The Confidence Gap Costs Money with Jennifer Kornoely

Have you ever read the books, made the plan, and still frozen when it was finally time to ask for more?

In this episode, we talk with Jennifer Kornoely about why that happens — and why confidence around money usually does not grow in silence. We explore how women are taught not to talk about money, why information alone rarely turns into action, and how trusted community can change the way women price themselves, negotiate, and see their own value.

We also get practical. Jennifer shares how conversation helps women move from learning to action, how to think about market rate, why documenting your accomplishments matters, and what to do before asking for a raise or negotiating for more.

In this episode:

•  Why so many women are still uncomfortable talking about money 
•  The “learning triangle” and why reading alone is not enough 
•  How community builds confidence, accountability, and action 
•  What trusted salary and rate conversations can actually sound like 
•  How to prepare before asking for a raise 
•  Why you need an accolades folder and a CYA folder 
•  One simple question to ask when someone is underpricing herself 

If this conversation resonated, share it with a work bestie and start the money conversation this week.

Want to learn more or Join Jennifer's Book Club? Find details here https://www.shereadssheleads.com/

You can watch the full episode on Youtube
Follow us on IG ,  TikTok, Threads and LinkedIn
Please rate, comment and provide suggestions for upcoming episodes

Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband

Transcript

Why Negotiation Still Feels Scary

Jess K 0:00

Have you read books on salary negotiation? Maybe even created a plan, but then became frozen when it was time to actually ask for money?

Claude F 0:08

Today we are talking about why that happens. Because money, confidence, usually doesn't grow in silence.

Jess K 0:15

Jennifer Cornley is here to share how learning in community can change the way women price themselves, negotiate, and even see their own value.

Claude F 0:25

And stay with us because by the end, we are giving you one simple money conversation to start this week. Hi, I'm Claude. And I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night, and work besties for life.

Jess K 0:40

Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos, and thrive together in every industry. Work besties.

Claude F 0:51

Alright, work besties, welcome back. This mod is all about money, power, and negotiation. Asking for what you're working.

Jess K 1:01

And today we're take talking about a part of the conversation that doesn't get enough attention. The role community plays in helping women actually change how they think about money.

Claude F 1:13

Because so many women are reading, listening, learning, and still feeling stuck when it's time to price, negotiate, ask, or advocate for themselves.

From Corporate Layoff To Business

Jess K 1:23

Jennifer, welcome to Work Best DC Podcast. I read the bio on you and instantly was hooked. I was like, I need to get this woman on our podcast and learn from her. Wow, thank you. If you wouldn't mind just starting off by sharing with our listeners your background.

Jennifer Kornoely 1:46

I worked in corporate. I worked for a hotel company and their creative services team and loved my job. It was exactly my zona genius working, doing anything creative, but uh I worked, I reported to someone who didn't like me. He basically didn't like women who had original thought or a voice, and that didn't go over very well. So I I I'm naturally there's gonna be some pushback. And because he was the owner's pet, I was let go. Um, he didn't like me, he didn't want me there for no reason other than that. You know, it wasn't like I did anything wrong or messed up. He didn't like me. So with zero notice, I was just immediately let go. And because of that, lost a salary, a six-figure salary. So I had been doing photography as like a side hustle just here and there. And because it was a hotel company, I'd had access to really beautiful spaces. And so I was practicing with those. And I'm like, I could start my own business photographing real estate. I've already been photographing buildings. Why not? And I was living in Southern California. It's a massive real estate market, it's a gorgeous real estate market, and it's a year-round real estate market. So I started um doing real estate photography, but I didn't know anything about how to run a business. I didn't know how to network, I didn't know how to pay taxes, I didn't know how to pay myself. So, like it was, I was floundering. Like I was making good money. You know, I'd do a shoot, come home with five or six hundred bucks. This is great money. But why am I still struggling? I don't know. I mean, and it took years. I was just always running on fumes. And then eventually I started listening to audiobooks because I'm in these empty houses all by myself with nothing to do and no one to talk to. So I started listening to audiobooks, um, especially personal finance. And it's just this mindset shift when you start realizing one, what it is that you don't know, and that you're not alone. There's this is normal that women especially are left out of these conversations and we don't grow up knowing these things. We're not having these golf course bro conversations like so many men tend to. So, you know, just starting to take in all this information and it's like, oh, this person's gonna talk about simple personal finance, and then this next person's gonna talk about something more complicated like investing. Let me go down that rabbit hole. It's like being on Pinterest. You just go down these rabbit holes of topics and, you know, and so I started listening to more and more books on more complex situations and seeing my business improve. I suddenly started realizing, oh, this is how I pay myself. This is how I market myself, this is how I make a business plan, this is how I should be networking. And all these dominoes just start falling into place. But it was still just this lacking feeling because I was doing it by myself.

