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Most advice about pay rises is about the conversation: what to say, how to sit, when to stay quiet. Those details do matter — they just aren’t where it’s decided. The outcome is largely set by what has been written down about the last nine months, and in what language. This article is about what to collect, when, and how to translate it.

Why it isn’t decided in the conversation

Someone preparing for a negotiation typically sits down at the weekend and tries to assemble what they did over the past year. This almost always fails: three or four things come to mind, mostly from the last two months, and most of them sound like “I worked really hard”.

Your memory isn’t the problem. Memory isn’t a recording but a reconstruction — and it builds from the most recent, most emotional events. Whatever was a big deal in February, by November you believe it went by itself. Our article on imposter syndrome covers this too: the difficulty drops out of the story, and what remains is “I got lucky”.

And there is a second, less comfortable fact: your manager’s memory works the same way. They don’t forget your spring rescue out of malice — fifty other things have happened to them since. If it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist in the conversation.

What to write down: four columns, ten minutes a month

This record isn’t a journal and isn’t self-analysis. Once a month, ten minutes, four columns — and those ten minutes decide half the negotiation.

1. Date and what got finished. One sentence, factually. “Took over client B’s monthly report.” Not an assessment, not a feeling.
2. What it made better for the company. This is the most important column, and the one people skip. A number if there is one: how much time, how much money, how many errors, how many people. If there’s no number, still be concrete: “no external contractor needed since”.
3. What was hard about it, and what was my part. If someone helped, write it down — the remainder is still yours. This line is what separates work from coincidence.
4. Who said what about it — word for word. In quotation marks, with a name. Memory rewrites recognition into politeness; a verbatim quote is harder to rewrite.

Over nine months this becomes fifteen to twenty lines. You won’t need all of them: five or six will carry the conversation. But you can only choose those six if there is something to choose from.

Effort isn’t an argument — the translation

This is the part most people get wrong, and understandably. From the inside, work feels like effort: how many evenings, how much worry, how many rewrites. So the sentence comes out as “I worked really hard this year”.

But a company doesn’t buy effort, it buys outcomes. That isn’t cynicism, it’s the frame the decision is made in: whoever decides your pay has to justify to someone else that the higher figure pays off. Hand them effort and they can do nothing with it; hand them an outcome and they have something to pass on.

The translation is mechanical. “I worked hard on the reports” → “the monthly report takes one day instead of four, because I automated the data collection”. “I helped the new people a lot” → “I trained three new colleagues this year, all three were independent within six weeks”. Same work, seen from the other side.

And notice the difference: the effort sentence reveals how tired you are, the outcome sentence reveals what would happen if you weren’t there tomorrow. The second one is the one that’s about your pay.

Timing, and what people get wrong about it

The most common mistake isn’t asking at the wrong moment, it’s waiting for the performance review. At most companies the review is already an announcement about a closed budget: the pay pool was allocated weeks or months earlier.

So the useful conversation happens BEFORE the budget is allocated, and it isn’t about salary at all. One sentence does it: “I’d like to know what it would take for me to be in the higher band next round.” That sentence asks for nothing, so it can’t be refused — but from then on your manager knows you’re coming, and typically starts gathering arguments on your side.

The second timing point is a fresh result. The good moment isn’t the annual anniversary, it’s the week you’ve just closed something everybody saw. Then your evidence isn’t on a list, it’s in everyone’s head.

The conversation — three steps

The substance is ready; the form is short. Don’t prepare a script, three things are enough.

1. Open with the question, not the request. “I’d like to talk about my pay — is now good, or shall we set a time?” In a scheduled conversation your preparation is worth far more than in a minute caught in a corridor.
2. Name a number, and name yours first. Toward the top of the band, but defensibly. Whoever says “whatever you think is fair” gets the other side’s lower estimate — and can only bargain upward from there.
3. Then be quiet. Silence is uncomfortable, and that’s exactly why it works: the pause is usually filled by the other person, often with information you need.

And one small thing that matters a lot: don’t apologise before asking. “Sorry to bring this up” isn’t politeness, it’s a request you’ve already withdrawn in advance.

What not to do

Three arguments come by themselves, and all three weaken your position.

