Know Your Worth. Negotiate Accordingly.

Knowing your worth is one thing. Negotiating accordingly is something else entirely.

In this episode, Katy and Rebecca unpack why so many women confidently negotiate on behalf of their teams, families, and organizations, yet hesitate when it comes to advocating for themselves.

From salary negotiations and promotions to title changes, budgets, and career growth, they explore the mindset shifts, strategies, and preparation required to negotiate with confidence and clarity.

Together, they discuss:

•  Why women often negotiate fiercely for others but struggle to do the same for themselves 
•  The difference between self-worth and market value 
•  Common mistakes women make during negotiations 
•  Why preparation and data matter more than emotion 
•  How to navigate workplace bias and professional double standards 
•  When to negotiate, when to walk away, and how to make strategic career decisions 
•  Why community and confidence are powerful tools in self-advocacy 

Whether you're negotiating a salary, promotion, budget, title, or opportunity, this conversation will challenge you to stop negotiating against yourself and start advocating for the value you bring.

Because knowing your worth is only the first step. Acting on it is where the real power begins.

Featured Resource from Podcast Host Rebecca Sacks

NegotiateHer is a women-centered negotiation and self-advocacy platform designed to help women navigate career conversations with more confidence, strategy, and support.

What began as an Executive MBA project has evolved into a practical platform that helps women advocate for themselves professionally, personally, and financially.

NegotiateHer supports conversations around:

• Compensation and raises
 • Promotions and title changes
 • Leadership opportunities
 • Workload and boundaries
 • Flexibility and remote work
 • Career growth and self-advocacy

The platform combines negotiation guidance, workplace strategies, educational resources, confidence-building tools, and a supportive community of women who are learning to advocate for themselves more effectively.

Because women negotiate every day. The goal is learning to negotiate for ourselves with the same confidence we advocate for everyone else.

Learn more:
 https://negotiateher.authentictalentedge.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the No Filter No Apologies podcast with Rebecca Sachs and Katie Shapiro.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome back to No Filter, No Apologies. Let's get straight to it. Women are conditioned to protect relationships while men are conditioned to protect their worth. That is why women will fiercely negotiate a corporate budget, a vendor contract, a deadline for their team, or fight endlessly for their families, but freeze when it's time to negotiate their own salary, title, or value. And the truth is, women negotiate every single day. This conversation is a roadmap for women at every age and every stage of life on how we stop surviving and start commanding our worth. Today we're talking about the real social conditioning behind why advocating for ourselves feels so uncomfortable. The data proving women are already asking more than people think. And the very real social penalties many women still face for doing so. Most importantly, we're talking about how women shift from scarcity mindset into collective community power because confidence grows faster in community than isolation. You become really good negotiators when I don't have children, but when you do have children, because they're always negotiating and always trying to get that extra piece of candy or that toy that they want at the store. Katie, what are some instances where you've seen women negotiate for not necessarily themselves, but whether it be in a business or a personal setting?