Why Girls Learn Money Is Rude

Jess K 4:40

Very poignant comments that Claude and I have talked about in previous podcasts. One of which is your first example of you were LECO and it wasn't performance-based. Um, it really was like just because somebody didn't like you and it didn't let it hit your confidence. So I think that's a testament and it's that's something that so many of us can learn from. The second part is that you had this aptitude to just go and start a business and take the time to start challenging and asking those questions that so many of us women aren't told or shared about finances. So would you mind sharing in your experience what are we doing wrong? Why aren't we having these conversations with women?

Jennifer Kornoely 5:28

A lot of it is is we're told it's impolite to talk about these things. You know, don't talk about money, don't talk about how much you have saved, don't talk about how much you paid for your car. That's impolite. And like I remember growing up and hearing, I remember I had asked my dad, I had said, How much money do you make? You know, I was maybe 10, 12, and I'm genuinely curious because I'm that's when you're starting to form your knowledge of what's the value of money, you know? Right. It wasn't like I was wanting to be a voyeur into his finances. Like, I don't I don't know how much grown-ups make. And he was, he had told me, he goes, That's impolite, we don't talk about that. And I was like, Well, wow, how do how do I know then? And I remember kind of starting to scratch the surface of how am I supposed to know this, but not having the vocabulary to really ask deeper questions. So then, and I think that that's a really normal trope for a lot of girls growing up. Don't talk about that. Stay quiet, stay demure, stay well behaved, stay small, don't ask for more, don't get greedy, don't be bossy. All these adjectives that we're kind of labeled with just for being girls. And it it all funnels down into your money mindset. Yeah.

Claude F 6:43

It's so interesting, like you say, like a man will have no issue asking even for a promotion for whatever, an increase. But a woman is a bit scarier, you know. We are not used to that and we're afraid to bother.

Jennifer Kornoely 7:00

Well, think about too, like how all the marketing messages are geared differently. Like marketing messages and magazine articles towards men are always geared towards aggression and investing and go and kill it and you know, do the things and be big. Whereas the messages to women are don't buy the latte, save, use coupons. You know, it it's very different.

Jess K 7:22

Or going back to the original part, it's like put in the good work and it you'll get rewarded and wait your time. But you that's just not the case either anymore. And it never really, in fairness, was that's why so many of us still are not quite at that the glass ceiling compared to our the opposite sex. Yeah. Yeah, I think to me, I don't think it's that women don't want to or can. It's just we haven't, to your point, even at a young age, be given the tools and the comfort level to have those conversations. And I feel like your example is kind of similar still, even today. I don't think people sit there and have those conversations and they should. It's okay to have, especially with your own kids, like.

Jennifer Kornoely 8:07

Oh, a thousand percent. And it's changed how I raised my kid. We have these conversations now. We talk about saving and investing. And when they got their first job at 15, it was a conversation of okay, great, let's talk about percentages. What are you gonna save? What are you gonna put towards your college? What are you gonna invest? What are you gonna have for fun money? And it was a conversation. It wasn't me giving direction or laying down the rules, right? You know, and it's giving them the tools, yeah, giving them the tools and the capability to understand. So it's how they build it. Yeah, for sure, because that's how they're building their knowledge of the value of money.

Jess K 8:45

So, from that perspective, a lot of women are consuming business podcasts and um, you know, reading about it in books. That's um, and yet they still do struggle to go from the listening, comprehending to action.

