Speaker 1: Hey va, fam, we are all. We are featuring our
Speaker 1: favorite money and career expert, Lynette Califani Cox. Y'all might
Speaker 1: know her as the money Coach, but we know her
Speaker 1: as our financial fairy god mama. So Lynette went from
Speaker 1: having a career as a journalist to an entrepreneur who
Speaker 1: commands what five figure speaking fees. She's authored maybe at
Speaker 1: this point, more than a dozen books, as well as
Speaker 1: crafting financial courses for consumers and businesses. Y'all can find
Speaker 1: Lynette at Askthemoneycoach dot com. And on today's show, she's
Speaker 1: going to share her expert advice on how to negotiate
Speaker 1: on the job. Hope you guys enjoy.
Speaker 2: Lynette Calfoni Cox. She was our very first interview and
Speaker 2: she's bad. So we're super excited because let's kind of
Speaker 2: talk about all things negotiating. We're also gonna squeeze some
Speaker 2: college tips and info because Lynnette got her daughter a
Speaker 2: help to her daughter get not only a free ride,
Speaker 2: but tons of money for college. So if you want
Speaker 2: to be like that, you know, get on board. Take
Speaker 2: a list of Jamal. You're listening, all right, So Jamal
Speaker 2: is who we call our We have a few handful
Speaker 2: of mail listeners and that's what we saw them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they tune out for the girls stuff but back in.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I think that this topic And thank
Speaker 3: you Lynette for joining us again. You are a fave.
Speaker 3: So this is a topic I'll never get tired of
Speaker 3: talking about. And I always like to get your perspective,
Speaker 3: like each person we talk to their perspective on this,
Speaker 3: because we still get a lot of questions about, you know,
Speaker 3: what are some strategies, How should I be asking for
Speaker 3: more at work? What do I do if I feel
Speaker 3: stuck at work and I don't feel like I'm getting
Speaker 3: paid enough and the you know, opportunities for.
Speaker 1: Growth just aren't there.
Speaker 3: And I wonder if you maybe it could start off
Speaker 3: by talking a little bit about sometimes early in your career,
Speaker 3: even recently, when you feel like you either have missed
Speaker 3: an opportunity to negotiate or took advantage of one, and
Speaker 3: like what you learn from that.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, over the course of my career, I've been
Speaker 2: super lucky in the sense that I don't even know
Speaker 2: how or like why I chose to like negotiate so
Speaker 2: early in my career, because honestly, I don't ever remember
Speaker 2: my mom telling me. I don't remember any female mentors
Speaker 2: or older women telling me to negotiate. I have five sisters,
Speaker 2: three of them are older than I am, but honestly,
Speaker 2: I don't remember them telling me to negotiate early in
Speaker 2: my career.
Speaker 4: I just kind of took it upon myself to do it.
Speaker 2: And I am so enormously grateful that I did, because
Speaker 2: it really has been kind of one of those benchmark
Speaker 2: areas in terms of my own financial life, not just
Speaker 2: as an employee, but even now as an entrepreneur. And
Speaker 2: so there have been times when I have not negotiated,
Speaker 2: and it's usually when I get an offer that's like excellent,
Speaker 2: sort of write out the box, and I'm like, I
Speaker 2: don't be greedy girl.
Speaker 3: You know, but how do you know when it's good enough? Someone? Yeah,
Speaker 3: one of my younger cousins had asked me that, She's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm really excited, but I don't know
Speaker 3: if it should I just negotiate because everyone tells me to,
Speaker 3: or how do I know if it's good enough?
Speaker 2: See, that's a great question, and you really should know
Speaker 2: quote unquote what's good enough for you. So I'll give
Speaker 2: you a case in points and you asked about my
Speaker 2: early professional career in my history.
Speaker 4: Then the reason I.
Speaker 2: Say you should know is you should know, like what
Speaker 2: amount of money would make you happy, and what amount
Speaker 2: of money is commensurate with the skills and the background
Speaker 2: and the value.
Speaker 4: That you're going to bring to an organization.
Speaker 2: So, for example, when I got out of grad school
Speaker 2: at USC in Los Angeles, it was nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: and I had gotten married very young, and then.
Speaker 4: I moved to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: My ex was in graduate school, and so I was
Speaker 2: working not one, but two jobs.
Speaker 4: So I worked at the Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Inquirer as a correspondent by day, and I worked at
Speaker 2: Fox at ten o'clock news by night. And I was
Speaker 2: a writer and an assistant producer at Fox. So for
Speaker 2: both of my jobs, literally I was, you know, working
Speaker 2: myself to the bone. I would be at the agey
Speaker 2: as we called it for you know, from about nine
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning to about five thirty almost six,
Speaker 2: and then I would race like a mad woman cross
Speaker 2: the bridge and come back in because I worked in
Speaker 2: South Jersey in the Cherry hillbureau for the Enquirer, and
Speaker 2: then I would rush to come back over to downtown
Speaker 2: Philly area, and then I would go to my job
Speaker 2: at the ten o'clock News, and I would get there
Speaker 2: about six thirty ish and be there until eleven till
Speaker 2: the show ended. Long story short, when I changed and
Speaker 2: left those two jobs to go work for Dow Jones.
Speaker 2: Dow Jones, you know, the parent company at Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2: The job offer that I got from Dow Jones was
Speaker 2: more than I was making for both of those previous
Speaker 2: two jobs put together, but I still negotiated for more.
Speaker 4: So I knew at the time that.
Speaker 2: Not only was I going to have one heck of
Speaker 2: a commute, because I was commuting on Amtrak from Philadelphia
Speaker 2: from thirtieth Street Penn Station to New.
Speaker 4: York Now to go to.
Speaker 2: The World Financial Center, which is where the headquarters for
Speaker 2: Dow Jones was. I knew that was going to be
Speaker 2: two hours, you know, door to door commute each way.
Speaker 2: I knew I was going to have like a four
Speaker 2: hundred or something dollars round trip Amtrak ticket and everything.
Speaker 2: But I also knew, and again I don't even know
Speaker 2: how I knew this, but I knew that it was
Speaker 2: incumbent upon me to show my prospective employer what great
Speaker 2: things I was going to do for Dow Jones and
Speaker 2: how I was going to deliver value for them, and
Speaker 2: why I was worth X amount. And at the time
Speaker 2: it might have been like, you know, forty eight thousand
Speaker 2: or fifty thousand. I can't remember exactly what it was,
Speaker 2: to be honest with you, but it was more for
Speaker 2: sure that I was making at those two jobs combined.
Speaker 2: I want to say it was in the high forties
Speaker 2: or something like that. And another thing that dawned on
Speaker 2: me was that it's not the employer's you know, responsibility
Speaker 2: or even concern, frankly, to worry about the fact that
Speaker 2: I had a four hour commute, you know, to and
Speaker 2: from when you took two hours each way, or that
Speaker 2: my Amtrak ticket was you know, four hundred and something dollars.
Speaker 2: At the time, I negotiated from a position of strength,
Speaker 2: not from a position of need or greed. And I
Speaker 2: think that's one of the biggest mistakes that people make
Speaker 2: when they say, well, I don't know if this is
Speaker 2: a good amount, how much should I ask for, et cetera.
