Feel like you are not getting paid enough for the work you do? Let master career coach Unre Visagie show you what to do to change that as soon as possible!
Slide 1 (Getting paid right for what you do)
I’m not getting paid enough for what I do. This is something we hear often in our coaching and big businesses. At all levels of employment people sometimes feel that they are not paid enough. There’s a simple solution to get paid right where you are for what you do. Let’s look at the getting paid right process correctly.
What happened to Andre in one of the companies, he was really working hard and he felt cheated when he didn’t receive an increase. He made it known that he was looking, got a very good job offer and in the process he got a 40% increase in his existing company. Very uncomfortable situation, nice choice though. How could Andre have avoided this?
He could’ve turned this into a super opportunity and a fun experience. Today this process is packaged in the Career Maker System to always get paid for what you really do and getting paid right. We call it the secure, safe and certain way to get paid right, with the right solution and the right approach.
Slide 2 (Why should I be paid more now or soon?)
The question is always “What should you be paid for more?” I’ve had many people in my companies come to me and say “I need more money”, “I need to be paid more”. The question is always what do you do, and what is it worth to whom? You can earn and be paid according to your production, provided you can communicate your production. You will rarely get paid more if you wait, so waiting is not an option. You’ve got to do something about it.
How do you do it? Firstly, look at how you currently communicate the work you do. How you say yes to work and how you say no to work. Yes, you do have a choice if you know how to say yes and no. Each one of us does. Let’s look at the decision makers. If I ask you “Do they understand what it is you do and the value of what you do?” In Andre’s case, he worked so hard that they never noticed him. He felt it was very visible, but other people have their work and don’t notice. All that’s needed is they must become aware of what you do and how valuable it is.
Slide 3 (The solution to be paid right for what you do)
If that is true, what is then the solution to always be paid right for what you do? And even be paid forward a little bit because you stretch towards higher targets. There are three steps we will look at. You have to know what you currently do. Choose the people to communicate to, who are the real influence decision makers? If I look at Andre’s situation, he didn’t even consider his decision makers and the people that must make this decision, how much of the production is his. They just didn’t notice.
Slide 4 (How does the system work for all of us?)
To recap how Andre was working in the company, he was working very hard, but he didn’t make sure that his gears fit, that while driving the system he fits the system’s needs. A little bit of awareness, a little bit of appropriate communication and I can assure you his increase would have been even bigger than 40%. The executive management must know what he’s doing, why he’s doing it and agree on the value. Yes, you can manage your own success factors, your own tasks that are always aligned with the expectations of the shareholders.
You would ask what the shareholders have to do with my job. Understanding the purpose and the returns the shareholders expect and communicating that with management and your team, you become a more strategic contributor in your company, you become visible; you discuss higher end things with your managers. It makes all the difference. Fitting into your team and keeping the customer in mind. The customer is the one that comes shopping, that must pay us. When the customer pays us and my value to the team and the team’s value to the client is clear, how can you not be paid right when you inform the people upwards? We find that when you inform up, you use the management to do your work for you. That’s a different discussion.
Slide 5 (Know what you currently do for whom)
When you move from the box across to the great spaces, this is where you get paid enough, you get paid right, then things are right, therefore the great space. Know what you currently do for whom, why you do it, what is the value, when is it complete, those are simply things to clarify. I found in coaching and in all my companies that people can’t really answer this question. So step one is to figure out the answer to that question. In the process you will engage other people.
You will know the value, you will know what to do more of, and you will know what to do less of. When you engage other people it becomes very clear. We found that almost nobody can do it by themselves. We recently did this process with a few professors and they couldn’t answer it either. Their life changed when they communicated and they started saying no to some things and yes to others that were beneficial. When Andre saw this model and realized that he actually has a choice thing started changing.