The Learning Triangle Explained

Jennifer Kornoely 9:03

What's your what's your take on that? So there's something called the learning triangle. So you picture, you know, a triangle where it's small on the top and big on the bottom, and up at the top is consuming using one sense. Whether you're reading a physical book, listening to an audiobook, listening to a podcast, watching a lecture, you're consuming with one sense. You're only gonna retain like 10 to 20% of the information. The rest of it just flies right out of your head. As soon as you start having a conversation, you move down to the next level of your pyramid. Now you're gonna retain about 50% of that information. As soon as you just start simply talking about it with other people, you know, you are engaging different parts of your mind. It's more, it's more of it staying. And then as soon as you start implementing it into your everyday, regardless of what it is, whether it's personal finance or investing or networking, you're starting to retain 70%. And then when you start teaching other people about it, you're retaining 90% of that information. So you're activating more parts of your mind. Because when you're only retaining like 10, 20% of that information, it just great. You read this book, you liked it. But a week later, someone asks you, What'd you think? It was good. I don't remember what it was about.

Jess K 10:19

I mean, have you ever had impassioned me? It impassioned me, and then I went to go have the conversation with my boss, and I'm like, I I don't, I don't remember what I'm supposed to be saying.

Jennifer Kornoely 10:27

Give me money. Like it motivates you for like 24, 48 hours, and that's about it.

Jess K 10:32

That makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks for explaining it that way. Because I am a person who I do a lot of reading and I do a lot of comprehending, but I don't always then have the conversations. And you're right, the ones, the books that I take the time to then go talk to somebody else and then encourage them to read and then have more discussion on, I tend to remember much more of it than those that I just read on my own.

Building A Money Book Club

Jennifer Kornoely 10:54

Plus, too, when you're talking about it afterwards, you're bringing in your personal stories and you're able to ask, you know, those little tidbits. I didn't quite understand that. What did they mean when they said that? Or when someone else brings in their life story that has a different perspective or different experience, you're learning at such a different pace than just reading one person's expertise on something.

Jess K 11:16

Jen, in addition to being an entrepreneur with photography, you also started a book club. Do you mind sharing with us how you started it, what it what it means, where it's going.

Jennifer Kornoely 11:29

So uh I mentioned earlier, but I was be out photographing houses, I would be listening to audiobooks because I'm working by myself and working by yourself all the time is really depressing. Um, so I'm listening to these books and I'm like, well, this is great, but this is not solving my depression problem of not collaborating with any other humans. I mean, you need that human conversation. So I started reaching out to women on LinkedIn because I figure women on LinkedIn are entrepreneurial or at least, you know, career motivated. They're smart. So I was like, okay, who else out here is a reader and who wants to talk about it? I mean, not necessarily fiction, but who wants to read, you know, books about money and business and all this technically boring stuff, but who wants to talk about it? And all these women were like, yes, yes, yes, I do, I want to talk about this stuff. So we started about a year and a half ago, and um, we started with half a dozen women, and we've grown now to 25 women. We vote every month on what we're gonna read. I put maybe like a dozen different books of all different kinds of nonfiction genres, and we vote. The winner is what we read. Everyone goes, reads it separately on their own, and then we come together once a month on Zoom to talk about it. And it's fantastic because everyone is at a different um level of, you know, their career, a different level of financial literacy. So in some areas, someone can be a mentor, in other areas, they're a mentee. And it just kind of brings together all these different layers of knowledge and skill set and experience to really talk about the things we're struggling with, the things we've done that have worked, things that haven't worked. And it's become a really great space for women to become vulnerable about maybe I didn't know I needed to know this. You know, especially when we've had kind of books that were money mindset based, women are really opening up and talking about I never knew this. I am now 50 years old, and I never knew I needed to know this until something happened. And now I'm like, oh crap, I don't know the things.

Claude F 13:33

Yeah.

Jennifer Kornoely 13:34

So it's a really great flow of conversation in our Zooms.

Jess K 13:39

That is awesome. This is another way of moving from network to community building. And I love that you're providing a forum with like-minded individuals that they're willing to have the conversation, but they're all coming at it from different ways, different industries, different points in their life. That's so smart because how do you get women to start being okay having these conversations?

