Winning Strategies for Compensation Negotiations with Jacob Warwick

Welcome to the Quick Take podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Suzy Tominczuk.

And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today.

Hey, welcome. You're listening to Quick Take. I'm Suzy Tominczuk, along with my amazing co-host, james Capps. How are you, james?

I'm fantastic Suzy, Super excited for today's episode. We've got some fun people here with us.

We do I just wish my name started with Jay, because I would fit right in, but we have our good friend Jacob Morwick with us today. How are you, jacob?

Apparently. I'm good people, I'm doing well.

You are Good people, you're good people.

I'm good people, that's nice.

Yeah, I'm angry at you. Most everybody knows you, but tell us a little bit about what you do, and you're a pretty much a rock star in the area that you lead. Tell us about your business.

Well, yeah, I try to be as humble as possible after that intro. I'm a good people rock star. Some call me the goertranya.

I have faith in you.

You can find some humility in there, I saw that. Ultimately, I'm a interview and negotiation coach for seven figure earners, which tend to be high net worth individuals executives. I recently broke into working with some Hollywood agents, which has totally changed the way I think about negotiation in a lot of ways, and obviously those deal sizes are much bigger and interesting. So happy to share some of the insight that I've picked up over the last 15 years or so.

Oh, that's awesome. I guess one question before you give us some of those that wisdom is, is that a mindset shift, like how do people deal with the fact, like what goes around, being able to say I'm worthy of this number?

Yeah, I think it really is a mindset shift, but I think maybe more so. It's just the type of opportunity you put yourself in. So there are situations where you'll negotiate just as hard for a low paying job as you would for a million dollar job and or more, or 20 million dollar contract. The nuances aren't really that different. It's just that you've put yourself in a stronger opportunity. If you're working for a no name startup where you're negotiating with Google, it's obviously a lot more juice to squeeze at Google than the alternative. So just as much work, but you have to put yourselves in the right type of room to have the opportunity to start to have those bigger value based conversations.

But I'm also hearing you saying a lot of those tactics, the approaches, the mindset. It's really almost delagnostic that you need to really put yourself in the best position and do the certain things, because at the end of the day it's about what you want out of the situation.

Yeah, it's almost annoyingly delagnostic. I'll work with, sometimes, chief technology officers and they say well, how much engineering experience do you have? And I ask why it's relevant. What I want to know is how much does that company you're hiring or you're interviewing for? How much do they value engineering? We're going to find out. Don't tell them how much they should value. Have them tell you what they value at, and then that's how we break some pretty big comp ads Great example Great example.

Something to really think about, so one thing that people would probably always ask you what are the biggest mistakes people make?

Yeah, I guess we were talking in the green room ahead of time, that we were specifically talking around some job transitions and what happens and more specifically for executives. They tend to put a lot of over emphasis on LinkedIn, like LinkedIn is going to be their savior. Oftentimes the advice that works for executives is contrarian to the advice that works at middle management. If you overshare on LinkedIn, that tends that triggers to me and sometimes to recruiters that you have a lot of tactical stuff to share. That starts to position you down as, like, a director and sometimes a lower level VP, because you have so much to talk about. That information can and will be used against you in a negotiation, whether you like it or not. For example, I've led a team of 200. Oh, that's too bad, we needed someone that's led a team of 300. They're not qualified. Or somebody wants to lead a smaller team, but they said, hey, I led a team of 200. Why would they ever consider this opportunity? It's too much information they shared. So if you follow the advice of LinkedIn gurus, they'll often tell you fill it all out, do it all, and I was guilty of this. James knows we played around with his profile a little bit on some of this. And then we found out that the higher up you go in the food chain, the less information you should share on LinkedIn, because it leaves more things open-ended for you to control.

