You've got the job -- now how do you convince the employer to raise the offer?

Q: You made the grade! Your interviews went so well that the employer offered you the job! Trouble is, the offer is very low and you'd never accept it. Having nothing to lose, you try to convince the employer to raise the offer. What's an effective way to do this?

Nick's reply: Salary surveys are the straw man of compensation negotiations. They are easy to knock down "because this job is different from the one in the survey." Old pay stubs pose the same problem.

If you have nothing to lose, then your best choice might be to educate the employer about the value of a talented worker.

Many years ago I worked for a small, scrappy, successful company that cut the floor out from under its competition every day. No one could touch us -- not on value and not on price. But we always turned a very nice profit. Our competitors could never figure out how we did it. It's a good lesson in shrewd customer relations and sales, and it offers a good model for negotiating salary assertively.

When a new sales rep at our company would whine to the company president that a prospect could not afford our price, his answer was always the same. "Sure they can afford it. Just lower the price."

This drove new sales reps to distraction because they were not permitted to sell at a loss. "But we'll lose money!"

"No we won't. Take something out of the product to reflect the drop in price and point out what the customer would forgo to save a few dollars."

This approach worked well for the sales force because it focused on what the prospect could afford. Find out, "How much do they want to spend?" Then sell at that price. Remove features from the product or service to make the product reflect the price. (Or offer a different product that costs less.) The instruction to salespeople was clear: Never walk away from a deal. Always let the customer spend what the customer says she wants to spend.

But the challenge was also clear: Your job is to sell the benefits of the product and to help the prospect realize she will get what she pays for.

At that little company (which grew into a very big company), the most valued sales skill was knowing how to give customers what they asked for, and then to show them the benefits of buying greater value.

My good buddy, technology consultant Bob Lewis, puts it another way: Never say no, even when you can't say yes, suggests Bob. "Your alternative to yes and no is, Here's what it will take. You can get from here to there, but not for free."

When a manager suggests a job offer at a salary of X dollars, you can tell him you might accept it, "If what you've described as the job is all you want me to do for you." When the manager gives you a quizzical look, offer more. "Well, I could do the job you want. But I could do a lot more. For example, I can show you how I believe I could increase your departmental profitability by 5 to 10 percent. I'd expect a higher salary for that, but that's up to you."

If you can help produce more profit, you might be able to justify a higher salary. What an employer can afford is always a function of how much they get for their dollar. They just don't know that until you explain it.

Not all managers will follow you down this path, just as not all jobs are paths you should follow. If the manager declines to pay more to get more, you can politely decline the offer of "a job that won't take advantage of my skills." A simple "No, thank you" is all that's called for.

Does this approach to a higher salary always work? No, it works only when you can actually deliver more value and when the employer "gets it." But asking for more money for its own sake never works.

Copyright 2009. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate

Nick Corcodilos is author of "Ask The Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job" and the host of www.asktheheadhunter.com. He can be reached by e-mail at seattle@asktheheadhunter.com or at North Bridge Group, P.O. Box 600, Lebanon, NJ 08833. Sorry, no personal replies.