Molly Benjamin 00:04
Welcome to the ladies finance club podcast. I'm your host, Molly Benjamin. And I am thrilled that you're here with me today to talk all things Monday. Because let's face it, the world of finance can kind of feel overwhelming, a little bit male pale stale, but if you can get on top of your money, and we know you can, it will pay off big time. We're gonna be chatting to the best experts in the country about how to build wealth and get on top of your money game so you can become financially fit. It's easier than you think. Let's go get those Dolla dolla bills, y'all you know, when you meet women, and you're just like, Holy hell, how did you get like that? You're amazing, Meggie Palmer is that she runs a company out of New York called pep talk her. And she created a free app. And it's all about helping women negotiate their salaries. She works with Fortune 500 companies. And before that she used to be a foreign correspondent working for the BBC. And she's also worked for Vogue. Anyway, she's got the most incredible CV, but she's all about helping women negotiate their salaries and getting paid what they are worth. And that is what today's episode is all about. I know the first time I went to negotiate my salary, I actually wanted to be sick. And my boss thought I was actually unwell. But I was like, No, I just want to negotiate my salary. But I hope you get lots of tips out of this. If you want to download the app, check it out on the App Store. It's pep talk her enjoy this episode. Thank you so much for joining us, Meggie.

Meggie Palmer 01:35
I'm so happy to be here to talk all things money and salary.

Molly Benjamin 01:40
Awesome. So you spend a lot of time talking to women about salary negotiation, what are some of the common mistakes you're seeing us make?

Meggie Palmer 01:48
So one of the things I hear women say to me all the time, Molly is "but I don't need a pay raise Meggie, you know, I go out to dinner once every two weeks, I'm paying off my mortgage, I'm okay, I don't need any more money." And I'm really happy for those people. But here's the thing, even if you're happy with where you are, right now, if you could be earning more, I want you to take advantage of that right, I want you to be able to negotiate for what you're truly worth a lot of us, you know, because of the way that we were raised because of societal expectations. Often our relationship to money and wealth can be quite different than maybe some of our male friends, right? So there's a lot that we have to unpack often when it comes to money. But I want you to ask, I want you to ask for a raise every single year, even if that makes you feel a little bit sick. We talk a lot about that at pep talk her and teach strategies, so that you can actually negotiate in a way that doesn't feel icky. So that you feel really comfortable advocating for the value that you're bringing to the business.

Molly Benjamin 02:45
No, no, you've just said it there. But like when we start new roles are those companies expecting us to negotiate? Do we have to be negotiating?

Meggie Palmer 02:54
You don't have to do anything in this life. But if you're interested in financial freedom, and if you want to feel really valued and respected at work, then 100%, you know, and I actually had one of my colleagues recently, she runs a very large business, actually a multinational company, and she was hiring for someone to run partnerships. You know, she had two candidates. And one of them she offered the job and the woman actually didn't negotiate her salary. And my friend who just made the hiring decision actually questioned the fact that she'd made the right call because she was like, This person is going to be negotiating on behalf of the business on behalf of the brand. And yet she didn't negotiate for herself, right. So depending on the role, if you don't negotiate, it can actually be negative. But often, you know, I hear this from the 60,000 women we have in the pep talk community all the time that they don't want to negotiate, because they're worried that the job offer will be rescinded. Right. And listen, that happens very, very, very, very occasionally. I've heard of it happening maybe once or twice in the eight years that I've been doing this, right. It's never happened to any of my clients, but I've heard on the grapevine and on social media, right. But typically, if you've been through an interview process, you've met the team, maybe you've had to do examples of your work, etc. They've made you an offer, they've had to get that approved by managers through HR, by the time they offer you the job, you know, there's a lot of work to unpack if they want to then go and offer it to someone else, right. So nine times out of 10, you've got it in the bag anyway. And in this day and age people understand and respect that people want to have a conversation about their salary and money. So there is nothing wrong with you saying, Listen, I am so excited to join the team and take on this role. I'd love to discuss with you the compensation package so that it can really align with the value that I'll be bringing to the business, you know, so you don't have to say, Hey, pay me more. I'm not going to take the job. You know, it's all in the way that you frame it right. So if we can frame it in the positive in terms of the value, then people are quite happy to have that conversation. They might say no, but you might be very pleasantly surprised at what they will Say right. But again, if you set an expectation that you value yourself that you expect to be fairly compensated and certainly rewarded for the value you're bringing, then that actually sets a great tone for the rest of your working relationship as well.

