Speaker 1: April J, will you please give advice on negotiating benefits other than salary? Is it proper to talk about vacation lead time off prior to being hired or does it send the wrong signals? Okay. There's a couple of questions in here. These are pretty good. All right, April J, about negotiating anything. Literally, and I'm not being funny here, everything is negotiable, everything, even when they tell you it isn't. Okay. So now they may not give in to you or they may say, we're drawing the line there. I just coached a woman week before last, living in Florida, going to a design agency. They said, two weeks vacation, non-negotiable, she got three, right? Two extra week, five total, right off, right? We don't give, no more, no more, no more, extra week, right? Somebody else, they wanted him to move in two months. Both of these are bootcampers. Wanted him to move in two months, he got two years, right? So everything is negotiable. Now I have talked about this before in a number of videos and I would definitely check out my salary negotiation playlist. But April, for you, the one important thing that you want to do is the tactic you need is when you say, is it proper to talk about vacation leave, time off prior to being hired and any of that stuff? So let's go backwards because it really kind of fits in what I want to share. You should, if it's major and soon, discuss that you are going to be gone on a vacation. It is not something for you to sweat. Employers totally understand that your life was scheduled, right? You're changing jobs. You may have a vacation planned with your family. You may have mom coming in from Europe. Whatever it is. Okay? Maybe you're going to Hawaii. I don't know. Which is whatever it is, you need to, I would let them know in 99% of the cases, it will not be an issue. Okay? There are some organizations that it might be a little uncomfortable. They may say, well, you know, you're only going to be able to have three weeks vacation in the first year and you already have a month planned in August to go to Europe. Whatever it is, you're going to have to take unpaid leave for a week. Okay? Well, that's entirely up to them and you can figure that out. But to address your first question, never, never negotiate anything. And I mean never and anything until you get down to the end. Okay? So tactically, when you say negotiating benefits, I don't care if you're negotiating vacation. I don't care if you're negotiating profit sharing percentages, 401k matches, personal time, working from home, anything any of you can think of, none of it should be negotiated until the very end. And why is that such a big deal? Number one, and I've said this till I was blue in the face, is you want to do it when your stock is highest so you are increasing the likelihood that you will get what you want. However, secondarily and just as importantly is you want to show up to the negotiating table not having taken a thing along the way. Because what does that do? So let me give you an example. And I've talked about this one a few times, but whether it's benefits, whether it's vacation time, whether it's work from home, whether it's the relocation time, the relocation expenses, the relocation payback period, anything, restricted stock units, incentive stock, you name it all. If any of that is discussed and granted to you before you get to the negotiating table, you are already in debt. Okay? What do I mean? Well, Andy, you know, we really only have a two week vacation policy. Oh, you know, I'm coming from this company and I got four. You know, I know four might be a stretch, but three seems more appropriate. You know what, Andy? No problem. For you, we're going to make an exception three weeks. All right. Now, I owe them one back, all right? Because they gave me something. I took it. All right? You know, I don't really want to come into the office five days a week. Can we make it three? Well, we really want everybody in the office, but for you, okay. Now, this doesn't happen all at once. A lot of times this is sprinkled in along the way. So what are you doing? You're taking, taking, taking. So you're putting yourself in a hole and you don't even know it. Now you get to the end. But April, April, you didn't want $100,000, you wanted $110,000. You didn't want a $10,000 bonus, you wanted a $20,000, right? You didn't want two weeks vacation, you wanted four. You didn't want 1% profitary match, you wanted two. You needed additional benefits for whatever. You needed vacation leave early. Now imagine you're going to go through all this. You have a greater likelihood when that is a consolidated package. And I'm not going to go into all the what to say and the scenarios, but trust me when I tell you, you need to keep pushing things off until the end. If they say, April, you know, we can, we can visit your vacation days. You know what I'm thinking? We can give you three weeks. You know what? We don't need to discuss that. I'm sure we can discuss that at the end. Push it, push it, push it. Okay? Just keep pushing everything. And then when you come to the end, you've increased, now you're even, Steven, you're starting on an even playing field. You haven't taken anything. Your stock is the highest. You haven't asked for anything and you haven't taken anything. Okay? This goes for all you people that ask me every single day, hey Andy, I see this job, but I don't want to move. But they tell me it needs to be in the office. No. Interview. Go. Get locked in. Get them to love you. You can't negotiate at the end. Okay? You, you cannot imagine what goes through an employer's mind when they spend three weeks or three months trying to recruit you to get you down to the end only to find out that there's this silly thing about you not wanting to relocate when you could very well do this job from home. They don't want to spend another three months looking for you, right? So they break, they find the time, they find the money, they find the ability to do it. All right? So you, but you're, you're trying to negotiate when you're weak. So April, it doesn't matter what you're asking for. You go in with the whole, the whole kit and kit and caboodle. So I looked at all this based on the value I'm going to add, based on what I'm going to do, based on the experience I'm bringing, all that stuff I told you I'm coming with, this and that, my network and so on and so forth, and my bright, bubbly face and all the stuff. This is, this is it. One 20, 20% four weeks vacation and you ask for all of it. And then they say, well, hang on, we can't change that. That's a, you know, corporate wide thing and we can't muck with the 401k plan. All right, I'll bend on that, right? You bent on something they couldn't change, but it looks like a bend psychologically to them. So then they're looking for the levers where they can play well. So now if you're negotiating with me, I'm doing stuff like this to you. What's more important to you, the salary or the time off? Now we're, now I'm making you trade with yourself. Okay, that kind of stuff. And it appears like it's a choice because it is a choice, except, except I was locked in on something and now what you're doing is you're having to choose within the constraints I'm providing, but you don't know that. So, so you got to think about all this, but you, you, you make your ask at the end and it doesn't matter what you're asking for. I really want to work here, but I, if I, I can't, I can't move my, my, my, my mom's sick. I can't move my kids in school. Oh, you want me to move? I'm willing to move. You don't want to pay the full freight for me to move. It's going to cost me 18 grand. Can you pay me that somewhere? Right? Like all this stuff can be discussed. Do not think one size fits all. I had a guy on my YouTube channel yesterday. You think I don't read these things? I wake up in the morning, I go through a routine. I go to my YouTube channel, the comments on my blog and then the comments in the mile walk Academy and I answer all the mile walk Academy stuff and I read through all the YouTube stuff. And he said on one of my salary videos, he said, you know, folks, you need to listen to this because I've interviewed, you know, I've worked at Colgate and Palm Island, this and that and all these brand chip companies he puts on there. He's like, it's always negotiable. Even when they tell you it's not, it, it always is. And you should listen to what Andy's saying. I mean, it's, it's, it's true. Even though you think it's not because you're taking their word for it and it, and they actually are telling you what they truly believe, even though when it gets down to the end, they will, they will, they will make accommodations. They do. They do. All right, April, hope that helps. I know salary negotiation is a big one for everybody. Stay on your ground and don't, don't take anything until, until you get down to the end. Big mistake.