Thoughts about salary negotiation can cause stress and anxiety for many professionals and executives. People are often looking for the best tactic or “magic words” to gain an upper hand and get what they want. Successful raise negotiation can be a result of many things including the right timing, communication, and strategies. In this episode, you will learn how to position yourself for a raise.
Our host Porschia, and guest, Dorothy Mashburn, further discuss the importance of salary negotiation and share their useful insights. They talk about why people should think of a pay raise as a business transaction and how to pivot, if your boss initially says “no” to a raise.
Dorothy Mashburn is a speaker, leading authority on negotiation, and host of the world’s fastest-growing podcast focused on salary negotiations. Through her expert guidance, she has empowered countless professional women to secure salary increases ranging from $10,000 to $75,000.
What you’ll learn:
- The differences between negotiating your starting salary and negotiating a raise, after you’ve already been with a company
- Why confidence is important in raise negotiation
- How to know when it’s the right time to ask for a raise and prepare your “Want Portfolio”
- The biggest mistakes professionals and executives make with raise negotiation
- Tips for negotiating a raise and understanding the right trigger words to use during the conversation
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today we are talking about Salary Negotiation 102 Raised Negotiation with Dorothy Mashburn. Dorothy Mashburn is a speaker, leading authority on negotiation, and host of the world’s fastest growing podcast focused on salary negotiations. Through her expert guidance, she has empowered countless professional women to secure salary increases ranging from 10, 000 to 75, 000.[00:01:00]
Know your worth and fight for it. Hi Dorothy, how are you today?
Dorothy: Hi, Portia. I’m great. Great to be here
Porschia: today. I am excited to have you with us to discuss RAISE negotiations. But first, we want to know a little more about you. So tell me about seven year old Dorothy.
Dorothy: Wow. That takes me back to very young Dorothy.
I grew up at seven. I was in the foothills of the Himalayas. I had a pet monkey at seven and life was great. I had a younger, I have a younger sister and we would just explore and get our creative juices on and, play with the wildlife, not realizing the danger we were putting ourselves into.
But yeah, that was me in in a province called Assam in India.
Porschia: Oh, I’m really jealous, Dorothy the foothills of the Himalayas with a [00:02:00] monkey that I would love to have had that seven year old experience.
Dorothy: Everybody asks about the monkey, so I figured, it would be something great to throw in.
Yes.
Porschia: Was it a pet monkey or did the monkey just come by some days and scope you guys out?
Dorothy: He belonged to a, curiously enough, belonged to a a truck driver who got arrested for crossing state lines illegally. So he was in prison for six months and his monkey needed a home. So my father, who is a police officer who had arrested him.
Brought the monkey home for us to adopt for a while. So we had him for six months during the time of his owner’s imprisonment.
Porschia: That is so cool. That is so cool. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Dorothy: I wanted to be in the in in the foreign services, [00:03:00] actually, like a diplomat or working for the United Nations.
It was a dream because my parents had their dream, not necessarily mine, but yeah. Wow.
Porschia: So tell me, what was your first job?
Dorothy: My first job was making pizzas at the cafeteria in the dorms. So I were, I went to school in a rural school in Missouri in the Boothill, Cape Girardeau. And a lot of the international students had to work in the cafeteria because that was the only way.
That you were on site, had a job, and didn’t violate your student visa requirements. My claim to fame is one night I made 300 pizzas. Those are the large Yeah that’s that was my yeah, my claim to fame. Love it.
Porschia: If all else fails, Dorothy, you can go back to making pizzas and start a pizza business.
Dorothy: Yes. That’s what I think too. I love it. Yeah, I can please crank them out, the [00:04:00] fast food type of pizza joint. Yes.
Porschia: Yes. That’s a talent. That’s a talent. You’re so interesting, Dorothy.
Dorothy: Only because I said pizza, no, admit
Porschia: it. Himalayas, monkey. I’m with
Dorothy: all of them. Oh, yeah.
Porschia: Tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started your business.
Dorothy: I think some of the big ones are working for Walmart. I, after my MBA, I went to work with Walmart and it’s very tightly run ship at Walmart. Very well the systems and processes are, set up. So as a manager or leader of people at Walmart, you didn’t have any difficulties understanding what the mission of Walmart is, what they’re do striving to do, which is serve their customers.
