"Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair."
—Tokugawa Ieyasu
Conflict with an idiot manager? Your solution in two words: auctoritas and gravitas.
On small-scale team and project management.
On a technical level, there are two books that are relevant: The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Lou Gerstner.
E-Myth is about how small organizations can handle what's going on, but how they grow up to be dysfunctional organizations without processes. Also, there's a funny (in a morbid sort of way) story about how a motivated first hire comes on, starts bringing order to the chaos, but then gets frustrated and abruptly quits one day because they can't handle the chaos and the fact that they're running the entire business and not compensated or treated well enough for doing so. That story, incidentally, reminds me a lot of you.
"Who Says Elephants…" is about Lou Gerstner turning around IBM. He took over IBM when it was a sinking ship and a massive bureaucratic mess and he turned it around. Good story.
But the problem isn't what organization skills or processes you need, unfortunately.
The problem is that you don't have the relevant auctoritas or gravitas.
Those were core Roman concepts, they're Latin words, let's dive into them.
"Auctoritas" translates almost to authority, but not quite. Wikipedia gives this nice definition: "The 19th-century classicist Theodor Mommsen describes the "force" of auctoritas as "more than advice and less than command, an advice which one may not safely ignore.""
Auctoritas, roughly, is official authority/power in a situation. It's a mandate to clean things up and make them better. Now, technically, someone with a lot of auctoritas might have no actual command over a situation. They might not have the ability to mete out punishments if something isn't done. But they are, broadly, seen as important people who really ought to be listened to. It's not command (Latin: "imperium"), but the next level down from it. The ability to give advice which people can't safely ignore.
Gravitas is something else. There's no word in English quite like it—in conversation, I actually use the word "gravitas" if someone needs more gravitas. "Gravity" comes close. Wikipedia: "Gravitas was one of the Roman virtues, along with pietas, dignitas and virtus. It may be translated variously as weight, seriousness, dignity, or importance, and connotes a certain substance or depth of personality."
They're related concepts. In my mind, I see "auctoritas" as somewhat external (being a police officer) and "gravitas" as somewhat internal (having exceptionally good judgment). Of course, regardless of how much you have of either, you need whoever you're communicating with to know it.
The company you're in? It seems like you don't have auctoritas or gravitas in their eyes.
That's a big problem. If people won't listen to you, you can't change things. Your manager sounds like a bonehead, and boneheads are afraid of giving authority over to competent people who will likely replace or obsolete them quickly if put in charge. It's a bad thing.
For you to turn things around, you need to get some auctoritas or gravitas with someone relevant. Done correctly, they're largely cyclical. You conduct with serious gravitas, you get a reputation for excellent, you get relevant auctoritas given to you, you conduct yourself well in that role and build more gravitas, etc, etc, etc.
But having an idiot with imperium (command) in control of the efforts makes all of this tricky. Very tricky.
The "How to Get a Raise" post Three Minute Plan is relevant -
1.) Work hard on tangible stuff, document and claim credit for doing it, and notify people with what benefit the work provides. This sounds maybe stupidly obvious, but a lot of non-technical people don't understand the value in something. So, "Upgraded XYZ so our website loads faster, which is proven to make customers more likely to buy according to ZYX paper"—I know, what a waste of time, right? Wrong! It's going to make you a lot of money. Tell people what you did.
2.) Before you go to ask for more money, prepare a BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement)—if they say no, what will you do? You need to know this. Having other offers is obviously good. Savings are good. You don't even have to mention your BATNA, but you need a Plan B. Most people don't make one of these, so if their first attempt doesn't go swimmingly, they're in trouble.
3.) Go in and stress how much more you'd like to do going forwards. This is huge. Do not mention what you've done in the past, except in the context of how it proves how much more you can do going forwards. So go in and say, "Hi boss, as I mentioned in all my various weekly reports, I've been learning new stuff and kicking massive ass. [that was step one] Recently I've picked up some new skills, and I've been getting recruited for a bunch of projects [step 2], but I really like working here. Actually, I think I can deliver even more value here, if I take on new responsibilities. I'd like to train a successor to gradually take over my current role, while I do ABC-stimulating-enjoyable-task that will bring the business new money. I don't even want to be compensated much more for it—I'm going to be bringing in lots more value/assets/sales/cash/whatever, but a moderately small raise is enough for me because I like working here so much." Then lay out what you're asking for.
But swap out "get a raise" with "get additional auctoritas given to you" (or hell, get a raise while you're at it).
But it's still tough going. Broadly speaking, you need tangible proof of all your wins and you need to get to the point where you can give them an offer they can't refuse—you'll take the company to the next level if given the relevant authority, or you're out the door.
It takes a while to get there, but I know people who have done it successfully. It's tough and not necessarily worth doing it, though—much easier to seek out a place you already admire and join up there. But if you bargain hard and you're willing to handle the stress, you could gradually take over where you're at.
And realistically, that's what you're going to have to do. You're going to need to officially or unofficially take over. The person you're working for sounds like a moron beyond all hope. It's easy enough to deal with people who are malicious, petty, selfish, greedy, corrupt, or controlling. All those people's motivations can be understood and worked with (though not necessarily enjoyably). But idiots? You can't work with idiots. You can't appeal to their interest, because they're too stupid to have interests.
Sadly.
It reminds me of Carlo M. Cipolla's Fifth Corollary of Stupidity from "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity":
"A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit. The result of the action of a perfect bandit… is purely and simply a transfer of wealth and/or welfare. After the action of a perfect bandit, the bandit has a plus on his account which plus is exactly equivalent to the minus he has caused to another person… When stupid people are at work, the story is totally different. Stupid people cause losses to other people with no counterpart of gains on their own account."
Your manager sounds stupid. Thus, doing things to destroy others without commensurate benefit to self. You can't bargain with people like that very effectively…
Anyways. I don't mean to paint a bleak picture. You could fix things where you're at. You start by building your gravitas—your individual prestige, self-discipline, knowledge, and self-control, and individual personal authority. You leverage that into getting a bit of relevant auctoritas if possible. But it's tricky when the person with imperium is a mean-spirited moron. Mean-spirited is workable though unpleasant, but morons aren't workable.
Regarless, build your personal gravitas which will serve you everywhere, and document everything effective you to leverage that into auctoritas eventually, and you might eventually need to have a showdown over who has imperium. You don't need imperium if you've got enough gravitas, but you definitely need to get a moron's imperium off your back.
Designers: Get Paid By Being A Primadonna
If you're a designer, or any creative professional, this might be the most important thing you read this year. My sensationalist headline aside, it's not about money or being a primadonna. It's about defining how you work, working how you define, having an environment of trust and respect and creativity, and otherwise getting the life you want.
Sadly, many creatives just trust that that'll happen… and it doesn't. They get taken advantage of. This needs to stop.
Some things in here are scary. You don't need to do what's unnatural to you, you don't need to do anything in particular in here, and you don't need to rush yourself. Any given suggestion in here might increase your income by 20% and cut your "client stress" in half.
I'll tell you my story in a moment, so you can assess my credibility and see if this is workable advice. (It is.) I'll give you recommendations on where you can learn more. In exchange, I ask just one thing—if at any point while reading this, you think, "This is one of the most important things I've read this year"—then you immediately share it with as many people as you can that you think it would help.
