort of have demonstrated your worth and value.

You would've hoped, you would've hoped, but actually, interestingly enough, which kind of, we're gonna unravel a bit, but it's actually when you get a job.

When you first start.

Well, before you first start, when you actually get yourself a job, because you agree what you're willing to go to move your lovely comfort of where you are to somewhere else. Yeah. And you're negotiating what the company's willing to pay you. So the truth is the best time to get a pay rise is when you change jobs. By the way, that's not part of this podcast. I'm not trying to get you to move jobs, right? But there's a logic in there and I want to, I want people to get to that logic because there's, when you're in that state where your mind is, you want to come back to a bit later, there's a confidence about you because you kind of got nothing to lose. Yeah.

You start feeling a bit demob happy and you're like, right, well I can just do whatever I want.

I cannot, well I can ask for what I can ask for anything because if they don't want me then they don't want me. If they want me, they have to pay for me, right? Pay the big bucks. Yeah. You gotta pay me if you want me. So I'll come back to that. But the first part of this I want to talk about is I think there's a bit of homework to be done, right? I've been a manager for years. I mean, that's why I'm, you know, I've got no hair anymore. And in all my time of being a manager, I've had countless people coming to me telling me they want a pay rise and letting me know how important they are and why they deserve it, you know, because they've got a bigger mortgage coming up. They talk about me, me, me, and it's fine. But my first recommendation for people listening to this is we'll come to that and whether you deserve it or not, we're going to come to that. But the first thing is to do your homework. Okay. Because I think it's important to do your homework so that you can separate the logic from the emotion. T-shirt. Yeah, nice. Go separate the logic from the emotion.

I'll start working on the design of that t-shirt.

You've got to get these t-shirts out, George. And it reminds me, and there's a kind of a follow-on to that. There was a song by The Clash, Should I Stay or Should I Go? I promise not to sing. Okay, should I stay or should I go? So do you want to stay where you are? Yeah. Or do you want to go? If you want to stay, do you generally want to stay? You're going to threaten the company, they don't give you more money, you're not going to stay. So don't do that. So you've got to know what you want. And so my first call out, I guess, is, you know, know what you want. Do you want to stay? Do you want to go? If you want to stay, what is it about the company you like? Now, when you were interviewing for the job in the first place, and bear in mind, people listening, you could have been there 10 years, 20 years, I don't know. Or if you've been in the company for the last, you know, 12 to 18 months, what is it about the company you wanted to— why do you want to join them? And is there still that possibility? So has it got longevity? Is it worth the investment of your time? Forgetting the fact that you might want the job or need the job to pay the mortgage and stuff. So what do you want? Not you personally, but what does one want?

Right. And is this— sorry, just so I'm clear, is this part of the homework? So it's figuring out what you what you want, whether you should stay or not. Is this the sort of the preparation you're talking about?

It is, because otherwise you just go to the, I should get more money. Everything's, all the bills are going up and maybe you should, but just before you go there, we'll come to that. What do you want? And let's start with that. Are you doing the job you like? Is there another opportunity for you in the company? Have you actually gone from a junior to a senior? Have you actually progressed in, and we'll talk about the value in a minute, but that's the starting point, I think. Okay. And therefore, you know, what's the role that you're doing and you think you deserve more money for? Or is it just because you want more money? And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that either. Yeah, I guess that's fair enough.

Yeah.

Okay. So with me so far?

With you so far. Yeah. So these are the foundations that are important.

Yeah. Because I think before you go on the campaign, which is what it is, or even a crusade in some cases, depending on your company. Yeah. And I can see managers who are listening getting worried. Don't worry, I am going to give the secret to your staff. But I will balance, I promise to balance it off. Pick me up if I don't. So here's the thing, so you know what you want, and then what I want you to do as part of your homework is to really understand your role. So the role you're in, I appreciate that no one really gets out the job description. They probably, A, didn't see one, and if they did, it's in the drawer and it's a bit dusty, right? Yeah. But what is your role? And the reason to know, want to know your role, is that you've got to be able to benchmark your value for your role. And it's not always easy to do because you might have a bespoke role that no one else does. I mean, no one's as amazing as you, but if there is someone else in the industry doing your role, then that's pretty helpful. Yeah.