Slide 6 (Prepare to communicate to influencers)
Let’s look at moving from the perceived boxes, because they are perceived, they are not real, moving from there to the great space, what is the process? The second one then, prepare to communicate to influencers. You want to identify them and understand who the decision makers are. What are their priorities, when do they deliver, and play the game. Inform them, choose the right tasks, and prepare with people around you, friends, family, you can even get professional people to help you prepare, but you want to be prepared.
You want to practice the communication. Discuss with selected people, prepare and seek more information, identify and go forward into practice, repeat this process a few times, the more you repeat it the clearer it will become. Now you are prepared and you know who the influencers are.
Slide 7 (Engage & Communicate)
You are now ready to engage. You engage these people with their priorities first, you engage them saying thank you to them. When you engage people with a little bit of respect and acknowledgement they never say no, they always enjoy it, a little bit of recognition, a little bit of saying thank you, say “Wow, it’s great what you do!” You can always find something, I know in some cases it’s very hard to find something to say thank you for, because there are many things that bug you. Andre never did that; therefore people never knew what he was doing, He never informed them, that is where the problem came from.
Slide 8 (Fear and Fail and Risk)
Let’s look at the process in summary. The perceived boxes are about fear and failure. It’s also about risks, how do I know they will treat me right? Will I do damage to my career if I risk this? Each of us are concerned about that. Remember that fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Fail stands for First Attempt in Learning. Sometimes you do make mistakes, but you go back through the process, figure out what is right, and do it again. You cannot but succeed if you focus and the fear goes away. The process is: know what you do, prepare and engage.
Another thing we find in our companies, and with coaching etc. people rarely know exactly what their transferrable skills are. What is my experiences worth in the company? What are their natural aptitudes? Which relationships do they maintain bring to bear and how valuable are those relationships? In the process of knowing, preparing and engaging that becomes a lot clearer, because other people can see what is very difficult for us to know by ourselves.
In the process of exploring, preparing and engaging, you realize that all the resources are available, provided you engage them, engaging them with respect, showing people respect, having respect for what they do well. You can engage any knowledge or resource that you may need on the road forward. It’s like climbing your own staircase. I know making and climbing a staircase at the same time is the origin of a lot of fears and perceived risks. If you have a clear process, a clear system, this becomes a lot of fun, very exhilarating.
So you start by exploring, you prepare, you engage, and in the process your store is growing. In the process it also guides you to align your job with your company and your industry. Your skills, your expertise applied in the switch pot, makes you grow personally, you add more value and you are aligned in your job, industry and company. The same alignment applies to your work, job and career, where it is aligned with industry and company. The end result of the process is you get in charge of where you go, what you say yes to, what you say no to, how fast you grow, how big your increases are, where you work, with whom you work.
This gives you a whole lot of insight, knowledge and confidence. A man with a plan is never refused when you look for resources. People don’t know how to engage a man without a plan, so you just won’t get the resources from outside to bring it inside. You end up in a great space, having moved from the perceived boxes to no more fears, just great energy forward.
Slide 9 (Start with the purpose)
Inside the Career Maker System we have a whole lot of models we like to use to keep it simple, so people can visualize it and make it theirs very quickly. One of them is the clear career purpose, the clear job purpose with your short term objectives and tasks you are executing you keep them aligned with your vision and mission. If Andre did that and this was clear to his manager’s communicator he would never have had that stressful period of not getting paid right or not getting paid enough.
Slide 10 (Influence direct synergy)
Let’s look at one more example. A lot of people fight the rules instead of understanding them. The rules tend to be known and you don’t have an influence on their reality, slowly maybe, but not quickly. Spend no time fighting the rules; spend a lot of time understanding the game, playing the game where you can make decisions, where you can make a contribution, where you have influence, where it’s also known. You make your space bigger in this process of engaging people and preparing, you grow your options, you get to know more. The more you know, the more options you have, the more you can do and the quicker you grow. It’s such an obvious process. Interesting enough so few people do it.
