The Power of Specificity: How Being Precise Can Boost Your Earnings

The world is a malleable place.

People who are specific have the mallet.

Let’s look at 2 situations where being specific leads to more $.

Situation 1

  • Person A says to their manager, “let me know if you need any help.”
  • Person B says, “X seems like it takes up your time, can I take that off your plate?”

Situation 2

  • Person A says to their mentor, “I’m looking to grow – can you help me find my next step?”
  • Person B says, “I want to move to our ecomm operations team, do you have any connections there?”

Why is person B now getting paid more?

A mentor once said to me “you are paid to think.”

In the above examples person A is trying to outsource their thinking to their manager or mentor.

Person B has done some thinking already and is approaching them with a clear ask that has a binary answer.

Because person B is doing the thinking they are easier to lift.

When the request for help boils down to a simple “yes” or “no” question, the answer often is “yes”.

Gentlemen’s agreement 🤝🏻:

Let’s make a pact – a gentlemen’s agreement if you will. If you’ve found something useful in this post, do me the kindness of sharing it with a friend who you think would appreciate these insights. While I’ll never know if you actually do it or not, think of it as a token of gratitude for keeping this site ad-free and full of delightful wisdom. Deal?

Subscribe 👇🏻📧

Join 2,004 other subscribers

Drop your email in the box above to receive an update when I post my weekly blog. Follow on Twitter for other shenanigans.

Leave a Reply