Tessa White

If you're, say, 35 years old and you negotiate an extra $5,000 for your job, it's not just $5,000 because in lifetime earnings, that's several hundred thousand dollars in lifetime earnings. And if you invested that difference, it's even more.

Well, I think they need to be very mindful that they are their best advocate for making money. The company's not gonna magically go in and decide that they need to pay them more money. Because a company's always going to err on the side of, they'll take as much as you'll give. So making sure that you're advocating for yourself is probably the greatest way that you make money.

Yeah, salary negotiation, asking for money, which is uncomfortable for people to do sometimes. Understanding what the value of your role is or the position that you're applying for. versus just kind of going with the first thing that people ask. I mean, a little bit of discomfort on the front end of negotiating on behalf of yourself really has a massive impact on the back end.

If you're, say, 35 years old and you negotiate an extra $5,000 for your job, it's not just $5,000 because in lifetime earnings, that's several hundred thousand dollars in lifetime earnings. And if you invested that difference, it's even more. So you need to look at it a

Every penny that I can negotiate on behalf of myself is the new basis for which other offers come in and other raises is based off of. And it really does have a cumulative effect that's significant.

One of my recommendations is that you mimic a top performer plan. Companies typically put people in this nine box and they have these top performers and nobody knows who they are except the top performers. They get all these extra things. Some of those extra things are exposure to experiences, which are very valuable to you.

That may be sitting in on an executive meeting and just seeing how things operate. And the thing about corporate America is your manager needs help. There's always more to do than people to do it. And so if you ask for your own top performer plan, you can actually ask for and be very directive with your manager to say, can I give part of a presentation in this executive team meeting?

Can I run this little piece of a project that is holding us back that we need to get over the finish line? Can I sit in and listen to how a meeting operates? Can I help develop a dashboard for... our departments so that we can show progression in some of the key objectives.

So there's lots of different ways you can do it, but the key is you have to ask because most managers are not really great at putting together growth plans for people. They've got a lot of people And it gets very murky what they need. But if you actually go to your manager and direct it and say, can I do this one thing? Can you help make this one thing happen? Or these two things happen?

Then your odds go way up and your credibility goes up in the organization. Your visibility goes up and therefore your promotability goes up.

Well, let's start with something that I think people might find interesting. I've sat in on hundreds of promotion meetings where they decide who gets the promotions that year. And almost without fail, it's like a broken record. The people that don't get the promotions, people will say, well, they sound great, but I don't know who they are. I haven't worked with them.

One of the big keys to getting the promotions is visibility across the organization and being able to collaborate well with other departments. And it's really important that when people know you, you have a greater chance of getting the promotion and when you intersect with them. So that's the first thing is that Having that exposure is really important.

One of the first practical things that I would do in a job is to go talk to the people that intersect with my role and say, tell me, what do you expect out of this role? What are the problems that I am helping solve for you and where are your pain points? And I would get very, very aligned with what those people and constituents need. Because the job on paper is not the real job. It never is.

And this helps you determine what the real job is and how you win, more importantly, how you align yourself to win. So I would be having those conversations at least twice a year because that's what's going to point you toward how you actually work on the things that are going to get you promoted in a company and how we're going to get visibility for you and what you do.

I'm a big believer in planting seeds in an organization with other managers and other places in the organization so that you know what's coming. Managers are planning six months, eight months in advance, sometimes a year in advance of what they need and what's coming. And you need to be talking with them about how are you going to be evolving? What are the big problems you're trying to solve?

What are big initiatives and things that are going to help you over the next couple of years move into the next level of efficiency? And when you understand those things, then you get a better idea of how you fit into the ecosystem. And you also get a better idea of maybe where you want to go in the future.

And then you can begin to craft the kind of experiences that you need so that you will be somebody that they can pay attention to. I would absolutely treat your company like a big homework assignment. And I would be trying to listen to the quarterly reports, listen to the CEO, what are the big objectives that we're trying to accomplish? And it helps you establish that narrative.

Because I get mad when people come and say, I interviewed, but it didn't work very good, or I don't think they understood my value. And I say, if you don't understand your value proposition, I promise you the company won't. It really is your job to figure out what your value proposition is. And in order to do that, you have to have information.

Well, that's a lot of different questions. Let me start with value proposition. First of all, it's kind of a big word, but how do you know what value you bring to an organization? This is a really hard thing for people, but if you think about leverage, that's what you want to have is leverage to get what you want. Leverage at its core is I have what you need.

And so if you can define what is it that I see the company needs, where are they going and what have I done so far that shows I have that skill? And you can then turn it into numbers. I was able to come into my department and move the needle on these particular criteria. then you have more leverage. But what most people do is they say, I'm really good at working with customers.

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