In her book, Women Don’t Ask, Linda Babcock conducted a survey of graduating business school students and found that there was a 7.6% difference in salary between men and women. One of the interesting findings was that 57% of men negotiated their salary while only 7% of women attempted to negotiate. Think about it. If the proposed base salary is $100,000, then the person who negotiated will make $7000 more! That’s an extra $583/month! Think about what you could do with the extra money!

Trust me. I’m speaking to myself when I say that because sometimes I talk myself out of asking because I assume that it is inappropriate to ask or that the person will say no.  Recently I started a new job, and I really wanted the position so I was scared that if I negotiated the salary I would lose the opportunity. As soon as I accepted the position I immediately wanted to kick myself for not asking for more money. I later found out that other women with my same position negotiated their salaries and got more money. I’m not sure how much money I left on the table, but I know that I could have asked for more to cover the tax increase associated with working in a taxable city.

The next time you have the opportunity to negotiate for a higher salary because of a new job, promotion, or in a performance review discussion. Consider these 5 tips to prepare yourself to negotiate. Remember, to arm yourself with facts and data so that you don’t leave money on the table.

5 Tips to Effectively Negotiate

Be prepared: Leverage sites like glassdoor.com and leverage your network to conduct salary and job research

Talk about your contributions: Understand your skills and how you have contributed to the company and how you have always gone beyond what was required. Document your achievements.

Share how you can fill their needs: Why are you the best person for the job or the raise? Think about how you can positively impact the direction of the company. This is huge for women, because research has shown that women are better at communal negotiations –negotiations that aren’t about them.

Increase Your Expectations: Stanford Professor, Margaret A. Neale, argues that women systematically have lower expectations, therefore get lower results.

Take the emotions out: Regardless of the outcome keep your cool. If you don’t get what you want, ask for feedback on how you can improve your performance, and create a strategy to ask again.

Practice the dialog: Find someone who you can conduct mock negotiations with. Practicing will help you to better articulate your points and increase your confidence going into the negotiation.

How are you going to leverage these tips to learn how to effectively negotiate? Be sure to let me know!

Aisha Taylor is a #1 Amazon Best Selling Author of the book “5+5 FNPhenomenal Ways to Save $100 This Week Without Killing Your Lifestyle”, and the Founder of FNPhenomenal (Frugal –n- Phenomenal). FNPhenomenal helps women to break the vicious cycle of making money, but not keeping it. FNPhenomenal provides education about money management, empowers women to take control of their lives, develop a healthier relationship with money, and pursue being phenomenal.

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