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Have you ever thought about how your employer views the situation?
What is your position/job worth to them? Understanding how your employer would answer this question is ultimately the KEY to making more money at work, and asking for more money from your employer!
When you’re a salesperson the math is a little easier to estimate because you generate value and revenue for the business. Most businesses will never actually “pay” their salespeople; in fact often salespeople are “paying the business” and only taking a percentage of what they pay into the business.
For this reason, getting involved in sales will always be the shortest path to the highest paychecks! In other roles, that value can be a little harder to place, but one thing is constant, and this is coming straight from the mind of a business owner:
“You Are Worth What It Costs To Replace You.”
To understand the mind of a “boss” or business owner it is important to understand that outside of sales, the people the business hires are “costs” that eliminate profits for the business. In other words, the only reason a business owner hires another employee is that it has to, it has problems it needs to solve and it needs employees to solve those problems.
Deeply understanding the problems the business you work for has, and how your efforts contribute to solving them is the key to understanding your unique value as it relates to your own take home pay.
In general, value can be tied to how many people from the general population contain the ability to provide the solution or service that the business deals in, that you provide. Think about two jobs, let’s say a Cardiac Surgeon vs. Cashier.
There are a lot more people qualified to fill a cashier role than there are skilled surgeons so the pay associated is much greater by default. Much of that is because the Cardiac Surgeon must actually be a master of 100’s different skill sets in order to fill that role!
This is why learning complimentary skills is so important. Even if it is only a small investment of your time to learn a new skill it can begin to set you apart from the masses.
Even our friend the cashier could learn another skill in that industry such as inventory management or getting forklift certified to help themselves later down the road or provide increased job security. It can also provide more future opportunities if that current employer does not meet their expectations.
You are worth what it costs to replace you. It sounds cold but ultimately this is the truth, in larger corporations especially. The more problems you solve for a business owner or manager the more valuable you are to the business.
One crucial way to maximize this is to learn a complimentary skillset to something that you are already proficient at. Not only does having two skills often create a situation where you provide more value, it often can literally DOUBLE your value as a single employee, or even TRIPLE it because now the business may only need one person to handle two separate tasks more efficiently than it would take two individuals to solve the same issues. It also places you in a favorable position in the future to a given employer who could find even more value in the 2nd thing you do well than the 1st!
You will know that you have done well when you are able to approach an employer knowing that you handle two crucial roles in their operation so well that the cost to replace you (and risk!) would often be higher than the cost of simply paying you double.
Another benefit of being able to handle two roles is often that it breaks the cycle of you only existing to be told what to do at work and because it often would involve you more in the “processes” of the business it can help you make the jump from employee to management. (Or at least to an employee without a manager!)
Get Valuable, Then Get Paid
Also, if you’re interested in someday running your own business, being able to at least do TWO of the major components you will need gives you that financial advantage to compete in the market with your new venture and more ability to grab the wheel and force your business down a “luckier” path with better outcomes than if you were forced to pay for everything you need done in your new business from the revenues.
Don’t make the mistake too many people have made that fall in love with the idea of getting paid before they fall in love with the idea of providing value – which is the key to getting “paid.” Learn to create a lot of unique value in the marketplace and trust that when well represented, rare unique talent will always be worth a premium and employers will always be willing to pay for it!
ADVICE: Look for employment where the responsibility you are being offered is one that has the potential to create a ton of value, rather than simply a ton of pay. If you follow where you are able to create value the payment for this value will always find you.
When you ask for responsibility over pay, many employees would be shocked how often their boss will allow them to easily become more valuable to the business if their focus is on value, rather than immediate pay. This is the best way to earn more responsibility at work, produce more value at work, and increase your pay from work!
One of the easiest ways to increase your value is to learn to fill a sales pipeline. Learning how to create, engage, and convert new customers for a business will always be an extremely valuable “second skill” or even a very high paying “1st skill” to offer a business. Every business in America needs more employees that are able to fill a sales pipeline.
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