3 Ways to Increase Your Salary This Year

Feel like you deserve more income? Then it’s time to start doing your pre-negotiation homework: Talk to friends, research your title and responsibilities on websites like salary.com and Glassdoor, and (tactfully!) ask trusted people in your office what they make.

Beyond that, take these steps to gather as much information and leverage as possible before you start negotiating.

1. Build a mastermind group.

Pick five people in your network with whom you can have frank financial conversations. Your group should include peers who are both more and less advanced in their careers than you in order to help you get a sense of pay scale progression. It helps if, at the very least, everyone completes similar tasks (with varying degrees of leadership). Create a Facebook group, set up weekly Skype calls, or start an email chain to regularly discuss money matters, from negotiating a better starting salary at a new job or asking for a raise with your current employer. This is a great way to manage your expectations.

2. Prepare for "the talk."

Before approaching your manager about negotiating your salary, write out what you want to say. Practice aloud to your roommate (or even your pet). Record yourself and listen to how you sound. Are you uptalking? Are you looking around the room when you should be looking into the camera (which stands in as the eyes of your boss, supervisor, interviewer)? Get advice from your mastermind group about strategies that have worked for them. Then, walk into the room and be ready to talk it out rationally with cold, hard facts that point directly to why you believe you deserve more money. The most important thing to remember? It takes work to get to the next level, and you have to think of your mindset, negotiation skills, and your ability to advocate for yourself as a continually evolving practice.

3. Know your back-up plan.

It’s imperative that you have a plan b before you walk into "the talk" with your boss or supervisor. Why? In order to have an effective negotiation, you have to be ready to blink first and decide if you're willing to walk if you don’t get your desired increase. That often means having a counteroffer from another company in your back pocket. Even if you don’t quit on the spot, how much longer will you really stay in a job that doesn’t pay you what you deserve? If leaving your current position isn’t an option, ask for feedback on how to turn your desired salary into a reality.

A version of this post originally appeared on Levo League.