I think that's fair, do you?
Are you nodding?
I think that's fair. If this is one of the most important things you read this year, you share it. I'll lay it all out. Brace yourself for the occasional foul language or hyper-controversial point, I'm trying to tone down my foul language but still struggle with it.
SEVEN REAL WORLD BUSINESS THINGS THAT ARE PROBABLY TRUE
We need a strong foundation. To understand how to work with a business, you need to understand the goals and thinking of a typical businessman. I think the following seven things are true for 90%+ of the cases you'll deal with.
1.) Businesspeople want to increase profits, profit centers, and asset growth. They want to minimize costs and cost centers.
2.) Almost nobody knows what anything is "intrinsically" worth. [1]
3.) The more subjective the judgment is, the harder it is to assess its worth.
4.) Nobody gives you what you're "worth" in the abstract. They give you what you force them to give you. [2]
5.) Most designers aren't very good, according to Sturgeon's law [3]. You'll need to show you're good to be known as good.
6.) Additionally, most designers will let themselves get screwed, so the default inclination of many people is to try to screw you. And finally -
7.) Good soldiers don't get paid. [4]
[1] Only one definition of "worth" has stood the test of time. In Rome in the year 100 BC, Publius Syrus said, "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."
[2] This one sounds harsh, but I believe it's true. We'll discuss how you can force things to work out correctly without being unfriendly or nasty or corrupting your artistic ability in a moment.
[3] Sturgeon's Law says, "Ninety percent of everything is crap." It's a cheeky way of saying, "The most excellent people at something produce far, far better work than the rest."
[4] This makes me sick to my stomach, by the way. Humanity is screwed up in some ways. There are a few rare people who spread the wealth around. Hannibal Barca types. Genghis Khan actually did this, and it was a big key to his success. But don't assume someone is hyper-virtuous unless they REPEATEDLY demonstrate it. Nobody gets trust that "they're good for it" until they TANGIBLY prove it. Talk is cheap.
WHO? ME?
I'm Sebastian. Nice to meet you.
I'm currently working on a $700,000 contract and made $38,500 in the last two weeks. After I make the money, I'm going to go blow it on my friends, charity, art, and stupid shit. I used to worship money, but don't any more. Actually, I've started tearing currency into pieces during speeches I give to make a point. (It's a powerful effect. I'll explain it tactically in a moment.)
Who am I? I'm a little crazy, to tell you the truth. You kind of have to be to get anything done in the world.
You can read about me more in my recent "An Introduction to Cyclothymia" or declaring war on the publishing industry in, "An Open Letter to Simon and Schuester CEO Carolyn Reidy."
I have, at various times in my life, been extremely talented and high-performing, and been a total mess. I have basically zero regard for non-virtuous authority, I have minimal respect for stupid traditions, and I don't believe that kissing the ass of someone you don't like and blindly hoping things are going to get better will result in a good life.
I'm never sure which details to share to people when I try to explain who I am. I dropped out of two high schools, left home at age 16, got a full ride scholarship at age 17 anyways, dropped out of university at 19, and wound up working and traveling through 60+ countries. I write a lot—you can find 600 articles and over 3 million words of writing on this blog alone. 95% of it is relatively mundane looks into time tracking, goal-setting, probability, money, finance, history and historical events, strategy, excerpts and reviews of nonfiction, and so on.
I like people, and during social periods I'll correspond with 100 new people per month, help them out at no cost, while simultaneously keeping up correspondence with 20 to 50 "core people" in my life. If this sounds like a lot, it isn't—Gandhi used to write 30 letters per day. I got the idea from him.
Between audio, paper, and digital, I go through about 150 books per year.
I achieve all this because I've cut all the bullshit out of my life, and do basically whatever I want each day. I don't surf the net, my entertainment is reading, writing, and connecting with smart people. 95%+ of the time, I don't have a phone. If it's urgent, call the general I'm reporting to, or one of my captains and they'll know where I am. If you don't have any of their phone numbers, then I've got more important things to do than be interrupted immediately by your call. (Sorry.)
The lessons I'm presenting in a moment are a result of my personal experience and learnings, as well as a mentor who makes around $200,000 per month and owns property in seven countries (he's 41 years old), a CEO friend running a $20 million company in a developing country who had massive power struggles with his board (I was staying at his house when it was happening, and learned a lot from that), and from Judd Weiss. You can google Judd, he became a self-made millionaire at age 24 and is a pretty big deal in Los Angeles. I'm really honored I got to meet him, Judd straightened me out to how things really work. Presidential candidates and authors and all sorts of people regularly want to speak at Judd's mansion in Bel Air. Peter Schiff was there last week.
So, these are the people I've learned from. I'll also reference and recommend the books "Pitch Anything" by Oren Klaff, "Winning Through Intimidation" by Robert Ringer (swap "designer" in mentally for "broker" when he's talking about people screwing you, and the book works perfectly), and Donald Trump's "Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life" (obnoxious title, surprisingly excellent read).
I, of course, have my own crazy stories and will share some of them. A recent post I wrote mentioned paying a designer "peanuts" and a number of designer acquaintances were upset. That's understandable, but they were missing context—I offered 3x the going rate in the classified ads, the designer asked me for 3x more, but that's still relatively peanuts since he'd worked on top campaigns for things like Versace. But he was making 9x the classified-ad-quality rates. Anyways, I always feel bad when I offend people that I like callously, so I'm writing this post to make it up to you.
SOME GUIDELINES FOR GETTING WHAT YOU'RE WORTH (AND LIVING A HAPPIER LIFE IN THE PROCESS)
Point #1: Primadonnas get paid…
You can get paid by being extremely solid and not demanding anything if you're working with someone who has demonstrated that they're a big thinker, that they like to share wealth, that they always pay promptly, that they have massive integrity, that they have massive respect for you, who are extremely prompt, and who would rather die than be dishonored…
…and good luck finding someone like that by accident.
We should note that going extreme-primadonna is what you'd call a high variance strategy—meaning, it will produce huge wins or spectacular failures. It's not something to jump into.
But think about the designers you know, or any creative professionals. Is it the solid, law-abiding good citizens that get the massive wins? C'mon now, I'm on your side but we must be realists. Isn't it the semi-reckless, rebellious, demanding, slightly cocky and eccentric people that get paid the most, have the best social and sex lives, are most often courted and having people want them?
Now note—you don't need to go extreme primadonna, and I don't recommend it. We can, however, break down the elements of what's working for them, so you can deploy a select few of them in your own life to get better results.
Point #2: …and good soldiers, by and large, do not get paid on time or in full.
Let's face it. 90%+ of people would rather have the money in their own wallet than put it in yours.
They'll look to grind you, knock you down, they won't move you up if they feel your rates are too cheap, and will otherwise not look out for your interest.
There's a certain naiveté among artists, that people will just look after you and take care of you. It simply isn't true.
I kept waiting for it to be true. But it isn't true.
Here, I'll explain why. I'm hiring a lot of people lately for that $700,000 thing I've got going on. I'm teaching a colleague HR, how to evaluate people's personality and see if they'd be a fit, how to assess if they can be independent and develop their skills, their ambition levels (I want close to max ambition), and so on.