SPEAKER_01 1:34

It's really funny because I think I've seen women negotiate constantly when it's in defense of advocacy for other people. I think women are natural protectors and nurturers. And so when I've worked with or for other women leaders, if their team is being mistreated or their team isn't being provided with the correct resources, or they have to negotiate their budget, they will go in there and fiercely negotiate for that. And they will say, This is what's acceptable and this is what's not and this is what I want, and they're very prepared. And so I think that's where I've seen women do the most when it's in support of other people, other people that they're responsible for. You mentioned children. I do think moms obviously we negotiate for our kids a lot. Like, you better watch if I have to do something for my kids because you better bet I'm coming full force. And I felt that leading teams, you know, I've led teams from as small as three to as big as 165. And when you have people in your care and you're responsible for them and you're responsible for their livelihood, you will negotiate fiercely for them if you're a good leader. And I've seen a lot of women do that. And the comparison that we talked about that used to be true, that we're seeing this gap close now is negotiating for their own self-worth was a completely different conversation. Yeah. You know? So I found that to be really interesting, but also when when you were sharing some of the data with me, really hopeful to see that more women are negotiating for themselves personally than maybe before, and that narrative is outdated, yeah, but that the outcomes are a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah. And I think historically we were raised to be seen, not heard. And so a lot of young women are raised that way. And I have a lot of friends that have mentioned that as well. Like we were always told, sit there, be pretty, don't talk, don't make a disruption. And so you're taught that at an early age. And so you don't want to be disruptive, right? As you get older. And I think that's where people like you and I come into play because we do want to be disruptive and we do want to make changes and make things better for the women that we work with and surround ourselves with. I know myself, I've definitely advocated for and fought for my team. I'm not saying that the outcomes were always the way that they should have been, but uh, it's something that I've always done. And I feel like I learned that from you too, because you were always advocating for our team as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Well, I think as a leader, you have to earn the respect of your team and you have to earn their work, and you have to, you have to respect the fact that these people come to work every day with the intent of doing a good job. They leave their families, their livelihood, how they put food on their table is part of how they show up to work every day, and you're responsible for that. So when you look at it that way, you say, I have to negotiate for my people, and I also have to negotiate with my people sometimes, right? To say, hey, this is what we need from you, and we're growing, we're whatever it might be. But I do think advocacy for your team and negotiating on their behalf for resources and maybe for compensation. I think we talk about compensation a lot, and I also wanted to go back to something you said. When I think about how women have been raised traditionally, I think the word polite has been manipulated because when it when it comes to women, and maybe maybe men too, I don't know. It's not my lived experience, but you're taught that it's impolite to advocate for yourself, it's impolite to self-promote, you know, and that's not true. You can do it respectfully, but it's a disservice to yourself if you don't speak up, if you don't advocate for yourself, for your team. And I think, you know, you we hear that saying, you tell people how they're allowed to treat you, right? The same is true when you're applying for a job and negotiating a salary, that's your first step in the door. You're telling them how you perceive your own value. And if you're not willing to negotiate salary benefits, etc. to your liking, yeah, then you're telling them you don't value yourself. And you're not setting that precedent from the moment you walk in the door. And then if you're in the door and you continue to not negotiate for yourself, or if you're a leader and you don't negotiate for your team and your department, then again, you're showing the company how to treat you and how to treat your team and how to treat your department and to recognize whether or not you believe your department has value or not. So it's a huge piece of your work responsibility.

unknown 6:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, and I know we talk about it regularly within our podcasts, is just nobody's gonna advocate for you but yourself, and you have to be the one to do it first before anybody else will jump in and do it for you, right? I know we've seen talent earlier on in their careers who may not know how to advocate for themselves, and so we provide guidance and coaching there, but it is a learned skill, unfortunately. And I think one of the things that people who do have children today, as they raise them, help them understand their value and advocate for them. I know that about 28% of women are negotiating salary during the offer stage compared to about 32% of men. It is, like you said, it is narrowed over time, but there is still a gap, especially when you're looking at compensation. Women earned approximately 85% of what men earned in 2024. And as you get further along in your career and older, women ages 55 to 64 earned approximately 83% of what men in that age range earned.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

So there still is the gap and it does, it compounds over time, which is we we've been talking about negotiation in a in a positive way, but I also have seen women negotiate against themselves. So I'm I'm only gonna speak to, and you can chime in here too, in the recruiting phase when speaking with women. If I would have to counteroff them and say, Hey, I know you wanted 10K more than we were offering, we can't offer you that as a base. We'll offer you a 5k bonus and I don't know, maybe some other perk. Right. And a lot of times, the majority of times, the men would say, No, I'm making this, I'm already due for a bonus in January with my current company, and I'm not looking to leave, and this is what I want. And they and they would stick to that. But women would say, Well, okay, could you make it this? Could you make they were more flexible, but they were negotiating against themselves because most of the time when those men would come back and say, No, this is what I need, our managers would get the approval and they would give it to them because they want them, but women would negotiate against themselves, and so it was really interesting to watch the power of somebody knowing their worth and knowing I can I can say no to your offer and go get another job. And I think women have a different fear with that from experience, and so they start to negotiate against themselves as well. So, as much as you said negotiating is a learned skill, I also think there's some unlearning that has to happen. The unlearning the politeness piece, and then also unlearning, negotiating your own value and saying, No, my value is not up for negotiation. My value is what it is, yeah, and I'm gonna stand firm on that confidently.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, yeah, I do agree with that. Now, I I have seen, I would say within the last year, a woman who negotiated her worth and she didn't change, she didn't bend, and uh the organization that I was with did not meet her, which is fine. She went on and you know, found the opportunity and had an opportunity that would pay her the value she was worth. But I will say I watched them negotiate with men and give the men what they wanted. But when it came to women, they wouldn't. So there was definitely a double standard that I witnessed. It's very unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

But there is, and I think this is one of those things I talk about all the time, right? Which is corporate behaviors won't change fast enough for society. So women have to change, right? So when you are negotiating with a company and they won't meet you with what you need, you have to make the choice to walk away. And sometimes people might say, I'm not in that position, especially like in this job market. But let's let's put that aside for a second. You're negotiating your worth, a company is not willing to meet you there. They're telling you one of two things. One, they don't agree with your value as you've assigned it to yourself, or two, they can't meet you there. Sometimes it's legitimate. They don't have the budget to meet you where you want to be. Both of those are indicators to you to say this is not the right company for me. This is not where I'm going to grow. This is not where they're going to invest in me. Because if they're not doing it now at the start, what are they gonna do when I get there? Right. I worked for a woman one time who said to me, she said, Katie, I know when to pick up my purse and leave. I have no problem doing so. She meant it. Yeah, and I I was impressed by that because she had this, I'll figure it out, but I'm not gonna stay where I'm not treated well, where I'm not valued, et cetera. And I think that for women, there's an opportunity to say, yeah, this place isn't for me. And even if you are in the position where you have to accept that job, the climate being what it is now, the economy, maybe you need the job, then yeah, you take it, but you recognize in your mind this is not going to be my place for very long. And so I'm gonna work hard while I'm here, but I'm gonna work hard outside of here to grow and promote myself and network and get another position.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah. Absolutely, because to that, right? They're never going to invest what the time, effort, or energy into you or the team that you're supporting if you have a team and you're never gonna get what you want out of that organization.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

I feel like depending on your role, yeah, you might be expected to negotiate for that company. I worked for multiple companies where I had a really, really tight budget. And I would have to go to vendors and say, we're not paying that. Right. So I really want to work with you, these are our parameters, let's negotiate within those parameters, and if you can't, I'm going to another vendor. And my obligation was to my company, was to my budget. And so if you want women to come in and negotiate on your behalf, like that, yeah, as a leader, then you better show your value because they're gonna save you money down the line, and you get what you pay for essentially.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So I feel like we did that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

I definitely did, yeah, yeah, absolutely. In one of my positions, they told me, you know, your department wasn't on the budget for this year, so it's a brand new department. We're creating it mid-year. The entirety of what I can give went to you personally and giving you this title. So you gotta work with what you have and make you know, make miracles. And I damn sure did because that was a challenge for me. But uh yeah, I've had to do that quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah. Um so what other and so we talked about vendors, we talked about compensation. And even when you're talking about jobs and coming into an organization, there are other things that are negotiated too, right? It's not always about compensation, it's about the benefits and what other types of perks you may be able to get. And I think we being as experienced as we are within the town acquisition space, but also in our careers, we've had that experience with negotiation. And uh we have those ears under our belt, if you will, right? And the the wisdom. Um what is something that you would uh type of advice you would provide to someone who may may not have that type of experience? So let's think about someone coming out of college and just entering the workforce and knowing, okay, I have these bills to pay because I have to pay off my college education and I have to make this as a salary. What kind of guidance would you give to that person in their negotiation? How to get their negotiation skills improved?

