From the transcript of mediabistro.com's "The Whole Woman: Salary Negotiation, Financial-Planning and Career-Blazing Strategies for Women" seminar, held February 28, 2005, in New York City, Mediabistro education coordinator Carmen Scheidel spoke with Adena Berkman Conway, principal partner and founder of Berkman Fives, LLC, Adelaide Fives, a career counselor and another founder of Berkman Fives, Galia Gichon, financial advisor and founder of Down To Earth Financeand Karen Salmansohn, a best-selling author and motivational coach.

Scheidel: Absolutely, so let's get into that a little bit. What is the best way to ask for more money in a salary negotiation? Can you sort of take us through some theoretical ideas of how, when a person is offered a certain salary, they should go about negotiating that?

Gichon: First, you want to start by knowing your value, which means understanding what it is that you're worth, what your accomplishments have been, what your goals have been, how you're going to be able to contribute to whatever the agenda is or to the needs of the organization.

Let's say it's a brand new job you're going for. You're going to want to think about all the things you've done in previous jobs that fit into what this current company is looking to do, the problems they're looking to you to solve. So it's knowing your value and really taking stock of that. That's the first piece. And actually, part of that is knowing the market value, where you stand in the market. You can find it at the website Salary.com, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics provide data as well. That's one way—doing Internet research, talking to different people (men and women). A lot of women get into trouble when they talk to other women, and as we just heard, women are making 76 cents to the dollar, so you really want to benchmark yourself against men and women to understand where you should be fitting into the market.

The next piece is to be able to understand what your counterparts or the other people around the table are looking to achieve. What are their needs, what are their concerns? Then you can align what you will be doing with or against them. Third, you're going to want to think about what it is you're asking for. What do you need, what do you want? And that goes beyond base salary. There's the base salary, which will give you a range of where you should be, you know, falling into, but it's also in terms of what's important to you. Is it flex time? Taking time off to take care of older parents or children? Is it more vacation time? Is it hours? What are the different elements that are going to be important to you? Because there are many things other than just base salary that you could be negotiating for. Tuition reimbursement, other such things.

So know your value, understand the needs of your counterparts, and finally, be able to come up with a plan. You are going to want to be able to state explicitly what it is you want, why you should get it. And this is not an emotional thing; it's fact based, based on the value that you're going to bring, the bottom line that you're going to effect.

To read the rest, go here (AvantGuild only.)