Negotiating Your Salary to Get What You’re Worth

Many people feel uncomfortable when it comes to negotiating their salary, but it’s important to be compensated for your worth. Alex Carter, a world-renowned negotiation coach, helps clients realize their worth, and more importantly, teaches them how to ask for it. Alex Carter believes that many people mistakenly see negotiations as an adversarial process, and not as a way for both parties to come out successful.

Starting a negotiation requires introspection and clarity. Alex shares, “It starts with asking yourself a few questions. The first one is, ‘What is the problem I’m trying to solve?’ Most people don’t invest the time to accurately define the situation, but I’ve seen people come away with less than what they wanted because they defined their goals in a limited, unhelpful way.” After deciding what the goal at hand is, it’s important to take anything negative in your mind and reframe it to be positive.

Individuals that we see as an “opponent” are people that we will have a continued relationship with in the future. This may be a new relationship with a hiring manager, or an existing relationship with a current superior. Negotiations aren’t about “winning,” they’re about steering a relationship. Alex suggests this frame of mind: “How you handle your part in that relationship can be crucial to your career, not just right now but in the future.” It’s important to view a salary negotiation as a part of the relationship, rather than a contest or match.

One of the most crucial tools in Alex’s negotiation process is silence. Alex teaches the idea of “landing the plane,” where we get to the best deal possible by being willing to sit in silence and not speak first. This is key to maintaining an upper hand in the interaction and getting what you’re worth. Instead of jumping in with an offer to fill uncomfortable silence, Alex encourages us to get comfortable with the silence and wait for the other person to make us an offer or counter offer. Often, people will throw out a lower offer than they were hoping for just to fill the silence, when they may have been offered a higher salary if they had waited for their negotiating partner to make the first offer. Silence can be one of our best tools when it comes to attaining a higher salary.

Awareness of our goals, our value, and our future relationships are key when it comes to negotiation. It helps us improve our negotiation skills and help us achieve a salary that reflects our value. It also helps us improve professional relationships that will benefit us for years to come.