SPEAKER_01 14:44

You know, I love a strategy. So I think number one, you need to assess your own worth. So, to your point, what are your minimums in terms of what do you need to make? Not only to just pay your bills, but to have a little bit left over. You need to do that because you might need to replace a tire, you might have a medical emergency, you never know. So you can't just set your worth at your minimum. That should never be your salary worth. So look at what your goals are. That so now once you have that bucket aligned of what am I worth, what do I need, what am I willing to negotiate for me. Now you need to do some market searches. And there are so many tools out there now that will tell you what is the job worth that you're applying for.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Because remember, it doesn't matter if you're graduating college or if you have 20 years of experience, you're being hired to do a job, and that job is valued at a certain amount. So when a company decides we need to hire a manager, our salary range is 80K to 140K. Let's just pretend. And they need to have between four and eight years of experience, okay? If you're on the four-year side, you're probably gonna be around the 80K mark. And if you're on the eight-year side, you're gonna be at that 140k mark and you're gonna know what to negotiate. But you also need to look at your market. Where are you? What is the job worth? Where do you fit within that market? Because it puts you in a position of power to negotiate, to say, hey, I'm in a market where everybody in this market has at least six years of experience, including me. So if you're on the max end of that, you want to say, so I want to be at that 140k mark because your competitors are hiring the same role and their starting is 105 to 160. So I can go there too. And once you know that information, you come at it from a very objective perspective, not a, hey, this is what I need to pay my bills. Okay, this is my minimum. I can go for the minimum. No, this is what I'm looking for, this is what the job is valued at. Let's talk.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because I think when you're looking at people in different industries and different fields and different levels of experience, you could be a 20-year retail manager, but you could also be a 20-year IT tech executive or IT executive within a corporate organization. You're gonna have different negotiation skills and you're gonna approach it in a different manner. And I know we still have that the gender pay gap that we're still navigating, and it's getting better. Companies are providing transparency, but not all of them, because they're not all required. Other countries are now starting to make it mandatory that there's pay transparency across all organizations. The EU's has one, I think it's in July or June of this year. They're making the pay transparency go live. And I think a couple countries are getting a little leeway to be able to catch up because they don't have all their information or all their ducks in a row yet to make it active. But uh but it's just very interesting, right? And so I think it's only a matter of time before the US takes on that as well. It has pay transparency across the board. And the transparency piece I think gives candidates an opportunity to not apply for a job if it's not within their compensation range, right? You know, because you never know. The the pay skills are so crazy and all over the place within different industries. Uh so it's just very interesting that it still exists now.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

I mean, I'm not really hopeful that we're gonna see pay transparency within the next four or five years. I know a few states have done it, but I'm not really hopeful for that, which is why I'm like, you cannot wait for the government or certain companies to do the right thing. You have to know your worth, you have to know the value of the job you're going to do, and you have to negotiate on your own behalf and you make your decisions. You talk about negotiating, right? We just talked about maybe this job isn't offering you the amount, but it's the first job to offer you, and you've been unemployed for six months and unemployment is running out. You one of the negotiations you make with yourself is okay, I'm gonna take this job, but I'm not stopping. I'm gonna keep applying, I'm gonna keep going because I need to do something, and that's okay. I think gone are the days where you're loyal to companies that aren't loyal to you, right? The company is loyal to themselves first. You owe it to yourself to be loyal to you first. And I don't want to be misunderstood. You need to perform when you're at a company and you need to do your best work, and hopefully you get promoted and you grow and you get raises, etc. But you also need to remember that the company's responsibility is to the company and your responsibility is to you, always first, yeah, and you need to move accordingly. And so, knowing that I don't think our government is gonna put that in anytime soon in the next few years, and some companies are great and they're doing it on their own, and a lot of companies aren't because they're not gonna do anything until they're forced to. So you you have to do you.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Absolutely, I agree with you 100%. Interesting because women do typically ask for raises as often as men, but they're less likely to receive them, which it goes back to that likability piece seen as difficult. I know we were talking prior to this episode about how I've had instances where I'm firm and direct in my communication, and there's a man on the other side perceiving it as me being difficult or attacking, and that's not the case. I'm just expressing my frustration and we're just perceived in a different way. And it's very comical, but it's unfortunate that it's still happening in 2026. Like it's not 1926, it's 2026.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