Molly Benjamin 05:13
And what kind of success stories have you seen with Pepto with people negotiating their salary and getting an increase? Are there any kind of memorable ones? Yeah,

Meggie Palmer 05:22
I mean, like any pay raise is a good pay rise, in my opinion. But you know, like, it's so exciting to me. And the reason that I do this work is because it just excites me to know that through a couple of little tips, a couple of little tweaks, it can literally change people's financial future, right. So we had one woman she works in financial services, she negotiated for raise, she got a 14% pay raise, when the maximum anyone else in her team got was 5%. Right. And that was enough money for her to put in a pool for her kids. Right. So that's, like, it's so exciting to me, because they're gonna make these memories that, you know, her kids will carry with them for the rest of their lives. You know, we get people that you know, have a conversation and they get 5000 extra dollars. Sometimes it's an extra $18,000. We've had three women, negotiate six figure pay raises Molly, which is kind of bananas. But I'm here for it. And obviously delighted when that happens as well. Yeah.

Molly Benjamin 06:16
Amazing. So for someone who's listening, and they're like, yep, sounds great. My reviews coming up, or I'm applying for a new job. Yeah. Where can they start when it comes to negotiating their salary?

Meggie Palmer 06:26
Okay, so fun fact, fun story. I had a paid intern who worked for me actually, a couple of years ago, I met her through someone, we had an interview, she got the job, we agreed on a rate. That's great. She did a day's work. That was awesome. The second day she came in, and she asked me for a raise on day two, I'm all for asking for a pay raise. I'm not sure if the second day of work is the right time was a bit awkward. But listen, good for her for asking. I respect it. But I think you know, your timing is everything, right? So if your company is on the front page of the paper today, for layoffs, maybe don't ask for a raise that day, you know, if you just got a merit increase two weeks ago, during a conversation with your boss, unless something monumental has changed, or you've bought in a new new client or whatever, probably don't ask for a raise two weeks after that, right? Like, you've got to pick your timing, it's really important. I'm based in the United States. And over here, you know, we don't have Medicare in the United States, sadly, like we do in Australia. And so over here, there's like an open for enrollment period for health insurance. So there's a certain time of year where you can enroll in a new health care plan. And it's kind of the same thing when it comes to negotiating your salary, there's typically an open for enrollment type time when there's an expectation that people will ask for a raise. So it might be the end of you and your company, often it's November, December, it might be the start of the year, some companies have a January February performance review cycle, maybe your company is sort of off kilter. And it's June July, so suss out when that period of time is within your company, where there is an expectation that pay and promotions will be discussed, right. And that's typically the best time to bring it up. There are exceptions to every rule, if you get an amazing job offer that you want to bring to them as sort of a counteroffer. Of course, you can't necessarily plan when that happens. If, as I say something monumental shifts, you bring in an entirely new client, you land an amazing piece of press that they never thought was possible. If you've had a huge achievement, that would sort of warrant a raise, you can also sort of leverage that and have the conversation. But it would have to be substantial. You know, so you've just got to sort of read the room a little bit and use your emotional intelligence to sort of make sure that by asking, you're not going to sort of put off your boss, right, like, it's fine to ask, but you've got to just choose the time, so that you set yourself up for the best possible opportunity for success.

