Book Extract | What's Up With Women and Money?

Book Extract

Excerpted with permission from the publishers What's Up With Women and Money?: How to Do All the Financial Stuff You’ve Been Avoiding‎ Alison Kosik, published by Harriman House/ Pan Macmillan India
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NEGOTIATE LIKE A MAN: WHAT WOULD HE SAY?

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

Alice Walker

It’s remarkable. In the 30 years after Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran founded the Corcoran Group, a real estate brokerage in New York City, she says not one female manager or support staffer ever asked her for a raise. Not one. And 90% of the managers and staffers in her company were women! WTF, right? That was from the 1970s through 2001. You might think things would improve in the early 21st century, but they didn’t really. In 2020, a Randstad survey showed a whopping 60% of women had never negotiated with an employer over pay. Maybe, just maybe, the trend is improving. Separate research from 2022 suggests that 70% of employed women have tried to negotiate their pay. Of those women, almost 60% said their negotiations were successful. Not to be a Debbie downer, but this also means around 30% of women are still accepting their salary without negotiating. That’s still bad news, because every woman— every woman!—should be negotiating her salary.
WHY THE F*CK AREN’T WE ASKING?

Part of it may be that many women don’t know the best way to approach salary negotiation, because women often face judgments that men don’t when they ask for more. Sheryl Sandberg tells me that negotiating often doesn’t work as well for women as it does for men, because of cultural expectations. Think about it. Why do we call girls ‘bossy’? Women can be perceived as too pushy and selfish, while men can aggressively negotiate without fear of repercussions.

In negotiating for increased salary during the application process for a new job, one common fear is that the employer could rescind the job offer. Or by negotiating for a pay raise in a current job, there is a very real fear, backed by research, that negotiating may not lead to gains but instead, may come at the cost of being disliked. The research shows that “Relative to men who ask for more, women are penalized financially, are considered less hirable and less likable, and are less likely to be promoted. Men, on the other hand, can typically negotiate without worrying about backlash—and are four times [as] likely to do so—because bold, assertive behavior is consistent with traditional masculine gender norms.” As if that’s not enough to hold us back from rocking the boat by asking for more money, other reasons we don’t negotiate and just accept the salary we’re offered include:
• not feeling equipped for the conversation
• inexperience
• lack of confidence

But, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

It really, really matters if you just throw away the opportunity of negotiating your salary—especially when you’re going for a new position. At that new company, all future raises you get will be based on your starting salary. The long-term difference between employees who negotiate a starting salary and those who do not is staggering. The research on this finds that over the course of a 45-year career, the non-negotiating worker stands to lose between $650,000 and $1m relative to the negotiator. That’s not just from lost earnings, but also from the loss of compounding interest over the years that you don’t invest any of those earnings.

Another reason to negotiate is that women who avoid negotiating for a higher salary when offered a new job inadvertently contribute to the issue of the gender pay gap—the difference between what women make and what men make. Women who work full time, year-round earn just under 84 cents for every dollar men earn for doing the same job. That’s 16% less! It means women each year earn a median annual income that’s $10,000 less than men. That money can be lifechanging. If you invest $10,000 at an 8% return (remember that the average return of the stock market is 8%– 10%) every year for 40 years? You get $2.8m. That’s money you’re missing out on because of the gender wage gap.

For Black and Latina women it’s even worse. Compared to men, they’re getting 67c and 57c on the dollar, respectively.

The pay gap is not about a single paycheck. The pay gap also widens the wealth gap—the void between the overall money that women and men own or accumulate. Single white women own 92c on the dollar compared to single men. And shockingly, single Black women own less than 8c on the dollar compared to white men. A lack of negotiation leading to lower salaries isn’t the only thing perpetuating the gender pay gap. There are bigger reasons:
• Discrimination from gender bias at both a conscious and unconscious level. We’ve got what it takes: A Harvard Business Review study found women rank more highly than men in 17 out of the top 19 leadership qualities. But women are consistently overlooked by employers, who still tend to view men as being more competent.
• Women are being short-changed in performance bonuses. What really burns about this is that men are receiving up to 35% more in their bonuses than women, even when they both receive the same performance rating.
• Men and women tend to work in different industries, with female-dominated industries like childcare, social work, teaching, and nursing attracting lower wages. Why isn’t anyone questioning why these female-dominated industries are attracting lower wages in the first place? Here’s what’s crazy: Research shows that when women take over a male- dominated field, the pay drops—for the very same jobs that more men were doing before. A striking example of this happened in the field of parks and recreation. Wages dropped by 57 percentage points as the field went from predominantly men to women workers. But even when women join men in the same field, the pay gap remains. Female physicians, for instance, earn 71% of what male physicians earn, and female lawyers earn 82%.