So if you know the role, you can then say, I'm doing my role, but I'm also doing this, this, this, and this. Which is why—

Yeah, partly. But the other thing is that I want you to be able to go and benchmark in the market what you're worth, what your role is worth. Okay. Are you being paid? I mean, here's the point, right? So are you being paid the right amount of money for the job you're doing? Now, you can always get more money. For anyone listening, just to let you know, big secret, you can always earn more money. It's not all about the money, right? We did the— when we did the motivation podcast, now we found out that people are not working for the money. I appreciate this is about the money. Yeah, but there has to be more to it. So do I like the people? Do I like the work I'm doing? Has that, you know, is there purpose in my company? It's all that stuff we've spoken about before. So you can go and tart yourself around and go and get some more money, but will that make you happy?

Maybe it will. Probably. But no, I know exactly what you mean. And actually, now is a good time. You can afford to be picky at the moment because I think in terms of the way the market is currently at time of recording, there are more jobs out there than people able to pick them up.

Yeah, the market's strong. And I think in a strong market, I want people to think about this a bit more. Don't get excited. It's not the gold rush. So don't just move for money. That's what I would say. Move for money. Yeah. Don't just move for money. It's a hide into nothing because we know that money is a short-term motivator. Yeah. Although the whole episode is on how to get more money, but I just want to balance.

No, it's good. Yes. Devil's advocate.

So this is what I recommend you do. Do a market assessment. Sounds really fancy, doesn't it? What does that mean? What it means is, so if you can work out your role, so if you are a service manager or a marketing assistant, whatever, whatever your role is, go and look at other companies. Start with competitors if you can. There's— with Google, this is easy to do. And go and find job ads, recent job ads, and find out what they're paying. And don't kind of skew it, just deal with the truth. It is what it is. So if you find out that, you'll always earn more money. But if you find out that most companies are paying what you're earning, sorry, then you're at market value, then I've got other advice for you.

But that's a good sort of beginning way to do it. Yeah. Okay. And do managers respond to that? Just out of interest. I think, you know, I think just from experience, it's often met with sort of defensiveness.

Yes.

So is it— I mean, I think this is a good— it's definitely a good idea and a good place to start. But how do managers respond to that on the whole?

Yeah, no, it's a good point, George. I think— now I'm going to talk about how to use it, but this is more I call it my homework. So my homework is, yeah, you have to use it carefully, right? For the reasons you've just said. But am I at market value? So am I being paid roughly the right amount for the job I'm doing, even though I'm not happy with the amount of money? That's a great place to start. And you know, you'll find jobs that pay ridiculously more, but you'll get a sense. And particularly if they're recent jobs. And keep that evidence because that is going to be used in your charm offensive that we're going to be talking about later on. Okay, so it's all good. So you're with me so far? With you. And then the other thing I want to talk about, which we have spoken about in another episode, but I'm sure it's worth reinforcing, is something called commercial value. Do you remember us talking about commercial value?

Yeah, I do. I can't remember which episode it was, but I do remember it.

I thought you were going to say, I can't remember what it is, but I do remember you talking about it. You probably can't. I mean, I don't even remember what it is. But here's the thing. Commercial value is What is your value to the company? If you think for a minute, if this was your business, would you give you a pay rise? If this was your company, would you give you a pay rise? Rhetorical question, embarrassing silence. Not asking you.

No, I mean, I wouldn't.