Molly Benjamin 08:48
Yeah, awesome. And as far as research and kind of what your kind of category is opposed to other people, is that something you would recommend as well,

Meggie Palmer 08:57
always preparation is key, right? You wouldn't walk on stage at a massive conference, you know, if you had to give a keynote speech and not prepare for that, right. And it's the same thing when it comes to your salary conversation, you got to prepare. Like, I want you to walk in there with like a no pad of data and information that you've managed to collate before you have that conversation. You have to be prepared. It'll give you more confidence. And it'll also help you get a better outcome. Right. So of course, there's the usual suspects that you can Google from a salary range perspective, there's platforms like PayScale, there's Glassdoor that have, you know, fairly generic, frankly, salary information. So sometimes it's actually not that helpful, because you might find that it says the salary ranges 50 to 200,000. And it's like, that's not helpful. So if you want to get more granular and really have a bit more nuance to the data that you're taking into that conversation, I really want everyone listening to talk to people about money. That's a challenge. Is that I want to leave all the listeners with today is Today Tonight, this weekend, I want you to talk to someone, one person about money and salary, it might be your best mate, it might be your cousin, it might be your BFF. At work, right? Whoever it is, I just want you to have a really frank conversation with someone who you trust about money. And I want you to start to take a mental note, or an actual note, I actually have a notes file in my phone, we're actually making note of the salaries and certain jobs that I hear of people who share that information with me just so I have that anecdotal data to kind of help support other people as in when they're sort of asking what's the ballpark? Because you know, what you get paid in the media industry might be very different to tech, which may be very different to the agricultural industry, right? So there's always nuance and talking to people is very important. And Molly, if you're going to talk to anyone, I want to make sure that you talk to at least one white gentleman, because we know from the data, that there is a gender pay gap, and that men typically are paid more. So I don't want you just to be talking to women about these figures, right? I want you to talk to men as well, because you may notice that there's actually a very different expectation from a from a salary perspective.

Molly Benjamin 11:15
That's such a good challenge. So ladies, get out there and start asking. So let's say we do our research, we've done it and then that the manager or the boss says, No, are there other things we can negotiate apart from money?

Meggie Palmer 11:28
I love that you brought this up, right? Because you can do all the preparation in the world, you can be the best employee in the world. And sometimes you'll still be told no. Right? It might be because you're already paid, you know, obscene ly well, it might be because the company is going through a downturn, it might be because there's a recession, which is totally out of your control. Sometimes people will say no, it doesn't mean you shouldn't ask. I'll tell you why Molly, I had a client recently. And we were talking, she's like, Oh, no, I can't ask for a raise. I can't ask for a pay rise. And I was like, Oh, why not? She's like, well, because I did that. And it didn't work. And I was like, Oh, tell me about that. She said, Yeah, I asked for a pay raise six years ago. And they said no. So like, I just never asked again. And so if we rewind the clock six years ago, Molly has, you know, like, with inflation with the fact that she's been in this job, she's more experienced, she has been going backwards because of the cost of living because of inflation, because she never asked again. And also, by the way, when she does go to ask, the boss is also no, she didn't ask for six years, like I could maybe probably sort of get away with not giving her a raise, because she doesn't ask very often, as opposed to if you're the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, if you're the person who sort of like asks every year politely asks, outlines your successes has a business case as to why you should get that raise. It's a lot harder to say no, no, no, no, no for six years in a row. But if you ask once, and then you only ever asked six years later, that's kind of easier for them to sort of reject right? So that's why you've got to be consistent and ask regularly for that raise

Molly Benjamin 13:03
for sure. You've created this awesome app called pep talker. Can you explain just what the app does? Where ladies can find it? And a bit more info on it?

