December 12, 2016
Interview with Lewis Schiff, author of the book Business Brilliant
Mike Carruthers: Would you like to be wealthy? There’s something you can do that wealthy people do that almost always helps.
Lewis Schiff: Ask for more money. Ask your boss, go to your landlord and ask for less rent. There’s all sorts of ways to ask.
Lewis Schiff, author of the book Business Brilliant…
We see consistently in the data that people are uncomfortable asking, they don’t want to lose their job, they don’t want to appear greedy – whatever it might be. But when we surveyed the other side, let’s say it’s the HR department, or it’s the landlord – we see that there’s an expectation that they’re going to ask. So if you’re expected to be asked for more then you prepare for it. If the other party doesn’t ask the money is literally left on the table.
In a survey only 25% of people asked for more money than they were initially offered at their first job.
And if you look at on the other side of the table the hiring managers 9 out of 10 of them tell us that their prepared to offer more money than the 1st offer. So that’s 9 out of 10 willing to offer and 3 out of 4 unwilling to ask.
And Lewis says this is particularly important for women to understand.
Both men and women failed to ask but a much higher rate of women failed to ask. Traditionally there’s this thing called the gender gap in pay and the assumption is employers are paying women less. And what I’m suggesting is that women are asking for more money less often. And as a result they are being paid less but that’s an asking gap that’s not a gender gap.
