Here’s how to get more money — and the biggest financial mistake to avoid once you’ve gotten paid.
The way women are taught to think about money — or in many cases, not think about it — is so pervasive that it used to influence Sallie Krawcheck’s wardrobe.
“My whole life has been on Wall Street, and every time I go to negotiate a salary, my neck blotches. I used to have to wear a turtleneck,” says Krawcheck, one of the most successful women to work in banking.
The reason? “We receive messages as women that we’re not that good with money, we’re not that good with math,” she explains. “It’s not true, but we internalize that these things are a little more masculine and we tend to shy away from it — even I.”
But Krawcheck has made a career out of being a master of money, with a resume that includes posts like CEO of Merrill Lynch and CFO of Citigroup. These days, she’s the CEO and co-founder of Ellevest, a financial wellness company that helps clients of all ages and economic backgrounds to get their cash in order and save for a successful future. The Ellevest mission is simple: “Get more money into the hands of women.”
We spoke to Krawcheck about how to negotiate for a new job, red flags to look for before accepting an offer, and the common money mistake you should absolutely avoid.
What’s your strategy for negotiating the best salary you can get?
First of all, always negotiate. The only time you don’t is if it’s your first job and they’re bringing in a class of 50 people. But when you’re negotiating that next job, don’t take the first offer. And have some other things that are important to you. It could be some flexibility, it could be the opportunity to take professional development classes that you’d like them to pay for, it could be that you want to get exposure to marketing while you’re there. It doesn’t always have to be money, but things that would enrich your experience.
You want to try to position it as, “The outcome we both want is for me to be at your company, productive and helping.” So it can be, “Gosh, I’ve got this other offer, and it’s paying X percent more,” or, “I was hoping to get…” It’s always that we’re solving a problem together.
Asking for things can be hard for people who may think, “I need to do the least negotiating possible to just get myself in the door.” How do you approach the emotional aspect of that?
If they’ve given you an offer, they love you. They want you there. They have told you that. And by the way, that may be the day they love you the most. Who knows? But they didn’t give you the offer because they didn’t want you, and everybody keeps something in their back pocket. So if you’re not negotiating, you’re losing out, and somebody else is going to get it.
This happened a couple of years ago at Ellevest. We had a male engineer and a woman engineer and they were at the same level, same types of jobs. We gave them the same offer. He negotiated, and she didn’t. The CTO had kept some money back, expecting a negotiation, and he came to me and said, “What should I do?” What happens 99.999 percent of the time is, “Good, we have extra money.” And of course, because we’re Ellevest, we said that just because she was socialized not to negotiate, we’re not going to hurt her. We gave her the increase as well. We’re probably the only company on the planet that would do that.
Talking about money is such a tricky subject, especially at work, but some say coworkers can help each other by being more open about their pay. What do you think?
I think it’s great — if you can. If you’re a woman, find out what the guys are making at a similar level to you, because that’s where things get pretty revealing. If you’re a person of color, find out what the white person is making at a similar job. The challenge is still social taboos against it, and companies don’t love it. They can’t stop you, but if you’re caught in the hall, you don’t get a pat on the back for it. So you want to be discreet. You want to do it with people who you trust, and you want to do it in the cone of silence.
What else should we be looking for when considering a job?
Look up. If you do not see yourself reflected in the C-suite or the executive committee, that is a huge warning signal. Maybe you can be the first Black woman to make it into senior management, but it is 2021, and if a company looks like it’s stuck in 1953, that’s sending you a strong message. So if you have choices — and not everybody does — my best advice is to look up. Then I would ask for the HR handbook so you can go through and see: Do you provide a 401k? Do you provide a match on the 401k? What is your parental leave policy? If you ask to get the handbook, then you don’t have that awkwardness of, “How many vacation days do I get?” — which everybody wants to know, but nobody really wants to ask.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten about work?
I’ll tell you the opposite, which is what we never say to women: Sometimes it is not your fault. We have so many books about how to get ahead at work, and none of them ever say, “You know what? It’s him. It’s your boss. Your boss talks a big game about diversity, but your boss has not promoted anybody but someone who looks just like him for four years.” And I don’t know how you change it. I think what you do is try to find a new boss. It’s hard for you to overcome decades of internalization of traditional gender roles with your boss. So get the heck out of there.
What is the most important thing women can do to start harnessing their financial power?
Get involved with your money. You may know that women live longer than men do. You may or may not know that when women outsource money to the man in their life, when it comes back to them, 74 percent have a negative surprise. So 98 percent of widows and divorcees agree the number 1 piece of advice they would give to other women is get involved with your money. Ninety-eight percent! You can’t get 98 percent of any group of any size to agree on anything.
The second step is begin to invest. Women lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars — for some women, millions of dollars — to their gender investing gap. But for some women, the advice could be don’t invest yet because you’ve got too much credit card debt, or don’t invest yet because you haven’t built an emergency fund. So it really is about starting where you are. But the number 1 thing is do not outsource it to anyone. No matter how much you love him or her, do not outsource the money. Do not.
Why is it so common for women to let someone else manage their money?
My hypothesis is that on the women’s side, we’ve learned, “We’re not good at it. Outsource it.” For men, what they learned is, “This is yours, you have to do it, and you better be a manly man about it.” They think they should trade GameStop and be up on Bitcoin, and they go to cocktail parties where the other guys are like, “Look at me, I made a whole bunch of money.” So you’re getting these messages that men have to carry this burden alone, which is really unfortunate for all genders.
How can Ellevest help women take control of their money?
We really want to be available to all women — I say, “from college to crypt.” So if you’re in college or a few years out, we have a membership plan that’s only $1 a month, so it pays for itself very quickly. You get a straightforward investing account, a straightforward debit card and savings, and very rich information. You can be at a workshop with 50 other women on intentional spending or relationships and money. And as your life becomes more complicated, you’ll add retirement and you’ll move up a level, or you’ll have a full-time financial advisor. So as you come in, we help direct people on where to go.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