Meggie Palmer 13:13
Yeah, absolutely. So I had my own experience of pay inequality. So I feel the pain of anyone listening, who suspects or has a niggling feeling that maybe they're paying a little bit less than the dudes that you work next to I lived through that, right, I had that experience, I found out quite by accident. So I hope that you find out earlier than I did. And it really pissed me off, honestly, like, I was so frustrated by that. And so we started pep talker with the mission to close that gap. And it's my goal to help everyone listening, earn more and get promoted quicker, right? Because if that happens, you're gonna have more money in your pocket to make choices about your life. And we know in Australia that the fastest growing group of homelessness is actually women over the age of 55. And that's scary to me, right? And I'm not happy about it. And I don't want any of your listeners to be in that situation. And so if we have financial freedom, we have choice. We have the ability to make amazing investments, we have the ability to support family, we have the ability to donate to charities if we want or frankly, just go on an epic holiday, you know, whatever you want to do. And that really excites me. And so yeah, the app is kind of like a Fitbit. Except it's for your career. So it sends you a prompt Molly once a week, it'll be like, what's up, Molly? Like, what have you, you know, really proud of at work this week. And you might say I organized a road show I hosted through podcasts, and you can kind of collate all of that information. And the benefit of that is that then you have a brag book of wins to take into your salary conversation to take into your performance review. So instead of just walking in saying Hello, Boss, please can I have a raise? You're gonna walk in and you're gonna say Hello boss. This year, I increased our website traffic by 17%. I hired five new staff members. And you know, I organize the company off site for those reasons. And I would love, you know, for you to consider a 9% pay increase commensurate with market data or whatever, you know, as opposed to just going and saying, because I want one, if you can put some meat on the bone and some statistics and data around that you're so much more likely to find success.

Molly Benjamin 15:16
Yeah, it's a really strong argument. And then I did that going, when I was working in the corporate world, I remember I had written down everything I'd done on a Friday to spend some time doing that went in for my review. And he was a bit surprised. And I was a bit surprised. And like, wow, I've done so much in the year. But like, had I had to recall it, I probably would have recalled like, five things on the list. So yeah, Pep talker. And you can download it from the app store.

Meggie Palmer 15:41
You can like, Molly, if I said to you, what did you have for lunch 17 days ago? You'd be like, I don't know, I feel like if I said to you, what did you do at work seven weeks ago, seven months ago, 11 months ago? Like, I don't have a memory like that I wish I did, right? It's just not realistic to expect that you can remember those things, right? So the goal of the app is to consistently record those wins and put them in one place. And then to your point, Molly, you're pleasantly surprised by the impact you have had on the business. And the reality is like, if you're not doing your own PR at work, who else is doing it for you, you know, your boss is busy, they've got a life, they might have kids, they might have a sick family member, they might have 30 direct reports. They don't know what you did seven months ago, or seven seconds ago, probably right. So it's actually your responsibility. to collate that information, we cannot just sit there and complain and be like, my boss didn't give me a raise. If you didn't ask for one, if you didn't put that case forward. You know, that's what you can control. And I don't want to take away from the discrimination and the unconscious bias that exists, that's a whole separate problem. But while we wait for this gender pay gap to close while we wait for society to catch up, and for some of those biases to be, you know, removed from people's perspectives, while we're waiting for that to happen, you know, we can take control of what we can control. And that is the way that we advocate for ourselves. And the way that we position ourselves for a pay raise, I wish that we lived in a world where this was a moot point where it didn't matter where everyone was paid fairly. And where you didn't have to negotiate. Like, I would love that. But that's just not where we're at. Right. And so, until we get there, I want all of your listeners to really be the ones championing themselves. Like, if you were bad at your job, you would be fired. Right? So if you haven't been fired, then you're probably pretty good at your job, right? So you've got to go in there and remind your boss of that and make it easy for them to advocate up the food chain for you to get that raise as well. And with reminding

Molly Benjamin 17:41
your boss, I know you came and did a session for ladies finance club last year, and one of our members was on that. And then she started implementing something you said straight away. Her boss was so impressed that then her boss started implementing the same thing as well. And it was every Friday afternoon, she would just send her boss a highlight of what she had been working on that week. And then what she was going to focus on for the next week, no boss was like, This is amazing. And then she started doing with her advisor. So a big thank you for that to me, because I know that's had a big impact on her.