We reject a lot of people. I don't like doing it, but culture is fragile and delicate. The single bad apple ruins the whole barrel and becomes a net negative. And my colleague says something funny. Not "ha-ha funny", but "Jesus Christ Almighty, humanity is in bad shape" funny.
He says, "It feels good to be on the side rejecting people."
I don't think so. I hate it. I hate wasting people's time. It's all we've got and it's so precious.
But this is a kind, sweet, good guy. But he's been so beaten down that as soon as he gets a bit of power he starts to transform into a vampire. (I scolded him, and expressed that, NO, it does not feel good to reject people.)
That's the world. People, even good people, like to wield arbitrary power over others, and 90%+ of people in power aren't really qualified or virtuous to be there.
Read "Winning Through Intimidation" by Robert Ringer, or "Pitch Anything" by Oren Klaff if you don't believe me. These are entire books devoted to theme of dealing with power-craziness. I really truly people that the vast majority of people don't treat people who "soldier on" very well, but will pay you if you're both highly competent and highly demanding.
Point #3: You need to be good if you're demanding.
Really good. Like, the top 10% of your craft at least, if not top 1%.
So, work on your craft.
The good news is, you're probably better than you think. Read Derek Sivers's "Obvious to you. Amazing to others" post for a shot of inspiration.
Also read about The Dunning-Kruger Effect, which says that competent people consistently underestimate themselves. If you're thoughtful and work at your craft, you're probably already within spitting distance of being excellent or already there.
Okay, the philosophical part is basically complete. Primadonnas get paid for some reason which we'll explore, good soldiers do not (because most people become vampires when they get into power), but you do have to be good if you're going to be demanding (but you're probably better than you think you are).
Point #4: A strong code of conduct can achieve 90% of the good results without the stress.
I'm comfortable doing battle with people. It's my makeup. Someone attacks me, I get up and get excited to fight. When someone escalates, I escalate more. Always. Never put me in charge of a nuclear arsenal.
But that might not be you, eh? In fact, it's not most people, which is why most people don't get what they're worth.
Well, okay, I've got something that gets most of the combat results. I'm going to bold this so you pay attention -
Set hard rule principles, and start acting on principle instead of tactically. That's my biggest piece of advice for having a better life.
I believe life works like this—most people don't think at all, and go by routine. This leads to life in a swamp. (No disrespect intended to people living in swamps.)
Of the people who do think, most people think tactically. They think, "What should I do?" This leads to slightly-better-than-swamp, but you're still frantic.
The next level up is thinking strategically. Very few people do this. This is saying, "What am I trying to accomplish?" instead of "What should I do?" Instead of latching on to any particular action, you keep the end goal in mind. This is surprisingly hard to do, and will lead you to a very healthy, happy, wealthy, engaged life if you do it—staying away from frantic tactics and being strategic, I mean.
There's an even higher level, though. This is acting philosophically instead of strategically. This acts, "What is right and wrong? What's worth living and dying for? What do I stand for? Who am I?"
Then acting in accordance with that.
If you read my last week of entries, I'm a man on fire. My output has been nuts. I've built an insane amount of wealth and been compensated for it.
Why? I largely abandoned strategy and have been acting on principle. My main principle? Everyone will value my time extremely highly, treat me very well, I'll deliver the highest level of service and ability that I can to them, they'll honor that and use it immediately, I'll be treated with extreme respect and gratitude, I'll be extremely grateful too, we'll buy gifts for each other, I won't accept any pay from someone that they don't willingly excitedly give (the first time I tore some money into pieces was after I won a bet, and a friend grudgingly gave me the money—I said I don't want it if you're not downright excited to pay me and interact with me, because money is bullshit and not worth worshipping or chasing, whereas doing cool and meaningful things with good people is worthwhile, etc).
I would like to make a generational impact on the world. This requires that everyone around me treat me very well, or get out of my life.
I communicate these points to people, and it's up to them if they want to work with me. Many will not be interested. This is good. Of the ones who are interested, we'll establish common guidelines and we'll live by those. I'll keep my word to you, or apologize deeply if I fall short. (I will fall short, because I'm human, but I'll lay it all out in getting there.)
And your word? You'll keep it to me, or it's a big deal if you don't.
As a designer (or any creative professional), you too can do this. It will get you 90% of the results of being a primadonna, cut your stress in half, and it's not hard to do.
Here's my code again for working with people—you could adopt it for yourself, if it's useful to you:
Everyone will value my time extremely highly, treat me very well, I'll deliver the highest level of service and ability that I can to them, they'll honor that and use it immediately, I'll be treated with extreme respect and gratitude, I'll be extremely grateful too, we'll buy gifts for each other, I won't accept any pay from someone that they don't willingly excitedly give.
Point #5: Don't play games with game-players. Skip negotiation and contracts.
I studied contract law at Boston University from an adjunct professor who had been a corporate lawyer and had worked for the IRS and other federal agencies. The dude gave me a very good education.
I've written dozens of contracts in my life. I have kind of an idle curiosity of contracts, and I've read a lot of random big company contracts for the heck of it. I've also had contracts broken down and explained to me by people like Judd, various mentors, and other people doing high stakes negotiations with companies like Ferrari, Boeing, Microsoft, and so on.
I've put a lot of time into learning contracts.
And here's what I can safely tell you—I don't know shit about contracts.
People will outright lie about the terms of a contract. I just had a contract presented to me that was instantly voidable. It said that in order for me to be able to execute the deal, I had to hit certain numbers with no equity, no debt, extreme growth, and beat the whole industry's profit margin.
It was impossible. And on the off chance I did it, I'd have received terrible terms anyways.
None of this was obvious. They're terms like, "Debt to free cash flow ratio is limited to…" and "Equity shall not be raised without the agreement of all shareholders" and "Profit margin shall exceed XX%."
Quick glance? It looks fine. Look closer—it's a crock of bullshit.
You can't win that game.
I can't win that game, and I actually know how to play it.
So I said, "This is a fucking insult. You must think I'm an idiot. You were wondering where the line with me was? You just found it. I quit."
And then I got $30,000 instead of $17,000 to keep me around. (I actually originally wanted $50k, but I was ground down, and I just took it instead of fighting more, because I need to actually work instead of scheme and fight with schemers).
Pardon my rambling. The point? Unless it's totally impossible, reject multiple page-long contracts. Whoever wrote it knows better than you. Any simple deal can be written in one page. If it's under $100,000 on a one-off job and there's no regulations in play, then there's no excuse for a bazillion pages.
So state that. "Sorry, I don't understand contracts. I only sign one page contracts that are very simple."
Maybe two pages. Maybe give a little. But this comes from being principled instead of chasing down any money. Do you really want to work with someone that is going to paper-fight you? Look, if someone thinks you're a star, they'll re-write their contract for you.
Point #6: Likewise, use anti-negotiation. Don't play the negotiation game.
Tell people how you work. I like this one -
"I will give you my price, and you will say yes or no. It will be fair. I don't like to negotiate, haggling is cheap and ruins art, and makes both parties uninspired and destroys trust. I will give you a very fair quote, and I will deliver extensively more value. You just say yes or no. 'No' won't hurt my feelings. Okay?"