Slide 11 (The approach to engage people)
We attempted to put a system together that came out of our multi-million dollar companies, we’ve built big incubators, we’ve done lots of coaching and a whole lot of pro bono work at universities, schools and communities. The approach to engage people is I respect and I say thank you. This gets the attention of the other person. What does the other person want? What the other person wants and needs must be first. If you give others more of what they want, I guarantee you get more of what you want. It works every time to say thank you.
There are two styles of questions we use extensively in this process, open exploratory and closed questions. On the website there are models for questioning, communication and interaction. To assist people with quick models that they can grasp and remember, they must share with people around them, which enable them to get a lot more information a lot faster. At the time, Andre didn’t have this tool, he used this but he never thought of using these tools for his own career growth. He used it in his family, in sales, but never in his own career, now of course, he does.
What should you do more of? What should you do less of? Which projects can you expand? In the model it all comes down to career project management. To that end there are a whole lot of models on the website. I want to demonstrate the website to you quickly (careerdevelopmentplan.net). There is a whole list of items related to career planning and performance management. We have grouped the tools around specific focus areas to make it easy for you to use the group of tools to address this one issue. There is a whole range of specific topics.
We would like your feedback at the bottom of the pages to improve these clusters. These clusters have been developed in a very large incubator that went from zero to $120000000 at the time in less than six years. We’re fairly proud of it, and we didn’t do all these things so well so the incubator didn’t keep growing at that speed. That story is on my personal site. You can see that the clusters of tools should make it easier to address each issue, as you may need it.
Slide 12 (Business toolset)
In conclusion, looking at ‘I am not paid enough for what I do’. This happens often, many people don’t even know that they are not paid enough for what they do. If they do this process, nine times out of ten they are paid more. Remember, you can come on the site and get our direct coaching, but more often than not, working with family, friends and work colleagues you can do it all absolutely free. We believe if we help a little it does accelerate. There’s a business and a personal toolset. Please watch out for the next email. Hopefully we can walk this journey with you, as we have done with many, to keep on increasing your salary in a practical, logical way every year.
How to Get a Raise Right Now
by Unre Visagie
Struggling to get a raise out of your boss?
Let master career coach Unre Visagie show you how to approach your manager to get a higher salary.
In this coaching video Unre takes you through the process to easily get a salary raise.
Please leave your questions in the comments section below. We would love to answer them!
We’re looking at careerdevelopmentplan.net’s foolproof Career Maker System and specifically at ‘I must earn more money right now’. We believe that if people move from the boxes they perceive to be real and instead towards a different space everything becomes better and they will continuously earn more. Our more senior people increase their salaries by 20 to 30 plus percent a year by approaching the same work a little bit differently, by treating their environment differently.
How do they do it? How do they get to earn more is the question there. We have experience of over 40 years from building teams, then businesses, then doing professional coaching in a wide area, including students at universities and schools, the last being mostly pro bono. The processes are very similar. When people understand how to go implement it and they feel safe and secure they find it becomes very exciting. The foolproof Career Maker System is secure, safe and certain. We hope you find it the same.
Let’s look at moving from the boxes to great spaces and earning more right now. We all work and invest to everyone’s mutual benefit. You cannot lose if you follow this approach. We usually start with the words ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘always’ and ‘again’, feeling that control is external, when in reality the external view always lead to frustration because the people out there do not worry so much about you. They tend to worry about themselves and the things they are paid to worry about.
When people communicate clearly what they already do, they clearly understand what their value is, they deliver more value and they communicate that value, they get paid for what they do, because people know what they do. People can’t pay you if you don’t know, and most often people don’t know. Most people expect that somebody must notice how hard I work. People don’t really pay you for hard work, they pay you for effective work; they pay you for value. We’ll have more stories on that as we go forward. Once you’ve gained insight, you’ve prepared it and you’ve communicated it to the right influencing people, you cannot but lift your salary by 30%. At least you will pave the road towards a 30% increase. Let us look at the simple three steps to earn more right now:
Let’s take a look at your role as a cogwheel in the great machinery of industry, production and economic communities. If you drive the whole thing drives, you don’t have to wait for the engine to drive you. What we find is that most people never develop the ability to make their cogwheel fit to the engine, the engine is not going to adapt to us, we can only adapt to the engine. The board and executive is there to see that we do more with less capital, since that would generate a higher capital for shareholders, meaning all of us get more capital at a lower cost to produce even more. That will grow my career, it grows my job, and it grows what I earn.
In the production engine, in the teams I play, the contribution I make, I cannot but grow my salary 20 – 30% a year. if I fit and I’m clear, I’m always wanted, I’m always in demand. Lastly, and the most important, the client comes shopping, what does he buy from us? What do I contribute to what the client buys? If I grow my insight into our clients and their wants, the industry, our investors, our businesses and our competitors, my ability to contribute takes a leap. I also need know what to say no to, which is almost more important than knowing what to say yes to.
We found over the years in our companies, in our coaching and in our pro bono work with students and schools that saying no seem to come very hard to us. If people are confident to what they say yes to, they become very confident what they say no to. Once you know what you really want to do, you get loaded with what you want, and it’s easy to say no to what you don’t want. When the client comes shopping he must find what he wants. My contribution to the team must be clear, our contribution to the executive and the board must be clear so they can get more capital for us and keep the shareholders very happy. If everybody does well I cannot help but do well as well, provided I communicate. That is one more way to move from the perceived boxes to the great spaces.
Let us look at the first one: know what you currently do for whom. What we have found in our companies and recently with some people we coached, people don’t quite understand the value of their contribution, how they as a cogwheel fit in and what they do. Remember that you are much more than your work, we’ll come back to that one. In your work, understand your value. Understand and discuss the value of what you do and what you want with the influencers around you.
What should you do more of? Recently that was my first question to two senior people, Albert and Ken, what is it that they want more of? What is it they want less of? Clarifying that and writing it down, made them go back to their workplace and change the content of their work in less than a few weeks. Once you know and you are confident to communicate because you are prepared, you automatically move up the scale. You know what to say no to, you know what to say yes to.
Let’s move to the next one: prepare. If you look at preparation to communicate, we find it very useful if you use people around you, bounce it of them, and get their support. This can be colleagues, friends, family, and even selected recognized business and industry gurus. They would love it if you approach them with a plan, with respect and you recognize them. You will hear more about that. Identify those who have the insight, who can help you. Practise these communications like you practise for a speech and any situation in real life. Exercise in front of a mirror even, exercise in safe groups around you before you go to the outside world, the influences, the clients, the industry people, and the shareholders.
Elsewhere on the website we talk extensively about the power of stories and how to tell stories and why you tell stories. You’ve got to be clear and comfortable with stories, show your insights, show your research, and show your preparation. Thirdly, engage and communicate your current work list and add to it your wanted work list. Add to it what you don’t want and your plan to delegate. With the wanted list you will have a plan to volunteer. Keep doing what you are currently doing, because if you don’t get your job done you can’t do any of these things.
Ask and share with selected influencers. Use sharing and questioning skills very effectively. Elsewhere on the website we’ve put pages for asking and sharing skills and there’s a vast amount of information. If you’re already good with it ignore it. Many of us need to practice it and more of us have to use models to do it because it takes quite a long time to make it an ingrained habit. It takes a lot of exercise. You know it takes five years to learn golf, ask me, especially if your talent for golf is a bit low like mine. Respect and acknowledge those influencers. I’ve never seen anyone refused if they arrive with a clear plan and respect. They are able to say why they respect the person and why they approach them in absolute humbleness for their advice.
We find that close to 700 students at North-West University, South Africa, get holiday work that they have chosen using this technique. A third of them get jobs that were never advertised. They’ve hired themselves. Elsewhere on the website we will give you a video and the processes to hire yourself at the company of your choice, location of your choice, job of your choice. If we then look at earning more right now, which is our objective here, what stops us are those perceived boxes. The boxes are built out of many perceptions, and unless we move, explore and gather new insights, the box will remain the same.
