Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - FREE TRAINING - *DAY 5/7* - SELL YOUR VALUE
Episode Date: November 27, 2025✅ 7-DAY TRIAL (100+ Q&A'S) ⮕ www.meiphing.com ✅ CAREER COURSE + 1:1 COACHING ⮕ www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ...
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Hello and welcome to day five of our seven-day career growth challenge.
So it is finally the time we're going to talk about asking for a job promotion and salary
increment from your boss because you did an amazing job and to make sure that you get rewarded
for your hard work.
Now, the mistake that many people make is that they only focus on that one conversation that
they will have with their boss in terms of the performance review.
You have no idea how many people tell me that maybe can you give me the script
of exactly what I'm supposed to say to my boss
for my performance review
because I'm not sure if I can convince my boss
that I deserve a promotion.
Now that is exactly the problem
because if you're going into this one conversation
not even confident of the value that you're adding,
the good work that you're doing,
then how are you going to convince your boss
and the big bosses,
especially the head of departments and directors,
who will be signing off the budget to say,
yeah, you know, you deserve to be promoted, right?
So you're already starting off with a back foot, and the second mistake also is that a lot of people believe that the decision to promote someone, the decision to give a pay rise, that decision is made during the performance review conversation at the year end.
Actually, that's not very accurate.
And I can tell you this, as someone who used to manage a department, actually looking into headcount, budgets, and so forth, the decision to promote someone to the next.
career level, that is decided usually by month nine or 10, not during the final year-end
conversation, year-end performance review that too many people are focused on.
So what you need to recognize is that your performance throughout the year really, really
matters.
And that is why when we started this training, I really wanted to focus on your deep understanding
of exactly what you're hired to do, because the reason why a lot of people don't feel confident
to sell their value, to ask for the promotion,
to ask for the salary increment,
is that they cannot really explain what they have been doing.
So if you cannot explain that,
then how is your boss going to promote you, right?
So the clarity on your job scope,
the clarity on what you're hired to do
is actually the most important thing,
being able to identify that performance goal,
be able to identify that KPI
and ensuring that you have already aligned
that with your boss and your boss agrees to say yeah this is what you're going to be measured against
and if you do a good job then obviously you will be way more confident knowing that hey boss
i've already completed my goals right i've done my part then now i want to ask for the promotion
the career level up as well as the salary increment so making sure that if you haven't had
the time to really understand your job scope to gain class.
on that, I would say that is the number one priority because if you don't know what your job
is supposed to be, you will never be able to have confidence when you enter into a conversation
with your boss about your performance. It's not necessarily even during the year-end performance
review, but any conversations with your boss, you will always feel lack of confidence. And also
the other thing is that if you don't know what your goals are, then how can you be sure that
whatever upskilling and learning that you're doing
it's even helping you meet your career goals
or the learning is just pointless right
so that is the other thing that you want to take note as well
so selling your value is not so much about
like I said that one conversation
but it's all the groundwork
all the fundamentals that we have set up
step by step right from clarity of your job scope
from confidence in your value
from having the competence to exceed your performance goals
and gradually ensuring that you are visible in front of your bosses
and be known as someone who has good reputation,
someone who does a good job,
someone who is very responsible, very proactive,
basically someone who is ready for the next career level.
So this is exactly how you are going to increase your chances.
Now, at this point, I'm going to give you an exercise
on preparing for your performance.
reviews, but maybe not even that. It's about thinking through whether you feel that you have set
yourself up for a promotion. And I think this is really, really, really important. So I'm going to
have a couple of questions for you. So question number one is, what are the top three things
that you have delivered in your role this year? Right. So what are the top three things that,
you know, the job that you're hired to do? You did an amazing job. That's like your KPI, right? The top three
things that you did well. Now, next question, what are two things that you went and helped out,
right? So this is just like the extra work, right? So what are the two things that maybe it's not
really part of like your main job scope, which is the, you know, it's not the thing that if you
don't do it, you're going to get fired, but it's just stuff that you have been helping out
throughout the year. Maybe your boss gave you this task or maybe someone else gave you this task,
but it's just additional workload, right? Then the third question is, what is the one main skill
that you have been upskilling this year.
Now, the one-minute skill that you're upskilling this year
is also really, really important
because we want to show your boss
that you are progressing in terms of upskilling as well.
Like, you want to get better
and you are gradually preparing yourself,
increasing your own value, right?
So that you can go for that level up,
like you deserve it because you have been preparing
and you've been delivering your work,
you're doing a good job,
and you're also preparing yourself for the next level.
So that is really the reputation
that we want to portray.
right? I just want to be very clear,
asking for a job promotion. It's beyond that 30-minute
year-end performance review conversation. It's about
setting yourself out, setting up all the foundations, which is why
the clients that I work with, right, the members in my career program,
so I have a group program is called the corporate survivor. And interestingly,
actually when a lot of people join the program, one of the first thing they tell me is that
Meping, how do I get visible? And it's fair. Everybody wants to get recognized for their hard work.
everybody wants a promotion everybody wants progression everybody wants level up everybody wants to make more money
i completely understand that otherwise why are we working so hard but the foundational question is that
why are you struggling to get that level up why are you struggling to get that promotion to even have
the confidence of that and when i dig a little bit deeper it became very clear that you know they are
saying that they want to get visible they think that visibility is the problem but sometimes it's about
your own work confidence, how clear are you in terms of the work that you need to deliver?