• Women take more time out of work to raise a family. When they drop out of the labor force for some time, women often do not have the same continuity of work experience as their male counterparts, which contributes to lower wages.

• When women return to work after having a child, they often face what’s known as the ‘motherhood penalty.’ Most workplaces don’t offer much flexibility for mothers, who are often forced to take on lower-paying and less demanding jobs.
Despite these ‘reasons,’ the persistent gender pay gap is perplexing because women are better educated than men. For decades, women have been graduating from college at higher rates than men. But diplomas aren’t translating to dollars. The pay gap remains, even at higher education levels. It’s more evidence of women being undervalued.

GO FOR IT: NEGOTIATE

Here’s the irony of it all: Negotiation is actually a thing that most women are super good at. We are natural negotiators. We already have the skills! We just need to learn how to use them and reimagine the whole idea of negotiating. So, I’ve done the work for you. I interviewed a few negotiation experts to gain insights into the tools women need and the steps they should take to ace the negotiation process.

The big issue for women is that we often see the perceived negotiation as conflict. And when women think of conflict, they think someone has to win and someone has to lose—that it’s this testosterone-driven, competitive, male activity that’s dirty or sneaky and we wish we didn’t have to engage in. But what if I told you that if you flip the paradigm of how you think about negotiation, so as to not think of it as a conflict or a confrontation but instead as a conversation, you would have a much better chance at success with it?

That’s because negotiation is really just that—a conversation with a goal in mind, and most women innately have the skills that are needed to do really well in a conversation. This is because we can empathize and understand what the other side’s situation is, we have intuition to decode all the non-verbal messages coming at us, and our listening skills are typically amazing. We also have more oxytocin than men, so we tend to be more cooperative. When exhibited by employees, these traits are linked with an increase in long-term value for companies. They also make women highly effective problem-solvers. In fact, research by Laura Kray at the University of California, Berkeley, and Jessica Kennedy at Vanderbilt University, shows that women excel at generating goodwill through problem-solving. The researchers found women possess unique advantages as negotiators, including greater cooperativeness and stronger ethics. But often those strengths are overlooked or severely undervalued.

WHAT TO DO BEFORE THE NEGOTIATION

Now that we know we’ve got the innate skills, how can women best leverage them? This is where strategy comes in. If you’re starting a new job, your salary negotiation strategy will be different than if you’re already working somewhere and want to get a raise. But whether you’re negotiating salary for a new position or you’re trying to get a raise at the job you’ve had for five years, it’s all about preparation, asking strategic questions, and playing the long game.
Prepare, prepare, prepare!

You have to put time and effort into the preparation phase. Meggie Palmer, who runs classes on how to negotiate as part of her work to close the gender pay gap, says five of her clients were able to get an extra $100,000 plus because they went the extra mile with the prep. I know, it’s not sexy or exciting. But preparation is power. She feels it’s the most important step because researching who you’re interviewing with (whether for a new job or to get a raise at your current job) helps you to know where the other party is coming from, so you can structure your request and conversation in a way that will speak to what they want. Whether you’re a prospective or existing employee, these are some of the questions you should answer and keep in mind as you prep:

• What is the company’s market?
• How many employees do they have?
• What’s the size of the company? Is it a Fortune 100 company? (How you negotiate and what you ask for in terms of salary is very different than negotiating with a mom-and-pop company.)
• What do employment websites like Glassdoor say about salaries for the position under discussion?
• What is the culture like within the organization?
• What is the latest news about the company?
Practice ahead of time. This is key! The more mental gymnastics you can do before you get into that room or into that Zoom, the better the outcome. You are going to feel much calmer because you’ve already run this through in your head or practiced with someone. Any preparation in a role play sense is helpful, even if you feel a little bit of an idiot doing it. But our brains are funny things. Even though it’s role play, your brain is subconsciously processing what you’re saying.

