This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
How can you use your side hustle experience to negotiate a raise at your day job? This is a fun scenario, question comes to us from Carlos in Texas and I should say welcome back to side hustle school. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host. I have the privilege of bringing you this podcast every single day and we often hear different questions in ideas, struggles, difficulties, successes, victories from listeners. So Carlos is like, hey, I've actually, I've learned a lot of valuable skills from my little side business and I use these skills in my day job.
I want to negotiate a raise or could be a promotion for somebody else out there. Basically how do you leverage what you've learned in one place and then apply that to another? Great thinking, great approach. So let's talk about some strategies, how to use that side hustle experience to negotiate a raise or other advancement in your day job. Detailed question from Carlos and my answer coming right up.
Hey Chris, this is Carlos from San Antonio, Texas. I've been running a side business for a while now and it's taught me a lot of valuable skills that I also use in my day job. I'm thinking about asking for a raise or a promotion, but I'm not sure how to leverage my business experience in the negotiation. How can I effectively use what I've learned from the side hustle to make a case for a raise or promotion at my full-time job? Any tips on how to frame this would be greatly appreciated.
Carlos, this is another reason why starting a side hustle is so advantageous. It's not just about the money, as exciting as that is. It's not just about the creative expression or doing something a little bit different from your day job, gaining confidence, all those things. Those are wonderful benefits, but also you are upskilling yourself. You are gaining skills which can be applied in lots of different ways, not only to your side hustle, but to something else as well and depending on the side hustle and depending on your job, often in your job.
These could be technical skills or they could be soft skills. You could be learning more about negotiation or more about strategy, as opposed to just learning some new technical skill and this can apply widely. You're upskilling yourself, which is great. For all of our side hustlers who are doing that, how then do you make a compelling case? You highlight the transferable skills.
You highlight those skills. When you talk with your boss or your leadership or whoever, you're like, "Hey, I have learned these skills. I am better than I was when I started working here and I also can show quantifiable results." That's the second part. Number one, highlight transferable skills. Number two, show quantifiable results.
Employers really love to see measurable outcomes. Speak in that language. Provide specific examples. Be like, "Hey, since I started applying these project management techniques that I use for something that's unrelated to my day job, our team has reduced delivery times by 20%, for example, or we have increased sales in this division by X percent or X dollars because I am better now than I was when I started." If you get into the situation where do I talk about my side hustle or not, it depends on your employer and your situation, of course, but I think it's good to position your side hustle as a form of continuous learning and present it directly as skill enhancement. I am getting better.
It's helping me get better and that's going to help us get better here at work for XYZ Company. And so just kind of always tying things back to how these skills relate to these outcomes and results, which we are kind of getting together here for the benefit of the company or organization. I think that's how you do it or that's the approach that you take. And then, of course, there's different ways to approach the negotiation, but I think that is your ticket. Carlos, good luck.
Listeners, good luck. Again, a side hustle has so many benefits. That's why I have been encouraging people for 2,877 days to start or grow or increase or whatever it is you need to do to take the next steps to get closer to a goal that you believe in. And if you have a question or a comment, sidehustleschool.com, resources there, notes for every episode. Much more is coming up.
The podcast is completely free, entirely free, wherever you'd like to listen. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
