by Matthew Asser, The Covenant Group

After cre­at­ing a new posi­tion, set­ting a salary range, inter­view­ing sev­eral can­di­dates and select­ing a per­son whom you would like to hire, the next step will be mak­ing an offer to the final­ist. This is the sec­ond in an ongo­ing series about com­pen­sa­tion con­cerns. While I dis­cussed set­ting a salary range for a new posi­tion in my last post, today I shall be cov­er­ing how to come to an agree­ment if your final can­di­date decides to nego­ti­ate his or her wage.If you pre­pare for this sce­nario ahead of time, you will be bet­ter equipped to man­age the nego­ti­a­tion process. Con­sider the like­li­hood that the can­di­date will push for a higher wage, and decide how much you want this par­tic­u­lar per­son on your team and how much more you are will­ing to give. Then ask the can­di­date what he or she thinks would be a fair figure.

Before agree­ing to a pro­posal, think about the long-term impact — you may be able to stretch your bud­get and sat­isfy a tal­ented candidate’s ask­ing price, but is the salary sus­tain­able? Six months or one year down the line, will you be able to cover a raise for strong per­for­mance? What is the like­li­hood of this per­son remain­ing loyal to your firm for many years to come? Because the hir­ing and onboard­ing processes are so involved and time-consuming, you need to be sure you will be get­ting a return on your investment.

Also ask the can­di­date to explain why he or she feels the addi­tional com­pen­sa­tion is war­ranted. The per­son may argue that he or she is con­sid­er­ing a higher offer from another com­pany or might list tal­ents that could ben­e­fit your orga­ni­za­tion. Since you have already deter­mined how much you are will­ing to pay for the candidate’s abil­i­ties and whether this is the only best hire for the job, you will be able to weigh his or her argu­ment and counter with your rea­son­ing for the sum that you offered.

Hav­ing a salary scale and lad­der sys­tem for your organization’s stra­tum capa­bil­i­ties will prove use­ful in this sce­nario, as the two cre­ate a con­crete struc­ture that you can ref­er­ence in your nego­ti­a­tions, show­ing the can­di­date how you expect him or her to rise in the ranks and what he or she can expect to earn in the future. If you come to a dead­lock, con­sider offer­ing the higher wage if the can­di­date is will­ing to take on addi­tional responsibilities.

Matthew Asser has spent the last few decades gain­ing exper­tise in how finan­cial ser­vices firms can opti­mize their oper­a­tions, mar­ket­ing, new prod­ucts, busi­ness devel­op­ment and client rela­tion­ship man­age­ment prac­tices. He’s well-versed in the chal­lenges that an entre­pre­neur may strug­gle with, and as a Senior Coach and Facil­i­ta­tor, helps clients achieve busi­ness change through The Covenant Group’s exten­sive finan­cial advi­sor train­ing programs.

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Norm Trainor is the Founder and CEO of The Covenant Group, a company that specializes in educating and coaching financial advisors and entrepreneurs and providing them with business tools to enhance their performance. He can be reached at norm@covenantgroup.com or 1-877-903-3878 X333. Read more from the author/contributor here.

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