Jennifer Kornoely 14:01

You have to have a providing a safe space. Women need community, especially as we start to get older. We we thrive on community. When women have other women supporting them, we do amazing things. Women uplift the world. And when we have a safe space to talk about all the things we feel insecure about, magic happens. Last month we read a book called Designing Your Life. And it's all about using design theory to build an intentional life that serves you. There was one part in the book where they talked about it's not always just about being on top of your game when it comes to business. You also have to have good health. You also have to have a level of enjoyment or play and boundaries. You have to have all these other things in order to have a really fulfilled life. Work is only one part of it. And so we started having these conversations, and everybody was talking about where they felt they were lacking. Almost universally, every woman in the group said, I feel like I'm lacking when it comes to play. I'm not going out and doing something just for the joy it brings me, not my kids, not my husband, not my business, but my joy. I'm not going out and doing the thing, whether it's you know, playing tennis or going for a hike or, you know, reading in the pool, whatever that joyful thing is. And it was an eye-opener for a lot of women that I'm serving everyone else. I'm not serving myself. So there it was, it was, you know, a few tears shed in the group, and it was like these kind of light bulb moments of wow, I I need to fill my own cup. So the conversations go beyond just the I need to learn how to negotiate. I need to learn how to invest. It's also about your own personal improvement and mindset.

Claude F 15:41

That and and I think also when you're there and you come to those conclusions and everybody, I'm like, oh, it's not just me. That's where you can almost say, okay, I'm going to start doing things for myself and giving accountability to each other to help each other feel our cup.

Jennifer Kornoely 16:00

Yeah. And the accountability is huge. So when everyone was going through listing what their area that their takeaway, their action item from the call was, I wrote it down and I made a list. I'll follow up a couple weeks later and be like, hey, you know, how are you doing with you said you wanted to improve your play, you wanted to improve your boundaries. How are you doing? What have you done to do that? Because we are a community. Yes, it's a small community, but we are a community and we need to hold each other accountable. I love that.

Jess K 16:26

And I'm sure they appreciate being a part of the group, having an accountability money. I mean, Claude and I, that's one of the best benefits of a work bestie. Is I just have to say to her, like, hey, I want to get back into running. Can you start pushing me to do and just be like every morning to do that for your own? You know, it just makes all the difference in the world. So, based off of that, it sounds like you would encourage women to have those conversations with each other. Are you suggesting they should actually sit there and state like their salaries, how they negotiated, how they value themselves, that type of thing? Uh how would you even start that?

Jennifer Kornoely 17:02

It's it's weird, I know. But I think it's so important that women have a group of peers that they genuinely trust. You know, and when you have that really great group, you're not competing with each other, you're not, you know, trying to one up the next person. It changes the dynamic where you can have these conversations. I remember I got um, I was doing some freelance work, uh, doing some drone imagery. And I got called and they said, Okay, can you do this job? Yes, great. And they said, Oh, our we pay $50 an hour. And I was like, Oh, that sounds great. Because it was more than I was currently making working a corporate job. So I was thinking, that's great. And I was talking to a girlfriend of mine, she's like, Well, that's terrible. You you should have charged them $75. And I'm like, God, I didn't even know that. I didn't even think about that. And so then I started doing the research, and it turns out the market rate was $100 an hour. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. I didn't even question when someone just said, here's a little bit more than what you're currently making. And it wasn't until I had had a conversation with someone who wasn't even in this industry at all. She's a nurse, she has no idea what you know the going rate is for this stuff. And having these conversations really forced me to reevaluate my rates.

Jess K 18:16

So, Jen, that that m makes me think as an entrepreneur, you don't you wouldn't always have that level setting or understanding. So it's super important to ask others. Do you feel it's the same for those that maybe have a corporate career content creators like across the gambit, or do you think it's different?

Jennifer Kornoely 18:34

A thousand percent. I mean sometimes you don't you don't know what the market rate is. Uh I've had several jobs where it's so unique, I I can't Google it. I don't know what the market rate is. But a lot of it is as if if you're not asking for more, they're very happy to pay you less. Fine, whatever.

Jess K 18:49

Industry absolutely. And if you can't, then it is it is a little more challenging.

Claude F 18:54

It's a bit different from asking around, like to disverging your salary to to your friends. You know what I mean?

Jennifer Kornoely 19:05

No problem talking about my salary with my friends, no problem at all.

Claude F 19:09

With even the people in the same uh I mean, in industry, for example, Jess and I, we don't know what each other are making.

Jennifer Kornoely 19:17

Absolutely within the same industry. Like I've got other photographers that I'll team up with and have brainstorming. We are technically competitors, and I will absolutely openly discuss what I'm charging. Because especially like with, say, photography, it is a race to the bottom with what people are charging. Oh, I'll do your entire family session for $50. That that that's ridiculous. And if we're not having these conversations and people are charging these low prices, that becomes the standard of what people expect. I won't take a family portrait session for $50, so why should you? There's enough work to go around for everybody. Absolutely. Nobody is doing anything that unique where there is not enough work for everybody.