Are you having ongoing face time with your boss?
When all those things are all not set up, obviously you're going to walk into that
meeting with your boss, feeling very stressed out, feeling worried, feeling like you're not
good enough, and then you're looking for someone to give you the answer.
And that is why, right, for new students who have that kind of mindset, when they first
join my career program, I actually tell them to start the three-step framework.
So I teach a three-step framework, step one is get clear on the corporate world,
where we really deep dive into exactly the job that you're hired to do.
Remember what I was talking about,
ensuring that you can identify your key performance goals
so that you will have confidence to explain the good work that you have done
to meet those performance goals.
Otherwise, how are you going to explain that, right?
Then once we are clear on the job scope,
then we also get clear on the people that we work with,
because remember what I said in earlier trainings as well,
the corporate world is a jigsaw puzzle.
You do not work alone.
And the highest chance that you're going to get a promotion
and salary increment is showing your boss
that you can work well with other people.
People skills are so critical in the corporate world.
So once you have nailed step one, right,
which is get clear on the corporate world,
the structure, your job scope, people.
Now we know exactly what to focus on at your job, right?
How are you actually adding value?
Then we move into step two.
So step two is get confident with corporate skills.
Now, I know that you want to have that confidence,
conversation around job promotions, but I want you to set yourself up to go into that
conversation about job promotions, being able to clearly explain that you have met expectations
and you are more than ready to get that level up, right? Whether it's salary, career progression
and so forth. And this can only be done if you are planting the seeds along the way. So you
need to feel confident that you have done a good job. Because if you don't feel confident, your
boss is going to sense it and your boss will not have confidence in you that you are ready for
that salary and career growth. So confidence, right, and also upskill the core corporate skills.
So as I also mentioned in the previous training, that you don't need to learn 10,000 skills,
you just need to master the top four corporate skills that are all connected, which is communication
skills, people, relationship building skills, then big picture critical thinking skills,
and then productivity. Just mastering these four, you will be able to easily meet your
performance goals so that now, when you're going to get visible to your boss, right,
you have actually something good to say.
There's no point having good visibility or asking for a promotion if your boss can just
immediately say, oh, what do you mean?
This job, this work messed up.
I don't think you did a good job in this project.
Like if you know that's the answer that your boss is likely going to give, then we need
to make sure that we sort out our work quality first, right?
We reset those fundamentals, right?
We learn the corporate skills to be able to make sure that you meet your KPI.
so that when you have the opportunity to get visible,
to prepare for that conversation for your boss,
to ask for the promotion, you know deep inside that you deserve it.
Then you will have the actual motivation to ask for it,
and more importantly, you will feel like you can take charge of your career
because even if your boss doesn't give you that promotion,
or the company cannot give you that promotion, the progression,
or that salary increment, guess what is going to happen?
if you already know that you deserve it
because you are very, very good.
You know your own value.
What do you think you're going to do?
Now you'll be full of confidence
and you'll probably look into your backup plan
and say, hey, if this company cannot pay me,
maybe I should start looking out
because I'm sure other companies are there.
I'm sure other HR recruiters and hiring managers
would really want me, want to hire me to their company.
So when you have that level of confidence
and full of assurance of your own value,
that's where your career can really grow.
That's why I always say career growth, salary growth.
We try to focus on our company, existing company,
because everything that you pick up in your role
is something that we can include in your overall value
to sell to your company for a promotion, right?
That's step one.
But there's also a backup plan as well.
If the company or your boss can't give it to you,
then I want you to have that assurance knowing that,
hey, I'm valuable enough.
So I'm going to make sure.
I have a backup plan because career growth,
cyrogrowth is important to me.
And I'm going to take the next step,
whether it's this company or the next company,
I'm going to make sure that I take the action
to grow my career because I know what I'm worth
and I want to get paid what I'm worth.
So this is where I would pause for today's training
and just to kind of do a very, very quick wrap up,
is that the formula is this, right?
And this is something I teach all my corporate survival members
because this is the three-step framework.
You want to get clear,
of your job
and then you want to have confidence
get confident with corporate skills
and then you want to get visible
visibility does not
just mean that your end
performance review conversation
visibility is that professional reputation
and this is the kind of reputation
that you want to build and the stronger
professional reputation that you have
as someone who is value adding
someone is very good at their work someone who is
like a super level up right the person
that the company really wants to retain
the person that the company is willing to pay a lot of money for,
willing to promote, doesn't want to lose,
then you are gradually selling your value to set yourself up
that when it comes the time, right, for that promotion conversation,
it's going to be super easy because at that time,
you know that you deserve it, the company and your boss
has been monitoring you and also felt that you are someone
that they want to retain, right, talent that they want to grow,
then it's purely a win-win situation.
And that is the situation I want you to be in.
