Chapter 12 · Companion tool
The Raise You Never Asked For
A raise is not an amount, it is a slope. Run the math on your own salary, build the one-page case your manager can carry upstairs, and anchor your number to the market. This page remembers what you type.
Work for yourself? Nobody runs a search for underpaid owners either, but the ask changes shape. Your raise is a higher rate, and Chapter 14 runs that number. The rate-raise worksheet is on the Second Income page. Come back here the day you have an employee who needs it.
1. Your raise, run to the finish
The half-invested figure puts half the raise, as a flat monthly amount, into the market at an assumed 8 percent a year, before inflation, taxes and fees. Illustration, not a promise. Raises, employment and markets are not guaranteed.
2. The market anchor: five postings
Five current job postings for your own role, in your city, at companies your size. The middle one is the market.
3. The one-page case
If the answer is no
Ask one question, then write the answer down in their words and send it back by email that afternoon: “What would have to be true for the answer to be yes, and when could we look at it again?”
Paid by the hour, on a set scale? Ask what moves you up the scale instead: which certification, license, lead role or shift differential. Get the list in writing and work it.
Keep the streak going
Finish the chapter in the book, then come back for the next tool. If something here did not land, bring it to Open Mic and I will walk through it live.