Claude F 19:58

What's your thoughts on that, Claude? So once you have, you know, your friend or your whatever salary, and you find out they are more than you. They have more than you. There's really nothing you can do about it because you can't really go We go, you go and say, hey, so and so is making that much and I'm not. Why?

Jess K 20:22

That's not how you would frame it, would you? I would be like the industry rates are this, uh my value and what I bring to the organization are this, this, and that. Help me see why I'm not at that level and can you help me get there? If not, I will find a place where I can.

Jennifer Kornoely 20:37

Because if that other person who's charging more is getting that money, that means that that demand is there. People are willing to pay the price.

Claude F 20:44

Yeah.

Jennifer Kornoely 20:45

What am I doing where I'm, am I not bringing the same value? Is my quality not there? Am I not talking to the right clients? Do I not understand who my ideal client is? Because not everyone is your ideal client. If you are willing to accept those underpaid jobs, why? Why, what are you doing differently where you're not demanding a higher rate? Rising tide raises all boats. So if we all charge our value.

Claude F 21:09

I mean, I I think that's great because I mean, personally I always had an issue asking for promotion. When I got the promotion asking for more, it's always such a struggle. It's so hard.

Asking For A Raise With Proof

Jess K 21:24

And I think let's talk about that, Cloud. Why is it a struggle? Like from your perspective, what are ways that women can partner together to find the tools and resources, the skills to be able to have that conversation.

Jennifer Kornoely 21:37

And that confidence. The confidence is so it is such a hurdle to get because you're so worried how you're perceived. My last corporate job, it was my one year anniversary, and we were having our yearly review. And where they were gonna give you this much more. It's usually like in the 3% range. And that's exactly what she offered. She says, Okay, we're giving you X amount more, and I'm doing the math in my head. I'm like, Okay, that's like what, three or four percent? She goes, yeah, about that. And I go, I, I, I was not researched. I hadn't brought my stats of productivity to the conversation, which I should have, but I had said, because this was in like 2021 when inflation had just skyrocketed. And I said, Well, actually, inflation in the state of Idaho is 10% right now. So anything less than 10% is actually a pay decrease. And the look on her face was pure shock. Like she had never been questioned or second guessed. And she just was, oh my God, like she had no response. And she's like, I'll have to get back to you. And a couple of days later, she came and she said, Okay, we're giving you 10%. And I was terrified. I'm thinking, I'm gonna lose my job. But they did. They came to me because they understood I was absolutely correct. Now, what I should have done was said, I have this skill, I have this certification. I am the only one who knows how to do this in your team. Um, this is the value I'm creating. These are my years of experience. I mean, I should have come with the stats to back it up to justify the 10%, which going forward is how I always approached it. But absolutely you should ask for more money. And when you do that, when you're first offered the job, that is your most valuable point of negotiation. When you, because that's that's the time to negotiate for more.

Jess K 23:18

Yeah. But it's not the only time. Cause let's be honest, you can be in a corporate role or independent too, but and all of a sudden you've taken on two other people's departments, not even just workload departments. Yep. And the salary increase didn't occur because you didn't technically get a different job title. So there are times you should be build the stats. I've now taken on three times the workload. I am now doing X this much more to support the company goals, to gain more money for the company, whatever the stats are, and then go and have those hard conversations because yes. If you don't, they're not gonna come to you on their own.

Jennifer Kornoely 23:58

Their goal is to get you to do the most amount of work for the least amount of money.

Jess K 24:01

Least amount of money.

When To Walk And Build Skills

Jennifer Kornoely 24:02

Those are very opposite to my goals. My goals are to do the least amount of work for the most amount of money. So that's why, like, you should always be advocating for yourself. You should always be keeping track of these things. You take on those new teams and those new people, great. You need to keep detailed records. Okay, on this date, you want me to take over a whole team of 12 people and you want me to do XYZ? Great. What are you offering as compensation for that? Because that has a value. They know it has a value. That's why they're not replacing it. They want to save them money.

Claude F 24:32

What happens when you push back and they just say, Well, you know what? That's the money we have. That's it. It then it's up to you to decide if you walk or if you have sex. Right. This goes back to our last time.

Jess K 24:48

Is it time to go? Does my value of how I feel about my company and how I am perceived in this company no longer align with expectations?