I think that there's a balancing act for women, right? Because if you advocate really well, if you represent your profession or your expertise really well, you're very strong, a lot of leaders respect that. And they'll be like, oh wow, she knows what she's talking about, she came into this room ready to go, and you still can't push it too far, and you have to know who you can push it with. Where are you? What room are you in? Who is your audience? Because to get into that room, you've got to be able to push and you've got to be able to be assertive in a very professional way. You can't burn a bunch of bridges, you've got to walk that line of it's it's a finesse, to be honest. And then you have to know when you're in the room at the upper echelon, how far you can push there. Yeah, you know, and if you're willing to, I've done, I've done both. People will say to me, Well, you're intimidating. Or I've had I've had great mail managers say you walk with a purpose, you speak with a purpose. I don't know if you've ever seen yourself coming in a mirror, but you know you're coming for something. I was like, I don't even know what that means, but yeah, I'm coming with a purpose. I have a job to do. This is what I'm doing. And so you have to come in and be able to engage in a professional conversation focused on objective facts, data, what you need, advocate when you need to, and then finesse a little bit and know what your boundaries are because sometimes you'll get in rooms with people who are at the top of a company. And you really have to know where you can push, where you can't, and what you're willing to do and not do. And I've had a harder time when I've been at the top because I don't have a filter and I don't believe in kissing anyone's ass. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna kiss your ass. I'm also not gonna debate and behave for your entertainment. I'm not doing that either. And in those moments, I will, I have no problem moving away. And if you don't like me, you don't like me. This isn't the company for me. So I think when you're talking about negotiation even with yourself, it's I can't just go in here. I don't need to be so hyper-aggressive. That's not it. You don't need to be super aggressive. You just need to know your shit.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Know your stuff, know your facts. Go in there with a business case, your strategy that puts you in a position of power. Yeah. And that's it. And then also know what your boundaries are and what you're willing to accept and not accept in certain rooms that are the reality of today.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, I think the preparation and knowing your facts and your data are really important because it helps you leave the emotion out of it, where a lot of the time women get a bad rep because they're too emotional. And it's not necessarily the case. They're just um passionate about what conversation they're having, what they're talking about. But I think having those facts and the data to back up what you're asking for, it gives you that leverage that you need and again keeps the emotion out of it so you're not deemed as emotional.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

And if you want to have negotiating power, then come with results and impact. That's all anybody really cares about. If I come to you and I say, hey, over the last two years with no budget, I've managed to do these 11 things, which have increased efficiency by XYZ percentages, and I've managed to save the company $2 million in these two years, with, like I said, no budget, no state, no nothing. I've just been able to do this with bare minimum. Now I'm coming to you and I'm saying, I want a budget, and I want to do these three things this year within this budget, I'm gonna be taken much more seriously because I'm coming with proven results. I've shown that I can do more with less, and now I'm saying I need more. If you want me to do more, it's time to invest in me and my department or my team or whatever you want, because now there are results to the company, and I think that that gives you a lot of negotiating power too. But you can't just go in and say, Hey, this is what I want to do, and you need to give it to me. You've got to have results also.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Right. Give me a raise because I deserve it.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Yeah, you're not that's not gonna work. No, I won't. But you know what's funny? I will say this too. A lot of people get annual reviews. So you might sit with your boss at the beginning of the year and you negotiate your goals for the year. And I think you know this because I used to lead my teams this way. When we would meet throughout the year, my goal was to never have anyone be surprised by their end-of-year review. By the time we get to your end of your review, this should be a formality. You should already know what's coming because we've had so many conversations about where you are in relation to your goals, what resources do you need to help you get to your goals? If you're not getting to your goals along the way, why not? Do we need to reframe these goals before we get further into the year? That's all negotiation taking place. That's you knowing your role, knowing your job, knowing your budget, knowing your capabilities. And sometimes companies go through things where you set goals and then all of a sudden there's a recession. God forbid there's a pandemic. Yeah, the goals you set in December for your upcoming year are no longer applicable. And it's up to you to reframe those goals so that you don't get to the end of the year this year, and somebody's saying, Well, you didn't meet your goals, and so I'm not giving you a race. Well, my goals needed to change because our environment changed, and that was on me to present to my boss and chair.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Yeah, no, absolutely. I was gonna say COVID definitely did that. I know my goals changed when COVID hit. There wasn't enough capability to hire the interns that we were supposed to hire. And so nobody was hiring, everything was frozen. There was a pandemic, people weren't allowed to go out in public, you couldn't interact with others. So everything changed.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Think about that for a second, right? So, especially in recruiting, we would have goals tied to interviews, hires, placements per quarter, per month, per week, even. When you have an economic downturn, and the company says, Hey, hold on, we're gonna pull back. We want to put a temporary freeze on these positions. I mean, I've been through that, I think, every single year of my career in staffing and recruitment. There's always goals, and then there's a hold in the freeze, and there's internal movement and decisions being made. When those things happen, you have to recognize that, and now you assess how does that impact the goals that we established? And do we need to revisit those and renegotiate our goals? That's you're constantly negotiating every time, no matter what position you're in. Absolutely. Yeah. But I think we just to point this out, I think something unique to women that you mentioned earlier, you said women are asking for raises, but they don't get them as much as men, or we're still getting paid less than men. And that's because we're navigating certain bias or perceived penalties that I don't think men are navigating or aware of yet. The likability one is obvious. Yeah, there's social conditioning of what we should do, that being polite. There's a fear of retaliation, because to your point, sometimes when you're dealing with leaders with fragile egos or something like that, and you start to negotiate, they retaliate against you. Or if you are a woman who is growing in the company and other people see that and they're insecure, they kind of come after you. That happens everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Fear of rejection, you want to maintain a relationship, that scarcity mindset, the double standard. There's so many things that women are navigating that are some are the same as men, and then others are unique to women. And that's that finesse I was talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, no, absolutely. And just I know I talked about the transparency piece too, but I've seen this in working for different organizations, especially as a recruiter and in the TA space. Companies that have standardization for their compensation across the board are less likely to have those large uh gender pay gaps than organizations that individually compensate and just on the whim, just by what they want to pay someone. Uh, and I've seen it firsthand, and it's it's very unfortunate because when you don't have structure to what you're doing, it's all willy-nilly, and then it just continues to add to the problem. There's no solutions there, right? It's just it's no boy no.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