I think that was pivotal for [00:05:00] me because as a leader now of, people across the globe, one of the things that I fully believe in from my Walmart days is, Really paint a clear mission and vision for your people. And if you do that, the execution, which is where the gold is, becomes easy. And so that’s one big key that I learned and that has helped the other pivotal moment was when I started working for the hospital.
So we talk about health care being so expensive in the United States and what the hospitals are doing, which is very credible is hiring people from outside industry. So they’re hiring people from automotive or consumer beverages, beer. Retail and the thought processes. Diversity of thought and perspective is going to be what is going to change health care in the United States.
And I think that’s really powerful because when we talk about D. E. [00:06:00] and I initiatives, we talk about leadership. We also in the same breath talk about diversity of perspective and the hospitals are doing it. We always hear the bad news about how, failure of health systems, but the great news is that people are thinking outside the box and bringing in talent.
And so I guess those are the two things. And then the third thing is more related to my business is as I’m coming, as I came up through the ranks in corporate America, I didn’t have a lot of people who looked like me or who had a similar experience. I became by ad hoc, the only say the only person in a boardroom or only person in a negotiation table.
And when I saw somebody who looked different than the cookie cutter corporate business person I would either gravitate or intentionally include that person into the conversation. And that sort of led me to my business where. There is so much work still to be done in equality, equity, and then even the gender pay gap that sort of naturally [00:07:00] led me to my business, which is helping and empowering women to speak up boldly for their worth.
Porschia: Wow, it sounds like you’ve had a lot of really impactful career experiences. What has been your biggest career challenge so far before starting your
Dorothy: business? I think the biggest challenge is as a minority who is an also is a minority woman and an immigrant who did not grow up with this, with the culture that I’m in today.
So and again, to be fair, I’ve been here over 20 years now. So this is home. This is my country. But at the same time, when you start, you’re trying so hard to fit in. You’re trying so hard to feel like you belong or become an insider. You lose or force yourself to evaporate a little bit of your own true self, which is actually, even though you now [00:08:00] belong, you don’t have any uniqueness left for you or to you.
And so it’s a double edged sword. And I think that was my challenge that I had to overcome myself because I was trying so hard to be one of the guys. It was first of all, it was inauthentic. And second of all, I wasn’t showing up as my unique self. Which then became, I became ordinary, or one of the same.
And as a leader, you are doing yourself a disservice. And I think that was my internal challenge. I had to get over to be the person I’m here today. Yeah,
Porschia: That’s very powerful. Dorothy, a lot of. Our clients who are unique in some way or might stand out in some way have also mentioned, similar challenges as well.
So what motivated you to start your
Dorothy: business? Yeah. You get to a point in your career, I think as you come up you feel like you have. And again, I’m not saying I’m by any means I’m rich, [00:09:00] right? You have enough, like we have a modest house, a modest life, nice cars, great schools for the kids.
And you’re like, I need to be my purpose now, and my purpose after doing some soul searching was to the, to doing that empowerment work for say, like you said, seven year old Dorothy, like 20 year old Dorothy didn’t have a me to help her come up through the ranks. Or somebody saying, you’re being a knucklehead about this, fix it.
No one was being transparent and telling me the areas that I needed to get better at and the areas that I was great at that I needed to do more of. And so when I started thinking about what do I want to do in the second half of my career I started thinking about my true passion, which was You know, making, getting the tools that I’ve learned available to people so they can use to grow their careers, to grow their life, to find that happy spot that will, make them whole or make them flourish.[00:10:00]
Porschia: How did you decide to focus on salary negotiation specifically?
Dorothy: Yeah. Over the years over the last 10 years or so, I’ve had so many people come to me by accident or by design to say, Hey, I’m considering this new career. How should I, how should I place my words? Or how should I start building rapport?
Hey, I’m considering a new project. How, how, what do I say so that I’m considered for this project? And the advice I would give really resonated and resulted in actual results. So people will come back and say, Hey, I got that job. You helped me with. And I, got 50, 000 more in total compensation or, Hey, I didn’t even think I could negotiate vacation.