Meggie Palmer 18:13
Um, I like that I'm so stoked to hear that. And so we call that concept, the FYI only email. So it's just a little cheeky email that you can send once a week. If your boss isn't really an email person, you might only want to do it every two weeks, or maybe once a month. But what it is, is it's exactly what you said, Molly, it's like, once a week, once a month, just a quick update, hey, this week, as discussed, fired, you know, John, like you asked me to hire the intern who was really great, and implemented this formula, which has really helped improve conversions. You know, have a great weekend, I'm off to the AFL or whatever. It's a point of connection with your boss, and it's just kind of putting on record, hey, I'm amazing. I did this, and I did this, don't forget I did this, I did this, and I did this. Even if you only do that once a month, that's 12 reminders throughout the year that your boss has where they're like, whoa, Molly, whoa, that's pretty cool. Oh, yeah, she did that. You know, it's just again, it's like reminding people so that you're front of mind as to the impact that you're making. Because you know, if you don't really have a conversation with your boss for the entire year about your success, and the first time you do that is at performance review time. That's a little little tricky, right? Whereas if you're constantly nudging them and reminding them throughout the year, incrementally, it means that by the time you get to that more formal conversation, hopefully, they're already convinced, right? And maybe they even come in with an offer for you. So you may not even have to ask, who knows. But we're just trying to nudge them towards having a perception of you as a high achiever and a high performer within the team.

Molly Benjamin 19:43
And I love that because for people who don't want to be seen as bragging or anything like that, it's just an FYI. You know, it's such a cool thing that you can implement. And what do you wish more people knew about negotiation?

Meggie Palmer 19:56
I wish that like and I would love to hear from everyone who's listening, you know, send me a DM on Instagram or send me a tweet at pep talk her or I'm Maggie Palmer, just let me know like when I say the word negotiation, and maybe everyone could just do this while you're listening, maybe you're walking or in a car. So when I say the word you negotiation, if I said to you, you got to go into a salary negotiation in five minutes. Basically, what happens to your body? Like what comes up for you like Mali? For example, if I said to you, you've got to go in and negotiate in five minutes. What's your instinctive reaction to that?

Molly Benjamin 20:28
My instinctive reaction is now bring it on. I love negotiating. But I've done lately with partnerships and deals and things like that, back at my very first pay I ever negotiated, and literally was shaking. My boss thought I was about to tell her really bad news, because I looked so nervous. And she was like, Are you a que han? And I'm like, can I want to talk to her? And she's like, Okay, I'll feel I'm glad. It's only that I was such a mess. I was so nervous.

Meggie Palmer 20:58
You're not alone there, Molly. Like a lot of people, as I say, like, I reckon 50% of people in our community would rather not earn any more money. They'd rather just not have the combat. They're like, I don't want it to be awkward. I don't want my boss to hate me. I don't want to be seen as high maintenance. I don't want to have the conversation. If that's you, by the way, you're listening. You're so normal. So send me a DM and let me know what's the one word that comes up for you when I say salary negotiation, because often it's fear. Often it's like shakes to your point, Molly. Sometimes people feel sick in the stomach, one of my clients breaks out in a rash. So like, everyone has their preconceived ideas, like so if I if I reflect on my life, like, the first time I was negotiating, was with my dad, when I was a teenager, like trying to get ungrounded to go to cool parties, which, you know, was not very successful. But I had this perception that negotiation was like, it was a fight. It was a conflict. It was like a war zone, you know. And so what happened was early in my career, I took that perception into my career negotiations, which is not helpful, right. And it's, it's not successful. But actually, one of the things that I wish people knew, Molly was that let's reframe the sense of negotiation and your perception of negotiation away from fear and stress. And towards the actual definition, which is just the fact that it's a conversation between two parties, hoping to find an agreement. That's it. So it's, it's actually a conversation, and everyone listening here knows how to have a conversation. So if you know how to have a chat, you can negotiate, you truly can. And it's one of those things, it's like you have to practice in low consequence environments. So that you build your confidence so that when you go in for a salary negotiations, which is a little you know, higher stakes, you're not as stressed and freaked out about it. So another challenge, if anyone listening wants a challenge, you can go to your grocery store. Today, tomorrow, I don't mind. And you can go in and you can like grab a bag of grapes, or a block of chocolate, whatever you want. I'm a chocoholic, so I'll probably get some lunch. And you can go up to the checkout and you can just say, Hey, how's your day? I just I'm gonna grab this block of Lindt chocolate. I was just wondering, would you be open to offering me a discount today? And then I want you to just stay silent. And you're gonna hate me. And you're gonna be like, Why did that chick Maggie on that podcast make me do this awkward moment. And it's gonna feel super awkward. But Molly, like what's gonna happen when you ask that question? Do you reckon?