One thing I've seen is if you work for a decentralized versus centralized organization, yeah. If you work for a decentralized organization, you could be in a position where you maybe apply for a position in a sister branch or something like that. Yeah. And that branch pays significantly more than the branch that you're in. Now you see that when you're going for the job, but you're also still an internal employee. So now this branch goes, well, we can get them for much less than what we have to hire in our current market. And so your negotiating power is lost. So that's something you want to be aware of. Whereas if you're in a centralized organization, a lot of times they will have these parameters in place to ensure that the position is ranked in certain compensation. You're definitely going to have market differentials, but you need to know are you working in a centralized organization, a decentralized organization, and what are you up against? That's part of that strategic negotiating power we were talking about.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah. And then also, do you want to be up against that, right? Do you want to stay within that organization and fight those battles, or do you want to move on somewhere else?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Because exactly.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yeah. Are people going to respect you and give you what your value is too?

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Sometimes I would love to see more women say, I know what my value is, and I'm willing to move on. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I think the double blind that we're talking about is if you don't negotiate, you may earn less. If you negotiate too assertively, you still may earn less. And on top of that, you're going to face social and professional backlash.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

That's the double blind.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Yeah. That's like you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

So you gotta, that's why I always say that strategy is critical. Take a moment, understand your worth, understand the market worth, put those together and then go negotiate because you make it undeniable.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Yeah. And I think one of the challenges, too, in that likability factor, is that when you go and ask for things, you don't ask in the most direct, confident way. And especially depending on who you're dealing with, right? So if you're just working with your boss or you have to go into the leader of the organization, you're gonna, you may frame things differently and not be as assertive as you need to be. And you gotta come in with the facts, right? So instead of asking and saying I was hoping for, you want to approach and say, based on the scope of the role, the market benchmarks and the value I bring, this is what I'm worth. This is what I should be compensated at. I know I've seen women do it, witnessed them do it and make themselves small, and then use terminology that doesn't put present them in the best light or get their get what they're asking for, get the negotiation that they're fighting for. Like making yourself small, right? Don't apologize before you ask.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Oh no. Well, you know I hate that. I don't think you should apologize for anything unless you did something actually wrong.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Don't start, never start a conversation with I'm sorry. Not sorry to bother you, I'm not sorry to intrude, I'm not sorry to ask for my worth. No. Yeah, I'm here for a professional conversation. Absolutely. You had some interesting data in this that uh really stood out to me, and it was such a big number. 61% of women surveyed said salary history questions negatively impacted confidence in negotiating compensation. And I want to sit on that for a second because this is what we were talking about, right? There's what are you worth? Right, what is the job that you're going to perform worth?

