What Are Your Talents Really Worth?

If you wanted to sell your house you wouldn't say "I'm not going to worry about the listing price for this house. Whatever someone wants to offer me for the house will be fine, I'm sure."

So why would you say "I'm sure most companies will offer me a fair salary"? You have to know what you're worth!

You have to know your value at three levels of altitude: the Cloud Level, the Hilltop Level and the Ground Level. The Ground Level calculation is easy.

At the Ground Level you will simply ask the question "For the type of job I have now or the types of jobs I've held recently, what do people in similar roles get paid?" You can find that information on Salary and Payscale. 

That's a start. It's not an elegant answer to the question "What are my talents worth to employers?" because you can potentially perform a lot of jobs that are not the same as your current job or your most recent ones, and that may pay more than your current or most recent assignments pay.

Still, having some local, comparable pay data is better than having no information at all.

Our client Greg knew that people who do the same kind of work he does (technical project management) get paid in the five high figures or low six figures. Greg had worked for three different big companies when we met him. He knew about pay scales.

Greg had a different question about his talent-market value.

"I know what I can expect to earn if I take another technical project manager job for a big company," said Greg. "My question is 'What can I earn in a bigger job, one that I'm qualified for based on the things I've done already?'"

Greg was ready to find his next job on his own. He had had it with headhunters calling him to offer him jobs exactly like all the jobs he'd been doing for the past ten years.

"People keep trying to put me in a box, so I'm un-boxing myself," said Greg.

Greg wanted to determine his talent-market value at the Hilltop Level, where the question is not "What do people get paid performing jobs with the exact same job title as mine?" but rather "What could a person like me do professionally at a higher altitude, solving a more painful kind of Business Pain?"

Greg was burned out on technical project management. He knew that nearly every company has slow-product-development pain, but the salary ranges and job descriptions for technical project managers had become so formal and calcified that Greg felt boxed in and stunted in that role.

Greg launched a personal Business Pain research project. He talked to a lot of people and learned that many employers who struggle to get new products out the door also suffer from another kind of pain.

Greg wanted to solve the biggest pain point he could find. He saw that large and small companies with products to launch had launch-related problems that slowed them down and cost them money, even when a new product was ready to ship on time.

"I'm switching my pain focus from project management to product launches," Greg told  us.

Greg zeroed in on product-launch pain and devised a protocol for taking new products the 'last mile' from final testing onto customers' shelves.

He took his project-management knowledge and applied it to product launch activities.

Greg rebranded himself at age 44 and became a Product Launch Specialist. He wanted to perform at least one job in that area of focus. "If I love the first job I get, I'll stay in it for awhile, and if I don't love it I'll start consulting," he said.

Greg got a job on a big-company Marketing team. His title was Marketing Operations Manager, but his mission was to make his company's new-product launches successful. Greg was excited. He didn't care about his title.

After one year Greg was earning $162,500 and better yet, he was qualified to launch his own consulting business at any moment.

Once he gained altitude on his career, he got latitude, also!  He drove the bus instead of letting his employer drive.

"I like my job," Greg told us. "I'm learning a lot, but I feel great about knowing how many people suffer from the very same kind of Business Pain I can solve."

At the highest level of altitude, you're worth what you believe you are worth. You could start a business tomorrow and never draw a paycheck again. That's your decision.

What's important for you to know is that you are not bound by a salary-grades chart on the wall in HR or a spreadsheet on somebody's  hard drive.

You will decide what your talents are worth. You'll find the people who suffer from the kinds of pain you can solve. You'll set your market rate, whether you work for yourself or someone else. 

You'll say "No, thanks" to the wrong opportunities and invite the right ones in. You might not believe you have that much power, but I promise that you do. When you test your muscles,  you'll see for yourself.