Interview with Minda Harts: Advancing the Next Generation of Women of Color
My special guest Minda Harts is a social impact entrepreneur and founder of My Weekly Memo, a digital career education platform. Her mission is to advance the next generation of women of color.
In this quick interview, she drops negotiation and leadership wisdom and shares how she successfully negotiated a $30K salary increase.
Here are some highlights:
Know Your BATNA
BATNA stands for Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement. It refers to the next best option that's available to you, should the negotiation you're in fail to reach an agreement.
In the interview, Minda shares how having a strong BATNA helped her make a career decision that led to $30K increase in salary and bigger title.
Advocate for Yourself, Lead Others
Negotiating and leading go hand in hand. Whether you're negotiating your salary or negotiating a contract, developing your negotiation skills is a lifelong process, and these skills are part of your leadership skills.
Advocating for yourself - whether for money, places or things - that's leadership.
If you lead, you also have to advocate for others on your team. But first you'll have to learn how to advocate for yourself, so you can do it for others that you lead.
Negotiation Advice for Women of Color
The gender wage gap is more severe for Latinas and black women. As a leader who advocates for women of color, Minda says that the best advice is to start asking.
No one's going to tap you on the shoulder and say, "Hey girl, I heard there's a wage gap. Let me give you some more money to fill it."
If you don't ask, then it's always a no, and the wage gap will only widen. Minda says she advises other women of color, "Even if you shake through that ask, make the ask."
Don't Wait Until the Annual Review
There's no need to wait until the annual review to advocate for the value you bring or to make the ask.
There is no magical time to advocate for your value.
In fact, Minda says, you make your ask whenever and set it up for success by consistently highlighting the value you bring throughout the year.
Check out the Weekly Memo here.