Let’s say tomorrow you will be trying to get an extra $5,000 to $10,000 a year for your raise. Sometimes saying that number can feel like an out-of-body experience. So you want to get used to saying it. Say it out loud in the shower. I want you to tell your friends that it’s the number you’re asking for. Get comfortable saying that number out loud, because for a lot of us, the first time we say the number or the salary or even the title that we want is in that negotiation.
Once we’ve trained ourselves to say that number in a natural way and it just rolls off the tongue, it will be perceived more positively by whoever we’re negotiating with. Instead of mumbling, ‘Oh, you know, um, I was thinking like, how would you think about 25 grand? I don’t know.’ you’ll say, ‘Hey listen, given my value and the impact that I’ve contributed to the company this year, I’d love to talk about an extra $25,000 in my salary going forward.’ See the difference? It’s a very different conversation in terms of the tone of voice and how you are perceived. Because for better or worse, perception is really important.

Similarly, body language, words, and tone all matter when you’re trying to get a better result. Shifting your language to be non- threatening and to be open is really powerful. It’s the same with body language. Body language can be powerful, too. That’s where the preparation of actually roleplaying is so helpful. And you can even do this with your cell phone. You can just set your phone up to record you in a wide shot talking to the phone as though you’re having a practice negotiation. Then watch the video back with the sound off. What you’ll notice is your body language. You might be fidgeting or touching your hair a lot. Being aware of those non- verbal cues is very important as well.

Hot Tip #1
Google the company’s news on the day you have your interview/ negotiation. What if the company had mass layoffs yesterday? Or what if their CEO is on the front page of the paper for all of the wrong reasons today? You’d be surprised at how often and coincidentally this happens. In the past, I’ve interviewed with a company (that will remain nameless) on the same day that they announced there would be layoffs on the way. You want to make sure you have that information so you have some context about how you may have to tailor your discussions.

The idea is to check the temperature of the company you’re dealing with. It’s important to keep up-to-the-minute information in the back of your mind during the meeting. It helps you to read the room. If the company announced that they’re doing well, maybe ask for a figure toward the top of the salary range you were going to negotiate for. That’s versus an announcement about layoffs— after which you’d want to be sensitive to where the company is business-wise and what compensation they’re likely to offer you at that moment. But even bad news, like layoffs, can mean a good opportunity for you.

Hot Tip #2
Whether you’re interviewing for a new job or trying to get a raise in your current job, having an organized ‘brag book’ of your collected accomplishments can help you sell yourself. This is the proof that you deserve a raise or a particular salary. If you find that throughout your job you just scribbled things on index cards or on your phone notes app and it’s all over the place, may I suggest a way to keep this stuff in an organized fashion? Of course, there’s an app for that—and it’s free! PepTalkHer is like an online brag book that makes it easy to keep track of your wins at work and also lets you upload screenshots of glowing emails you’ve received over the years. Keeping all of your achievements in one place is helpful not just for negotiations but for performance or pay reviews, too.

Hot Tip #3
If you’re in the interview stage of getting a new job, companies are much more willing to be transparent with external candidates than with current employees. Companies are often required by law to share pay ranges on job postings, but the same isn’t true for internal pay ranges. Those external pay ranges are absolutely a useful source of information for internal employees to benchmark their own pay.

Hot Tip #4
The best time to negotiate your salary is during the offer stage. Many companies—especially large, highly structured corporations— limit the percentage an employee’s compensation can be raised by during a calendar year.
Some bosses are financially incentivized to pay their team less. Let’s say they have a million-dollar budget for payroll. If they hire ten people at $100,000 each, that’s the million dollars spent. But some companies will incentivize them to pay everyone $90,000 and come in at $900,000 total, for which the boss will get a percentage of that $100,000 as a bonus. So if they are incentivized to pay you less, the way to get a pay raise is either have another offer from another company, or be open to non-monetary benefits.

PREP CHECKLIST

• Who is the individual you’ll be negotiating with? You’ll want to go to their LinkedIn, but also check out their social media like Instagram and X. Do they like dogs? Which Netflix series are they always talking about on social media? The more information you gather, the more you can get below the surface of the individual person and the better you will be able to connect with them. And the better relationship you have with someone, the better the outcome of the negotiation. Because people like to do business with people they like. It’s not necessarily fair or reasonable, but that’s the reality. If you can form that connection early on in the negotiation, you’ll have a lot more power and you’re going to be able to get a better outcome.

