When you're asking for something

- Want to go to a great conference? You'll need to ask. Need a new computer? Time to ask. Our work lives are filled with opportunities to ask for what we need. And yet for many of our viewers, advocating for themselves is tough. Women tend to ask for things they need even less often than men do. Linda Babcock, in her book "Women Don't Ask," shares numerous studies about this, but one really sticks out to me. We have a group of grad students who have the same degree, the same qualifications, and who have been taught the same negotiation strategies. When they went on the job market, 57% of the men negotiated their starting salary. Only 7% of women did. How can we, men and women alike, become better at making requests? First, use the skills from the video on pitching ideas in this course to make a great case that your request is a good idea. Then, when it's time to actually ask for what you need, be direct, don't beat around the bush or be too vague. Imagine asking your boss for additional resources by saying something like, "We want to make sure that this project is successful "and gets plenty of attention, okay?" We haven't really asked for anything. Be sure to state the action you need clearly and directly. Create a sense of urgency in your request so the decision maker doesn't back-burner your idea. Make the next steps obvious and easy for the decision maker. I love it when students ask me for a recommendation letter and have already sketched out a rough draft of what the letter might say. They make my job so easy that I'm more inclined to say yes. Here's how you could ask someone for additional resources on a project. To state the desired action, you could say something like, "I'd like one additional rep to run point "on this campaign with me." To make the next step easy, say something like this. "I'm hoping you can identify someone on the team "with tons of digital media background, "and I'll then schedule a meeting "to bring the new person up to speed." Then finally, to create urgency you could say, "We have great momentum going. "So it would be best to bring someone in yet this week. "Are you good with this?" Now that you've seen the three keys to a great ask in practice, remember these tips in your daily life: be direct about the action you want, create urgency or a reason to act soon, and make the next steps for your decision maker as easy as possible. Want some practice opportunities? Check out the toolkit on making an ask.