Then quote a fair price. I hate the stupid negotiation game. What a waste of time. It builds no value. I'll discuss terms. I don't want to haggle over price. It's so… low level… it gets people uninspired… whenever anyone wants to work with me, I just pay what they're asking or more than they're asking. If they ask for more than I want to pay, I just say no and wish them well. If they want a whole lot and they're excellent, I see if it can be structured on performance or paid over time or otherwise play with the terms.
You can't work with everyone. If you're doing high end design, you can't compete with "customize a template a little for $80." Don't even bother. You're going to explain your service quality, tell them that you'll give a quote, tell them the quote will be high but you'll deliver even more, and then do it.
Point #7: Design work is a commodity. So don't do design work.
Again, the hierarchy is something like,
Not thinking < Tactics < Strategy < Philosophy
Philosophical people get treated the best and paid the best and live the best lives.
The non-thinking designer says, "Yes, I'll color on the page for you for $50."
The tactical designer says, "I'll find a good way to color the page for you."
The strategic designer says, "I'm going to understand your fundamental goals for this piece, and make this piece work hard for your goals." (Note: Being strategic is enough to get paid a lot and live well.)
The philosophical designer says, "The nature of art is art, and the nature of commerce is commerce... I can make a beautiful and amazing piece of art, that will serve all of your strategic and commercial goals, and will also be a timeless aesthetic. I can do this if you treat me with the highest levels of respect and dignity, give me the resources I ask very promptly, and so on. I am an eternal devotee of this craft, and I can fuse art and commerce into extreme practical beauty, for you, if you are enlightened enough to work with."
If you haven't heard about how Paul Rand worked, you need to study him. Steve Jobs called him 'the greatest living designer' shortly before he passed away in 1996. He was philosophical and principled about design.
I took many of the cues I got from him. He similarly said that he'd do a piece of work, he would not modify it after it was done, and the client would say yes or no, and pay him very well.
Point #8: Do remember to be strategic, too.
Understand the client's goals, and repeat the goals back to the client, and have the client write down their goals in their own form.
Point #9: Educate the client on how to work with you.
Say something along the lines of, "I'm going to teach you how to work with a high level designer. I'm an artist, fundamentally, but also very practical about achieving your goals. To that end, you wouldn't want your artist to come in and demand that you change your business plan fundamentally. Likewise, no good designer can work with an executive who wants to change something just to assert himself. Saying, 'Put a panda in there!' destroys visual harmony and balance, and makes design look cheap. Yet, many executives who have not studied aesthetics and visuals do just that. … You are hiring me and paying me a lot because I am an expert and very good at what I do. If you don't believe I'm very good at what I do, you shouldn't hire me. Once you do hire me, you'll trust me and my recommendations. I'll ask you for feedback in the areas it's necessary, but with a very high level professional, you can't just mess with their work randomly unless you've got a very good reason. I will understand your goals and make you look very good, and make everyone look very good, and be pleasant to work with—so long as you understand how to work with a skilled professional artist."
Likewise, try to explain when things can be changed and not. Over time, you'll see common problems happen, and all of them can be preempted. If clients are scope-creeping with you, add a "Scope creep" discussion before you start working together. It would sound something like this, "This is what's called a scope. I trust you know the term already? It just means 'the stuff we agreed to do.' It's very important that once we start working, the scope doesn't change. Oh, I can do a little tweak or fix an error. But many times a businessperson doesn't understand that changing the scope is akin to doubling or tripling the hassle of working together, and they still want things on time and at the previously lower-scope agreed rate. It might sound simple to also turn my logo into a t-shirt design, put it on some pens, and baseball cap, but I'm a professional and I don't like shoddy work. If you want me to adapt the design to other creative areas, I can do that but we need to discuss separately after we're mostly complete with the current scope of work."
Point #10: Be an asset-builder and profit center.
Again, everyone hates and wants to lower costs. People want to increase assets and profits.
You should explain and back up how design can lead to increased sales, increased repeat purchases, give you more trust and authority, and so on. Phrase in terms of the client's main interest, but add others.
Repeatedly stress that they're making an investment into a durable and long-lasting asset. Costs get cut, assets get invested in.
Point #11: Pre-frame and set expectations correctly. Then, deliver on expectations.
Let's say you're making an abstract design. I actually just had my current project get an abstract design from the high level guy, and my whole staff hated it because it was just some abstract lines. Instead, they wanted some kitschy friendly nonsense.
The fact is, almost all of the world's most enduring top designs are somewhat abstract. LOLcats might be friendly and cute and fun, and give an instant dopamine jolt, but the novelty wears off. If your logo was a LOLcat five years ago, it would have been awesome. Now, it would look tired and petty.
I'm not a designer. You probably know more about this stuff than me. Lots of negative space? Harmony of colors? Good fonts and typesetting?
Yeah. I don't know a damn thing about that, and neither do the vast majority of your clients. So, educate them beforehand.
Say, "Look, do you want a high end design? High end designs often look strange and ugly when you first see them, but then they grow on you and become enduring. Here, I'll show you some examples." Show some examples. "I'm going to give you a design like that, if you want it, and probably no one at the company will like it at first. That's to be expected. If you want a panda or a LOLcat in it, people will like it immediately, but the novelty will wear off fast and it'll be kitschy. I'm happy to go high end, if that's what you want, so long as you understand that high end designs are intended to occupy mindspace and stand out as really unique, not to be an instant dopamine jolt the first time you see them."
Point #11: Emphasize paying for production, not headcount.
Everyone in the world is stupid, so they refuse to pay you more even if you do 10x the quality/quantity of work of a normal person at your job. Lately, I've gotten a lot of abuse from short-sighted and ignorant people for insisting I only pay above market rates in any long term working relationship.
Idiots!
I don't give two fucks about headcount. I want production. In fact, I dislike headcount! I don't want stupid, ineffective people in the room at a bargain. The space they're taking up could be better used by having a lamp there.
See, I've got a market researcher that I'm paying somewhere around 5x the market rate of what I could get for a normal person. She's a top, award-winning scholar. She produces 5x what a normal person would per week, and it's higher quality. To quote Teddy KGB, "Give that [wo]man her fucking money!"
Most people are idiots, and don't think like this. You need to try to get them to. It's hard. Maybe just find people who are smarter to work for. Everyone tries to get headcount cheaply, instead of paying for production.
Emphasize that you've been a top producer everywhere, and that they're paying for your production, not for being in the room. In fact, they shouldn't want you in the room unless you're 10x better than average and 100x better than a hack. You evaluate yourself more highly than that, and it's dangerous to have people around who evaluate themselves super highly if you don't think the same.
Point #12: Use some multiplication and bullshit charts. I don't know why this works and I think it's ridiculous (it doesn't work on me), but it does work.
Whoever is paying you needs to justify it. Make some charts and graphs about how an expensive logo correlates with making a lot of money or high share price.
Or something. I don't know. I think this is stupid, but it seems to help with most people so they feel like they're getting something tangible.
Point #13: Study and use anchoring.
This would be its own thousands-of-words post. Just throw out a lot of huge numbers.
