Negotiating a Salary Increase…of 150%

Challenge

A senior executive at an international talent and modeling agency approached Consensus to develop a strategy for negotiating a more lucrative compensation package with her current employer.

Consensus Solution

Consensus began the engagement by analyzing the industry on a national scale with a concentration on direction, trends, and competitive landscape. We then refined our analysis to focus on our client’s local market, and determined that the local market was on the verge of a shakeout and that our client’s employer’s competitive position was at risk.

The most important thing that we noted was negotiation leverage. Specifically, we foresaw growing instability in the local market resulting from other senior executives transferring agencies. Thus, the potential departure of any key employee, especially a division head, could jeopardize the agency’s ability to retain its competitive position; it could result in the loss of client accounts, talent, and other employees.

We built a negotiation strategy around this assumption. With our client, we role-played various iterations of a salary discussion between her and her supervisors. The role-play sessions explored different reactions that might emerge and addressed the emotional element that our client experienced.