I'm asking people listening, would you give yourself a pay rise? Are you worth more money? I mean, hopefully, maybe, I don't know. So the commercial value isn't necessarily about, you know, if you're a— there's some easy places, right? If you're a salesperson, then, you know, you have targets and it's easier to demonstrate commercial value. But if you're in the service desk, or you're in marketing or something, or you're an editor or something like that, how do you prove commercial value? I want to give you an example. I want to talk about Natalie. Okay. That's pretty random, right? Let me tell you about Natalie, right? Alrighty. So Natalie is a service advisor in a motor company.. And I had a problem with my car and a van came too close to my car coming the other way and knocked the mirror off. And it was a ridiculous amount of money to get it fixed. I mean, ridiculous amount of money and the insurance company didn't want to pay for it. So I went to see said company and Natalie was like, oh, that's too much money. Let me see if we can fix it in a better way and let's see if we can make it work for you. And then I had another problem a bit later on and I went back in again and Natalie said, look, we're going to sort this out for you. And during the period, the part was missing for 6 weeks. But during the 6 weeks, Natalie came, she stayed in touch with me, and then she said, don't worry, we'll give you another car. It's going to take a long time, but I'm just letting you know where we're at with it. And every week she would call me and let me know. And when I go into the showroom, Natalie's, oh, Mr. Gamp, so nice to see you. We're going to get everything sorted out for you. What's the value I have of Natalie?

Well, she's a trusted person who I guess you will keep on going back to that place as a result of your experience with Natalie.

Absolutely. And the value to the company, what's the value to the company?

Well, I suppose it's however much you paid for the part and then all the things you'll pay in the future rather than going elsewhere.

Yeah. So although she tried to, she saved me money, she's bought my loyalty. Yeah. So I think companies need more Nathalies. And Natalie is a good, and I'm telling everyone on this podcast about Natalie. I tell everyone about Natalie. I'm not even going to say where she works. Don't embarrass the lady, but that's commercial value. She's offering as a service advisor. I see. Not an obvious one. She's not on a commission, but the customer experience, she's bought my loyalty. I'll tell everyone about Natalie. I won't go anywhere else. I'll tell everyone else to go there. Yeah, yeah. That's commercial value.

That's powerful, isn't it?

Yeah. When I went back in, I said, Natalie, I've done some training and I said companies need more Natalie's., and she said, will you tell my boss? I said, absolutely. So I spoke to her boss, and now Natalie's got— which, she's got the reason to ask for a pay rise, I guess. Yeah. So you're with me? That's what I mean by commercial value. So when you're brewing up to have the charm offensive with your boss, you've got to think about what is the market doing and what is your commercial value. And it's not an obvious one away, so it will take a bit of planning. But the question you need to ask yourself is If it was your business, would you give yourself a pay rise? Do you think you're worth it? And the other thing I would say, which is going to be a bit confusing to some people and probably contradicting myself, is, I know we're asking for a pay rise. I don't think it's about you. I think it's about the return on investment and the value that you offer. It's not about you. I mean, it kind of is about you, but you know what I mean? I don't think it's about you. And if you think about, I think if we're too selfish about it, we miss the point.

Yeah, certainly. I think if you're putting yourself in the position of the manager, as you've recommended, they're not going to respond to it being all about you. They're going to be far more likely if you can say, this is why I'm an asset to the company and this is my commercial value, rather than my bills are increasing and—

Yeah, I need more money. I mean, my wife's on my back. Yeah, I guess. Okay. And maybe you need to do something else and we're going to talk about what the thing else. But if you're not at the right level of the foundation, so you might be underpaid, fine, then there's a reason. And you need to offer commercial value. You need to nail those two things and then you've got the foundation. So, okay, that's your homework. We're not using it yet. Should I stay or should I go? Am I at the right market level? Am I a Natalie?

Great.

Good. So number two, I want to talk to you about go-to-town money. One of my favorite things to talk about. Yeah. Remember we talked about go-to-town money?

We have talked about it. Yeah. And it's great. It's a great analogy.

Before we get to the charm offensive, here's my question to people listening. How would you come across if you didn't need it? Should you stay or should you go? Yeah. How would you come across if you didn't need the money? Here's an example. If I said to you, I guarantee you to— anytime you ask me, George, anyone who's listening, if you need a job in your particular area of expertise, I will guarantee to give you a job. No, no worries. Just call me. Here's my number. I guarantee to give you a job. I promise.

It's a real—

it's truth. It's not a trick.

That'd be great.

Right? Like it? How would you now come across in your business, in your activity, in the things that you do, in the way that you work? How would you come across?