Here's an example. I just had a designer write me asking for advice. He's out of work. He said he wanted to make $2k per month. "Only" $2k he said. You know what? It's going to be a fight for him to get it. I don't know how good he is, but even if he's a star he's going to struggle.
Here's what I recommended to him. First, read everything Charlie Hoehn wrote on his blog, and especially key in on the free work approach. It works well. Charlie hasn't written a lot, and it's all pretty good, so just read it all.
Second, if you want $2k per month, after you've done some free work successfully, then say, "My end goal is be making $15,000 to $18,000 per month, and to deliver far beyond that… but I love working here, I'll take whatever you offer. Seriously—I won't negotiate, whatever you say, I'm going to say yes. So, say whatever number you think would be a fantastic deal for you, and I'll say yes, because I love it here. Take a few minutes to think about it if you want, I'll go get an ice cream and come back."
Give them 10 minutes. If they think you're good at all, you'll get more than $2k doing it that way. If you ask for $2k, maybe you'll get $2k, or maybe not.
Point #14: Stop fearing prosperity. Go after the big deals, and seize the big opportunities. Just do what you normally do, it might be enough.
This deserves its own post. I kept not seizing big opportunities in the past because I was afraid. I've since said I'm only going to work on seven-figure stuff, which is about $3000 per day. (Actually, I want to make closer to $7000 per day, so I can sponsor lots of art, and build statues and bridges, and orphanages, and things like that.)
Now, you can't get there working on small stuff. I'd like to be seven-figure plus, or at least huge amounts of fun and interesting meaningful stuff if I'm not generating $3k per day. But anyways, I need to overthrow entire multi-million dollar markets to get there, which is what I'm now starting to do. It's surprisingly not hard, though I should remind you that I've put immense amounts of work and study in for years and years to get here. Magical thinking isn't enough—you have to be good, and work on big things.
Oh, as a side note, thinking that money is bullshit helps a lot. It's just money, y'know? I'm offering to fly friends out to work with me, I tell them to think about a $10,000 idea on the plane flight. We'll see how it works out, maybe I'm crazy and will be bankrupt in six months, but my math and logic seem to work out okay. Anyways, stop being intimidated by money and go after big stuff. Money is bullshit and having money doesn't make a person special. Actually, lots of people with money are assholes, and besides, if they aren't going to help you and aren't on your side and aren't going to pay you reasonably, then what the fuck are they worth to you? Nothing, right? So go for big stuff, and be flippant and demanding and philosophical about it, cuz why not?
Point $15: If you don't like money, spread it around.
I'm giving out money like candy lately [5], and it seems to be working. I'm tearing it up, I'm taking people out, I'm flying them around, and otherwise running my fortunes into the ground.
[5] In pre-response to hundreds of stupid emails—"No."
I have a friend whose goal is "to become financially independent"—actually, I have lots of friends like that.
You know what? It's bogus. Expenses increase with income. You'll always be trapped if you're a slave to that stuff. I've helped hundreds or even thousands of people in my life. Before I went on my crazy spree lately, I called a bunch of them up and said, "Hey, I'm about to go totally fucking nuts, and I'll be dead broke in six months if it doesn't work. If I called you up and said, 'Hey! I'm broke and need 10 grand! I need a contract to bang out a quick 10 grand for you! I'll do an awesome job!', then, would you find work for me?"
Everyone said yes. Okay, talk is cheap, but I'm feeling pretty safe. That's before even getting to all the people who would lend me $500 (enough to live for a month in a developing country) and not care when they're ever paid back (there's at least a few dozen people I'd just give $500 to and say 'whatever, don't worry about it' … and I've done favors for a hell of a lot of people) … anyways, I realized I'm never going to have to worry about money, so I can stop playing scared.
Imagine that! I can just do cool shit. So I'm throwing money around, and more seems to be coming in. It's interesting, isn't it?
Maybe this is bad advice. Maybe wait until after you get the first big contract to do it. But if you're freaking out about some contract you're going to get, just remember, "I can always spend this on a bunch of cool stuff, and my friends, and do some charity, and sponsor some cool art" and then do it. It's just money, y'know? It's nothing to make a big deal out of.
Point #16: Keep it social instead of transactional if you can. Make it very clear that you're going to deliver inspired, divinely created work, and it's not up for negotiation.
There's a great scene in the mob movie "Donnie Brasco."
Al Pacino and Johnny Depp exchange envelopes for Christmas. In each one? 10 crisp new $100 bills.
Pacino says to Depp, "That's very generous of you, thank you."
Now, what really happened? They give each other white envelopes. There's no change in net worth.
Or, did they just demonstrate loyalty to each other? Hmm… clearly something happened there.
Transactional relationships are all numbers. It's fine to be transactional if you're in a one-off deal. Plenty of times I'm negotiating to buy a stupid hat or pair of aviator sunglasses or something and the person selling it wants to mark it up 20x, and I want to haggle them down to only 5x.
The haggling doesn't matter in this case, since we'll never see each other again.
But if we're going to interact more? Then haggling is a no-go: it destroys goodwill, since it makes things transactional.
Do everything you can to stay relational/social instead of market/transactional. When you present your work, add in touches like chocolate or little gifts. Whenever I pay someone for a creative work, I try to wrap the cash in a nice letter addressed to them, and include fine chocolate with it.
People remember the chocolate more than the cash.
Money is so… bourgeois, I guess? I think I finally get it. Money's important, it's a great way to move things around. You've got some wheat over here, you turn it into money so you can get some camels over there. Neat.
But it's not to be worshipped. Actually put the time in to really take care of your clients. Chocolate, little cards, things like that. Be a trusted advisor. Over deliver on work. Incidentally, you'll get paid way more, but you need to deliver even more than that.
It's a very virtuous cycle. When you start seriously looking out for your clients in every way, for real, great things happen. Transactional relationships are about paying as little as you can for as much as you can get. Social relationships are about giving as much as you can and far exceeding what you get.
Transactional relationships suck. Social relationships are good.
Point #17: Use numbers that are hard to divide, like $777 or 22%. You want to put a mental break in so it can't get transactional.
It's just a tactic that works. Ask for pay that's a symbolic number. 8888 RMB in China, or 777 euros, or $1776 USD. NEVER make a bonus a multiplier of your pay or the pay of whoever works for you, if you can avoid it. They'll say, "Oh, that's 40 hours of work as a bonus?" Everyone multiplies and divides instinctually. Pick symbolic numbers and it helps fight off the transactional vibe.
Point #18: There need to be consequences for breaking their word. Immediately escalate and fight. Also show that that's costing them and setting them back.
My newest contract has a downright insane clause in it. After a short grace period, there's a 10% penalty per week for late payment. $1000 on time, $1100 one week late, $1210 two weeks late, etc, etc.
This is because this client had demonstrated multiple times that they don't care about paying me on time, and didn't care about making me whole. When a client is late in paying you, they need to be reminded that that's not acceptable. You should tell them, "Look, I don't take this personally, but it is a breach of trust and makes it hard to work together. I always assume you're as good as your word, and I just trust you. I'm comfortable running RIGHT on the line if payment is due from you, because I know you're as good as your word. So if I'm on the line and even laying out my own cash on supplies for you, and you pay me late, we've got big problems."