Thanks for letting me know. Now I have six weeks of vacation to, go spend time with a cause that I’m passionate about. So that has naturally happened over the [00:11:00] last 10 years, and, and I continue to, when I mentor see people who say I didn’t know I deserve it. And that was the one thing that clicked for me.
A really strong personality, high achieving woman who I mentor, she’s in her early 30s, and she said this to me I didn’t think I deserved it. And that really bothered me because it’s yes, you deserve it. You are like the best in the team that you lead. How would you not deserve it?
And that’s what cinched the deal for me. Yeah.
Porschia: I have heard similar things from our clients who are women people of color and women of color as well. Sometimes just believing that you deserve something or that you deserve a seat at the table, like you mentioned earlier is something that. Isn’t a natural thought in their mind, so I’m glad to hear that you help your clients in that way as well.
Dorothy: Yeah. Do you, yeah. It’s [00:12:00] almost you, you don’t, it’s not that you lack confidence, it’s, you lack the ability to imagine the biggest thing there is for yourself, and that’s where I really do a lot of my work is. Imagine bigger. You think you can be a people manager? What about if you can be a CEO?
Imagine bigger or what if you owned your own business? That’s the piece that I think because of social programming, we get stuck on.
Porschia: And I could say a lot about that too, but also I think Stuck on, or they just start misconstruing it in a different way in terms of what is a CEO based on what they see on LinkedIn or on the internet?
So having mentors and coaches to talk to can be really helpful for people. Now, do you think there are any major differences between negotiating your starting salary at the time of hire and negotiating a raise after you’ve already been working in a [00:13:00] company?
Dorothy: There is a difference. I will say there is a difference and you will get different answers on this.
Some people say you can’t negotiate your internal salaries, like asking for a raise where you’re at. Because you just don’t have the leverage. You don’t have your have the most leverage or power when you are being wooed right in. If you’re, being asked for a first date, second date, getting asked to be married.
That’s where you have the most leverage. I do pride myself in pushing the envelope. So I will say that you can absolutely get. A raise at your current job, and there will be a different way of asking. There would be a different terms of that deal, but you can absolutely do it. The difference is that of leverage like you don’t have a lot of leverage, but can you create the leverage?
Yes. And can you use the right trigger words? Yes. Yeah, you can still get a bigger compensation package at your current job.
Porschia: Absolutely. And I’m glad you mentioned that, [00:14:00] Dorothy, because in our first episode on Salary Negotiation 101, we talked about having the most leverage when you start that position.
So I think the way I generally. Tell our clients it’s after they’ve extended the job offer, but before you have accepted they want you. And yes, using that leverage at that time, I agree. I’ve seen with clients has really been the best way to go to something that you were saying earlier, I found that many of our clients have fear or anxiety around.
Asking for a raise, for example and we recently had an episode on confidence. How do you think confidence plays into race negotiation?
Dorothy: Yeah. A lot of times you have to dissect why you have the lack of confidence and a lot of the work we do and this right is about our own [00:15:00] limiting beliefs and our own mindset.
And so if you dissect your own fears, so usually it’ll come down to this. I will get a no, I will ruin my relationship and then later it’s going to be awkward. So three things, right? Like the awkwardness of the future, ruining your relationship and you’re getting a no. So whatever those one of the two, three things will be the most prevalent for you.
You’ve got to then ask yourself, am I worth the extra 10, 000 or just a fear of no? Why is there a no and why do I fear it? And if you can answer those questions, I think the confidence part will solve itself, because a lot of times, actually today there was a LinkedIn post.
I cannot remember the name of the leader who said that, but she was talking about how she aims to fail five times in a day. And so this is powerful because she has a bank of failures, right? So if she uses up those [00:16:00] five, then she starts feeling like, Oh, I had a bad day. But until she reaches those five, she says, Nope, I’m going to keep going.
And if that works with your, with the audience who’s listening take that, use that to your advantage. And that’ll give you the confidence like, Oh I failed three times. I have one, two more to go. And so if I fear a no and they get a no, that’s failure, number four, and I’m fine.
