Thank Goodness It's Monday #308

INTERESTED IN $150,000 PER YEAR

AND A RED FERRARI?

Now that I have your attention: Allow me to share the source of this offer.

Since it’s June graduation time, I’m reminded of –

The classic story: At the end of a job interview, a human resources representative asks a recent ivy-league MBA graduate, “What starting salary are you looking for?”

Despite the prevailing market conditions the grad confidently replies, “In the neighborhood of $150,000 a year, depending on the benefits package.”

The interviewer says, “Well, what would you say to a package of six weeks’ vacation, 20 paid holidays, full medical and dental, a retirement fund with the company matching 50% of salary, stock options, plus a new company car leased every 2 years — 

-- say, a red Ferrari?"

The MBA grad sits straight up and exclaims, “Wow! Are you kidding?”

And the interviewer replies, “Yeah -- but you started it.”

Sure, it’s a joke. But don’t you know someone who won’t quite get it?

Graduating from high school, college, grad school or med school doesn’t entitle anyone to $150,000 a year, a new Ferrari and a paid vacation or any of that; just as simply being in the workforce for any length of time doesn’t.

TGIM Takeaway: If you want to earn more you must provide more.

And lest you think this is just a cautionary tale for workforce newbies with an overblown sense of entitlement, let’s ask this mind-focusing question:

Q: What are you worth -- per hour -- in the marketplace?

If you stopped, divided your annualized compensation figure plus value of the benefits by the hours “on the job” in order to calculate the “hourly” dollar value, you probably had one of three reactions:

Ouch!

Cool…

or

I Quit!

So now you’ve got that number. The next challenge is to ponder --

• Are your daily actions and behaviors of less value than that hourly rate?
• Or are they of greater value?

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Provide more value and be valued more.

• The marketplace doesn’t know the word entitlement. It doesn’t exist.
• The marketplace doesn’t care what you need. It’s the marketplaces perception of value that counts.     

What the marketplace pays is the marketplace’s perception of the value of the product and/or service you (or I) provide.

So now, despite having forced you into this “hourly” rate calculation, I want to ask you to –

Forget about it. At least most of the time.

Yes, your time has value and knowing its value in some small-enough-to-manage chunk (an hourly rate, for example) helps you allocate your time most effectively.

Quickie case in point: If you’re a commissioned sales person with the potential to earn $250,000 annually — but you’re doing activities that a person getting paid $7.00 an hour could do for you — you need to re-evaluate your activities. At your hourly rate you don’t get to put “potential” in your pocket.

Get it? Good. So the corollary to that, if you’re operating in the six-figure-plus compensation world, would be to adapt this –

TGIM Compensation Mindset: Value the value you create. Consider what you do each day or hour as being compensated for results; those “results” being the value or revenue you create or generate by your unique participation in the process.

That mindset should focus your concentration. It should serve to remind you to align all your work-a-day “money time” activities with providing value and driving revenue through marketing, sales and service.

What value do you provide? Well, being only a segment of the market, I can’t tell you, can I? But I can challenge you to think creatively about how you can increase your value to your employer, your customers and to the marketplace.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Raise your own bar by consistently bringing high value to the marketplace and you’ll surely increase your hourly rate …your net worth … and your self-worth.

Looking forward to “Cool” paydays (and red Ferraris if you want them) – for everyone.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com   

James McNeill Whistler
Nocturne in Black and Gold

P.S.  About recognizing value: “I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” In 1877 the English art critic John Ruskin said that about American painter James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold.

Whistler took great offensive and sued Ruskin. At trial Ruskin’s counsel challenged: “The labour of two days … is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?”

Whistler replied: “No. I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime.”

Whistler won his suit, although it left him nearly penniless.