Molly Benjamin 23:24
I mean, they might say no, they're probably gonna say no. Right? Yeah.

Meggie Palmer 23:27
I'd say no, I actually had someone one of my clients did this recently. And the person at the checkout was like, we have a pensioner discount. I could just pretend that you are 65. And she was like, Yep, I'll take it. Thank you. But you know, nine times out of 10. They're gonna say no. Yeah. But like, what happens after that? Molly? If they say no,

Molly Benjamin 23:44
you've gotten that confidence from doing it, you're practicing it, practicing that?

Meggie Palmer 23:49
Yeah, muscle, right. And you know, you've just hit the nail on the head. It's a muscle, right? It's like, if I want to massive biceps, I'd have to do these ones at the gym regularly, like, you know, stretch that muscle. And it's the same thing when it comes to negotiation, you got to practice. So I want you to just ask the question, you know, I had a client, she went into Zara, and asked for a discount on her whole of fast fashion clothing. And the person said, we have a student discount. Are you a student? Wink, wink? And this person was like, yes, like could be. And so they got the student discount, which I think was like 10%, or whatever. It's like all these baby steps asking the question, asking the question, asking the question. I'm not saying that you go and screw over a small business and like, you know, get like, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying like, in environments where you feel comfortable, test it, and just see what happens. You know, another great thing is Airbnb, right. So if you're booking a holiday, maybe a booking five nights with some girlfriends, just say, Hey, listen, we're gonna book five nights. I was just wondering, would you be open to doing like a package deal for us given it's a pretty long stay? And they might say, No, it's a premium property, we don't discount and you might say, Cool, we'll book it anyway. Or they might say, Sure, I'll give you 10% off or I'll waive the cleaning fee, or I'll leave you two bottles of wine instead of one, whatever it You ask the question, all of a sudden, you'll start to demystify it, that muscle will get a lot stronger in your mind. So that when you go to a new job so that when you have your performance review, like, you're just gonna feel a lot more confident and a lot more calm on the inside. Because you know, if they say no, it's okay. The world is not going to stop spinning, and you're going to navigate your way through that. But often we don't negotiate because we fear what happens if people say no, or reject us. So we're going to unpack that for hours, I think.

Molly Benjamin 25:30
Yeah. And then I was in Maya two weeks ago, and I bought two full price items. And I was like, I'm buying two pieces. Can you give me a discount? It has, like, give you 10%? And I was like, I'll tell you,

Meggie Palmer 25:42
thank you. No way. That's awesome. There you go. You heard it here. First, Molly Benjamin hustling for a discount, you love to see it

Molly Benjamin 25:49
hustling for it. I just feel slightly like stringency. But I was like, that's like still a pretty good amount of money. That's like at least five coffees. I'm going to keep that in my pocket. So we've had some money problem OHS sent in from our members. So the first one maybe is a lady. She said one of our followers, she said, I want to negotiate my salary at my next performance review. But I don't want to spring it on my bus. Should I let her know I want to chat about it kind of beforehand.