I think probably confident, relaxed, safe in the knowledge that if it all goes wrong, you've got something else lined up straight away.

But why?

Well, because you've got that guarantee. I think it's sort of knowing that there's something else that is a guaranteed thing that means that you're going to be far more confident about your day-to-day life.

Absolutely. So, so, and then if I said to you I was lying, I have nothing, I have nothing for you, George, nothing.

I'll be really upset.

How do you feel now, apart from really annoyed with me and you'll never trust me again?

Well, I suppose you'd see the, the fact that you've been confident and relaxed and it's all been a hoax. It's like a, um, oh, what do you call it, placebo.

Yeah. And you know what, nothing has changed apart from what's in your head. Yeah. You with me?

So if you can convince yourself that there is a Gary out there who's one phone call away, who's going to give you a job, and it makes you act more relaxed and more confident and, you know, better at your job, then you should just do it.

That's how you should behave. So let's put that in a monetary sense. So if I said to you, right, here's 50 grand, put it in your bank, that's your go-to-town money. So you never have to worry. I mean, maybe it's for some people listening and thinking, is that all you got? But for some people that'd be life-changing. Yeah, that would give you the confidence, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

But it's only in your head. So if, again, if I took the money back, you don't have the money. So I want to give people some ideas about how to build go-to-town money, because if it psychologically can make you strong and confident, and therefore you're less desperate when you do need to go on a charm offensive, then, then we're going in the right direction. You with me?

Yeah. So you, but you need to trick yourself basically.

You got to trick yourself. And one of the ways to trick yourself, any guesses?

I wouldn't want to guess.

Okay, fair enough. I mean, basically the principle is you have more confidence if you, if you already got something else. And so we're trying to get people to trick themselves. One of them is to play the field. I don't mean have another girlfriend. Although the principle works where having another girlfriend where you've got one now, don't do that. That's not good. But play the field. So basically I highly recommend that people look at what's out in the market, not that we're always looking for a job, But like, like the footballers, you know, I talk a lot about warming up the bench. You know, you're the best footballer in the world and someone's warming up on the bench, you might be taken off. You should always be looking to build your bench, and therefore that will always give you confidence because you might have nothing to lose. Yeah.

So if you see that there are other roles out there for you which are paying the sort of salary you want, you don't necessarily feel as pressured to—

or you're looking at other roles, right? I mean, good example, I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where In your past, you've been working and then, you know, someone had a sniff, they were like interested in maybe hiring you and you just, you thought, I'll have a coffee, have a conversation, and then there might have been an offer forthcoming. I've had that before. Yeah. And you know, it's, you know, it's not definite, but it looks pretty likely.

Yeah.

How does that feel?

It feels great. I would say that even if the offer is terrible and you're almost definitely not going to take it, you sort of, you have a bit of a spring in your step afterwards.

You feel someone wants me.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's— this is go-to-town money, right? So let's, let's create go-to-town money for ourselves, which is the confidence that we would do a better job. We have a spring in our step, as you just said, George, and we'll be braver. Not cocky, we'll be braver. Yeah, because here's the problem, right? When you get your pay packet, on the pay packet it says gross pay, and sometimes it's really gross. It's a good term for it, you know. I think, oh, it's great pay. It's not really what I need. It's not what I'm worth. No one pays you what you're worth, right? And then there are bands sometimes. So if you work in government or some companies, I remember once I was in different bands. I was in ABCD bands or something like that. And in the bands, have you ever come across bands before? I mean music bands. I know you're a music guy. I mean like, yeah, where there's a floor and then there's a ceiling. Yeah. Well, I found myself— I'm quite tall. I was squashed between the floor and the ceiling with gross pay. It wasn't good. Yeah.

No, no, no. It can be really tricky, that, can't it?

So you got to take control. Yeah. You got to take control with Go To Town Money and a different mindset. You need to have confidence in yourself now because you've done your homework. You know what the market's saying. You know your commercial value. Now you're getting ready to have the big conversation, the awkward conversation. Yeah. So should we move to that? Yeah. I thought you were dying to do that. This is the moment. And if anyone's still— if you're hanging in there still, you're listening to the podcast. Yeah. This is it, guys. This is where it's happening.