Later you actually turn off opportunities, and sometimes it's as simple as I'm a VP at big name company here. Do you really need to ask what that's about? Because if you know, you know, and if you do know, that's when you're going to reach out to me, so you don't have to go into a lot of specifics. Then, in other cases, you can't go into specifics because of confidentiality. So if you're just totally faking it, you can always hide behind a confidentiality clause and say you know, I honestly can't discuss the top secret crap we were doing here, right? So, um, I think a lot of people overemphasize LinkedIn as their savior, when sometimes you should just pick up the phone, call Susie, call someone like James. They're going to open doors for you much faster than you trying to screw around through LinkedIn profile for weeks on end.

Wow, yeah, I love that. I love that contrarian approach to it, because that's exactly right that you know we are kind of, as you go through your career, you focus so heavily on your resume and you want to get that all you know articulated and detailed out and then to really be at this point in your career to say, look, less is more, that's. That's a really interesting point of view.

Yeah, you know what I? The other thing I always get from people that are in a role right now and they are thinking about moving on and they're in that executive level is do I open up that button that says I'm opened opportunities? And they have such a mindset shift around, put the green circle, don't do it, so don't do it.

No, I mean that that is a surefire way to just totally broadcast to the world that you have nothing going on which eliminates all of your leverage. Like in our now it's the perception of leverage too. So you may have things going on and you may think it's a relatively innocuous thing to do. But from the employer standpoint like hey, someone's out of work, they're going to need to make money or they're not going to pay their mortgage, so odds are they're probably going to take my offer.

Right.

So you've absolutely kneecapped yourself before you even got started. The other thing that folks tend to do is, when they get in a new job, they hop on LinkedIn right away and they just shout it from the rooftops, which is a terrible mistake, especially if you have other opportunities in the pipeline or you accepted a job that you're really not that excited about, but you did need to pay the bills. Shame on you, Right.

But, sometimes you need a job to pay the bills. Maybe you don't want to tell all your friends that you're working with a specific company quite yet, because there may be a better opportunity that comes in the meantime, and so eventually you will get pressure. Hey, why haven't you updated your LinkedIn? Oh, I'm sorry. I've been busy working, right, whatever it could be. Too often people are too quick to post and then you can't backtrack from it. What happens if you get laid off in three months?

Yeah.

Right Now it looks like you can't hold a job, even though it wasn't your fault, so you've in Volant, like you've accidentally broadcast too much to the world that hurts you later.

That's great, boyd. Linkedin quite a third rail in some cases, so let's talk about it. Give us another area that people often over emphasize or mistakes.

Yeah. Number two comparison is the thief of joy, I'm going to say. I'm going to use that to summarize this section. So when you are comparing your salary to the market and you're trying to say, like I'm worth this because of that, oftentimes there will be folks that say, hey, at least get me a competitive rate. Well, the median, the average, the comp structure is out there. That is, by definition, the 50th percentile, that is the median. So if you're under that, you're competing for what mediocrity. Like to be medium? Are you medium? Are you more?

So if you say the market rate for someone like this is 300,000, like great, that's the medium. If people make five, six, 700,000, why not you? So don't compare yourself to that number and say, once I'm here, I'm done. Don't ask someone else to get objective criteria on your behalf, which is a negotiation tactic, like we'll go find objective criteria and then find that for me, great, your objective criteria. You negotiated for average. So you're not necessarily negotiating for everything that you could get in that particular context. Instead, we need to shift towards what value does this position bring to the company? How quickly do they need this value to be realized? Am I the right person for that job. Why are the other people not the right people for that job, which we'll ask questions to eventually build a wedge between yourself and the competition so that the employer has only you as the solution, and then watch the number continue to rise from there.

Nice.

You'll see what happens. If you're the only option and they're time sensitive and you're not, you're in the cat bird seat, so to speak.

Yeah, it's definitely leverage. So how do you help people that's one of the things that you help with is getting that clarity so that they can gain that confidence and that leverage to go in there. Is that right? Is that something that people really struggle with?