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

So if you were making 80K at this previous job and you're applying for a job that starts at 105, you're already ready for that job. That doesn't mean that you should be starting at the minimum just because you were making 80K and they look and say, Oh, well, that's a 25k bump for you. That doesn't matter. I'm still coming with eight years of experience. I was with a smaller company, so the scope of this job is significantly bigger. And my worth, my value that I will bring to your company is this, and this is what I want to negotiate for.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Yeah, I hate that question, right? Like, I don't think anybody should ever ask what your previous salary was. I know in majority of states it's illegal to ask that. And so in the state of Florida, it is not illegal. However, I don't agree with it, and I don't think it's anybody's business, right? Because when I'm talking to you about a role, you're not doing that role anywhere else. You're not in the organization that I'm representing. And so, what is your value today, right? What is the role worth to you today? Not what you started six years ago at another organization. And right, yeah, I just I hate that question so much. It makes me so.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

I also think it's the only way that you're gonna see a big salary jump is if you leave a company. Unless they do a market adjustment, which is this is the part I think people miss, right? It's companies have separate budgets for pay increases than they do for talent acquisition and recruitment. And so you may be at your job and going, oh, but they just hired five people making 20K more than me, and I've been here for five years. Yeah, because you're locked in to what their eligible salary increases are year over year, and without a promotion, you're not gonna do that. But in order for them to be competitive in a recruiting space, they had to adjust their market price. And so they're bringing people in, they're hoping you don't find out. And now you can negotiate to try and get an increase, but they're gonna drag you along unless, again, they do a market adjustment across an entire department that is very expensive. It usually has to be done at different budget points. The likelihood of you getting that is slim. So now you have to go. I'm not negotiating my worth anymore, I'm gonna look for another job because that's where I'm gonna get the bigger title, the bigger pay raise.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Absolutely. Yeah, I think about situations I've been in with internal candidates, right? While it's not illegal for people to discuss compensation. Now I will tell you, when I first started working in retail a million years ago, we were told if we were to discuss compensation on the floor, it was a fireable offense, right? Because it was in those times. Now they're I can't remember what the term is, but you have the ability to discuss, it has to do with the pay transparency stuff, but there's a specific term. You have the ability to discuss with your coworkers what they're making. Like I never do that because I was raised with the mindset it was a fireable offense, right? So it's a very um, I also find it's very uncomfortable to do that. And then as you progress in your career and become a leader, you don't want to do that anyway. So, but I worked with an internal candidate that was adamant about his worth, and I tried to explain to the people that I was reporting to and that were making the hiring decision, you know, this person's advocating for themselves. You should be happy that they're doing that because not a lot of people do that, and especially when there's potential of retaliation, which there was a lot of thought of that at this organization, be proud of that and give him more than what he's asking. Just do it because they're advocating for themselves and they've made such progress in whatever they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

But yeah, it's do you want to keep this person or not? How is this person impacting your bottom line? Too what are the results that are driving? Because are you really gonna lose this person? And then you're looking at your salary budget here, but your recruiting budget is this, and what's the cost if this person leaves? It's gonna take you 90 days to backfill them minimum, and probably another 60 days minimum to train somebody, but they're not gonna be performing at that level. So you're looking at six months of a knock in your performance. Can you afford that?