• Don’t compare yourself to a colleague. “X gets this much” makes the other person’s pay the subject instead of yours — and typically serves up information you weren’t supposed to have. Your own result is the subject. Comparing yourself to others gives you a bad sample here too.
• Don’t justify with your private life. The mortgage, the bills, the children are all real — but they aren’t an argument aimed at the company, and they turn the conversation into pleading. Pay is the price of your work, not of your needs.
• Don’t threaten with an offer you wouldn’t take. If you bluff, sooner or later it gets called; if you have a real offer, you can mention it as a fact, but then be ready for the answer to be your departure.

If the answer is no — the second-best outcome

A no isn’t the end of the conversation, it’s the point where the most value can still be extracted from it — provided you don’t stand up offended.

Ask one question: “What is the specific, measurable thing that has to be true for this to be a yes — and when do we look at it again?” That sentence turns a refusal into a list of conditions. If you get an answer, you have a six-month map. If you don’t — that’s an answer too, not about your pay but about whether staying is worth it.

Write the answer down the same day, word for word, and send it back as a short summary email. Not so you can hold it over anyone, but because in six months you would both remember it differently.

Where the line is — when it isn’t about you

It would be dishonest to leave this out: the best preparation still won’t move a closed pay budget. Sometimes the company is laying people off, the owner has frozen salaries, or bands are set centrally and your manager has no room at all.

The evidence isn’t wasted then — it just isn’t to be spent here. The same fifteen lines are exactly as strong in another company’s interview, and typically produce a bigger jump there. The difference between an internal rise and a move isn’t about effort, it’s about where there is any budget at all.

And if the answer keeps coming back as “it doesn’t fit right now” while your responsibilities grow, this is no longer a negotiation question but a decision — our article on the decision journal covers that.

Where a system helps

The difficulty here is that the evidence can only be recorded fresh, while its value only shows up months later. That is the worst possible combination: you have to do it when nothing is pushing you to, and you miss it when it’s too late to catch up.

That’s why Mirrify keeps the daily entry and the weekly review in one place, and why nine months later you can read back what you wrote in your own words. And the pay goal can sit alongside your other goals, with a date — that’s what makes it a plan rather than an intention.

What it doesn’t do: it won’t negotiate for you, and it won’t tell you what you’re worth on the market. The ten minutes a month are yours — the system only helps in that nine months from now there’s something to take out.

The one sentence worth taking away

If you take one thing from all this, let it be: you don’t get a raise because you deserve it, you get one because the decision-maker has something to justify it with. Your job is to give them that something.

And if you can do only one thing right now: write down the single thing from the past three months that was worth the most to the company — and next to it, in one sentence, how much better it made things. Ten minutes, and you have your first line.

Frequently asked questions

How do I ask for a raise?

Collect the evidence first, then ask for a meeting. Ten minutes a month, four columns: what got finished, what it made better for the company (with a number where there is one), what was hard about it and what your part was, and word for word who said what about it. You’ll need five or six lines in the conversation — but you can only pick them if there is something to pick from.

When is the best time to ask?

Not at the performance review: the pay budget has already been allocated by then. The useful conversation happens before the allocation, and it is one sentence: “I’d like to know what it would take for me to be in the higher band next round.” The other good moment is the week after a fresh result everyone saw.

What do I say when they ask what I want?

Name a specific number, and name yours first — toward the top of the band, but defensibly. Anyone who answers “whatever you think is fair” gets the other side’s lower estimate and can only bargain upward from there. Then be quiet: the pause is usually filled by the other person, often with information you need.

Is “I worked hard” a good argument?

No, because the company doesn’t buy effort, it buys outcomes. The decision-maker has to justify to someone else that the higher figure pays off, and effort gives them nothing to work with. Translate it: instead of “I worked hard on the reports”, say “the monthly report takes one day instead of four, because I automated the data collection”.

What should I do if they say no?

Ask one question: what is the specific, measurable thing that has to be true for this to be a yes, and when do we look at it again? That turns a refusal into a list of conditions. Write the answer down the same day, word for word, and send it back as a short summary — in six months you would both remember it differently.

Can I refer to a colleague’s salary?

Better not. It makes the other person’s pay the subject instead of yours, and typically serves up information you officially weren’t supposed to have. The same goes for private-life reasons: the mortgage and the bills are real, but pay is the price of your work, not of your needs.

What if there simply is no budget?

It happens, and the best preparation still won’t move a frozen pay budget. The evidence isn’t wasted though: the same fifteen lines are just as strong in another company’s interview, and typically produce a bigger jump there. If “it doesn’t fit right now” keeps coming back while your responsibilities grow, that is no longer a negotiation question but a decision.