Asking for What You’re Worth

Whether you own your own business or are employed by a company, you may have trouble asking for what you’re worth.  It may be that you’re:

• Afraid of rejection
• Afraid of being perceived as not a nice or likable person
• Afraid of finding out you’re not worth what you thought you were worth

Let me refute these fears for you:

Rejection:  If they say “no” to your price, you’re no worse off than you were before and you know you didn’t leave any money on the table.

Likeability:  In business, wouldn’t you rather be respected than be liked?  People don’t respect you as much if they pay you less for your product or service.

In the Current Market, You’re Not Worth What You Thought:  At least now you know and you can look at ways to increase your worth in the market place.

The next step is to embrace your worth:

1. List your positive characteristics that support the great service or products you provide.
2. Focus on the characteristics that make you different from your competition.
3. List your accomplishments.
4. List your contributions to your customers or the company you work for.
5. List the benefit your customers or your company receive from you.
6. Arm yourself with data, by researching the price the market will bear.

The next step is to believe the data you’ve collected and own your worth.  Review all the data until you truly embrace it and share it with colleagues and friends.

You can use affirmations if needed to enhance this shift to new, more positive thought patterns:

1. I will ask for what I’m worth.
2. I make a great contribution to my customers/organization.
3. I am worth ___ because I ____.

Next, if you have your own business, share the information with your customers in your marketing materials.  If you are employed, present the data to your boss as a backup for your salary increase request.

Then it’s time to ask for what you’re worth, look them in the eye, stay silent, and let the buyer/employer speak first.

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