Often yeah, and I think often people are hesitant to talk about their competitors when they're being interviewed, and they often position themselves in a me versus you scenario too, because they're not the number one candidate yet. So it's still me trying to prove my value to you. No, it's. We need to prove the value of the solution that you're trying to put into the business, whether I'm the solution or not, and that's where people get hung up. So I'll give you an example of how to drive a wedge real quick, because I think this will be good for listeners. Let's say I'm a chief marketing officer. I say have you considered hiring an agency for this? Why not? Oh, I don't like agencies. I don't want to manage it. They're wasting money there. One of their alternatives has been taken off the table. They just told you exactly why they don't want one of your alternatives. Cool. Have you thought about hiring someone more junior that's going to grow into the role? Have you thought about that? And they're like oh yeah, I don't want someone more junior, I want somebody with. And then they just name off your experience. You're like thank you, you're making this easy for me. Have you thought about two hires? Have you thought about outsourcing. Have you thought about whatever the alternative could be for your position? You walk them through all their alternatives and they say, no, I want this, I want this, I want this. And then they ask you what do you bring? And you're like, well, I bring this and this and this. And you just gave me every point I need to sell you. And so you drive a wedge between all your competitors. Now you know you're not going to lose to someone junior.

You might even say why not pick someone more affordable than me, just to build the illusion of value for yourself. And they say, well, we're willing to invest X amount in this. We need this to work. And you go great, cool, because I'm not cheap, right? Obviously, I'm being facetious here. But you basically drive that wedge and then they've talked themselves out of all their alternatives and you're the only solution. And they say, yeah, actually we need to get started before the board member does another audit for the third quarter or whatever. We need this person in bounds. Now you know their time position as well. So this is something you don't need to worry about. The market and what they're paying the market. They're like we need someone in this chair in the next two weeks, right Cool, and then you can drag your negotiation out to maximize that and hit their goal. Yeah, there's a lot of things that you can do there.

So asking questions, get curious, so that you can really identify those pieces to build your case.

But what you're doing psychologically, susie, is you're getting them to verbalize that you're the solution and what happens is they're giving you the reputation magically You're the solution, they're verbalizing it and people psychologically need to be consistent with what they've said publicly. So, as I said, james, you're the person. You're the person. You're the person you start telling other people. James is the person and all of a sudden, james says, yeah, this deal's not going to work for me. Oh shit, I'm the one that lost James.

They're in trouble.

They're going to look bad unless they meet James' needs. I'm not saying James needs to be a prick about it and totally blow him out of the water and ruin the relationship. What I'm saying is you get them in a position where you're more comfortable asking for the things that you need and sometimes it's not always money, sometimes it's other things. A severance would be really important to me. How am I supposed to risk my million-dollar salary on this chance? You need to take care of me. Or retention bonus. We had a client get a $300,000 a quarter retention bonus for four years to not look for work. Wow, it's 1.2 million extra in cash just to be there for three months and not leave.

Nice.

So there's a lot of things that we can do, depending on the sort of thing.

That's really interesting. Yeah, I think that that changes the conversation, puts you in a more confident position, and really I like that. You're basically having them paint the solution and that picture looks just like you, so that's incredible. But it seems to also lead to some concerns about how assertive can you be in this and does that come into play on this?

topic. Yeah, so I've come to the third point and in Susie, I'll keep you honest with time and I tend to ramble, so thanks for being with me there. One of the challenges that we have is not acting consistent with your character from the interview process through to the actual job itself. Some cases and Susie brought this up in the green room sometimes folks are very assertive. When they have this performance, they need to win the deal. Like they're assertive there, then the deal is closed, the work's not done, the work has just started.

So if you're no longer assertive in the role and you don't know how to delegate and you don't know how to do these things, you're going to be in trouble pretty quick. You'll be out, which we see quite a bit. You'll see average 10 year of C-suite be 12 to 18 months in certain positions. Don't let that be you. Instead, you need to plant the seeds in the interview process that you're assertive in what you need to be successful in that role right from the get go. If you need a team, you better talk about it before you get into that role.

