Erin McGoff

speaker

84 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2025 last heard May 2025

Erin McGoff’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Jefferson Fisher Podcast · Erin McGoff: How to be Instantly More Confident at Work · 13 May 2025 podcast

But anytime you're going to a supervisor or manager or somebody senior to you, I want you to imagine that you're them. Like we see these people as, oh, well, they're above us. They have it all figured out. Like they have more control than me. This is a weird power dynamic. But at the end of the day, they probably have a boss too who has a boss too who has a boss too.

And they have dirty laundry at home. They have to call their grandma. Like they're stressed out about paying off their student loans. Like they're looking for a new job. They're probably also looking for a raise. Like they're just a person at the end of the day. So anytime – that somebody comes to me and they're like, hey, I want to go to my manager and talk to them about this.

I always tell them, imagine that you were that manager and somebody that you manage was coming to you and asking you that question. How would you want them to ask you that question when you have a million other things going on? And yes, it's their job to supervise or manage you. So don't get it twisted. That's part of their job.

But they have a lot going on, you know, and so how can you present this in a way where it's not a battle? It's not, you know, give me this vacation or I quit. But rather, how can we work together, you know, to coordinate schedules? Because at the end of the day, like managers...

It is a stressful job, especially middle managers, when you have to report to your boss above you and then cater to people underneath you. It's a very thankless job. So I always encourage people just try to step in their shoes, think about everything they have going on and how you can make this an easy yes for them. Get to yes.

You know, that desired outcome is them saying, yeah, you could take that extra vacation day. That's no problem. How can you get them to say that? So think about it backwards.

Give me, give me.

Yeah. So, you know, what you're doing when you come out of the gate strong, like you said, is you're putting a lot of work and like load on them because you're a manager. If you work in a corporate structure is probably not the one that actually has to green light that raise. They have to go to their boss who has to go to finance, who has to go to HR.

And it's like a lot of people who have to say yes. So that's why it's important. Yeah, that's why it's important to not. And it's always, you know. I always talk about how there's a difference when you're negotiating with the person who has the power to say yes and the person you're talking to. And they're oftentimes two different people.

So if you're talking to your manager, like you said, enroll them in the conversation and say, hey, look, I did my market research and other social media coordinators out there are getting paid $10,000 more than me to do less than me. So I'm just being frank with you here.

I really like working here, but we need to do something to adjust my compensation because I'd really like to stay here, but this is not sustainable for me. And so you enroll them because now they're thinking their manager brain clicks on and they're like, must retain good employee.

And so they can take that to their boss and they can say, look, Erin's thinking about quitting if we don't give her a 10K bump. And so I want to retain her because she's really productive and she's a great value add to the company. And then they can go to finance and advocate for you. So you have to give them a case to advocate for. on your behalf to somebody else.

And you can't just say, Hey, give me a raise because they're thinking I can't control that. I got to go talk to Dave and he's got to talk to Karen and they got to talk to all these people, you know? So just working with them and making it a collaboration.

Yeah.

Yeah, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth for sure.

Um, yeah, so I'm like you, where I have just played both sides of the coin so much being a business owner. You know, I worked as a director, so I had to hire people all the time, let go of people. And then as a freelancer, I've had to get hired up and hired by over 25 companies. And so I've truly just been on both sides of this equation so many times.

And yeah, ultimatums just typically don't work in general. I think anybody listening to this might say, oh, there's an exception for my cousin who works in tech. It's like, yeah, there's exceptions for everything me and Jefferson say. Everything that comes out of her mouth, there's an exception for it. You got to give disclaimers for every little thing.

But yeah, I think just typically like strong arming people is like a last resort. And it should not be. You should always go into things more softly because you want to help people bring down their defenses whenever you're having a communication. That's like literally what Jefferson's entire book is about is how to get people to deescalate and to get softer.

And then you can have a real conversation.

They're thinking about a million things.

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