How to increase your salary in the middle of a cost of living crisis

Increasing your salary during a cost of living crisis may seen totally unachievable.  Inflation is currently at 10%, food and fuel costs much more than it did even just a few months ago, and that means wages just don’t stretch as far.  With all that in mind who doesn’t want to increase their salary during a cost of living crisis?

But, is it achievable? 

In this article, we take a look at some of the things you can do that will make a real difference to your earning potential so you can have a clear roadmap on how to increase your salary in a cost of living crisis.  How long it takes will depend on you, your time, your commitment and transferrable skills. There are some moves that will be quicker than others to enhance your salary potential.

1 – Create a Plan

Creating a plan can support you in understanding what steps you need to take to achieve your goal and increase your value.  A plan helps you decide what you want your outcome to be, what you can do now and what steps you need to take to achieve your desire outcome.  It also gives you clear direction and can be highly motivating if you set reward milestones and hold regular meetings with yourself on your progress.

Make sure your plan looks at both short term and long term options.  Short term plans allow you to look at the here and now and what you can do quickly to gain that increase.  Long term plans offer you more of a chance to plan you career and where you might want to be in 5 years’ time

2 – Build your Personal Brand

Companies will be attracted to candidates who have a good reputation and profile in the Salesforce Ohana as it shows good will, and it’s also good for their own brand and customers. What can you do to share your knowledge with others in the Salesforce Ohana?

Can you write blogs, create videos, speak at events or produce a podcast?

It’s fantastic to see what other trailblazers have created. If you love sharing and helping others then build a personal brand not to bag a higher salary, but this will inevitably be the case. 

3 – Get Certified!

Certifications are key to demonstrating to a new, or an existing employer ,your level of skill and the fact that you have invested time and effort to be the best in your field.  Not to mention they are a great way to expand your knowledge of the Salesforce platform.

How to know what certifications to take? Take a view of your own resumes and look for gaps.  Is there a particular product that you keep seeing or hearing about that you have limited knowledge of?  If so, take the time to research and then take the initiative to learn and close the gap by completing the course.

Alternatively, you might already have a niche, or want to develop a niche in your career.  If that is the case then make sure you take as many certifications in that niche as you can to truly become an expert.  Experts generally find themselves in high demand, and high demand usually warrants an increase in salary.

To advance between the different job roles you are typically looking at earning 5 certifications each time to advance your knowledge and expertise. Product knowledge that comes with 5 certifications will advance your salary between 10-20k. 

As an Admin you would take a combination of Admin, App Builder, Advanced, Platform 1, Product Cloud Certs to double your salary to become a Salesforce Consultant / Junior Developer.

From a Consultant / Developer role you would complete a combination of Product Cloud Certifications and Architect Certifications, to progress towards an Architect Role and double your salary. 

For Specialist Roles, such as Marketing Cloud, you would earn the relevant credentials that relate to the products to equip you for the roles. 

If you want help getting your next certification, sign up to join our FREE Peer Study Groups.

4 – Consider Growing Your Additional Skills

Additional skills can be the deciding factor in any salary negotiations.  In a market that is candidate led, there are loads of people with a very similar set of skills and certifications.  Growing an additional skill set can be the one thing that sets you apart from your colleagues. 

Go back to your plan and review the decisions you made about your chosen career path and review what skills you may need and what would be beneficial to you in the future so that you can see your income start to move forwards.

Consider skills such as;-

• Marketing Cloud
• Pardot
• FinancialForce
• Project Management

5 – Build an Achievements Portfolio

Most line managers are generally very aware of the effort and work ethic you demonstrate but they don’t always keep up to date with the success that you have, so do endeavour to keep a track of it.  Consider the outcomes and results you have had in the work place.  If you are SF Admin and created a customisation that helped the business do better, write it down.  If you are a consultant or customer success professional that supported a client make a definite improvement in increasing engagement, write it down.

Take time to update your portfolio of case studies outlining what each project was, what was needed, what your part in the project was, and the outcome. 

If there is an opportunity to use this detail to update your Linkedin profile then make sure you do.

Your accomplishments may be the deciding factor on gaining an increase or a promotion and employers will pay attention to them.

6 – Keep up to date with Technology

Salesforce moves at a rapid pace as it continues to evolve and grow, making it a hot commodity, therefore you want to make sure you are at the forefront of technology changes.  Those at the cutting edge of new technology become a trusted expert for a new employer or for their current employer and leverage a great opportunity to promote themselves within a business as the’go to’ person.

It’s not just about knowing of changes, it’s about keeping up with trends so get out there and build relationships with the real ‘techies’ in your organisation, look and sign up for courses to understand functionality and development.

Understand a suite of commonly used Third Party Apps to improve your management and use of Salesforce and demonstrate the value they can bring to a solution. Quite often learning third party apps can be on a need to know basis, but there are many apps out there that we should be proactively seeking and using to enhance the way we manage Salesforce products and create solutions. Demonstrating your experience and knowledge of Third Party Apps, particularly ones that a potential client/employer is using, will definitely add weight to your salary.

Make sure you don’t just know about technology changes, but you understand them and can put them into practice.

If you plan well, invest in your future, ensure that you understand your worth and keep abreast of changes you will stand out from the crowd.  In an economy where the cost of living is increasing it is important to set out your stall, so that when salary negotiations come to the fore you are best armed to approach the conversation with confidence and evidence of your worth.

If you are looking to find your next Salesforce role, come and talk to Supermums Recruitment.