I’ll be fine today. And you can get over, trick yourself, trick your mind to get over and build that
Porschia: confidence. I love that aiming to fail five times a day. And just hearing that no, or experiencing what we might deem as failure for most people, I find that are high achievers or very ambitious that no, or that failure can just sometimes be crushing and make them stop or change direction.
Lightning, the mood and failing five times a day. Yeah. I think can really help with Yeah. Confidence and just moving forward. There’s
Dorothy: a [00:17:00] great line out of the book called dune I a sci-fi nerd. It’s called Fear. It’s says fear is the mind killer. And I try to repeat that to myself because it’s like fear is a mind killer.
So I got to get over my fear and that gives me confidence. And, some of those, some of the negotiations I’ve been in, it’s been very scary. Harvard lawyers who are wearing all black suit power suits and, you’re going, you’re at five foot two saying no to them.
It’s very scary, but you got to go in with the mantra or the affirmation that works for you. And for me, that’s fear is the mind killer.
Porschia: [00:18:00] I love it. My husband is a huge Dune fan, up to him and yeah I love that. I love that. Dorothy, how does someone know when it’s the right time to ask for a raise?
Dorothy: Generally speaking, there are three areas you have to focus on. One has the company done well this year. Don’t ask if the company’s, financials are not well, not healthy. And then second, usually during budget time, you would give your manager a heads up that you’re going to be asking for a pay raise so they can budget for it within the department’s annual budget review.
And then third, usually the annual performance review is a great time to ask. Or right after you have delivered a a significant project for the company. So I would say those are the three areas that [00:19:00] you would want to really hone in on and and use to
Porschia: your advantage. Great.
Great. Yeah. I talked to our clients a lot about preparing for that performance review as being a good time as well. Alrighty, so I’ve seen you mention that people should think of a pay raise as a business transaction. You’ve said that people do business with people they connect with. How can someone use the right trigger words to build connection before and when they are asking for a raise?
Dorothy: That’s a great question. I love talking about this. So there are different ways you can determine what your counterpart is like. So I always recommend the DISC framework. D is for dominant, I is for influential, S is for steady, and C is for conscientious. And the way, the reason I recommend it is it’s just easy.
So dominant is type A type personalities like your [00:20:00] Gordon Ramsey’s. So if, if your counterpart is a Gordon Ramsey, what is going to resonate, right? You’re going to talk about results. You’re going to talk about, the financials. So if you use those words to build a rapport hey, Did you see the project I delivered?
It’s, showing a customer retention rate of 20 percent and revenue excess revenue of 20 million. So talk in those terms that is gonna, it’s the language of your counterpart. Your influential people are like Oprah, right? They’re built on, they’re talking about relationships or Ellen DeGeneres.
I guess Oprah could fall on both Dominant and I. But Ellen DeGeneres, how would you talk to them? It’s about culture and building relationships and friendships. Steady would be somebody like Mr. Rogers. You’re there over time. They’re looking at performance and consistency and then conscientious would be like a Bill Gates.
How would you talk to them? It’s about numbers. It’s about again, performance [00:21:00] over time. So once you determine what your counterpart is, you use the words, And use the trigger words that will mean something to them. Otherwise your message is lost. So a lot of times you first understand what your counterpart is and then you tailor your message.
Porschia: I think that is a great tip in terms of figuring out your counterpart’s disk profile and determining their, to determine the trigger words that speak to them. It’s really, to me, my You’re talking about psychology and using what’s meaningful to that person. Sometimes I call it mirroring. You’re mirroring back what’s important to them or the words that they use as well.
So if. I tell people, if you know some of the words that they use, you can mirror back with their own language to them in a negotiation or a meeting to just help your cause there.
Dorothy: Yeah. Yeah. And that, that [00:22:00] salespeople use it all the time. If you think about your favorite salesperson who you don’t go, Oh, holy, like this person’s driving me crazy.
That person is mirroring you. Seamlessly like you can’t mirror where they know what you’re doing, but you got a mirror very subtly and the way the more you practice, the better you get at it and you can study salespeople and see how they’re mirroring and then adopt that to help you.
Absolutely. That’s a very strong point.