That brings us to the statement that more of the same equals less because we keep on expending effort and we don’t get the results we want. We must change; we must think differently and get rid of our perceptions, simply through gaining insight, knowledge and some awareness. You must know what you want to do, you must prepare and communicate, and you must engage the influencers and communicate with them. It’s very simple.
Who are you? You are much more than your work skills. You are a family person, a community person, and all kinds of things. But you’re also a person that works. Your store of assets in this case, your natural talents, your experience etc. brings you to the point that you currently do what’s on your to-do list. You can see where your strengths exceed your to-do list and where you need to build some strength. We’ll talk much more about that in another video. Your current list, knowing what you do, preparing and communicating, will be based on your current activities and your current store of assets.
It’s interesting that everything anyone of us can possibly need is available; we’ve proven that over and over, we’ve built 28 companies over time. I like to start companies and then pass them on. We’ve been running incubators for a long time and in those companies we have developed people. That is where all of this comes from, originally based on Hewlett-Packard processes as we knew Bill and Dave in the seventies. It’s all out there for you.
You make a staircase of your own and you climb it yourself. It can be a bit scary to make and climb the staircase; this process is discussed in more detail in another video. Let’s get started. Explore and identify what you contribute right now, re-frame it, refresh it, understand it, and match it to your natural strengths and your required strengths. Prepare with people around you. You will know who among your family, colleagues, and friends will help you. Also identify people you admire, remember how to approach them so they never say no. They will help you prepare, then you are ready to engage the influencers.
If you arrive at the influencers with a clear plan, clear insight, and a wide understanding, they cannot but notice you, notice what you do and compensate you properly because they will start competing for you. In this process you already grow your store, you grow your relationships, you grow your insights and you practise skills that naturally grow. In this process you already get double benefit by growing your store.
When you do this, even if you just want to earn more right now, it’s good to keep in mind that your job, industry and company need to align and you need to place your store where it suits you in the centre. Align yourself in your job, the work you do and the career you want. This will effect that you stay in charge of your own salary increases: how can they not pay you if they know what you contribute as a cogwheel in this great engine we call the economy, business etc.
You will end up with continuous possession of insight, knowing where you are and where you are going, gaining the confidence to communicate it clearly, and this will take you to the great space where your store grows and let you grow. Earn as much as you want, where you want and when you want to. While your clear purpose in this case is to earn more; we recommend that you keep your work, job, company and industry aligned. It will be like a vision and mission for your career, your objectives, tasks and goals are aligned, because your mission is clear, you can call that your strategy. There is much more of this model in our later detailed videos as we progress.
It’s good to identify what is known and recognize the way it is. The ? typically have no influence in this area. Again, if I can use Ken and Albert, we explained to them that in their businesses there are simple ground rules that are like laws in a country, obey the law while you work to change them. You can’t really spend your energy in this area, it is very negative. Rather understand the area where you have influence and synergy and it’s known. This is a very good area to play in. There is a third area that’s very exciting, where I would rather spend my time. There are new options, you look forward and there is a future vision, rather than fighting the rules. People so easily get into the trap of fighting the rules; avoid that negative at all cost.
This is the long term future which is unknown and has no immediate influence. We are not looking at that today. Now look at Career Maker; we really believe it’s the foolproof system to let you earn more. Let’s look at the business toolset, simply go to careerdevepmentplan.net, go to the table of contents and look at the entrepreneurial and business processes.
In the personal toolset, I specifically want to look at the one I think that people who want to increase their salaries need to look at most. That is interpersonal skills. You can see that a full list of skills is available to you at very low cost, if any. There’s a full index and different chapters and to make you aware we’ve sent an email soon. We’ll send you a list to help you establish your priorities and which one you should focus on first. We don’t want you to search when we can help you to quickly find exactly what you want. Stay with us and wait for the next email where we hope we’ll take you right through this process to get the increase you want as soon as practically possible. The next email should be in your box in a day. Thank you very much.