If you need outsourced support, if you need to delegate, if you need access to the product team or the marketing team or you need to be able to influence across the function, you need to say that in the interview process. Oh, I've got the job. Oh, by the way, all of these other executive leaders need to bend to my will. They're going to say you're acting out like why, this is basically a bait and switch thing, so you won't be acting like a character. That's not what we talked about. That will slowly start to degrade your reputation at the company and you'll be out the door before you know it.

Wow.

Yeah, that cultural mismatch from day one is a problem. You're going to be starting on your back foot. That's a really interesting time to set the tone.

I have one point, Susie Do we have time? Are we good?

Yeah, we have one point.

Okay. So I often get pushback. That is very challenging for women to be assertive because there's a double-edged sword there and I've been pushed back on this quite a bit. Sometimes the language they say is aggressive. Assertive is the wrong word. When somebody says aggressive, what they should be saying is you need to be assertive. There's a difference. Yeah, so Radical Candor is a good book for at least a gateway into how to care about people personally but also challenge them directly. Yeah, so you can be more assertive, and I will say that I have learned more from badass female executives being assertive than I have from the obnoxiously aggressive male executives that can kind of bend people to their will. Yeah, nobody likes those folks, but they tend to get away with it. They don't even have that delicate balance where they must be assertive and carefully so. And that's where look at the most badass female leaders you've seen. That's where you'll pick up the most tips on how to navigate the corporate environment more, I guess, tactfully.

Yeah, yeah, and for me it's not taking on the persona of somebody else. That's assertive. It's being assertive in your own persona voice, because that mismatch will cue some something that's not quite add up. It's exhausting, it's exhausting to you, you put on a face for the interview and you have to hold that face forever and you realize that's not really who I am, you can't do it.

Yeah. And to that point of not being consistent with your character, I tell my clients all the time look, I don't want you to be a copy of me. Yeah, if you're not funny, don't be funny. Right, I'm obviously hilarious, so I get away with that.

Absolutely, james gets away with it, right, suzy, it's a little rough for you, but that's okay. But if you're not funny, don't be funny. Be yourself. I don't want you to be a copy of Jacob. I don't want you to be a copy of someone else. You can emulate certain tactics or whatever, but you want to be the better version of yourself. Right, it needs to be natural and comfortable. So if you're doing a lot of stuff that's uncomfortable in the process, you're not setting yourself up for success, because you're going to have to stay consistent with what you've said. That's our brain telling us to stay consistent with that person you showed up as, and it becomes exhausting and you lead to burnout faster and you're not happy, and that's not what we're going for.

Absolutely.

Give us the three.

All right. The three. One last time Don't necessarily overemphasize LinkedIn. Call a friend instead. If you feel like you need to change something to get a recruiter to call you, call a friend instead. Focus on your KPI should be conversations, not LinkedIn visits. Don't compare yourself to the market. Create the new market. Be the person that pushes it forward because you understand the value you provide, not what other people's value is and not what mediocrity is. And the last one always act consistent with the character that you need in the role through the interview process throughout. And it's a lot easier for you to do that if you're being authentic to yourself, natural, vulnerable, funny. If you're funny, whatever character traits you need to show, stay consistent with that so you're not baiting and switching through the whole process.

Fantastic, wow, good summary and three really great tips. Yeah, and that was. That's all. Three of those resonate with me for sure, and I know that our listeners are going to take those away as some real great action items.

Excellent, this was fun.

It was fun and you obviously listened, because you learned how to do that summary, because James does it so well every time.

Well, Jake's got a big brain too. He's good people with a big brain, so it all works out Great.

My ego needed that. I appreciate that support.

Yes, I'm sure it did. I'll bring it home soon.

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