Porschia: Agreed. And to that, I also talk to people about mirroring the energy level of the person, right? You might be a very expressive and open person, but if the person that you’re speaking with is not quite that way, sometimes it’s better to perhaps tone it down to match their energy level as
Dorothy: well.
Absolutely. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Porschia: So Dorothy, what are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen executives and professionals make [00:23:00] negotiating a raise?
Dorothy: Yeah, one of the big ones I would say is when they’re talking, when you’re asking for a raise, you are talking about past and why you deserve it versus why the company should invest in you, keep you engaged and keep you motivated to continue to see results.
Whether we like it or not, the company is in the world or existed to make money, to make revenue, make, make a difference. And positioning yourself in terms of I deserve it because, I’ve done a lot of great things in the past, or I deserve it because inflation is high. Those are not reasons why somebody would pay you.
The reason somebody would pay you is I have this new skill. That’s going to deliver X number of cost savings to the company. And I want to be ready and motivated. So I need a raise to stay. So you can stay at par with [00:24:00] market and I will continue to drive results for the company. So phrasing the sentences or phrases in future results for the company is going to take you a long way versus being me focused.
So that’s mistake. Number one, a mistake. Number two is not really realizing going back to the disc framework not understanding your counterpart and. Saying things that don’t resonate with them. So if you going back to the Ellen DeGeneres personality, if you talk to them to an Ellen in terms of, I want to, I want to be the next CEO.
I want to be the, the million dollar sales rep for this company is not going to work for that personality type. But if you talk about, I am focused on building culture. I am focused on. Delivering as a team that’s going to resonate very well with an Ellen and so catering your message mirroring like you said to your [00:25:00] counterpart is going to take you a long way versus misrepresenting your or mismatch mismatched representation of your pitch.
I
Porschia: love it. I love it. One thing that I tell our clients and I think it’s. To the first point you made about just talking about why you deserve it just for being a warm body, in the role does not necessarily mean that you deserve a raise. And just saying, Hey, I’ve been here three years or whatever arbitrary timeline you have in your mind.
Yeah. Also. mean that you should necessarily get a raise. For that reason, I created this whole program in our alliance that is called Promotions 101, and it’s about making yourself more promotable because a lot of people just have that, like you said, arbitrary timeline. There’s, inflation, things have gone up, my rent’s gone up, or I’ve been here three years.
And that is not the basis of your raised negotiation. So I’m so [00:26:00] glad you pointed that out. Yeah.
Dorothy: Yeah, absolutely. And people do talk about that. I’ve been in the role for four years and I think one of my tick talks that I did talk about that and I was pretty blunt about it. No one’s going to give you a raise because you warmed a chair for four years, whether you like it or not, that’s the reality, and so you got to rephrase it to what makes sense to your, the, your receiver, your counterpart.
Porschia: Great. And I love it. You’ve been so kind. You’ve already given us some tips and recommendations, but are there any other suggestions that you would share with someone negotiating
Dorothy: a raise? Yeah, think about and a lot of negotiators tell you this, but really take the time to think about what is it that you want?
That’s, I call it the want portfolio. So before you go in jumping into a pay raise discussion, really work on what is your want portfolio. And the reason this is important is. You may get and one of my clients did that she got[00:27:00] a 24 percent raise to her current salary, and she was happy for about two months, and then she was unhappy again, and then we spend more time working on it.
And she really wanted visibility and promote and a bigger title. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting a bigger title, nothing wrong with visibility, but you got to know that first, because otherwise you’re going to get the wrong thing you’re going to find to fight tooth or nail and tooth and nail and then.
Get the pay raise and you’re not happy and you then wonder what the heck happened. So really focus on building that want portfolio and then go into the negotiation and that’s going to do wonders for you. I promise you. I
Porschia: wish I could echo that a million times. I love the idea of a want portfolio. I think that’s going to be very helpful for a lot of people.
I’ve seen many clients become unhappy and I think this is probably another direction of the want portfolio where. They’re chasing either a [00:28:00] specific job title or a specific salary number, and then they achieve that and they realize they’re still not happy. So to the point of, building your want portfolio, I think that’s really great advice.
Dorothy: Absolutely. And then, when you build it, it might be flex time with your family. It could be more vacation time. It could be, maybe you love working for a charity and you negotiate, Hey, can I get, five extra days in a year to go work for this charity and you pay me for it. It could be so many things, but it all starts with one, the one portfolio.
Porschia: So Dorothy, how do you think someone should react if they use all of the negotiation tips and techniques they can find and their boss still says no to a raise?
Dorothy: And it happens all the time, we know, right? Needless to say, you have to stay professional. You have to keep your poker face.
Even if you want to scream or go, what the heck? Don’t do that. Stay professional. Stay calm.[00:29:00] And then the other thing is get into curiosity mindset. So what this means is you start asking questions like, why is it a no? How can it be a different no? So maybe they say, we don’t have time money in the budget.
Okay, so that’s the start, right? Now you can have a real conversation of, when is the budget going to be right? Or say, they say, Okay, next year. So can we plan for it next year? And then maybe you can add what can we do in the meantime, that can get us ready. So when you put my name forward as a candidate for a pay raise, no one’s going to question it.
Can I be more visible? Can you budget that money and get me some skills, professional development skills? Put the onus back on your manager and have them start problem solving with you. First of all, stay calm, number one, stay professional, number two, is get into the curiosity mindset, and number three, make your manager [00:30:00] problem solve with you.
Very
Porschia: valuable, very valuable steps. I hope everyone was writing that down. So Dorothy, tell us more about your business.
Dorothy: Yeah, so I teach interview preparation and negotiation expertise. So the reason I teach negotiation interview prep is because the first contact you have with your future employer is the time to start negotiating.
You’re laying the foundation, you are using the right trigger words, you are setting the base. Everything else is going to be built on. So I teach women, especially women professionals. I have some male clients to not to exclude our friends in the other gender, but mostly women on confidence mindset mastery and then using techniques and influence and persuasion so they can ask for what they’re worth.
And we still women still make 22 percent less than men on. If we do nothing, the gender [00:31:00] pay gap isn’t going to close for another 80 years. So I’m passionate about empowering women to get the skills to ask for the money they deserve.
Porschia: I saw on your website, Dorothy, that you have a free pay raise script.
Can you tell us more about that script?
Dorothy: Yeah. Thank you for asking. Yeah. It’s a word for word script that people can swipe. It’s at dorothymashburn. com forward slash ask for a raise. And it is, it goes through objection hand, like first preparation of how do you introduce the topic, then objection handling.
using curiosity to ask for more and then finally problem solving with your manager on how to resolve your pay raise if there is a no. So people have used it and have gotten last time they used it. Client responded back saying they got a 25, 000 pay raise based on using that script.
So it’s powerful and all of my influence and [00:32:00] persuasion techniques are baked into it. So you don’t have to think twice. You can just use a swipe it and use it. That is
Porschia: perfect. Everyone should go and get that script and we’re going to be providing a link to your website and social channels in our show notes so that everyone can find you online.
But what is the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Dorothy: Best way is going to my website, DorothyMashburn. com. It’s all one word. And yeah, feel free to check in and say hi. And all my social channels are also on there. And would love to continue this conversation, Portia. Thank you for the opportunity.
Absolutely.
Porschia: My last question for you is the question that I ask everyone. How do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their
Dorothy: career? I think the best way to do it is nurturing your network. The point about even if you get a no if you go for a new job interview and they [00:33:00] said no, keep that relationship alive.
If you get no from your manager, don’t, our base instinct is to say, God, this is terrible. I want to go somewhere else. It’s absolutely normal. Acknowledge that, but then say, there’s a reason why this person is saying, no, that doesn’t matter. I’m going to build a relationship and continue to nurture it.
This is going to pay off dividends in the long run. A lot. Every single except one every single job and opportunity and speaking gig I’ve had is because of the power of my network and if and even if you say no two years down the line and they may have a job for you that you’d be a perfect fit for and they’ll call you because you’ve built that relationship.
So never lose your relationships always nurture them. Dorothy, you have
Porschia: shared a lot of wisdom with us today, and I’m sure that our listeners can use it to be more confident in their careers and with their negotiations. We appreciate you being with
Dorothy: us. [00:34:00] Absolutely. Thank you, Portia.