Meggie Palmer 26:17
I feel like an agony on by the way. This is like very exciting. And if you've got more questions, make sure you DM them to Molly and I on Instagram as well. So I'm happy to come back to people in the DMS to pep talker and ladies finance club. So anytime you're negotiating, or you've got a situation with your boss, a really great first step is to pretend it was you. If you were your boss, and someone out of the blue said over coffee, can I have a raise? How would you respond to that? Would you prefer that they'd send you an email maybe a couple of days before, like just put yourself in your boss's shoes, right. And the reality is that bosses are busy, right, and they've got a lot going on. And so it can be helpful absolutely to give your boss a heads up. Again, you've got to read the room and understand the personality of your boss. Because the way you approach a salary conversation with one personality is very different to another. I've had certain bosses in the past and you know, you've really got to sort of tread carefully around their ego, and then other bosses who were super chill about it. So read the room a little bit. But I do recommend to people that you do give your boss a heads up, so you could just send them a super simple email. You know, Hey, Susan, really looking forward to our one on one this week, looking forward to discussing the challenges in the team, our new client. And also I'd love to discuss with you my compensation moving forward into the new year. See you on Tuesday, you know, it could just be super simple, something like that. Because then Susan can say to you, hey, Molly, in the interest of full transparency, there's a pay freeze right now. So it's not that I don't value you, I just wanted you to be aware that this is what's going on. Or they might say, Listen, there's actually a promotion coming up, I'd love for you to apply for that. Or they might say honestly, your performance is not up to scratch, I need you to work on A, B and C. And we can revisit this conversation in six months. And all of that information is positive, right? So even if you get told no. What you want to do is continue that conversation and say what would I have to do in the next six to 12 months for you to confidently give me that raise in future. And they might say, Well, if you can achieve X, Y and Zed it's a no brainer. Or they might say honestly, I just don't think it's going to work out. And we'll probably have to manage you out at some point because your skills aren't up to scratch. That's still helpful, right? Because at least you're getting a heads up. And then you can start to look for something else. Right? So I never see it as a negative. I think any feedback and information is helpful because you can then use that to make sure that you're propelling your career in the direction that you actually want it to go.

Molly Benjamin 28:43
Yeah, love that question. What would I have to do? We've got another money problem. Oh, that's coming from ladies finance comm follow up. She goes, I found out a guy on my team is on a lot more than me, and I'm much better at my job than him. I am fuming. How can I bring this up with my boss? Oh,

Meggie Palmer 29:01
firstly, I feel you I've been there. It's the pits. Never a nice feeling with these situations, you want to understand the company if you're in a very, very large organization, chances are they have a policy around pay then and stuff like that. If you work in a very small agency or something like that, where there's like five staff, it may be a little bit more in the wild west kind of column. So again, take this with a grain of salt and sort of apply it to your situation, I would go into your boss and again, we can only control our situation right so we actually don't know what they negotiated or what the terms of their deal are. We can't prove necessarily unless they've shown you their payslips that that is the case. Sometimes people big notes sometimes people are talking about superannuation inclusive figures. Sometimes they're talking about bonus inclusive, bigger. So you know, it's hard to know the specifics. So I always recommend that you go in and again, advocate with data and statistics on your performance and see how you go With that as a first point of call, that's what I would suggest. In the first instance, there are scenarios where I have encouraged clients to also use language and say, you know, this is what I've done. This is why I'm really bring value, I'm excited to stay with the business and to see it grow further. And of course, I know the company really respects diversity, and would want to ensure that everyone at this level is paid fairly. So I would just love if we could have a review across everyone at my level to just ensure that my pay is commensurate with my colleagues. So you can use sort of generic phrases. So rather than saying Ralph is paid more, this is not right, leaving Yeah, you know, it may get to that. But in the first instance, I always suggest like, we would prefer that they kind of fix it again, you know, and this is the frustration for women, right? That there is discrimination and unconscious bias that happens. And when women negotiate, we are perceived differently to men. And that's not fair. And that's not okay. But the data tells us that that's the case. And so I want the best for everyone listening. So I don't want to set you up for failure. And I don't want to set you up for more bias and discrimination, then that is already going to be the case, right? So unfortunately, it is kind of navigating it a little bit carefully as we go along. Right. And there's no easy answers to this. And you've got to sort of take into account the personality of the different players. As I said, I've had bosses in the past and they were so hated it when people asked for raises, they were just really funny about it didn't mean you couldn't ask, you just had to really prepare and be very, very strategic, or else, they'd kind of hate on you for a while. So you've got to take that into account. It doesn't mean you shouldn't ask, but just make sure that you prepare for the best result possible.

