From no confidence to a $100,000 pay increase - Miranda’s story
At the highest level, coaching is about setting goals and then achieving them.
This requires you to:
Know what you want
Believe it’s possible to get
Create a plan to get it
Follow through on the plan
Address any curveballs, disappointments, or roadblocks you encounter along the way.
It’s easy to get stuck at any one of these steps.
I see it all the time.
In the beginning most people only have a vague idea about what they want.
It’s also common for them to feel deflated, hopeless, or completely unsure of their next steps.
That’s the perfect reason to have a conversation with a coach.
I had a client named Miranda who was stuck in a research role at a pharmaceutical company.
She was in her early 30s, super educated (Top 20 undergrad + advanced degree), and very hard-working.
She was also underpaid and under-appreciated.
When she came to me, she was deflated, angry, and lacking confidence.
She’d been in the same job for 6 years.
She’d been repeatedly overlooked for promotions.
She thought she needed to figure out how to stand out more and do a better job in order to earn a promotion.
Turns out Miranda had already earned the promotion, It’s just that nobody was willing to give it to her.
She wasn’t the problem.
Her environment was.
I see this all the time.
It’s common for hard-working people to think THEY are the problem when they’re actually not.
They usually respond by trying to work even harder than they already are.
The problem is that hard work is not the thing that will get you ahead if it’s already failing to get you noticed.
Miranda needed a third-party, objective perspective to help her see that she was already doing a great job, just inside of the wrong organization / channel.
She needed to be shown that it was possible to get a better job and more money — that she was already ready.
She needed someone to hold her accountable – to support her at each step of the journey.
Luckily this is my superpower as a coach 💁
I can spot possibility, potential, and untapped talent like no other.
At first Miranda was skeptical about her ability to switch out of a research role into something more strategic.
But the more she put herself out there, the easier it got.
It was one step at a time.
First she identified her transferable skills.
She’s a strategic thinker who’s also great at implementation.
This made her a great fit for strategy roles as well as project / program management.
She also had deep industry / domain knowledge in the life sciences industry.
Miranda zoomed out and took an objective look at all she’d accomplished in the past 10 years.
Turns out the list was quite lengthy and impressive.
But somewhere along the way she’d started to downplay her own strengths and accomplishments.
Miranda started networking with lots of people across life sciences and the pharma industry.
The more she spoke, the easier it got.
The more her confidence grew.
Eventually, she was speaking to a hiring manager who recognized her talent.
She landed a new role as a Project Manager and increased her salary by $100,000.
That’s right. She went from about $70k to $170K in 12 months.
It might be tempting to think that Miranda is a special case or the exception.
But she’s not.
So many people I speak to are underpaid and undervalued.
They just don’t know it.
That’s why I love having conversations with people for the first time.
I love getting to tell a prospective client that a $50,000 pay increase is within reach.
If you suspect that you might be underpaid, I’d love to chat with you.
Feel free to shoot me an email or DM.
Sometimes one conversation and a fresh perspective is all that it takes to get some momentum going.
Until next time.
*Ps: I changed the client’s name to preserve confidentiality.
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