Negotiating for a promotion: How to build your case

Learn how to prepare and practice making your ask.

Before You Start

Goal: Build confidence and practical negotiation skills by practicing how to advocate for yourself, communicate your value, and connect your requests to shared goals.

Meeting Agenda · Approx. 60 mins

  • Member Updates · 10 mins
  • Icebreaker · 10 mins
  • Key Takeaways · 5 mins
  • Discussion Questions · 20 mins
  • Write It Down · 2 mins
  • One Action · 10 mins
  • Wrap-Up · 5 mins

👋 Member Updates · 10 mins

Go around your Circle and share personal updates. Keep them brief and focused on significant changes or important decisions since the last time you met. It's OK not to have one every month. If you have a One Action update from last time, share that too.

🧊 Icebreaker · 10 mins

Invite everyone in the group to share. Keep answers to one or two minutes per person.

How have you laid the groundwork to prepare yourself for success in past negotiations?

💡 Key Takeaways · 5 mins

The strongest negotiating position starts before you walk into the room, with a clear, documented record of your impact.

  • Create an evidence base. People are more likely to unconsciously overlook women's accomplishments, which makes tracking and articulating your achievements even more important.
  • Connect your work to organizational goals. The most compelling case isn't just ""I did X"" — it's ""I did X and it advanced Y goal by Z.""
  • Quantify wherever possible. Numbers make achievements concrete and harder to minimize or dismiss.
  • Know the formal requirements. If your organization has documented criteria for promotion or raises, reviewing them before any negotiation tells you exactly where to focus.
  • Communal framing reduces backlash. Building your case around shared goals — not just personal gain — is both strategic and more likely to be received well.

💬 Activity · 20 mins

Write it down (10 minutes)

  1. Think about the most important goals held by your boss or your organization: sales, productivity, or something else. Write those goals down. (If you don’t know the answer, you can make it your One Action to find out.)
  2. Then, write down your biggest projects or accomplishments from the last year.
  3. Look at the list of accomplishments you’ve just made. Make notes of how these achievements serve your boss's or company's goals.
  4. Support your case with data: Is there any data you can use to show how you’re supporting your boss’s core goals? Make notes of any data you need to find later.
  5. If there are no quantifiable outcomes, is there other evidence of impact that you can gather (e.g., feedback from clients or colleagues)? Write that down, too.

The notes you’ve made today can be turned into a clearly formatted one-page document, which you should share with your boss or the person you are negotiating with.

Discuss as a group (10 minutes):

  1. Have everyone share one or two accomplishments, along with data or evidence of their impact, that could be used in a negotiation.
  2. What did you learn from making this list? How do you accomplishments line up with your boss's or the organization's goals?
  3. What strategies have you used in the past to prove your worth when negotiating? For example, did you provide supporting documents, use communal language, or take steps to build rapport with your boss?
  4. If your organization has formal promotion criteria, do you know them — and how clearly does your recent work map onto them?

🎯 One Action · 10 mins

Commit to one concrete action — big or small — you'll take before next meeting. Go around the Circle and share (1 minute or less per member). Vocalizing it helps hold each other accountable.

Start documenting how your impact creates more impact for your boss or company. This can support your next negotiation or performance review.

📅 Wrap-Up · 5 mins

Before you break, plan you next meeting and close on an energetic note. Go around your Circle one by one and finish the sentence:

Now I am feeling… (choose one word).

  • Set the day, time, and location
  • Choose the next topic or resource
  • Confirm who's leading the discussion
  • Decide how you'll stay in touch in between