Molly Benjamin 31:42
And as we know, in our first episode, where we talk about money mindset, people have very complicated and different relationships with money that stem from childhood. So yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now we just have a quick fire round. So where did you grow up?

Meggie Palmer 32:00
So I grew up in a place called Guanaba, which probably no one's heard of, it's west of the Gold Coast on a mini sort of hobby farm out there. So in Queensland, Australia,

Molly Benjamin 32:09
did you think you would end up doing what you do?

Meggie Palmer 32:12
No, I had no idea. I remember being in year 12. And it was like, you had to click this form or whatever to choose what you're going to study. And I was kind of like, I guess journalism or, you know, just tack on some business for good measure. I had no idea. So if you're in that boat, don't worry. Everyone's figuring it out as they go along.

Molly Benjamin 32:30
Totally. I was at communications because I like talking. Communications. It was how do you budget? Are you a spreadsheet bucket? Do it in your head have an app kind of.

Meggie Palmer 32:43
So I automate. I read roommates, safeties, blogs, books, whatever, using years and years ago, so I just kind of automate so my mom actually my mom was good. She taught us from a young age to always save 20% of our salary. I try and be a bit hectic. And I try and save like 50% If I can I try and like push myself and then I have my like my savings component just kind of splits off into different robo advisor, you know, automation things.

Molly Benjamin 33:09
And what's the best piece of advice about money you got?

Meggie Palmer 33:12
I think the best piece of advice was actually from my uncle. I should have listened to him years and years ago like you know, the best time to start investing was yesterday. The next best time is today, or at least tomorrow.

Molly Benjamin 33:22
Yeah. And any favorite podcasts or books you're reading at the moment?

Meggie Palmer 33:26
I really liked Denise Duffield Thomas's podcast actually I really liked Denise so if you're entrepreneur if your side hustle if your side hustle curious, check out Denise's podcast, book wise, I love Minda Hart. She writes some really great books about the experience of women of color in the workplace. Ali Kriegsman has a great book called How to build a goddamn empire. Highly recommend that as well.

Molly Benjamin 33:49
Awesome. And if you had to be in a reality TV show, which one would it be? Okay, this

Meggie Palmer 33:53
is tragic. I couldn't even name a reality TV show. I just love drama series. So I just I don't even I'm so out of the loop when it comes to reality.

Molly Benjamin 34:02
Maybe the apprentice or something like that.

Meggie Palmer 34:05
Fill in the blank. Thanks, Molly.

Molly Benjamin 34:08
And then final question, a life hack you love that you think not many people might know about?

Meggie Palmer 34:13
Look, I do think automating your finances is good. I do think that one's good. And you know, you have like your debit card account, transferring the money out of that automatically every pay cycle. So it's in an account you can't access mine in Australia is in ING Direct you know, I put it in an account that you actually can't access with your debit card. That was always good for me because it was like forced savings. Maybe everyone does know about that. But I reckon that's a good one. And the other thing is like freezing fruit and veggies that are about to go off so that you can put them in stews or sources thanks mom for that tip.

Molly Benjamin 34:41
Love that. And where can people find you?

Meggie Palmer 34:44
Yes. So we're on all the socials PepTalkHer and then I'm Meggie M E Double G I E Palmer on all the socials to say Say hi, slide into my DMs let me know that you love the ladies finance club podcast and content like we do. And I'm on LinkedIn. Do I'm a bit of a nerd so say hi don't be a stranger I'd love to connect.

Molly Benjamin 35:03
Yes and they also have a fabulous course on salary negotiation as well so you can check that out. Thank you so much Maggie thank you for sharing all that fantastic knowledge and being so generous with it and yeah ladies get over and download the PepTalkHer app

Meggie Palmer 35:18
I love it yeah Emily for sure if anyone's looking to get a raise or promotion, check out pep talk her.com forward slash pay me more and that is a really cool free cheat sheet that'll help you out as well and let us know your wins like tag Molly and I ladies finance club and petrol car on social so we can celebrate your wins as well really can't wait to hear from you