Nick's first freelance client paid him fifty dollars an hour. He said 'yes' before he knew what the market rate was, and it turned out to be exactly the right way to find out.
In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick spend the whole episode on money, salaries, hourly rates, and how you should ask for more. Tyler walks through the salary research tool that showed him his entire possible career path and the forty thousand dollar salary he thought he would happily live on forever. Nick breaks down the raise that took him from 2500 EUR/month to 4000 EUR/month, and the freelance pricing strategy that pushed his average hourly rate from 50 USD up past 95 USD just by raising the number with every new client until the rejections started piling up.
They also get into the LinkedIn open to work banner and why neither of them will turn it on, the case for and against salary transparency laws, and the three times revenue framework Tyler uses to justify asking for a raise with actual numbers instead of a feeling.
In this episode you will learn:
🔸 The salary research tool that mapped out an entire career path before Tyler ever got a job
🔸 Why having a job already makes salary negotiation dramatically easier
🔸 The real reason job hoppers usually out earn people who stay in one role
🔸 Why neither host will turn on the LinkedIn open to work banner
🔸 The three times revenue framework for justifying a raise with numbers, not feelings
🔸 How Nick raised his freelance hourly rate from fifty dollars to ninety five using rejection rate as a signal
🔸 What actually happens once salary transparency becomes required by law
Chapters:
0:00 Deciding to make an entire episode about money
1:18 What this episode will cover, salary and hourly rate negotiation
1:40 Tylers early mindset, just wanting to make forty thousand a year doing art
2:48 The salary tool that mapped out an entire career path
4:04 Whether the tool actually matched reality
4:44 The three times revenue framework for what an employee should be worth
5:15 Why it depends factors make salary numbers online unreliable
6:30 Why job hoppers usually out earn people who stay put
7:24 Why having a job already makes negotiating easier
8:00 The LinkedIn open to work banner and why neither host uses it
9:26 Saying you have other interviews lined up, even when you do not
10:21 Nicks raise from a hundred euros a month to eight hundred
11:43 Going from twenty five hundred to four thousand euros a month 12:58 Using Glassdoor to benchmark a salary band before applying 13:26 The new salary transparency law and whether it helps employees 14:46 Why recruiters get more cautious once salaries are public
16:14 A friend who threatened to quit over a pay gap and won
17:16 The three times revenue framework for asking for a raise
18:33 The one caveat before you push for more money
19:06 How Nick started freelancing at fifty dollars an hour
20:27 Raising the rate with every new client until rejections start
21:41 Using rejection rate as the signal that you found your ceiling
22:08 Saying yes to everything at first, then learning to say no
23:59 Final thoughts on treating money like part of the craft
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More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld