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Or if this per year, depending on what their role is and how they have to build relationships and things of that nature, right? You don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

I mean, I'm being really generous because you're gonna spend more money. This is the part that just baffles me. You are going to spend more money recruiting, training, and developing another person and possibly experiencing a loss depending on what their role, if their sales, than you will if you invest in this good person. I'm not saying just anybody who comes for a salary, you just give it to them because there are some people who they're not contributing to your bottom line that way. But if they're a top performer and they're contributing, the smarter long-term financial decision is to pay them. Yeah, absolutely. Figure out the rest. But I find that because there's some separation between those two budgets, oftentimes people lose sight of it and they don't put the two together.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Yeah, and then I don't think within the work environments, there are some organizations that there is a lot of uh cross-collaboration amongst different departments, and then there's other organizations that don't have that cross-collaboration, so they have no insight or understanding of what people are being compensated and what they should be compensated, and those conversations don't take place. When they do take place, you do see a more seamless process of getting the person what they're the value that they're deserved, as opposed to when everything's so disjointed.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Yeah. And I also think, I mean, this was years ago, years ago, I worked with a company who had such a great setup for internal movement and promotion. And you could search their database and say, oh, if I was ever interested in transferring to IT, I can actually take these internal company courses and attend these group meetings. And in this system, you could check off that you did that so that when they started recruiting to fill that, they would go, wait a second, we have somebody who maybe they're not an IT expert, but they've been working with our company for three years in this other department, they understand exactly how that function works, and they've completed this, and we can see their salary, and we can talk to their manager. It made it so much easier to hire and move people and also negotiate compensation within the company. And then those are the people who stay loyal to you because they're seeing, oh, I can grow here. This company is investing in me, I can move, I have priority over external candidates, and I have an avenue in which to grow that doesn't require me to always talk to my manager, except I can go in here at any point and just complete courses, you know. And I think that's really important too. If you have a really great system, you can grow within a company and it takes the pressure off the manager and the employee when it comes to negotiation time.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Yeah, absolutely. Especially in that that it provides that transparency. And I think transparency is so critical with any of this negotiation uh pieces because whether it's looking at what's going on in the market or what's happening internally within the organization, having visibility to that is so so critical in making the strategy that you want to get things accomplished. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

So what about you? I know that we've talked about the behaviors behind negotiations, but I know you've been working on something to help women negotiate. Yeah. Do you want to talk about that a little bit and share it with our audience?

SPEAKER_00 41:06

One of my peers and I partnered together to develop an app for women to help with their negotiations. It is called Negotiate Herf. And it's not just an app where you can go in and practice negotiations, but it also has a community setup so you can go in and celebrate your wins and have conversations with like-minded women that are maybe dealing with the same challenges or overcoming those challenges and be able to celebrate with them. And I think that's the biggest piece, too, right? You're so much more confident and secure in your capabilities when you have a community behind you to support that learning and growth and help give you the confidence that you need in that. There's also learning modules within there, so you can go in and excuse me, learning lessons that you can go in and review as well. It's actually a pretty awesome tool. I think it gives you real-time feedback and recommendations on how to approach different negotiations. There's always a practice exercise of the week, and then it tracks your learning progress throughout the system as well. Very cool.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

It's huge. First of all, congratulations to you. Thank you. And what a great product or service to offer to women to empower them, right? And and you, I love what you said about community. First of all, you know I love to celebrate a win, so I always support that. But I do think it's important to have community outside of your current place of employment where you can say, This is what I'm trying to do. And you get all of these different perspectives and you see what's really available out there to you and what you can do and how other people have done it. And it, like you said, not only does it boost your confidence, it gives you more knowledge. Knowledge plus action equals power. And so I think, can you tell our audience how to get this app and where they can find all that all those good things?

SPEAKER_00 43:01

You can find it at negotiate her dot authentictalentedge.com. Or if you just go to authentictalentedge.com under the more section, you'll see the negotiate her app. The way that it's set up today is you can go in and do a couple free exercises, and then it does prompt you to register for the month. It is an ongoing monthly subscription, but you can do it one month and drop off and then re-sign up if you need to. And it is more than just compensation negotiations, right? It gives you opportunity to negotiate vendor contracts, uh, title change, not just promotion, but title change, especially if you've been doing the work. And like I said, it has that community as well. So it gives you the opportunity to share your wins once you accomplish them.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

That's awesome. So the app is called Negotiate Her. You can find it through Rebecca's website. And we'll also include some access points in our episode descriptions and some of our socials this week if you want to try that out.

unknown 43:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 43:59

With that, I think it's a great place to end, don't you? I do.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Fellows and all your socials, NFNA Podcast. Until next time.