Jennifer Kornoely 24:57

Sometimes you do have to be willing to walk away. That's why it's so important to, even if you have a regular corporate nine to five job, you need to be building your skill set out of that job. You need to be building your entrepreneurial skill set, you need to be connecting with your competitors, you need to be building your own audience on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever your platform is. You need to be preparing because there is no corporate loyalty. There is no safety net anymore. It used to be you'd go and you'd work a place for 40 years, you'd be tired with a pension, all was great. That doesn't exist anymore. And especially nowadays, the employment market's horrible. Now more than ever, you need to be building an entrepreneurial skill set and know how to make money if the rug is suddenly pulled out from under you. Because like if your boss comes to you tomorrow and says, We're letting you go, for whatever reason, doesn't matter if it's justified or not. It is so hard to find another corporate job right now. Can you make money on your own? Jen, you did.

Jess K 25:51

You happen to have a skill that you already had in your arsenal. For those that don't, what what would you make a recommendation around? Start finding that skill.

Jennifer Kornoely 26:00

Nowadays, it's not weird anymore to make your money online. It's not weird anymore to make your money remotely or virtually or you no longer need to sit in a cubicle from nine to five. It's very normal for people to have new and unique jobs. And I really think every woman, especially ever, but everybody needs to be developing something that can be monetized if that full-time corporate job were to go away.

Jess K 26:25

Yeah. You bring up a good point from in a corporate role perspective. Even if you are somebody who doesn't have an amazing skill like photography, you can still do consulting. You can still elements of what your job was before and offer that as a capability. And if you are in a situation where, as Claude pointed out, you do find out you're making half the salary as your counterpart and they say to you, nope, we're not going to help you, then start building that now and find uh 1,000% a way to come back.

Jennifer Kornoely 26:55

Because if someone is someone's making double what you're making during the same job, they're already not valuing you. So what happens when you come to them with a bigger problem? Now, say suddenly your spouse has become ill and you're you need to ask for something bigger. I need to take two months off. Something like that. Are they gonna have your back? Probably not, if they already don't value you.

Jess K 27:15

But I think even if you don't looks like so upset right now.

Jennifer Kornoely 27:24

You don't have to always be so literal with what your skill set is. Okay, I was doing photography and it was a hobby, and I was able to monetize it into a full-time job. More than just that, you have to think outside the box. Okay, I have a creative brain. What can I do that is along those same lines, especially like AI? You don't need a photographer as much anymore. People are doing their AI headshots and they're doing even AI with real estate photography. So, what can I do that can leverage my creative skill set that's different?

Jess K 27:50

And in both cases, you still need a human touch in a lot of things. You'll always have some element, right?

Track Wins And Save Your Receipts

Jennifer Kornoely 27:56

I saw a video today that was talking about is AI replacing jobs? And they were saying AI will replace the repetitive things. AI will never replace the strategy, the decision making, the connection.

Claude F 28:09

It'll it'll re just replace the monotonous when it comes to, you know, asking for a raise or promotion, what is the homework that you have to do before?

Jennifer Kornoely 28:20

You have to know, first of all, what is your industry going rate? Are you being paid below market rate or are you already at market rate? And you need to know why you deserve it. You can't just go in at your annual review and say, I deserve a raise, even if it's my three to five percent. You need to know why you deserve it because you will have to fight for it possibly. You'll have to justify it. You know, if they're sitting there looking at you like, I don't know, we don't have it's not in the budget, blah, blah, blah. But if you can justify and say, I've increased revenue by a million dollars, I've done this, I've done that, I've maintained these clients. If you can come to them and say, these are the things I have accomplished that are above normal, it would be absolutely ridiculous to not give you what you deserve because then they know, oh, they can leave. They have value, they can leave, they can go somewhere else and they can get the money.

Claude F 29:14

So it's to show even if you know it's not in the project, it's almost important that you do that step for them to understand that you're not going to take anything.

Jennifer Kornoely 29:27

Exactly. It's setting a boundary because when you can justify this, you're perceived differently. She knows her value, she is doing the job of three people, right? You will be perceived as someone who's a step above. You know your value. Exactly. And when you know your value, others are forced to see it too. Because when you don't know your value, people will assign a value to you.

Claude F 29:54

Yeah.