It's up to you whether you want to ask for a token gesture or more cash, whether you want to contractually require it, or just throw a fit if someone screws up in paying you. But you can't let it go unnoticed. When I've paid people late in the past (even a few days late), I always included a 10% bonus as an apology, and to make myself feel the pain. You need to make people feel pain when they don't pay you on time, or otherwise break their word.
Point #19: Beware the ratchet. Ratcheting is fundamentally evil, however it's frequently deployed from the vampire playbook because it is effective.
I passionately hate ratcheters. Ratcheting is when you promise ABC in exchange for XYZ. I deliver XYZ to you. You fail to deliver ABC. I then ask, "Hey, what the hell? You promised ABC." Then if you're going to be a ratcheting bastard, you say, "Oh… well, I'll give you ABC after you do 123 additionally for me."
Oh no you won't! You'll be reminded of our original deal, and pay RIGHT NOW, and YOU WILL NOT RATCHET ANYTHING. There will be no extra terms, no extra guarantees, and no new negotiation. You're also burning goodwill for every minute that passes going forwards, you're not going to get what you want, and if you want to work together going forwards, you'll remedy this immediately (in fact, you should inflict some pain on yourself so you're not tempted to try this bullshit again).
Ratcheting is evil, but very effective. It's holding the carrot in front of the donkey, and never giving it to the donkey.
Don't be a donkey. Don't let people ratchet you.
Point #20: Stop soldiering after they break their word, until it's remedied ++.
"Don't you trust me?"
"Oh I trust you, however, you've just failed to deliver. That destroys a good working relationship, and you need to remedy it."
When they (inevitably) complain about their problems and make excuses, "I understand. I also have problems. I could tell you that I've bought supplies for this project on a credit card and need to pay it off, I could tell you I need to feed my kids, I could tell you my father has leukemia and I'm paying for his treatment, but I won't, because it's irrelevant to you. I'm a professional and you're a professional. That means you pay on time, or you talk about in advance if there's going to be a problem and we work something out. I'm very happy to try to work something out if you let me know far in advance that there's going to be problems."
Points 21 and Onwards -
This is getting too long already and I just flew an acquaintance out from America to put a deal together will him, I've got to go meet him at the Starbucks by the metro station. Here's a bunch more points, you can ask if any of them aren't clear -
*If you can, make them pay for you to present to them, unless you love them, in which case do it for free and make it very valuable. Don't go halfway and do something uninspired.
*Tell people to give you all kinds of tools and nonsense. You'll get paid more, and you'll get what you want. Demand food, drinks, coffee, music, assistants, whatever. This is absurd, but you'll actually get paid more. I'm being ridiculously demanding lately and people are giving me what I want.
*Ask, "What's the goal?" Is it to be friendly, or to get your needs met?
*Write things down. Take them out and show them. People are funny about remembering what's most convenient for them. Paper doesn't lie.
*Have them write it down, if possible.
*Before you ask someone to sign on to a deal, ask them, "What do you expect to get out of working with me?" Have them say all of it, and write it all down. Professionalism, something beautiful, a great experience, a total professional, the exact design specs, etc, etc, etc. Print it. Show it to them and say you've delivered on all of it when they (inevitably) drag ass.
*Use analogies and jokes.
*"This is a fucking clown show."
*Explain the asset value.
*Do a tradeoff table.
*Draw things on paper that are smart, leave them around when you're gone.
*If they keep jerking you around, give ultimatums without giving ultimatums. If you have a go-between, "Look, he didn't say explicitly he'd quit if he wasn't made whole, but he was pretty upset…"
CONCLUSION—GET PHILOSOPHICAL, DON'T TAKE CRAP, GET WHAT YOU WANT
Start living a principled life and things get easier and more enjoyable.
The rabbit hole goes pretty deep—I keep learning and re-learning and re-re-learning this stuff.
I do think artists deserve to be treated better, but that means demanding to be treated better.
If you take only one thing from this piece, it's to lay down a set of principles about what your time, your art, and your life are worth, and to explain them in advance. In the process, educate people about how best to work with you, and immediately call someone out when they start disrespecting your principles and your life.
We're on the planet for a brief blink of an eye, a single warm teardrop on the cold oceans of eternity. It's too short to share that time with people who won't respect yours, and yet eternally long when shared with people doing beautiful and creative things. Godspeed.
Arguing With Peasants Shows a Lack of Self-Discipline
I updated My Time/Habit/Life Tracking about three weeks ago. In it, I added a "Challenges" section:
——————————————-
CHALLENGES:
Did I start the day in my planner instead of online?
Did I only check email when I was ready to write back immediately?
Did I clear my active to do list before any screwing around?
Did I avoid getting into arguments with idiots online?
Did I only check a site once, then done with it?
Did I prioritize books/good learning instead of mindless surfing?
Did I avoid sugary food?
——————————————-
Note one in particular—"Did I avoid getting into arguments with idiots online?"
This can be hard to do if you're on a discussion site. But now, I think I've got a rule that covers when to discuss and get into it with people, and when not to.
The rule—no arguing with peasants.
What's a peasant? Or, to be more precise, who is a peasant?
A peasant is someone who is: 1.) Ignorant, 2.) Tribal, 3.) Has no power, 4.) has a strong opinion, and 5.) refuses to consider alternative opinions or change their mind.
Let's go through all of those.
1.) Ignorant: The argument the person is making isn't cohesive or otherwise makes no sense.
2.) Tribal: It's a tribal argument, so people from their tribe will support it even though there's holes in it.
3.) Has no power: So on the off chance your changed their mind, it wouldn't matter, because the person is just unemployed or a student. It's worth it to take a try to change the mind of someone who can make a difference even if it's unlikely, but on the off chance you finally convince a peasant—nothing happens.
4.) Has a strong opinion: Weakly held stupid opinions can be changed, and you're doing a nice thing. Once you get into a combination of ignorant, tribal, powerless, strongly opinionated people, you're not going to be able to change them.
5.) Refuses to consider alternative points or change their mind: If a person will even consider an argument and reply coherently, you can have a discussion with them. If someone thinks through each point, they might still disagree with you at the end, but maybe you two can learn a little of each's point of view. Peasants ain't learning anything.
The thing is—you want to reply to peasant comments. You think, this person is so stupid and making such glaring errors, I could just point them out to him! But no, this is not the case. Time spent arguing with a peasant shows a severe lack of self-discipline.
Here's an example of a peasant comment I almost replied to:
I once saw a slogan on a T-shirt that said "Labor creates all wealth". I would suggest that if your first reaction to that slogan is anywhere in the range from "that's an exaggeration, but yeah, it's mostly true" to "HELL YEAH!", then you are (should be?) a socialist.
The various flavors of socialism, from anarcho-syndicalism to Marxism to Scandinavian-style social democracy, represent different answers to the question of "OK, granted that labor creates the wealth, but in a country with one iron mine, five steel plants, and twenty steel-consuming factories, who decides how resources get distributed from the mines to the steel plants to the factories?"
That was on Hacker News. Does it fit our definition?
1.) Ignorant: Yup. No understanding of economics or how wealth is created at all.
2.) Tribal: Definitely.
3.) Has no power: I seriously doubt this guy is doing anything of value.
