How do I get paid for not doing the job I was asked to do?

This is my third part in attempting to answer the question behind a highly emotional set of responses I’ve received to this post. Things in the IT world are changing radically and it’s natural for most people to resist change – most people enjoy their comfort zone and when comfort zone impacts your livelihood it’s natural to feel uneasy about it.

To read about the journey so far:

How do you create compelling value on top of something that is no longer a problem people will pay to solve.

Why things fail.

And the post that started it all: Success.

Let’s continue…

This part is something that is universal to us all in business, business owners and business employees alike. We have to meet expectations. If we don’t meet expectations, we don’t get promoted or even worse we get fired.

Whether we’re fired by the client or the boss is of little concern here. What should be a concern is: are we meeting expectations. Now, keep in mind that this is where things tend to get complicated because money (that which we spend on our happiness) is at stake. And to make it even more complex:

1. You don’t control the expectations. Your boss or your client does.

2. You don’t judge whether you’re meeting expectations. Your boss or client does.

Argue with it if you will, cry that it’s unfair, paint a sign to abolish the filthy western capitalism – whatever makes you feel better. But accept it. You are not in control.

If you can make it past that….

(by the way, most won’t / can’t – because they feel it’s unfair)

Now that you understand that you are not the one in control of the situation, try to figure out a way to manage those expectations and even more importantly – celebrate when you exceed the expectations that you have established in black and white!

That is easy to say but very hard to do. Because what really counts isn’t that you’re meeting or exceeding expectations, it’s the consistency that matters. You have to be great all the time or the first time you flop you’re back to everyone else – us humans down here that make mistakes from time to time but generally seem to move forward at a slow pace.

Establish a set of goals and a set of metrics that can be easily measured..

Again, just common sense. When you need to prove that you’re actually worth being kept around as a service or employee, you need to establish the set of metrics that both parties can agree on and then do your best to exceed them and make sure both parties are aware of it.

And this is where it all falls apart..

🙂 Keep in mind that I am not a motivational speaker.

Here is the thing – just because you can agree on a set of metrics, doesn’t mean that the other party considers them to be important. What’s even more infuriating (as discussed in the previous post) is that the level of importance of the things you’re delivering tends to diminish as you get further away from the original problem you’ve been hired to solve.

To wit, your ability to maintain your current service charges / salary or even increase them depends on your ability to consistently prove you can do more than what you’ve committed to. Here is how the decision maker thinks: If this service/person is only delivering what I pay them for, giving them more business is not really going to make me marginally better off so I’ll have to think about it. It means – they don’t buy. In the HR terms, if the person is constantly asking for a raise but never consistently going above the call of duty, then giving them a raise will only increase the output so much and may not be worth it (what if they decide they don’t want to work as hard?)

So now you know why as a business owner you don’t get a ton of business or why as an employee you aren’t paid. Truth is, no matter where we are – after the initial euphoria of the win – we all believe we’re not being paid enough.

So here is the secret:

1. Dedicate yourself to constantly improving.

2. Market your improvement to the decision makers.

3. Prove you can do something before you ask for money (ex: at OWN we give people free trials)

4. Always, always, always go back to #1 and solicit feedback. Because remember, it’s the person that parts with the money that defines the parameters of your job and their expectations of you – it’s not up to you to decide whether that’s fair or what the service/job is. Ever tried arguing with your client over an invoice? How well did that go?

Summary

The truth of the matter is, whether you feel you’re underpaid or your business is not successful, at the core is the fundamental truth that you suck. <gulp> The nice thing about life is that “suck” is relative and so long as you can dedicate yourself to both improving and being open to the criticism (otherwise people won’t tell you that you suck and you’ll just keep on beating your head against the wall) the only thing that matters is consistency and dedication.

If you’re really willing to be successful (and aren’t just faking it) and are committed to always improving instead of quitting because you’re either right or the grass is greener on the other side.. success is just a matter of time and a journey, not a specific point in time.

To give you an idea: I run a multimillion dollar software company. Nobody gave me money to start it. I’m at a business conference where my sole purpose for being here is to ask people to give me their money because I can do something better than they could and for far less. It took a ton of time, money and sacrifice to build what I’m about to offer them. It took a ton of time to perfect my ability to communicate what I will do for them and why they should choose me over someone else. And then when I finally win the deal (or job) I have to keep on kicking butt every day, deliver more than what they are paying for (consistently, or they’ll switch to a lower cost solution) and keep on asking them if we’re doing a good job. It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen in a single spurt either. It’s process. Nobody is just going to give you stuff. You have to completely blow people away before you can ask them to part with their money.

The beauty of capitalism is that (on the average) so long as you can execute all the above, you can drive a red Ferrari and take your kid to Disney World. Or whatever brings you joy.