Okay, you picked good timing for this request, you've scheduled an appointment. Now you're face to face with your boss. What do you do? I believe you start off positive. Tell your boss. I like working here.

I like the people. I like what we're doing. I feel a sense of mission. Everyone wants employees who are happy. No one wants to hear that you're unhappy or this is awful. Or gosh, you're treating me like a horrible slave and exploiting me, no one wants to hear that.

Sorry to tell you. So start off positive stress, the positive. Talk about any accomplishments you've had since you've been there so far that you're particularly proud of talk about the organizational successes, talk about any positive feedback you've gotten from friends, family members, colleagues, other people in the industry. Talk about something positive. The next thing I want you to do is to talk about your future stress that you would like to be here that you do in fact see a future for yourself. Now I'm not asking you to lie.

And if this is an intro job, and you really don't see yourself more than two years being in this position, don't lie and say I'm going to be here for the rest of my life. Talk about the near term future, the next two years, talk about what you want to do. And here's the key, talk about how you want to do more. Talk about how you want more responsibility, how you want to add value to this organization. Now, if it's a smaller organization, you may be able to track actual revenue you bring anytime you can track revenue that you're responsible for, that the organization wouldn't have without you, you really increase your odds of getting that raise. Now, if you work for a huge, huge hundred thousand employee conglomerate or for a large government organization, you can't say well, I'm responsible for $200,000 in revenue, but do talk about anything, any metric trick you can find that shows productivity up, outputs up, things that people measure are up, and how you want to do more of that.

That's absolutely critical. You've got to establish a positive context. Here's what you've done that you like, here's what you like about the organization. Here's what you want to do in the future. Do that. And your boss is listening, you're not giving your boss an excuse to dismiss, or say, Oh, this is just a disgruntled employee or this is someone whining, because most managers don't get people talking in positive context, it will stand out, it will get their attention.

So focus on what your strengths are, what the strengths are of the organization, what you like about your job, and why you would continue to like to work here. That's your assignment right now.