4.) Has a strong opinion: "HELL YEAH!"
5.) Refuses to consider alternative points or change their mind: This one is more of a guess—but I'm thinking so.
There's obvious debunking that could be done—the first one I'd point out (almost did) is that trade creates wealth, if for no other reason than people like variety. So if you have 10 potatoes and I have 10 carrots, and we swap some of them, we're both wealthier. I could point out accountants and bookkeepers create wealth by helping people make decisions. I could point out that two managers given the exact same team and resources will produce wildly different results.
If you said, "All of that is labor," then you've got a tautology. If everything a human does including bookkeeping, trading, buying, and selling is all labor, then sure, all wealth is created by labor… but that includes all the moving around of private property by merchants, financiers, classical bankers, and so on—which probably isn't what our friend here meant.
I caught myself. I was about to argue with someone who saw a T-shirt that said "All wealth is created by labor" and he really liked the T-shirt. He holds this view strongly, and he probably doesn't even understand his own argument. That's before even getting into the fixed pie fallacy in the second part of that comment—the idea that there's some fixed amount of wealth (mines, foundries, plants, factories) and that the product of them gets distributed. No, no, no. You don't like the way things are, build a new factory. Yes, you really can. Yeah you—you could be an entrepreneur. Start small. You could do it.
But I won't even try to convince him, because that'd be arguing with a peasant. He's not going to change his mind. I'm not going to learn anything insightful by arguing with him except maybe getting a pulse on how people who don't think very much think. But I could do that by just doing some google searches and reading blogs in that space.
I'd take the time to make careful and articulate arguments to someone who could make policy, or someone who runs a company, or someone who has any influence or whose decisions and thought processes matter. But even if not, if a person made halfway intelligent arguments, or their arguments were based on individual ideas rather than tribal ideas, or if they seemed genuinely willing to change their mind, or if their position wasn't strongly emotionally held—yeah, if any of those were true, I'd try.
But in this case? No way. It'd be undisciplined of me to argue with this guy. So I didn't! I stopped myself and read a good book for a little while before doing some work and going to bed. Hurrah for self-discipline! And no arguing with peasants if you're disciplined! "HELL YEAH!"
My "How to Get a Raise" comment became one of the most popular I've ever made at Hacker News—obviously this topic is important to people. I'll repeat the short version here, and I'll also give more detailed analysis for people who like to know why things work.
The question was, "Why do business analysts and project managers get higher salaries than programmers?"
My reply:
Because programmers don't ask for more money often enough.
Seriously.
Here's the three minute version of doing it:
1.) Work hard on tangible stuff, document and claim credit for doing it, and notify people with what benefit the work provides. This sounds maybe stupidly obvious, but a lot of non-technical people don't understand the value in something. So, "Upgraded XYZ so our website loads faster, which is proven to make customers more likely to buy according to ZYX paper"—I know, what a waste of time, right? Wrong! It's going to make you a lot of money. Tell people what you did.
2.) Before you go to ask for more money, prepare a BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement)—if they say no, what will you do? You need to know this. Having other offers is obviously good. Savings are good. You don't even have to mention your BATNA, but you need a Plan B. Most people don't make one of these, so if their first attempt doesn't go swimmingly, they're in trouble.
3.) Go in and stress how much more you'd like to do going forwards. This is huge. Do not mention what you've done in the past, except in the context of how it proves how much more you can do going forwards. So go in and say, "Hi boss, as I mentioned in all my various weekly reports, I've been learning new stuff and kicking massive ass. [that was step one] Recently I've picked up some new skills, and I've been getting recruited for a bunch of projects [step 2], but I really like working here. Actually, I think I can deliver even more value here, if I take on new responsibilities. I'd like to train a successor to gradually take over my current role, while I do ABC-stimulating-enjoyable-task that will bring the business new money. I don't even want to be compensated much more for it—I'm going to be bringing in lots more value/assets/sales/cash/whatever, but a moderately small raise is enough for me because I like working here so much." Then lay out what you're asking for.
Business people learn how to do this. You're leaving lots of money on the table and not getting a chance to work on cooler stuff that you'd like to do if you don't do this.
1.) Regularly update with the work you completed, and the benefit it provides.
2.) Decide what you want, and what you'll do as Plan B if your current company won't give it to you.
3.) Go stress that you'd be able to produce more value if you transition your role to a more highly paid and enjoyable one.
Be friendly and complimentary. Whenever possible, try not to ask for more money for the same role from the same company—people hate price increases, so it's better to expand your role to something that's also more enjoyable and produces more in their eyes. If you want a raise for doing the same exact work, it's probably good to start looking outside the current company as well for other offers.
Analysis:
The above is probably all you need to get started. But for people who like to know the details behind everything…
Before we continue—I've pretty much never been salaried, so my views here are from being taught by successful people and reading lots. I generally look to back up my friends and help them when I can, and I've helped around a half dozen people do this process with a 100% success rate. I'll email a couple people I know to ask if they're cool with me sharing the back-and-forth of revising letters they've written to their bosses. That'll be up in the next couple days if I can get permission.
Alright, analysis –
*If you don't ask for money periodically, you're likely to be underpaid. This isn't always true—some people try to build no-negotiation cultures that pay just based on seniority and skill. Steve Newcomb of Powerset (acquired by Microsoft for $100 million) described in his excellent hiring/staffing article "Cult Creation" that he doesn't negotiate salary—he has a set scale, so he doesn't have to engage in adversarial behavior with people coming onboard. Joel Spolsky follows a similar process.
But these are the exceptions to the rule—in most places, you'll receive more money if you ask for it. You'll receive more desirable assignments if you ask for them. And so on. If you absolutely can't and won't negotiate, you'd do well to look for a talented employer with a favorable set salary scale. If you're not at one, then you should ask for more money fairly often to get what you're worth. But, just asking without preparation isn't the way to go, hence the rest of the advice, such as…
*Work on tangible stuff, document and claim credit: Steve Friedl's "So you want to be a consultant…?" is one of the definitive essays on that consulting. He describes how it's crucial to give whoever is paying you "the warm fuzzy feeling." Part of that is letting them know what you're working on -
Anybody who's dealt with a lawyer has gotten a bill that said
Review documents ……. 40 hours
…and for most of us, the lack of visibility into work done is maddening.
Your customers should never think this about you: list your work in detail to say what you did, and — if necessary — who asked you to do it. Which of these two line item details would you rather see from somebody you're paying real money to?
Consultant #1—Email system administration … 3.25 hours.
Consultant #2—Investigated email system problems per Martin; found that MS Exchange required a patch to deal with the latest Outlook IMAP queries; re-optimized all the message stores and tested with several email clients. … 3.25 hours.
Your detail should ring a strong bell with the customer, with him nodding his head on every item while he reviews your invoice. This gets you paid sooner and gives the customer The Warm Fuzzy Feeling™.
This is true when you're salaried as well, because…
*Non-technical people frequently don't know the value of technical things. The more specialized the world gets, the less we understand roles outside of our own. There's a very, very good chance you understand your job much more than your boss, especially if he's never done your exact kind of work.
If you're doing work your boss doesn't understand, how does he know how well you're producing?