Well done.

Well done. This is the payoff. Well done. We didn't put you off. You got this far. You thought, oh, just get to the point, right? And I'm not gonna. I'm not just gonna get to the point because that's the kind of guy I am. Okay, so part 3 is— I call it the charm offensive. Because it's a bit like the Three Bears, you know, if it's too cold, it doesn't go anywhere. If it's too hot, you annoy your boss. Yeah. And if you're a boss, you're not looking forward to what's coming anyway. No.

And you're probably getting loads of these from loads of other people.

But as a boss, right, your job is to attract and retain people. That's up to you. And it isn't all about the money. It's about giving people interesting work. It's taking interest in them. You know, it's, it's basically giving people a chance and giving them a purpose. So their money's never an issue because people won't ask for more money. But most bosses don't do that anyway. That's, that's for the bosses. But for my charm offensive, I think of it as a campaign. This is your campaign, and as part of your campaign, do not— unless you really think you have to— do not ask for money during a pay review. Okay, I think we've spoken about this before. Yeah, it's the worst time.

That was really good. Well, it wasn't good news, but it was excellent to hear that because I hadn't heard that before. That's really good advice.

And the reason is that you're vying for a pot. So in these times where people are struggling a little bit in companies, there's a smaller pot and they'll divide it by the people. And there's a big internal inertia around, you know, paying people and you're just in competition with everyone else, right? Yeah. And most companies do a normalization exercise where they'll go, right, all these people are the good people, these are the okay people, and they'll give the good people this pot and it's slightly more money. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to get a pay rise during a pay review or during your appraisal, but my advice is it's not the best time. Okay. The other thing to say is, just for the bosses out there, it's bloody difficult. It's a difficult process. If I'm the manager, as a manager, when I know someone needs more money, even if they deserve it, I know it's a pain. It's difficult. The process is hard. It's hard for me and we're not empowered. So we've got to go through 15 signatures and If it's an owner business, no one wants to spend more money, right? So, you know, understand if you're trying to get more money, just look through the lens of your manager. It's not an easy job for them.

Yeah. And it's rarely a case of them just sort of saying no for the sake of it.

Yeah. And sometimes they're second-guessing what they're going to do next. So they're like, I know if I go and ask for these people, then I need the— that's why the evidence is important. You've got the homework. If you use the evidence for good, not for evil, then it will work well. By the way, the campaign, the charm offensive is to use all your work for good, not for evil. You know what I mean by that? Don't be like Dr. No stroking the cat. Yeah, yeah.

You're not being manipulative or—

Yeah, you're doing, you know, you're, because you proved your value and if you ever threaten someone that even if you're worth it, that it's not worth it.

No, it's the worst. And it's also the worst when people, I think, you know, when we were talking earlier about should I stay or should I go? When people are sort of saying, I'm going to leave, I'm going to leave, and sort of threatening, it's just, it's a really unattractive thing.

It is. And it makes you want them to leave. Yeah. To be honest. I mean, you're good, but you're not that good. You know, put your finger in a glass of water and take it out and look for the hole. You know, no one's indispensable, right? So, uh, at the end of the day, you know, I was talking to a customer recently where his team was acquahired. And what that means is that a big chunk of the team left. The manager left and took the team with them. It's called acquahiring. Sometimes I do that as an exercise. What would you do if all your whole team left tomorrow and would you be ready as a manager? But anyway, the principle is that it was really difficult, but life goes on, right? Yeah. And so if you go, even if you think you're the most important person there, that happens. People leave and you have to find a solution to it. So you're not as important as you think. No offense to people listening. Rude to my listeners. That's not great. But what you're looking to do is build some allies. Basically make sure that you're networking across and down in the business because all you need is when people talk about you to go, you're a good person. Now, George is a great guy, Gary's a great guy, Jane's a great girl. You just want people to say, yeah, I mean, they're worth it. I've come with that professional, they do a good job. If it was my business, I want to make sure they stay, that they're people we want to keep, we want to invest in. That's got to be what you need to do. So I'm not going to talk a lot about the detail of that in this episode because we've done it before, but You need to build a network of allies in order to make it work for you. Because what happens is managers will talk together and sometimes, you know, you need someone else to sort of say you're a good person as well.

