When it comes to earning a living, you might want to be more like Elon.
There are some strategy lessons to be learned from the world’s richest man, who just won a pay package worth up to $1 trillion at Tesla — even for those of us whose paychecks come with fewer zeros.
Of course, most people can’t go work at their rocket company if their promotion or job offer doesn’t come through. However, a scaled-down version of some of the methods Musk and the Tesla board used could work for mere mortals.
It comes down to knowing your worth, framing a pay agreement as a win-win, and, if you can, treating a compensation discussion as a negotiation, not just a plea for more money, career advisors told Business Insider.
Know your worth
To start, workers need to understand their leverage. In a lackluster job market, you might not feel like you have much to bargain with. Yet if you have an offer from another employer or some other option that would let you walk away, you have latitude, said Alan Stein, CEO of Kadima Careers, which offers coaching for getting six-figure jobs.
“If you understand what your plan B is, then that gives you a lot of power,” he said.
A viable backup plan — sometimes called a BATNA, or a best alternative to a negotiated agreement — can mean you’re asking for something from a position of strength, Stein said.
Your leverage could just be that you’re invaluable to your employer. If that’s you, then your boss might recognize that things would fall apart if you leave. It’s what employers often refer to as “key person risk,” said John Gates, founder of Salary Coach, which helps executives negotiate their pay.
“As you get to the point where there’s only one of you in a company, that’s when the elbow room appears,” he said.
That’s similar to how many, including Tesla’s board, appear to view Musk, who has a stable of companies to which he could decamp if he were to leave Tesla. “He’s a unique rainmaker within Tesla,” Gates said.
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On Thursday, Tesla shareholders voted to award Musk $1 trillion in compensation if he meets a series of goals.
The opposite holds true as well: If you’re one of many workers doing something similar, Gates said, your bargaining chip is likely going to be smaller.
Watch how you flex
Even if you are your company’s golden goose or you have a shiny new offer from a competitor, it’s not necessarily advisable to walk into your boss’s office and flaunt it, he said. Most people aren’t Musk, after all.
Gates said there is a danger, however, in showing an offer to your employer because it signals that you’re poised to leave.
“The average executive would be running a tremendous risk with that approach,” he said. “It brings your loyalty into question.”
Gates said that a better way would be to say something like, “I’ve had several calls from headhunters or other companies interested in my background. The numbers that they’re throwing at me are kind of surprising, but I really like working here.” Then, he said, you can make clear that the offers are becoming a distraction and that you’d like to discuss your compensation.
Get paid if you perform
Musk’s new compensation plan is directly tied to numerous milestones, including his ability to boost Tesla’s valuation from about $1.5 trillion to $8.5 trillion by 2035 and deliver 20 million vehicles and one million Optimus robots.
Similarly, if you’re negotiating a job offer or a pay bump, you can ask to tie some of that to a specific goal. It’s a way to align incentives, Gates said, so that “everybody’s making more money together.”
Being able to say, “I contributed to this,” or “I made this happen,” makes it easier to say, “This is why I’m worth what I’m asking for,” said Patrice Lindo, CEO of Career Nomad, a platform that helps professionals navigate career changes.
Your compensation goes beyond your paycheck, and so can the discussions you have with your employer. Like Musk, who has been seeking to get paid through awards in Tesla shares, you can ask for things like company stock, a signing bonus, added vacation time, or even a deferred start date, Lindo said.
By regularly documenting your successes, it’s easier to talk about them when it comes time to discuss your pay, she said. Lindo encourages workers to keep notes on their accomplishments — what she calls a “value tracker” — so that they can keep score. Then, when it’s time to sit down with your boss to go over your performance and pay, you have the evidence you need, Lindo said.
After all, she said, “Every raise that you get is a referendum on how well you branded your impact.”
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