Speaker 2: You have to think about the value that you're going
Speaker 2: to give to a company and what is that worth,
Speaker 2: and also what is the dollar amount that you'd be
Speaker 2: happy with. So somebody can tell you, oh, you should
Speaker 2: negotiate for more. But if you say, I'm looking for
Speaker 2: a job and you know, to get this new position, Wow,
Speaker 2: if they made me an offer of you know, seventy
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars a year, woohoo, I'd be jumping through
Speaker 2: the you know, jumping up and.
Speaker 4: Down for joy.
Speaker 2: And if they come through with, say an eighty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars offer, and you're like, who, I'm over the moon.
Speaker 4: Do you need to negotiate? No, you don't need to.
Speaker 2: Obviously you'd be happy or satisfied. Perhaps you might want
Speaker 2: the experience of negotiating and that can actually be helpful
Speaker 2: and beneficial, and yeah, you might actually get more. But
Speaker 2: it's not a situation where it's a it's a matter
Speaker 2: that has to be forced, where you wouldn't be happy
Speaker 2: and truly incentivized and motivated to do a very very
Speaker 2: good job.
Speaker 4: So go ahead.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry it Mandy.
Speaker 1: Nope, actually, Tiff, did you move locations?
Speaker 3: No, I'm in the same space, okay, socially echoway, but yeah,
Speaker 3: go ahead.
Speaker 2: No. I was just gonna say, well, how do you
Speaker 2: so my little sister just called me the other day.
Speaker 2: She had a job interview, and it was strange in
Speaker 2: that her employer is based in London, and so they
Speaker 2: were asking, you know, they want basically heard I guess,
Speaker 2: to pay her health insurance out of pocket, but they
Speaker 2: wanted to include that into her income. So she was
Speaker 2: asking me like, well, how do I know you know,
Speaker 2: health insurance as well as her retirement package. So she
Speaker 2: was asking about how do I negotiate that part of
Speaker 2: my salary because you know, she never had to do
Speaker 2: that before because usually it comes with the company figuring.
Speaker 4: Out the dollar amount.
Speaker 2: So what is something that somebody that she can I mean,
Speaker 2: she's already since I told her to go to like
Speaker 2: policy Genius to see how much insurance would cost that
Speaker 2: she was going to be paying out of pocket. But like,
Speaker 2: what are some tips that someone who has to figure out, Okay,
Speaker 2: this company's not giving me health insurance or a retirement package,
Speaker 2: how can you incorporate that into negotiating for how much
Speaker 2: you want as far as your salary? So great question,
Speaker 2: and it's definitely an atypical situation tip that your sister
Speaker 2: is dealing with.
Speaker 4: Usually it's the other way around.
Speaker 2: Usually it's a company trying to perhaps give up a
Speaker 2: lower cash portion of the compensation, and they're trying to say,
Speaker 2: but look at all these other benefits and perks. You know,
Speaker 2: we're going to take care of your health insurance, We're
Speaker 2: going to give you retirement benefits, or profit sharing or
Speaker 2: stock options or whatever. So what you advise her to
Speaker 2: do is actually was smart counsel, which is you need
Speaker 2: to understand exactly how much you would have to pay
Speaker 2: independently on your own for those types of things in general,
Speaker 2: though regardless of which way it goes, if you have
Speaker 2: to pay it or if the employer is covering those
Speaker 2: things for you. One of the things that I teach people,
Speaker 2: and you guys know that, I have a course now
Speaker 2: called The Art of Negotiating for Women on Money Coach University.
Speaker 2: I talk about valuing other variables. And it's so important
Speaker 2: to do this because for the most part, when you
Speaker 2: think about your pay, it's not just about the cash
Speaker 2: dollars that the employer is going to give to you,
Speaker 2: you know, every two weeks or whatever. All of those
Speaker 2: other variables, all of those other benefits, those are real
Speaker 2: life dollars, because otherwise it would be out.
Speaker 4: Of pocket costs for you.
Speaker 2: So you need to say how much holiday pay am
Speaker 2: I going to get? How much extra or anticipated vacation
Speaker 2: pay will this employer be providing me? And how much
Speaker 2: negotiating room is there for that. It's always negotiable. Everything
Speaker 2: is negotiable. Will they be willing to pay off my
Speaker 2: student loans, for example, all or a portion of the
Speaker 2: student loans?
Speaker 4: Will they provide me with flexible work schedules? You know,
Speaker 4: what is that worth to me?
Speaker 2: When I was leaving, when I was at the tail
Speaker 2: end of my employment as a Wall Street Journal reporter
Speaker 2: for CNBC, one of the things that I negotiated at
Speaker 2: the end of my contract there, I had a very
Speaker 2: nice six figure salary, but I was in the process
Speaker 2: of writing my first book, and long story short, we
Speaker 2: were at an impass, and I had an agent who
Speaker 2: was negotiating for me, a very high profile TV and
Speaker 2: book agent, a guy named Bob Barnett. But long story short,
Speaker 2: we were at an impass, and at that point I
Speaker 2: negotiated directly with a woman who was one of the.
Speaker 4: Key people there.
Speaker 2: And in the end it kind of all fell apart
Speaker 2: and there was, you know, some frankly bad faith negotiations
Speaker 2: that took place, not on the part of CNBC management
Speaker 2: and not on you know, Wall Street journal Folks. You
Speaker 2: know this person got fired and whole bunch of other stuff,
Speaker 2: as did I, you know, me, and two hundred other people.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying all that to say that what I
Speaker 2: negotiated was when we got to an impasse and she
Speaker 2: told me, this is as high as I can possibly go,
Speaker 2: I said, okay, I'd be willing to accept that salary
Speaker 2: if I get that salary and I'm able to work
Speaker 2: four days a week instead of five days a week,
Speaker 2: and having that flexible schedule was beneficial to me. It
Speaker 2: basically meant I was working eighty percent of the time
Speaker 2: instead of one hundred percent of the time, but I
Speaker 2: still got the same level of pay, and I used
Speaker 2: that extra Friday off each week to write my first book,
Speaker 2: invest Success. So you have to be able to quantify,
Speaker 2: and you can do it through a variety of means.
Speaker 2: But you should know, for something like that flexible work schedule,
Speaker 2: what would it be worth to you? Only you can
Speaker 2: answer that question. You don't need to go on a
Speaker 2: website or to you know, look up something on Google
Speaker 2: or whatever. You know, what that is sort of worth
Speaker 2: to you from a quality of life standpoint or from
Speaker 2: an aspirational standpoint if it frees you up to do
Speaker 2: something else, right.
Speaker 3: I have a question, Lynnette, So this is and you
Speaker 3: talked about asking for a semi part time schedule, a
Speaker 3: day off a week to work on your book. Do
Speaker 3: you feel like that is maybe treated differently than one So,
Speaker 3: for example, let's say a new mother may not get
Speaker 3: very much maternity leave at her office. Do you think
Speaker 3: it's looked at differently if a worker a woman would
Speaker 3: want to take off or ask for a part time
Speaker 3: schedule to spend time with her a newborn or with
Speaker 3: her child. And do you suggest that you know, new
Speaker 3: moms ask for that, especially if they don't get a
Speaker 3: very generous which many many women don't get a very
Speaker 3: generous maternity leave schedule.
Speaker 2: The reality is there there are gender biases in the workforce.
Speaker 2: And yes, you know, I would be less than honest
Speaker 2: if I said that I didn't think many employers frankly
Speaker 2: dependent upon the industry, dependent upon the line of work
Speaker 2: that the woman was doing. If I didn't say that,
Speaker 2: many employers would look kind of a skance at that
Speaker 2: or see that in potentially a negative light. You have
Speaker 2: to think about it in a bigger context, however, because
Speaker 2: not everybody, of course, you know, many of us are
Speaker 2: going to have kids, and I've had three kids, and
Speaker 2: many people will go through a phase where you're out
Speaker 2: of the workforce for X amount of time. Again, I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what I negotiated during my maternity leave and elsewhere.
Speaker 4: It was great.
Speaker 2: I got an office and built in my house twice,
Speaker 2: not once, but twice when I had my two kids
Speaker 2: when I was in corporate America, So it actually worked
Speaker 2: out for me. But some employers will look at what
Speaker 2: is the reason that you're asking for a flexible schedule.
Speaker 2: For example, if you want to do a sabbatical, if
Speaker 2: you want to take time off to travel or do research,
Speaker 2: if you want to go do a graduate program or
Speaker 2: take part time for school, if you want to write
Speaker 2: a book, if you want to do something quote unquote professional,
Speaker 2: or something that's along the line of career or perhaps
Speaker 2: academic development. Chances are they're going to look at that
Speaker 2: in a certain light, which is going to likely be
Speaker 2: viewed differently than taking care of your personal needs, you know,
Speaker 2: tending to your family, your kid, that kind of thing. Now,
Speaker 2: you and I we all know that a woman or
Speaker 2: a man who is not distracted at work, who feels focused,
Speaker 2: and who has flex time, et cetera, is probably going
Speaker 2: to be actually a better employee, right because they're going
Speaker 2: to be less stressed about it, They're going to have
Speaker 2: more work life balance, and they won't have the same
Speaker 2: stress around those issues. But you know, think about a
Speaker 2: woman who's you know, on the sort of on the
Speaker 2: career track to become a partner in a law firm.
Speaker 4: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: Sure I can see her being you know, put on
Speaker 2: quote unquote the Mammi track and not being viewed as
Speaker 2: viable a candidate for promotion, et cetera. If she flat
Speaker 2: out said, listen, I want to take time off because
Speaker 2: I want to go, you know, with my kids.
Speaker 4: I think a.
Speaker 2: Better strategy is to come at an employer by explaining
Speaker 2: how a flex schedule or a co working schedule with
Speaker 2: you and another person who might be you know, the
Speaker 2: two of you might each do twenty hours a week
Speaker 2: or something to that effect, how that would benefit the
Speaker 2: employer period.
Speaker 4: End of story.
Speaker 2: Again, my initial advice is that people go to employers
Speaker 2: with the wrong approach or with the wrong messaging. So
Speaker 2: that sounds like a personal need to me. You know,
Speaker 2: I have a baby, and I want to spend extra
Speaker 2: quote unquote time with my baby. I took this six
Speaker 2: weeks maternity, three weeks, eight weeks, whatever it was you took. Oh,
Speaker 2: but now I want to spend extra quote unquote.
Speaker 4: Time with a baby.
Speaker 2: That's not the right approach because again, that's arguing from
Speaker 2: a standpoint of need, or sometimes people argue from a
Speaker 2: point of greed even and not from a position of strength.
Speaker 4: If you can show your employer, if.
Speaker 2: You can demonstrate to them how you are going to
Speaker 2: be just as productive during your twenty to twenty five hours,
Speaker 2: or how.
Speaker 4: You will be.
Speaker 2: Still effective in your job, or how you will actually
Speaker 2: impact their bottom line, whether that's revenues or profits, or
Speaker 2: ability to engage with and retain clients, whether it's achieving
Speaker 2: some cost savings or efficiencies, whether it's in the operation side, whatever,
Speaker 2: and you can and should be able to demonstrate that.
Speaker 2: So part of what I like to tell people about
Speaker 2: is we've all heard this expression about oh, you know,
Speaker 2: know your worth, you know and all of that. Well,
Speaker 2: it's not important to just know your worth. It's important
Speaker 2: to show your worth, to demonstrate to literally give them
Speaker 2: a bottom line, give them some numbers, because that's what
Speaker 2: employers understand. They understand, Oh, she will still have x
Speaker 2: number of customers served. She will be just as effective
Speaker 2: on the sales or distribution or the marketing side, or
Speaker 2: you know, her efforts will help us to curb these
Speaker 2: legal costs or you know that kind of thing. You
Speaker 2: have to be able to document and show to an
Speaker 2: employer how it is that you're still helping the bottom
Speaker 2: line and indeed improving it.
Speaker 4: That's great advice.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so I'm going to ask for the entrepreneur
Speaker 2: side because you know, I know that you've answered some
Speaker 2: great questions.
Speaker 4: For when you have a job.
Speaker 2: So say you're an entrepreneur, and I you know, I
Speaker 2: know I've asked you this personally. You've guided me so well.
Speaker 2: When you're negotiating, you know, like a speaking engagement or
Speaker 2: a contract or, and you're not quite sure because you know,
Speaker 2: a speaking engagement can run anywhere from you get five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars, some people get fifty thousand dollars, and how
Speaker 2: do you know you know what your cutoff is?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: You know, well, I'm at a point now I'm not
Speaker 2: going to take a less than this, but I probably
Speaker 2: should not expect fifty thousand dollars? Like, how how do
Speaker 2: you navigate?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: So this is someone who's not brand new to speaking,
Speaker 2: but they're also not a super season veteran. Most people
Speaker 2: fall somewhere in the middle. How do you start to decide?
Speaker 2: You know, like, you know, how much is how much
Speaker 2: to expect and when? Because There's been times when people
Speaker 2: have said yes so quickly and I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 2: I not lay exactly, maybe you know thousands of dollars more,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, how am I supposed to know that?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: So how do you figure that out? So great question, Tiffany.
Speaker 2: I think the way that I've navigated this challenge over
Speaker 2: the course of my career and especially the last fifteen
Speaker 2: years as an entrepreneur is I set my rates accordingly,
Speaker 2: first and foremost based on the value that I bring
Speaker 2: to an organization and what I would be happy to
Speaker 2: be paid to get for a speaking engagement or for
Speaker 2: other types of client work that I do. So for me,
Speaker 2: the first question is one of.
Speaker 4: Value.
Speaker 2: The second thing is around benchmarking. So yes, I mean
Speaker 2: you do want to have competitive pricing right, So that
Speaker 2: means that you do have to kind of know the
Speaker 2: going range. And as you said, somebody might be starting out,
Speaker 2: they might be like, great, if I get five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars one thousand dollars for a speaking.
Speaker 4: Gig, I'm great, I'm good. I'm real happy with that.
Speaker 2: My case, I think a third point of reference is instructive.
Speaker 2: It's definitely helped me, and that's to talk about this stuff.
Speaker 4: That's to be candid and honest.
Speaker 2: So, for example, I pride myself on pricing integrity, and
Speaker 2: that's what I call it in the sense that any
Speaker 2: client who calls me up, they're going to get the
Speaker 2: same price. It can be Walmart or Prudential or you know,
Speaker 2: Capital One or anybody else I'm gonna tell Or it
Speaker 2: can be Joe's Autobody down the street, or it can
Speaker 2: be a local nonprofit or a national nonprofit or a
Speaker 2: regional I'm going to tell them.
Speaker 4: All the same price.
Speaker 2: Now, do I have pricing flexibility, Yes, Will I be
Speaker 2: willing to negotiate, absolutely, But in general, for me, I
Speaker 2: set my price is according to the value where I
Speaker 2: think I am in the competitive landscape, and the fact
Speaker 2: that I do want to speak. I'm I want to
Speaker 2: be active and out there speaking, and I like to
Speaker 2: be out there active speaking and based on me sort
Speaker 2: of knowing kind of you know, going rates. So I'm
Speaker 2: very upfront and telling companies and even my peers like
Speaker 2: you guys, here's my rate. This is not a hypothetical,
Speaker 2: this is the truth. My rate is twelve five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars for a corporate speaking engagement. And my clients know
Speaker 2: that they have me. So if they want me to
Speaker 2: do a keynote address or a workshop or seminar.
Speaker 4: I don't parachute in and out.
Speaker 2: I try to stay and be social and sign books
Speaker 2: and do meet and greets and you know that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. For nonprofits, I discount my pricing by fifty percent,
Speaker 2: So my price to nonprofits is sixty two fifty. I
Speaker 2: priced it that way knowing that many nonprofits frankly will.
Speaker 4: Not have the budget.
Speaker 2: However, they will have sponsorship, a corporate backer, or I
Speaker 2: will have a corporate sponsor that's willing to come to
Speaker 2: the table. And I also know that there's flexibility, which
Speaker 2: is one of the great things as an entrepreneur. You
Speaker 2: can package certain things so somebody might say, okay, but
Speaker 2: if we bought books also, would you be willing to
Speaker 2: come down a little on your speaking fees? Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 2: I will. If it's a local engagement, will I accept
Speaker 2: less as opposed to me going and flying, you know,
Speaker 2: and taking two days away, Yes I will. So we
Speaker 2: definitely indicate flexibility in our pricing. But I'll tell you,
Speaker 2: I'll give you a case in point. Toyota for example.
Speaker 2: So I've done some work with Toyota and they support
Speaker 2: a number of nonprofit efforts. So I did some work.
Speaker 4: With them about a month or a month or two
Speaker 4: ago with a nonprofit.
Speaker 2: I said, Toyota itself was the entity that came to
Speaker 2: me and I and they said, oh, we're sponsoring this nonprofit.
Speaker 2: And I said, I tell you what, I know you're
Speaker 2: supporting this non I typically charged twelve five for corporate
Speaker 2: speaking engagements. I know you're doing this for the nonprofit.
Speaker 2: I'm going to charge you my nonprofit rate sixty two
Speaker 2: to fifty. They said, no problem, they paid the sixty
Speaker 2: two to fifty. Great client, and you know it was,
Speaker 2: it was great. They came back to me recently and
Speaker 2: they said, we have something else we want to do
Speaker 2: in October, and here's the here's the event, and at
Speaker 2: the event, it is something out of state. You know,
Speaker 2: here's the event, and we want you to do two workshops,
Speaker 2: and we want you to do this and that. Right,
Speaker 2: So I said, not a problem. It is something that
Speaker 2: they're sponsoring also for a national, a major nonprofit. I
Speaker 2: quoted them my normal. I said, I can give you this.
Speaker 2: I can. I can do the two workshops for this day.
Speaker 2: I'll be out of state, and you cover the travel
Speaker 2: and all that. And they also asked about books, because
Speaker 2: of one of the presentations I'm doing is for adults
Speaker 2: and another one is for children. So we gave them
Speaker 2: just a straight quote, said here the rate is twelve
Speaker 2: five and here for these books.
Speaker 4: Here's another price.
Speaker 2: And it was like, I don't know, twenty five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars for books for here and another twenty five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars or so for books for the for the kids
Speaker 2: books and they just said yes. So now was I
Speaker 2: did I say, oh, darn, I should have asked some more.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: I was extremely happy to, you know, to lock that
Speaker 2: in and I'm very happy with that pricing. I'll do
Speaker 2: that all day long, you know, I'll be on the
Speaker 2: road once a week, you know, but so so for me.
Speaker 4: I also know that.
Speaker 2: Companies appreciate when you not only deliver value, but when
Speaker 2: you are sensitive to their budget. But at the same
Speaker 2: time you're giving them so much out you know that
Speaker 2: they probably wouldn't get elsewhere. So for me as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: almost all of my clients are long term clients. They
Speaker 2: I mean, they come back again in a and again,
Speaker 2: especially in this problem. This may surprise you, Tiff, especially
Speaker 2: when I say no, wow, okay. So so part of
Speaker 2: the issue for us as entrepreneurs we think that in
Speaker 2: a no isn't for me?
Speaker 4: A no might be.
Speaker 2: It could be for a whole host of reasons. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it could because there's a conflict of interest. I have
Speaker 2: another client in the space or category. Sometimes it could
Speaker 2: be it's not exactly the right fit. Sometimes I could
Speaker 2: be a timing question. Sometimes I could be booked already traveling.
Speaker 2: Obviously on occasion, we have a differensive opinion on money
Speaker 2: and I'm saying, you know, this is the price that
Speaker 2: I'm looking for, and they're saying, oh, here's where we are.
Speaker 2: And if we can't have a meeting as of mine
Speaker 2: or some sort of you know, in the middle, it's like,
Speaker 2: no harm, no foul.
Speaker 4: You know, we'll get together when the time is right.
Speaker 2: And you know, honestly, Earl and I we have a
Speaker 2: we have an internal a saying we say pay now
Speaker 2: or pay later. Either way you're done, I mean, and honestly,
Speaker 2: I almost every single client comes back, So.
Speaker 4: I you know, you don't burn bridges.
Speaker 2: You don't you know, pull a Diva routine and go
Speaker 2: off or anything like that, obviously, but it's it's you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's it's not the right timing or they don't
Speaker 2: have it in the budget. And if and if you say,
Speaker 2: I can't really see my way clear to perform these
Speaker 2: services or to do that for ex budget, if it's
Speaker 2: you know, beneath the number that's acceptable to you, then
Speaker 2: I don't think you should do it because there's a
Speaker 2: huge opportunity costs.
Speaker 4: There's always opportunity costs.
Speaker 2: That deal that you say yes to, you know, for
Speaker 2: half your rate or whatever the whatever you know rate
Speaker 2: that would have been satisfactory to you, that's when you're
Speaker 2: gonna get another client calling for something.
Speaker 4: That same time, and you're gonna be like, oh darn,
Speaker 4: you know, and.
Speaker 2: Obviously you never want to break an engagement if you
Speaker 2: you know, kind of sign on the diet line there.
Speaker 4: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I hope that helps somewhat though, to think about those
Speaker 2: for who are entrepreneurs, who are are are looking at,
Speaker 2: you know, ways to negotiate. Again, I always negotiate from
Speaker 2: a position of strength and I and it's not a
Speaker 2: take it or leave it style.
Speaker 4: It's not that.
Speaker 2: That's not what I mean by a position of strength.
Speaker 2: I mean with a documented, proven track record. Okay, I
Speaker 2: mean by showing my clients here, this is what you
Speaker 2: can expect if you work with me. So you know,
Speaker 2: we have everything from case studies literally that we show
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh wow, you know so they're like,
Speaker 2: you can do this with us.
Speaker 4: Yes, So it's almost.
Speaker 2: Like prepackaged for them to give them a heightened sense
Speaker 2: of security and a knowledge around what to expect. Because
Speaker 2: I really I like to manage expectations properly and then
Speaker 2: I like to exceed those expectations. So that's whether I'm
Speaker 2: doing a speaking engagement or spokesperson work, or I'm writing
Speaker 2: content or doing some videos for somebody or whatever. Now,
Speaker 2: thank you for that, because honestly, it provides a loall
Speaker 2: you always provide me with a lot of clarity when
Speaker 2: it comes to you know what to ask for and
Speaker 2: you know what I deserve. It's hard sometimes because you
Speaker 2: don't even know. Sometimes I don't even know what I deserve,
Speaker 2: you know, And sometimes I feel like I overshoot, and
Speaker 2: then sometimes I know I undershoot.
Speaker 4: You're like, where do I land?
Speaker 2: And it'll be crazy because you know, someone will come
Speaker 2: to me one day and say, have got five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars honorarium, and I'm like what, And then the next
Speaker 2: day a client will say, I have ten thousand dollars
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 4: So it's just weird.
Speaker 2: You're like, why am I still getting offers of five hundred?
Speaker 2: Not that say ten thousand happens often, but when it does,
Speaker 2: You're like, it's just where I should be now. So
Speaker 2: it's definitely for entrepreneurs, it's definitely not an easy road.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you one other thing, Tiffany, And I
Speaker 2: kid you not. You know, I give everybody the same advice,
Speaker 2: and you know, people take it for what it's worth,
Speaker 2: or use it and don't use it, whichever I can
Speaker 2: tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt, it's almost
Speaker 2: like consider it like consider this my boyfriend rule. Okay,
Speaker 2: how you allow yourself to be treated, it's exactly how
Speaker 2: you'll get treated. So if you with corporate clients, if
Speaker 2: you sort of say this is my price, this is
Speaker 2: my expectation, and you kind of stand firm on your pricing,
Speaker 2: not to say that you won't ever be flexible on
Speaker 2: your pricing, but if you know for sure I'm not
Speaker 2: just I'm just not doing a five hundred dollars speaking gigs.
Speaker 2: And for me, I know I'm not I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: do no five hundred dollars speaking gigs. I can say
Speaker 2: that unequivocally it's gonna take a couple thousand dollars to
Speaker 2: get me out the door.
Speaker 4: Period.
Speaker 2: However, I what but what I will do is I
Speaker 2: will try to over deliver or be flexible for for
Speaker 2: for some things, especially if I say, huh, I see
Speaker 2: some great opportunity here, I see some uh potential upsells
Speaker 2: or some some some you know, some other ways to
Speaker 2: to kind of make this work. I had a a
Speaker 2: nonprofit client for for discretion, for the for the client,
Speaker 2: I'm not I won't reveal who the client is, but
Speaker 2: for this purpose, but a nonprofit client recently, I went
Speaker 2: to New York, which is you know, forty minute drive.
Speaker 2: I just you know, left my house in New Jersey
Speaker 2: to New York. It was it's a nonprofit I I
Speaker 2: was paid four thousand dollars to do basically an employee
Speaker 2: event and great organization and they've already said okay, when
Speaker 2: can we have you back?
Speaker 4: You know, And.
Speaker 2: Because it's a national organization and they have interest in
Speaker 2: other things digital financial education for their employees, I saw
Speaker 2: a bigger opportunity there. So again, sometimes you get you know,
Speaker 2: you might be a little more flexible to think about
Speaker 2: you do want to think about long term, so that
Speaker 2: that matters a lot too, I think. But for the
Speaker 2: most part, if you just have sort of a rate sheet,
Speaker 2: or if you have a set price and you say here,
Speaker 2: here's the price, you know, what happens is the people
Speaker 2: who can't, who can't play in your sphere, who aren't
Speaker 2: ready and who don't have the budget, they go away
Speaker 2: and believe it or not, word gets around, and that's
Speaker 2: a good things.
Speaker 4: You want word to get around.
Speaker 2: So in the African American community, in the nonprofit space,
Speaker 2: in the college market, in the government market, in different arenas,
Speaker 2: and some women owned sort of spaces for a time.
Speaker 2: You know, some people were like, oh, you know, don't
Speaker 2: reach out to Lynette because you know she might be
Speaker 2: ex price.
Speaker 4: And it's not.
Speaker 2: That I'm going to say no, like no, I'm you know,
Speaker 2: oh you're beneath me. I can't come on and do
Speaker 2: something with you.
Speaker 4: Absolutely not. It's the opposite.
Speaker 2: It's me saying, let's make this a bang up you know,
Speaker 2: presentation and event for your constituents, your employees, your customers,
Speaker 2: your prospects, whatever, right, and here are my ideas. This
Speaker 2: is what I can bring to the table, and here's
Speaker 2: the price for that. This is what this is going
Speaker 2: to get you. Sometimes they are like, great, let's do it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they say, oh, this is what our budget can accommodate,
Speaker 2: and we negotiate a little bit and it, you know,
Speaker 2: works out.
Speaker 4: Other times it's like Nope, we just don't have that
Speaker 4: at all.
Speaker 2: And if it's a platform or an organization that we think, huh,
Speaker 2: we could have developed something here, I may go to
Speaker 2: one of my corporate partners or to another third party
Speaker 2: to try to make a three way deal happen.
Speaker 4: And those are also.
Speaker 2: Lucrative and creative opportunities, so it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: a know, a hard no. I always say that a
Speaker 2: no is sort of just not yet, especially when you
Speaker 2: when you're negotiating, but you know, kind of setting a
Speaker 2: benchmark or like just an absolute minimum, Like really, I'm
Speaker 2: not coming out the door for this, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: you know, and just knowing at least internally what that
Speaker 2: number is for you.
Speaker 4: It really is important.
Speaker 2: Because you can just put all the other stuff. You
Speaker 2: can just like let that stuff go away or redirected,
Speaker 2: or or help educate your clients too, to say, you know,
Speaker 2: here's where my pricing is X, because I feel like,
Speaker 2: like I know in the industry for personal finance experts,
Speaker 2: what I do, Like, I know that say a gene
Speaker 2: Chatsky is going to charge more than me. I know
Speaker 2: as Susie Orman definitely is going to charge more than me.
Speaker 2: So but then I know that my pricing is going
Speaker 2: to be more than many many, many other people who
Speaker 2: aren't at you know, at their their level, right. But
Speaker 2: for me, twelve five is perfectly comfortable. I'm just you know,
Speaker 2: it's I don't feel that it's over or underpriced. I
Speaker 2: feel that it's it's it's right about right for me.
Speaker 3: I think that's such a great piece of advice for anyone,
Speaker 3: whether you're an entrepreneur or negotiating a salary in the
Speaker 3: corporate world, because I I have certainly felt like people
Speaker 3: walk into a negotiation and have no idea what even
Speaker 3: to ask for. They just feel like, I got to negotiate,
Speaker 3: and I want a lot of money, but I don't
Speaker 3: know what the number is. And if you have to,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's as simple as like, what does it
Speaker 3: cost you to live? And what will it cost you
Speaker 3: to be you know, happy? And I think you should
Speaker 3: have that number in mind when you go in. And
Speaker 3: then either way, when you you know, you walk out,
Speaker 3: you at least know that you went and educated and
Speaker 3: you went in having a number and knowing what you want,
Speaker 3: and you know when to be happy and when not
Speaker 3: to be happy with an offer.
Speaker 2: And honestly, when it comes to negotiating again, one of
Speaker 2: my other principal lessons is bring your a game. You
Speaker 2: absolutely cannot bring your a game. You can't be your best.
Speaker 2: You aren't being your best if you don't have a
Speaker 2: number in mind when you're going to an employer, because frankly,
Speaker 2: it's telling me that you've been lazy, you've lacked discipline,
Speaker 2: or you've lacked initiative because you haven't done the bear
Speaker 2: basics in terms of research, there is absolutely no reason,
Speaker 2: with all of the information and knowledge that's at our
Speaker 2: fingertips today, for you to go into a negotiation and say, well,
Speaker 2: I don't even know, like how much is this job paying,
Speaker 2: or you know, what's the the person who's already on
Speaker 2: the job, or the predecessor in this position, how much
Speaker 2: did they get paid, or others in the industry what
Speaker 2: do they get paid.
Speaker 4: There's just way too many sources of information for you
Speaker 4: to get that. You know that data. You can go
Speaker 4: to glassdoor, you can go to salary dot.
Speaker 2: Com obviously, indeed, you can use payscale, and you can
Speaker 2: find out even the government, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Okay,
Speaker 2: you can find out based on all kinds of information
Speaker 2: literally down to a specific company, what pay scales are
Speaker 2: in a company, based on title and industry, based.
Speaker 4: On years of experience.
Speaker 2: You can always find out about a given range for
Speaker 2: salary for a specific position. And you really should go
Speaker 2: into the door of a negotiation, whether you're trying to
Speaker 2: get hired or even get promoted on a job, you
Speaker 2: should absolutely know that information. If you don't, it's telling
Speaker 2: me you haven't brought your a game, you haven't done
Speaker 2: enough homework yet. Even just talking to you know, HR managers, employees,
Speaker 2: and other colleagues, even if not at that specific company,
Speaker 2: but at other competitors who are in the same job
Speaker 2: and getting a feel for salary.
Speaker 4: You can and should do that. Okay.
Speaker 3: So I do want to get into your story because
Speaker 3: it's so extraordinary and I'm excited to hear that you
Speaker 3: know even more about it than you did two years ago.
Speaker 4: Okay, That's why I ask how much time do you have?
Speaker 3: So tell me start off with your daughter and then
Speaker 3: I know you have a son you just started college,
Speaker 3: right or is going to be starting in college, and
Speaker 3: talk about how you sent your daughter to school with
Speaker 3: far more money than was necessary to cover the cost
Speaker 3: of college.
Speaker 2: Okay. So the reason I asked you how much time
Speaker 2: do you have? Is I like to tell these stories
Speaker 2: in their entirety, and I like to revisit them because frankly,
Speaker 2: there's always good, bad, and ugly and excellent, you know,
Speaker 2: in any sort of financial decision or any kind of
Speaker 2: process like this, and paying for college obviously is a process.
Speaker 2: So here's my family's story to date. So my daughter,
Speaker 2: Aziza is nineteen years old. She just finished her second
Speaker 2: year at the University of Texas at Austin. My son
Speaker 2: is seventeen. He's going into his senior year of high school,
Speaker 2: so he has one more year and then he'll be
Speaker 2: going off to college. I have a third child, alexis
Speaker 2: my eleven year year old. But Aziza, long story short,
Speaker 2: was one of those just outstanding, over the top kids.
Speaker 2: She was a national Merit scholar. She speaks French. She
Speaker 2: was a president of the French Club.
Speaker 4: In high school.
Speaker 2: She's founded the Multicultural club. She had like a twenty
Speaker 2: two thirty SAT score. She you know, she was an
Speaker 2: a student. She did all these amazing things volunteer work, drama, girl,
Speaker 2: theater club, blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: So she was one of those off the charts kids.
Speaker 4: She was sought after. She got accepted to a lot
Speaker 4: of great schools.
Speaker 2: And she won a boatload of merit based scholarships, not
Speaker 2: need based scholarships.
Speaker 4: There's two types of scholarships.
Speaker 2: You can get need based based on your family's income
Speaker 2: and assets, and merit base, which is based on the
Speaker 2: student's accomplishments in some ways, typically academic, athletic, artistic, or
Speaker 2: social engagement like volunteer work, community service, etc. Okay, so
Speaker 2: my daughter had a lot of academic accomplishments and artistic accomplishments.
Speaker 2: She won really in total, over seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars worth of scholarships. WHOA, yeah, So now you
Speaker 2: have to understand this was from the schools that the
Speaker 2: vast majority of the aid that she was offered was
Speaker 2: through the colleges and universities themselves. And so that's one
Speaker 2: of the things that I teach people is if you're
Speaker 2: looking to get scholarship money, the biggest dollars come not
Speaker 2: from private sources, third party sources. You could, of course
Speaker 2: win a Gate scholarship, a Coca Cola scholarship, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Very competitive obviously for those scholarships, but the schools themselves,
Speaker 2: colleges and universities themselves are the biggest source of money
Speaker 2: directly to for merit based aid. Okay, so she got
Speaker 2: for example, at NYU, she won the MLK Scholarship. You know,
Speaker 2: they were giving her fifty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 4: At my alma mater at USC in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: She won a presidential scholarship, and that was going to
Speaker 2: be like twenty seven thousand dollars a year. She got
Speaker 2: accepted to Fordham, she won a national merit scholarship there
Speaker 2: forty eight thousand dollars a year, blah blah, blah, on
Speaker 2: and on. Ultimately she turned those down, of course, and
Speaker 2: she went to UT Austin. She got accepted into their
Speaker 2: Business Honors Program, and she won about forty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: roughly worth of scholarship aid to pretty much cover most
Speaker 2: of her college costs. We only had to cover like
Speaker 2: maybe five thousand dollars you know some some you know,
Speaker 2: the books, you know, the travel back and forth, the
Speaker 2: you know some a little bit of the housing stuff
Speaker 2: like that. But she won a lot of scholarship money
Speaker 2: directly from the school itself, including a ten thousand dollars
Speaker 2: a year scholarship from BHP the Business Honors Program. And
Speaker 2: the best thing was an out of state tuition waiver
Speaker 2: that she which was almost thirty thousand dollars. As a
Speaker 2: result of winning that ten thousand dollars scholarship, the two
Speaker 2: were tied together. Okay, now, let's fast forward. My child,
Speaker 2: my a students, my my National merit winning child had
Speaker 2: a horrible first semester.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, without you know.
Speaker 2: Telling all of them on her business and she doesn't mind,
Speaker 2: she really doesn't. So her scholarship was dependent upon her
Speaker 2: maintaining a three point five GPA or better and she
Speaker 2: didn't and she did not, So her first semester was horrible.
Speaker 2: Or second semester she bounced back. I was like, what
Speaker 2: has happened to you? You better get those grades up, you
Speaker 2: know so, and she did. She recovered, and then her
Speaker 2: second year, which was had just passed, she did well again,
Speaker 2: did great, but bottom line, because she did not at
Speaker 2: the end of her first year overall she did not
Speaker 2: have a three point five GPA, she lost her scholarship.
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, hell yeah.
Speaker 3: Forever or whatever.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm like my probation or so she.
Speaker 2: Was on probation her after her first semester. Then she
Speaker 2: was off after one semester and she, like I said,
Speaker 2: she bounced back. She was, she was fine, but but
Speaker 2: that wasn't the issue. The issue was, Sorry, girl, we
Speaker 2: said three point five or higher and you don't have overall,
Speaker 2: she didn't have a three point five. So even if
Speaker 2: she had not had a horrible if she had had
Speaker 2: a three point four to nine, pretty much they would
Speaker 2: have been like, sorry, you'd have to be three point
Speaker 2: five or better, you know. So, so it's been a
Speaker 2: learning experience. It taught us a couple of things. One
Speaker 2: was about transition. I don't know if I shared this
Speaker 2: with you before, and I'm sure I didn't. My daughter
Speaker 2: and her senior year of high school. A couple of
Speaker 2: months before graduation, she suffered sudden hearing loss in her
Speaker 2: right ear that impacted her, you know a little bit.
Speaker 2: Her first semester in college, she was sick for three weeks,
Speaker 2: and you know, she didn't tell me, and I was like,
Speaker 2: you didn't go to like the campus health.
Speaker 4: She was like, I didn't know how to or what
Speaker 4: to do, you know, on her own.
Speaker 2: The first time. I think there was transition issues her
Speaker 2: going from you know, east coast to the south basically Texas.
Speaker 2: That transition being raised in a bubble admittedly, you know,
Speaker 2: in the suburbs here mountainside, New Jersey population eight eight thousand,
Speaker 2: and then going on a campus with fifty thousand students
Speaker 2: alone on the campus, you know, so I think there
Speaker 2: was a lot of transition and it was just a
Speaker 2: little overwhelming for her. Everything. So but got back, you know,
Speaker 2: right back up on the horse. I told her, don't
Speaker 2: prove it to me, prove it to yourself. Go back
Speaker 2: up there and show me what you can do, show
Speaker 2: yourself even more importantly.
Speaker 4: And she did.
Speaker 2: And so so I'm fast forwarding to say, as her parents,
Speaker 2: and we did something that I'm sure some parents would
Speaker 2: be like.
Speaker 4: What We actually doubled down on a ziza.
Speaker 2: We put a game plan together and I said, if
Speaker 2: you need any tutoring, you're going to be talking to
Speaker 2: your academic advisor and your counselors. You're going to do this.
Speaker 2: She did everything I asked her to do. Her grades
Speaker 2: went back up. She got a's, a's and b's, and
Speaker 2: she it was and there's no problems. However, because we
Speaker 2: had a financial situation now that we had to say, okay,
Speaker 2: what are we going to do here school?
Speaker 4: There is about fifty.
Speaker 2: Five thousand dollars a year, you know, all in tuition, fees,
Speaker 2: room and board as an out of state student. So
Speaker 2: cutting to the chase, this is what we did. We
Speaker 2: bought her a condo. Now some people would be like, what.
Speaker 3: What you're trying to follow? But I'm hanging out there, okay.
Speaker 2: So the short explanation is that her having a condo
Speaker 2: ownership of a condo for one year establishes.
Speaker 4: Texas residency for her.
Speaker 2: So instead of us having you know, thirty eight or
Speaker 2: forty thousand dollars a year tuition bill, she gets now
Speaker 2: she'll be getting in this, this, this, and her junior
Speaker 2: year in state tuition of about eleven thousand dollars. And
Speaker 2: the housing side is covered because we put down you know,
Speaker 2: twenty one thousand or so twenty five thousand for to
Speaker 2: buy the place for her. She has two roommates. The
Speaker 2: roommates pay fourteen hundred dollars a month. The mortgage is
Speaker 2: fourteen hundred dollars a month. So there's no net sort
Speaker 2: of out of pocket costs for us with that, and
Speaker 2: her housing is covered with that. So it actually, you know,
Speaker 2: thank you Jesus, it worked out. But that's actually how
Speaker 2: we dealt with it. And you know, now she's getting
Speaker 2: back and she's applying for scholarships again, and you know,
Speaker 2: part of the lesson is if you lose a scholarship,
Speaker 2: you know, mercifully for her, she had parents who had
Speaker 2: the financial wherewithal to backstop her because you know, I.
Speaker 4: Can tell you.
Speaker 2: Know, her father, my ex was like, oh, well, I
Speaker 2: guess you got to come back home. And I was like, no, no.
Speaker 4: No, wait.
Speaker 3: So but she still had to pay for out of
Speaker 3: state tuition right for that? So did you guys finance
Speaker 3: that with student loans or.
Speaker 4: We had to We had to just pay it. We
Speaker 4: had to pay yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but something similar happened to my little brother,
Speaker 3: My little brother, and UT is a state school, right, yep,
Speaker 3: So their merit based aid comes out of state funding,
Speaker 3: correct or is it like a private endowment.
Speaker 4: No, it's a public school.
Speaker 2: So there they do have some scholarships that they award
Speaker 2: through private owners that give them, you know, give students
Speaker 2: their scholarships, but the if you're a resident, that's coming
Speaker 2: through the If you get state aid, that's through the
Speaker 2: state of Texas.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: One thing that happened to my brother as far as
Speaker 3: losing his scholarship, he had a We went to the
Speaker 3: University of Georgia state, big state school, and he had
Speaker 3: a merit based aid. But they since the recession, once
Speaker 3: college funding has sort of dried, up in a lot
Speaker 3: of ways in state funded schools because states have been
Speaker 3: you know, in some cases divesting, there's less money to
Speaker 3: go around. So the same scholarship that I got for
Speaker 3: maintaining a three point two I think GPA, he had
Speaker 3: to maintain like a three seven or something and he
Speaker 3: loved it.
Speaker 2: And can I tell you something, you guys, I'm telling
Speaker 2: you this is I hate to say it this way.
Speaker 2: I won't call it a racket, but I will say
Speaker 2: that colleges and universities across the country employ specialists and
Speaker 2: professionals that are called enrollment managers or yield managers. They
Speaker 2: actually know that a pretty high percentage of students are
Speaker 2: simply not going to to maintain those grades, thus the
Speaker 2: high performance bar. So it's preparing me with my son
Speaker 2: because I know that based on our family's income and assets,
Speaker 2: it's not likely that we will qualify for need based aid.
Speaker 2: I will still apply, I will still go through the
Speaker 2: faster process, just like I did with Azisa. But when
Speaker 2: I think about scholarship opportunities and any potential free money
Speaker 2: for college for him, For my son, I'm looking at
Speaker 2: merit aid and institutions that do grant merit aid or
Speaker 2: schools that have very very strong need based aid, and
Speaker 2: those are mostly the ivy's top, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: elite private schools and those with strong endowments.
Speaker 4: But these schools know they absolutely, I believe me.
Speaker 2: When I went through this experience with Aziza, I did
Speaker 2: an exhaustive amount of research and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is not actually uncommon. Can I tell you something
Speaker 2: that I want? One one factoid that says it, you know,
Speaker 2: clearer than anything else that I came across. The average
Speaker 2: high school student suffers a zero point five drop in
Speaker 2: their GPA when they go from senior year of high
Speaker 2: school twelfth grade, that is, to their freshman year in college. So,
Speaker 2: in other words, the student who had a three point
Speaker 2: eighty five let's say GPA on average, that student will
Speaker 2: have a three point three five or zero point five
Speaker 2: drop in their GPA. That's just nationwide the average. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you might be like, oh, my student, my child
Speaker 2: is so smart and brighton. They'll be great, they'll be fine,
Speaker 2: yet they won't be able to maintain. I was like,
Speaker 2: three point five. Oh is Jesus got this no problem?
Speaker 2: You know? And so but obviously it's next level, it's
Speaker 2: it's a higher tier of performance that's required of the students.
Speaker 2: Not to mention, it's not even so much the academics
Speaker 2: and the grades that are you know, oh, this is
Speaker 2: so hard.
Speaker 4: It's more about all.
Speaker 2: Of the stuff that they have to deal with being
Speaker 2: on their own for the first time, the transition for
Speaker 2: many students. Financial definitely plays a role for a lot
Speaker 2: of students if they're stressed or if they're worried about it.
Speaker 2: My daughter, she wasn't stressed worried about money at all.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that kind of thing. But everything else in
Speaker 2: her life she had to give attention and focus to.
Speaker 2: I think was, you know, sort of a factor for her.
Speaker 2: But these schools absolutely know. So now I know with
Speaker 2: my son, oh you can believe, I'm going to negotiate
Speaker 2: the other way. When they say when they say, oh,
Speaker 2: a three point five, he here's his scholarship, blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: its depending on him having a three point five, I'm
Speaker 2: being like, mmm, he'll come to your school, how about
Speaker 2: a three point Oh how about a you know like that,
Speaker 2: I'm serious. I'm absolutely going to negotiate. And I've talked
Speaker 2: to parents since who have in fact negotiated and gotten
Speaker 2: that bar down a little bit. Or I've even talked
Speaker 2: to parents who said that they had a provision as
Speaker 2: long as the student is making quote satisfactory academic progress.
Speaker 4: So you can read that it means no GPA requirement.
Speaker 2: As long as they got a two point or better
Speaker 2: basically at the end of a given year, as long
Speaker 2: as at the end of a year in case they
Speaker 2: have a little blip one semester. So you know, I
Speaker 2: think back to my college days. My freshman year, I
Speaker 2: was fine. It wasn't then, but it was either the
Speaker 2: end of my sophomore year, I did some cookiness and
Speaker 2: you know, just running wild and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: let me get it together here before I get kicked.
Speaker 4: Out of this school. That was yourn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the breakdowns in the parking deck.
Speaker 2: After my career. When I was freshman year, my father
Speaker 2: brought my behind right back home because I was not
Speaker 2: used to because I was raised in a really strict household,
Speaker 2: and so living on campus was like, what.
Speaker 3: That's over a stimulation.
Speaker 2: And you know the thing is I was not really wild.
Speaker 2: It was just like I could say, up late because
Speaker 2: my dad, especially my dad was attacked to be like,
Speaker 2: where are you going put the name on the refrigerator.
Speaker 2: I'm going to call the parent ahead of time. I'm
Speaker 2: going to drop you off. I'll drive you to the movie.
Speaker 2: So I was not used to any freedom. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like you know, and so it just it was just
Speaker 2: too much. And I had got I always got a
Speaker 2: really good grades. And I think I got my first D.
Speaker 2: And he could not believe I had gotten a D.
Speaker 2: I know you're not about with life. He's like, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: Well this is funny. When my daughter was I can't
Speaker 2: remember if it was her sixteenth birthday. It's possible it
Speaker 2: could have been her fifteenth birthday. Now again, remind you,
Speaker 2: I live in a very tiny little town, eight thousand population.
Speaker 2: Suburbia is you know, basically about It's ninety seven percent white.
Speaker 2: It has, you know, some diversity, African American, Asian, you know,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And it's a small place that is also
Speaker 2: a safe place.
Speaker 4: So when my daughter.
Speaker 2: Turned I think it was when she was sixteen, I said, oh,
Speaker 2: what was you like for your birthday?
Speaker 4: Aziza?
Speaker 2: She said, I'm gonna give it some thought, and then
Speaker 2: she came back to me and she said, okay, mommy,
Speaker 2: I thought about it and I said, great, what would
Speaker 2: you like? She said, just a little freedom, And I
Speaker 2: said and I was like, well freedom, freedom to do
Speaker 2: what she said, just like to walk around the block
Speaker 2: by myself. And then I was like, oh my god, Lynette,
Speaker 2: you now, gri I used to be running the streets
Speaker 2: in La Okay.
Speaker 4: We used to run outside and come in when the
Speaker 4: lights came on. Okay. I mean, it's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 2: Even though you know, my child is in a very
Speaker 2: safe environment here, the bubble that we're in is crazy.
Speaker 2: So I think that she had the same experience, Tiffany,
Speaker 2: that you did, which is like, oh my god, I'm free.
Speaker 2: Nobody tells me what to do, and nobody's on me
Speaker 2: making me go to bed at a certain time, double
Speaker 2: checking my homework.
Speaker 4: Do you know? It was just transition to young adulthood.
Speaker 3: Illnete, Thank you so much. Tell the people where they
Speaker 3: can find you and find your great work.
Speaker 2: Sure they can catch me on my free financial advice
Speaker 2: blog ask the Moneycoach dot com.
Speaker 4: Or they can take a course with me and.
Speaker 2: Get video training one on one lessons through my platform
Speaker 2: on Moneycoachuniversity dot com free and paid offerings there.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Lynette, You're always the best.
Speaker 4: Thank you, guys.
Speaker 1: We always love listening to our financial fairy godmother, Miss
Speaker 1: Lynette Cawfani Cox. Thank y'all for coming on this trip
Speaker 1: down memory lane. Make sure to check out regular episodes
Speaker 1: of Brown Ambition every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.