💸Have you ever struggled to know your worth?

Does the idea of negotiating your rates or salary fill you with dread?

What can we do, in practice, to help build our confidence to ask for more?

These are some of the questions we discussed with Insaff El Hassini, an expert and a coach on salary negotiation, a career and business mentor, and a fierce advocate for women’s economic and financial rights. Having traveled the world to teach over 5,000 women how to defend their fair value on the job market, she is the perfect expert for this subject.

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structural changes need to happen

• Truth be told, companies and workplaces know what to do to stop to end the gender pay gap. They just have to pay women. That's it. This is the end of the story. We can try to find solutions that are more acceptable for their ego and say yes, maybe you can do this, you can do that. Maybe women need to take responsibility, maybe women need to find their voices. But women have a voice, and they know how to use it.

• We need to address the fear of rejection, the fear of inadequacy and the fear of judgement that women feel when they ask for more. Women fear that they will be rejected and they will break the relationship with their employer or client if they ask for more.

• If you don't ask, you don't have. Please stop fearing stop having this fear of rejection, this fear of inadequacy or of judgement. If you know deep down you’re worth more, you need to ask for more.

how to go about negotiating your salary

• Research your market price. If you happen to want to sell your house on the real estate market, you will look up for the prices on the market. You would define a high range and a lower range. You have to do the same for your qualifications and experience.

• Once you know your fair value, your fair price on the job market, what you need to do is you need to define a strategy that is based on your life goals and your priorities.

• You can negotiate a performance bonus, you can negotiate a car, you can negotiate to be trained or to go to college — among other things. Define your priorities and ask for what you need.

• Women tend to believe that we need to have to tick 100% of the boxes before doing a job, before applying to a job. We think we need to have a super performance track record before asking for a raise. This isn’t true: you're doing your job. Just because you’re doing a good job doesn’t mean it’ll be reflected in your salary. Ask for what you’re worth - chances are your employer won’t by default credit you.

• You know how much you should get paid and how much you should ask for by looking up to your fair prices on the job market.

• If you work for yourself, don't believe in yourself and if you have a lack of self confidence, what you will usually do is that you will think that by charging low rates, that it will help bring you a lot of customers. This isn’t the right strategy to take.

• If you charge high prices, people will think that your work is of high quality. But if you decide to charge low rates, the problem is that a client might think that your work is lower in quality.

• Bottom line: try to be courageous and put your insecurities and anxiety aside. It takes a lot of courage to do things that are difficult.

The practicalities of negotiating

• The the best timing to ask for a raise would be six to three months before your end of the year performance review.

• The general rule is that you need to use your emotional intelligence to know what would be the perfect timing.

• When you ask for something, put a timing on it. When you vocalise the fact that you want a raise, let's say 20% raise, and they say, okay — we will we will look at your demand and we will get back to you as soon as possible. In response, you should at you should try to clarify when they’ll get back to you exactly.

• If they say no, you have all the power to understand why they said so — so ask.

• Don’t take things personally because if you do, you’ll get emotional. When it comes to money, when women negotiate salaries or when business owner or freelancer are negotiating their rates, they have this feeling that they are negotiating who they are - their personal worth.

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You can follow and connect with Insaff at:

• Book in French: Aux thunes citoyennes! by Héloïse Bolle and Insaff El Hassini

• Twitter

• LinkedIn

• MA JUSTE VALEUR®

• Instagram @majustevaleur

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