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Try this for your next pay raise
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Most people do not fail in negotiations. They simply aim too low. They enter the room hoping to: Reduce the increase. Limit the damage. Get something back. Avoid an argument. And then they celebrate a mediocre result because it was slightly better than the worst-case scenario. Perfect. If you’ve never felt that feeling… congrats. You’re probably never negotiated anything meaningful. For the rest… let me tell you that was my day to day. Every meeting. Clients, subbies, employees. Many years to realize that… That’s not negotiation. It’s managed disappointment. Then, you learn things… By instinct, by try-and-error, by losing my shirt over and over again. Research on goal-setting is clear. People who set specific, ambitious and realistic targets consistently achieve better outcomes than those who simply “do their best.” In other words, for your next pay raise: People who expect more, and articulate it, get more. As I said, this is what I’ve seen many years in my industry. Team arriving to preparation meetings with already weak targets: “Let’s recover part of the cost.” “Maybe the subcontractor will accept 20%.” “We should probably avoid escalating this.” “The client is unlikely to approve it.” Before the negotiation even starts, they have already negotiated against themselves. Well… that is how value disappears. Not in one dramatic event. But through hundreds of small concessions, unchallenged assumptions and opportunities nobody pushed hard enough to capture. A strong asset management team does not merely identify issues. It defines what a great outcome looks like. It writes it down. It tests it. And then it builds a strategy to achieve it. That is exactly what we do during the 30-Day Asset Review. We identify where value is leaking, where contractual leverage is being ignored and where the asset has quietly accepted mediocre outcomes as normal. Then we turn those findings into a practical recovery plan. I could keep going talking… But the best thing you can do is clicking below. You’ll be surprised by how much value is still sitting on the table.
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Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
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