Jennifer Kornoely 29:54

And that's so I think it's always important to eat have keep a track, keep record of all your accomplishments and do it on your personal computer, not your work computer. Because if you are suddenly let go, trust me, I know, you will be shut off immediately and not have access to anything. If you have done a project that is just wow, chef's kiss, you save a copy on your personal computer. You send it to your personal email, you save that PDF somewhere where corporate can't get at it. Because then say you go to work, you go to apply for a next job, whether you're currently employed and looking for something new or you've been let go. You have all these things. Oh, I have all my stats here. It's the same when you go to negotiate. You go to interview at your next position, and they're gonna ask you, what did you accomplish at your last position? And you can say, I increased revenue by 50%. I acquired 12 new clients a year. Whatever that thing is, you need to be able to show proof. So you need an accolades folder and you need a CYA folder, which is cover your ass. There will come, there will come a time when you will have to justify your role or your salary. There absolutely will come a time in everyone's career, whether it's within the same company and you just want your worth or you're looking to leave, you will have to justify why you deserve X amount of money. So it's always a good habit. I did put together a list of books that I think every woman needs to read. So they're the best three books, six different categories. I have a PDF download on the website, but it's like what you should be reading to master personal finance, what you should be reading to master investing, what you should be reading to master networking and outsourcing and all the things to help make you a well-rounded entrepreneur, or if you still want to stay in corporate, just to have a sense of I can be my best version of myself.

Claude F 31:47

Yeah.

Jennifer Kornoely 31:48

Yeah. That's amazing.

Jess K 31:51

Book club, is there any opportunities for potential work bestie communities to participate?

A Question To Challenge Underpricing

Jennifer Kornoely 31:59

Absolutely. It is a membership-based book club, so it's $15 a month, but I do have a promo code. She leads 30, and that will give you your first month free. So you can try it out, see if it's a good fit. And right now we're just starting the book, The Psychology of Money. I'm very excited because I haven't read it yet and it's been recommended over and over and over. So it'd be really fun to read it and just get everyone's take on where am I compared to where I should be when it comes to how we think about money? Because it's so easy to have just this dysfunctional mindset when it comes to the monies. Yeah. Not totally.

Jess K 32:37

That is really cool. So we started the podcast with a teaser question that we would love for you to answer. What's a good question that our work besties can ask when someone is clearly underpricing herself or minimizing what she brings to work? So think about like a me asking Claude. What would be something I could do to bring that to her attention?

Jennifer Kornoely 33:03

Why are you assigning such a low value on what you spend your time doing? Because I think it really forces you like, why am I willing to take pennies when I am knowledgeable about this thing? I know how to do something. Why am I not demanding more? Everyone is an expert in something. Everyone has a knowledge base that's unique. Charge appropriately. You're not alone when you feel like an imposter. I mean it's so easy to be like, oh, I'm the only one who doesn't feel worthy. Everybody feels this way at some time. And then as start, as soon as you start inching your way out of it and starting to feel confident about one little thing, it's easier to feel confident about the next thing and the next thing. And then slowly, it slowly starts to go away. And I think also, too, just realizing nobody's thinking about you nearly as much as you think they are. You know? Yeah, that's true. I'll be at the coffee shop and worried, like, oh, that person thinks my hair is bad. That person doesn't give a crap what I'm doing. Yeah. Nobody cares. They really don't care what you're doing.

Jess K 34:09

Jen, we don't we really want to thank you for being on. I I I thank you so much for having me. The the tying between money and confidence definitely is one of the areas I think our work bestie community does struggle with the most. Um my biggest takeaway on this is I have to just stop reading about it. I need to have conversations with my like-minded peer set and also with my daughter and start it out. Yes. Yes. And provide that movement. And so, Work Besties, we we want you to be a part of this movement. Help the women out there, especially the younger cohorts, and start integrating them at a young age so that there isn't this dispel of what women should be perceived as. They have every right to ask for those promotions, to ask for what they're worth, to be paid the exact same as their counterparts just because they're male, this should not matter.

Claude F 35:06

Yeah, yeah. And for the listeners who knows she's been underpricing, under-asking, or underestimating herself, what's one small step that you can take this week?

Jess K 35:17

All right, work besties, have a great week and keep supporting each other. Remember, whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings, or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.

Claude F 35:34

So keep lifting each other up, laughing through the chaos, and of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive, and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties!