'Shark Tank' Star Robert Herjavec Reveals the Best Time to Ask for a Raise
His book “You Don't Have to Be a Shark: Creating Your Own Success” is out today.
— -- One of America’s favorite sharks from ABC’s “Shark Tank” is sharing the secrets to his success in business and in life.
Robert Herjavec has a new book out today called “You Don't Have to Be a Shark: Creating Your Own Success,” which offers advice on how to use the art of persuasion to achieve your goals. He also shares important work-related lessons he learned on the “Dancing With the Stars” dance floor.
“In seven seasons of doing the show, what I’ve learned is people are deathly afraid of sales,” he said on “Good Morning America” today. “People can’t, they get scared, they feel like you have to be pushy, aggressive, you have to be a bit of a jerk to do sales. So I tried to write a book on sales for the non-sales person. You don’t have to be a shark.”
Here are Herjavec’s top three tips:
Make a great first impression: “In the first minute and a half we know if we’re going to invest or not,” he said of hopefuls who appear on “Shark Tank.” “It’s how you dress, it’s the look. And it’s not just how you dress, it’s how you stand, how you sit, the cadence of your voice, all of those things.”
Timing is important: “You’ve got to know when the right time is. It’s better to ask for a raise at the end of the week. It’s actually better to sell your value than to ask for the raise,” he explained. “Go in and tell them what a great job you’re doing, make the other side offer you the money. When you ask for money, you’re only going to get so much. When you sell value, you’re going to get more.”
Know how the score is being kept: "One thing I learned on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ is you have to know how to sell yourself and how people are judging you,” he said. “Kym [his fiancée] really taught me that. You’ve got to sell yourself to the audience. I asked Kym, ‘How do you know when people can’t dance?’ And she said to me, ‘It’s in their eyes.’ People that can’t dance look like they’re lost. Their eyes are everywhere. And that was me. It took awhile for me to understand that and sell myself to the audience. Before I teach you to sell, I have to teach you who to sell to. Understand your audience.”