And I think that was 2 episodes ago, wasn't it? We were talking about that exercise of doing the circle around yourself and then connecting that to 5 people in the company. And the importance of that comes through in things like this, doesn't it? As you say, when you're looking for potential pay rises.

Yeah, definitely. So now we're building up. So we've got a charm offensive, we're going on a campaign. And the campaign is, it's a bit like if you've got kids and you say to them, right, we're going home now. They get really upset. I want to stay 5 minutes. Let me stay 5 minutes. And what you learn as a parent is you give them the 5-minute warning. You let them know, look, we're going in 5 minutes. A bit of a moan, but they know you're going 5 minutes and then it's 1 minute to go and we're going. And in life it's the same. People don't want to be hijacked. They don't want to be pounced on. They don't want to be kind of cornered. And so anything you can do, if you think about the good side of politics, people get lobbied. Yeah, yeah, you get a bit noticed. What do you think? Get your input. That's what you need to do here. It's a campaign. You need to lobby people. You need to go, you know, don't surprise them. You need to let them know it's coming. And you know, it's no guarantee, but you're going to be in a much better position.

And how would you do that? How do you just drop— is it just a case of dropping an email and saying, listen, I need to talk to you, it's about A pay rise.

I mean, yeah, I just wanted to let you know that. Yeah, by the way, the heading of this, although it was charm offensive, it's, have you seen that film Jerry Maguire? I have. Show me the money.

Show me the money.

That's where we're at now. At some point you've got to go, show me the money. Show me the money. Sorry, bad impression. Yeah, so how do you do it? Good question. So yeah, I think it is that hopefully you're building a good relationship with your boss. And you can have a conversation about— you should always sandwich your conversation with the good, the bad, and the ugly. So it's like, and genuinely, you know, I really like working here. And that's why I asked you at the beginning, do you want to stay or do you want to go? Because if you want to go, then don't bother to go and ask for more money, just go.

Yeah, yeah.

But if you generally want to invest and you feel it's worth pursuing, unless you've tried and you didn't get anywhere, and then you should go anyway, by the way. But if you, if you think there's scope and it's worth the effort, worth the return on your investment, then you should— that's how you should have that conversation. So you, you should ask for a one-on-one with your boss and do it outside the building. Go for coffee somewhere. Don't do it on the phone. I'm not a big fan of doing it by email. At some point some people do and it's fine, but maybe you can't do it one-on-one. Sometimes it's not possible. Yeah. Sometimes you don't have a good manager and they don't like talking about this kind of stuff. We've spoken about that before. But the main thing is to say, look, I love— I really like working here. I like working for you. And then you can start discussing a bit, you know, but I'm kind of getting to that point now where I think I'm adding value, I'm adding commercial value. And hopefully you've done your homework, you can explain it. And you can say, look, I'm not threatening, I'm just, you know, it's not today, but over the next few weeks, I want to develop and, you know, I'm hoping that I can get support from the company for that. And, you know, so, you know, I've done a bit of homework, but I'll come back to you on that. So, you know, you don't go, right, here's my file, I've worked all this out. I'm being underpaid. Company, you owe me. Yeah, because it mustn't ambush, but it's a campaign. So just the starting point is I'm looking into it. I love working here. I love working for you. Make it genuine. If you don't, then don't say that. Yeah. Show me the money. Show me the money. So that would be the first point. But then you need to keep that campaign going. So the next step should be, you know, I've had a look into it and you can say, I know that you can earn more money anywhere, right? If you try hard enough. But yeah, it just looks like in my role, lots of companies are paying. Here's an example. Actually, I just had a look recently and I came across this. Yeah. But anyway, you know, not here to threaten anything, but I need to have a conversation. And then I would ask for advice. My next step is to ask for advice, which is, you know, I want to work here, but I want to develop. What's the best way for me to get to the next stage? Now, what you want to try and avoid is getting to the next level to get a pay rise. Yeah, there's something to look out for. So if, if you go from a regular to a senior, an easy fob off from your boss might be— sorry, bosses— it might be, when you get to the next level, then we'll talk about it. Yeah, yeah, right. And maybe you do want to get to the next level to get pay rise, and that's okay. And then you need to be very specific about what it What is it actually going to take for me to get to the next level? What are the, what are the attributes of someone at the senior level versus the regular level? But that will be a more long-term thing.