• If you know the person you’re negotiating with, think about what levers the person responds to and how you can steer the conversation. If they’re data driven, they’ll respond to the fact that you improved the website’s SEO by 13% year on year and that it’s contributed an extra $75,000 in sales (or whatever metric is used in your particular industry). Communicating your achievements in the conversation is essential to giving color to your value. If you’re a nurse, have you reduced the waiting time in the waiting room? If you’re an executive assistant, have you negotiated with vendors about how to get stationery at a discounted rate? You should think about what things are important to your current or potential boss, and what makes them look good to their boss. The case you make has to make it very easy for them to see how saying yes to you is going to make them look good in terms of the hierarchy up the chain as well.

• Know your ‘wish,’ ‘want,’ and ‘walk’ figures. You should have three numbers in mind before you go into any negotiation, whether it’s with your current employer or potential employer. The wish number is a crazy high number. A salary or raise that leaves you thinking, ‘I cannot believe someone’s going to pay me this much!’ (also known as your fuck off number). Hell yeah! The walk number, at the other extreme, is low enough that you’re going to begin looking for another job. It’s that low-ball number that screams ‘you’re not valued’ and indicates that your boss isn’t even going to try to entice you to stay at the company. The want number is somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t have to be smack bang in the middle, but it’s a number that will make you stoked to get out of bed and work super hard. It feels fair and reasonable, and you know you’re being valued for your time and expertise.

• Have those figures in mind before you walk in. Barbara Corcoran told me, “If you leave it up to the boss to dream up the number, you won’t get as much as you want. The boss always has a lower number in their head. Always. I always do. I’m always startled when someone asks me for a $20,000 raise when I was going to give her $5,000. That puts me in the position of needing to come back with less. But compromising on a raise always gets you more than you would have gotten if you hadn’t named a price. I think you must name a price that you think would be reasonable. And a little bit above that.”

• If your organization isn’t transparent about salary ranges, research comparable roles on Glassdoor, Salary.com or Payscale. Informational interviews are also helpful. Let’s say you wanted to break into public relations to help market clients’ products. Reach out to ten people on LinkedIn and just say to them, “I’m really excited to pivot into public relations. I’d love to chat for five minutes to get an understanding of your job and what it’s like working at your company.”

• Have a contingency plan. If you can’t secure your target salary, decide what you would want to get instead. Think about what things you value. Do you want a different title? More vacation days? Do you want to split your time in the office and working from home? How about a commuting stipend? Or paying for parking, committing to business class travel, or a stipend to contribute towards higher education? Childcare, meals provided at work, or gym memberships are other benefits companies may offer. Your boss may be more flexible with things like this, because all of that money comes out of a different line item than salary.**********

Alison Kosik, What's Up With Women and Money?: How to Do All the Financial Stuff You’ve Been Avoiding‎ Harriman House/ Pan Macmillan India, 2025. Pb. Pp.250

Former CNN/CNN International Anchor and Business Correspondent Alison Kosik —recognised around the globe as the face of Wall Street for the network — found herself trapped in a failing marriage. The savvy mother of two, was terrified to leave her husband. Why? She didn’t have the confidence to take on big financial decisions on her own. Despite spending her working hours explaining financial and business concepts, she had allowed her husband to take charge of all their big money decisions — from buying a house and how to finance it to their investments and retirement savings — and had no clue how to do any of it on her own. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But Alison is far from atypical. It turns out plenty of educated and high-achieving women — married or single — avoid getting involved with managing their financial lives. In What’s Up With Women and Money? Alison gives a step-by-step action plan on a variety of money topics. Alison also interviews dozens of women who share their cautionary tales of why avoiding money decisions can lead to bad outcomes. Alison also talks one on one with inspirational women like Sheryl Sandberg, Rebecca Minkoff, Jessica Alba, Barbara Corcoran, and Deepica Mutyala — women who inspire other women and help them gain confidence — to take control of their financial lives. Alison simplifies complicated financial topics of investing, car buying and paying down debt, breaking them down into easy-to-follow steps, with practical tidbits that make each page accessible, digestible and fun. By the end of What’s Up With Women and Money?, women will not only feel empowered and confident about their finances, but they will also feel ready to take action after being motivated without judgment.

Alison Kosik is a Journalist and Freelance Correspondent and Anchor at ABC News. Prior to joining ABC, Kosik was a Business Correspondent and Anchor at CNN and CNN International. Alison has interviewed leading CEOs, investors, executives, international dignitaries, musicians, and sports figures. She has interviewed some of the biggest names in business, politics and technology, from Warren Buffett to Hillary Clinton to Mark Cuban and Michael Saylor.