Answer: He doesn't. Unless you tell him. The person who describes what they're doing and why it matters regularly will seem much, much more productive than the person who doesn't.
*Benefits are necessary: It's key to translate the benefit of what you're working on into something your boss/employers value. Every savvy businessperson loves revenues and hates costs. If you're a cost, they want to reduce your work. If you're bringing in revenues, they want to expand your work.
It's really that simple. Okay, let's say your job is to sort schedules for rotations of personnel and machinery somewhere. You're a cost to the business and they'd prefer to reduce the people doing that role any way possible.
On the other hand, if you can translate your work to revenues, then they love you and want more of you.
So you're going to report in with what you're accomplishing. Think creatively about how you can stress the revenue and profit potential of what you're doing. Something like, "I made some tweaks to our rotations this week, because it's proven we produce more product and with lower defect rate by this new kind of rotation… this should save costs, lead to higher quality, and a better reputation for us… also it makes our particular plant look really good."
See that last one? That's big. Don't just stress benefits to the company—also show how you're making the people you work with look good. Everyone wants to look good. If you're making people look good, that bodes well for you.
Don't just mention the work by itself. "Did maintenance on a machine." Instead, describe the maintenance, and then add a benefit—"Did XYZ specific maintenance, which should lead to a longer life and higher output from the machine. That should save costs and increase production, as well as keeping operators safe and happy, and making us all look good."
*Recap on reports: It's up to you to figure out how you can tactfully put together reports that stress the good things going on. If you're a manager, you probably already know the general channels. If you're not, you should still be reporting in to your boss(es) with what you're accomplishing. As in Friedl's example above, give specific detail. But then go a step further—how can you describe the task you did in a way that benefits the end goal of the company and makes the people around you look good? If at all possible, tie it into more revenues somehow. You really want to be a profit center rather than a cost center. Profit centers get expanded. Cost centers get cut.
*BATNA: Have I stressed enough that you should read many books on negotiation? I feel like I write that in any article on business. But again—go read 3-4 books on negotiation. Really, it might be one of the best things to ever happen to you. BATNA—Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement—will be thoroughly covered in one of them.
And still, most people who've read books on negotiation forget to do this. You need a fallback plan. You need to know what you're going to do if this doesn't work. BATNA—a backup plan—removes desperation. It also gives you a benchmark for how good an offer is. If you get offered an increase in pay of 30%, but a significant increase in hours and boring travel, is that worth taking? Well, that depends on your BATNA. You can't answer that question without knowing what your other options are. Figure out your backup plan and other options before entering into any negotiation.
*Stress how much you'd like to do going forwards. Some years back, I'd built a logistics/distribution system with a guy I knew and got along with. I'm going to keep the details vague here, but he was responsible for finance at the company (note: you're always responsible for finance in any business you own, always, no matter what). The hard initial work was done, we'd hit profitably and were growing at a good clip, and the business didn't take that much time to run besides time we put into expansion. The lady at the warehouse we had was super good and handled most of the hard stuff, and we paid well.
Long story made very short, when I was out in Dubai for a while and not paying close attention, my partner had some serious financial trouble hit and stole quite a bit of money from the company.
I was crushed. I called up my friend Judd Weiss (I've mentioned him before), and asked, "Dude, what the hell's going on here? How could he do this? I've been so good to him, we've been through hell together, and now this…"
And Judd explained to me that you've got to be really, really careful about what your value is going forwards. I said, "So, it's a 'what have you done for me lately' kind of world, huh?"
Judd says, "Sebby, no. It's not a 'what have you done for me lately' kind of world. It's a 'what are you going to do for me going forwards' kind of world."
That's not to say people are bad people… we humans just have a funny way of rationalizing our actions.
Generally speaking, don't expect loyalty or pay or compensation for things you did in the past. You get loyalty and pay and compensation for things you're going to do going forwards.
I know the idealists are gritting their teeth and cursing. I'm not saying this is good. I'm just saying it's the way things are.
There's exceptions. I pride myself on fanatic, near unreasonable amounts of loyalty to people who do right by me. But the more time passes, the more I realize that much of the world doesn't work like that.
When you go in to ask for more money, stress what you can do going forwards, not what you did in the past. Which brings us to our next point -
*Don't mention what you've done in the past—people hate that. It makes people feel guilty and makes you sound entitled. They might agree to what you're asking, but you've killed the warm fuzzy feeling.
Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, said something along the lines of, "You work two weeks, you get paid on Friday, and then we're even."
Take that attitude too—you get hired or contracted for a specific thing, you get your pay for that, and you're even. Even when someone really should "owe you one" for something you did, you'll still get much more goodwill by saying, "Nah, you don't owe me anything, it's really a pleasure working together."
Stress what you're going to do going forwards, not what you did in the past. If you just did something monumental for the company or your boss and you want to ask for something, ask for it right away. So if you saved the company $200 million, then you might say, "Hey, I'm really happy and honored that I was able to do that, that was really cool… boss, I was wondering if we have any bonuses that are available for people who do such massive savings? That'd be cool and I think would help inspire others to innovate and invent for the company."
Note that even then, you're stressing the future benefits to paying you—it could inspire others to do the same.
*Make it easy: If you want more money, make it very easy for whoever to say yes. If you're salaried, a big question would be who would replace your current role? You can say, "I'd like to train a successor to gradually take over my current role," or you can mention someone who is already ready and is appropriately in line for a promotion, or you could stress taking additional responsibilities in addition to maintaining the current role. But as with anything, the easier you can make it, the more likely it is to work.
*"I think I can deliver even more value here, if I take on new responsibilities." Ideally be more specific than that, but that's the gist of it. Stress how giving you more money creates more money somewhere for the company. If you're in a role currently far away from revenues, it's up to you to be creative in justifying how giving you more money produces more money. People want to cut costs. People want to expand profits. Much better to position yourself the latter if at all possible.
*A note of clarification—"I don't even want to be compensated much more for it—I'm going to be bringing in lots more value/assets/sales/cash/whatever, but a moderately small raise is enough for me because I like working here so much."—you can actually ask for a lot of money after that. Say modest raise, then ask for whatever crazy amount you want to. You can also ask for non-monetary things.
*Be friendly and complimentary. Specifically, not adversarial or demanding if you can help it. People want to help and work with people they like. Be likable if possible.
*If you want a raise for doing the same exact work, it's probably good to start looking outside the current company as well for other offers.
A mentor of mine is Projects Director at one of the most profitable architectural firms in the Middle East. He came from nothing, dropped out of middle school, and was working on construction as a teenager. Eventually by being somewhat bold when the foreman didn't show up for a while, he was able to take a foreman's position.
He explained this to me: "They were never going to promote me above foreman. They saw me as just another laborer, thinking I should feel really lucky just to be a foreman. So I had to apply to another company to be a site manager. I worked hard and had a good reputation, so I got the job. But then, you see, they'd never see me as better than a site manager. To them, I was just a foreman and I should feel really lucky that I've got this job that I do…"
He followed that plan to rising through the ranks by changing companies. In his case, he did it by moving to what the next booming place would be—working in China, the Asian Tiger economies, other places as they variously had construction/expansion booms.
Sometimes you have to go elsewhere to get paid.