Yeah, but if you're, if you're not into that, then avoid it.

Yeah, avoid it because then you're just going to get pushed out. Yeah, not pushed out, but pushed. It will take you longer to get to where you want to get to. But the key thing is to, if you do feel you deserve a pay rise where you are, then you need to put it together. And then I do think at some point you should put an email together. Because then I think people will take you more seriously. Don't boss skip.

Yeah, no, don't go over anyone's head.

Not unless you get permission to. It's really annoying, right? Yeah. Bear in mind, as a manager, it's pretty difficult to get— as I said before, it's quite difficult to get to the next stage. So don't boss skip because— but you can ask to if you feel that's the right thing. But I would ask for advice about what to do. And what, you know, if you go back to Nick Walker's podcast when he was talking about how to get promoted from within, Yeah, he said he felt that he would prefer that someone spoke to him about it, but you're doing it with a rational— you're separating logic from the emotion. It's just about logic. It's not that I need it, I would like it, I deserve it. None of that. It's because my role in the market is worth this and I have this commercial value. Yeah. Then the whole basis of a conversation is around the logic, not the emotion. Does that make sense?

It's an equation, isn't it? It's actually commercial value plus market standard.

Go on, equals?

Equals show me the money.

Brilliant. So that's exactly right. Yeah, so that's my advice. So you're, you're going to do your homework because the foundation is logic versus emotion. You're going to have the go-to-town money because you need to have the right confidence, but you also need to be— you need to decide, if I don't get the, the money and I do think I'm worth it and I've done my research, will I stay? Yeah, because you may decide that I'm willing to put up with not earning as much, but that's your fault. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. And just, could you just summarize that final bit? Because I think that was really important, that the sort of the 3 or 4 steps of the final, of the show me the money section.

Yes. So the charm, it's a charm offensive. So it's not like a one-hit wonder. It's a campaign. Like I'm going to lobby. So I'm going to have various discussions where I let out a little bit more, not over too long a period, but I'm not going to ask for it all in one go and go, I need it. Give it to me straight away. Yeah, I'm going to create some allies so that people are understanding my value. So I'm networking anyway, and we'll talk people how to do that internally. And then there is— there will come a point where I'm actually going to ask for the money, but I'm basing it on the market assessment and my commercial value for the role I'm doing. Yeah. And if there is— if I am at the tipping point of going to a senior role, more senior role, that's okay. But if you, if you rely on that, you might get pushed out and it will take you longer. So here's my 3 takeaways.

Okey-dokey.

Number 1, know what you want. You've got to know what you want because if you don't know what you want, then why are you asking for more money? Then you're not in the logic, you're in the emotion, and therefore you need to assess the markets. And number 2 is you've got to assess the market and you've got to understand your commercial value. And number 3 Show me the money, but don't do it in one go. Do it as a campaign and focus on the logic, not the emotion. But you do need to ask. If you don't ask, you know, if you're so round the edges and you never ask the question, then you'll never get— no, people don't knock on your door and offer you jobs, and they don't offer you more money without you asking. At some point you have to ask, but at least it's based on logic and your research that you've done. So, and I think in most cases, if you've got a good manager and you are worth it, then they will pay to keep you. But Bear in mind that question: if it was your business, would you give you a pay rise? And with that, I will say thank you, Mr. George.

Thank you, Mr. Gary. Excellent advice as always. Thanks everybody for listening. Good luck getting those pay rises, and apologies to all the bosses for giving away the secrets.

Show me the money.

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