5 research-backed secrets to successfully negotiating your salary

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In the history of the world, nobody has ever said, "I make too much money." And for most of us how much we make is determined during a salary negotiation.

I wanted to get the inside dirt on how we can earn more. So I decided to call an expert…

Adam Galinsky is the chair of the Management Division at the Columbia Business School. He teaches negotiation and is author of Friend & Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both.

Adam has 5 tips that can make all the difference next time you're looking to increase your pay. Let's get to it…

1. The 2 Most Important Things To Have In A Negotiation

Preparation is vital. The old Sun Tzu maxim is very true here: "All wars are won or lost before they are ever fought." What you do before the negotiation is often the most important thing.

So what does good preparation mean? Adam says two things are key:

• Getting a credible alternative. What are you going to do if they say "no"? If you have another job offer, they know you can walk away from the deal and they're more likely to play ball.
• Knowing the market rates for your services. If you don't know what people similar to you are being paid, you won't know what you can reasonably ask for, or what a good or bad offer is.

Here's Adam:

The first thing that I always tell people is that in negotiations there are two fundamental forms of power that really matter, and they particularly matter in salary negotiation. The first thing is: do you have a good alternative so that you can credibly ask for more? The second thing is: do you have information about what's acceptable or what's been done in the past?

(To learn the secret to being happier and more successful, click here.)

So you've done your homework. You have an alternative and you know what the going rates are. But what's the right attitude going into a salary negotiation and how can you make sure you have it?

2. Use A "Power Prime"

Adam's research shows that feeling powerful helps you make smarter decisions during a negotiation. Here's Adam:

Whenever we put an offer on the table or respond to an offer, there's a lot of anxiety involved in that. Am I asking for too much? Am I asking for too little? Am I selling myself short? Am I going to offend the other side? One of the things that power does for you psychologically is it allows you to feel more confident in whatever number you're putting on the table. The second thing it does is it prevents you from selling yourself short. I think oftentimes people ask for too little because of that anxiety of offending the other side. Feeling powerful is particularly helpful in salary negotiations because it allows you to ask for what you think you're worth.

So how do you make sure you feel invincible? Adam says it's as simple as taking a moment before the negotiation to recollect a time when you did feel powerful. He calls this a "Power Prime." Here's Adam:

I've done tons of research demonstrating that thinking about a time when you had power has a dramatic transformative effect on how you behave. It allows you to feel more confident, allows you to feel more optimistic, and those combine to allow you to be more assertive, agentic, and take more action.

(To learn how FBI hostage negotiators get the best deals, click here.)

So you've done your research and you used a "power prime." But that's all about you. How should you think about the other guy? There's a right way and a wrong way…

3. Use Perspective Taking, Not Empathy

Adam says you want to understand the other side but you don't want to feel for them.

You want to use "perspective taking." All that means is trying to rationally see it from their side.

Does your prospective employer have a firm policy on salary but is very flexible on bonuses? Are they tight with money but happy to offer benefits and perks? Doing research and asking questions can help you learn the best areas to emphasize.

You want to find what is low value for them and high value for you. Here's Adam:

…if I am good at taking someone else's perspective, I can figure out what the minimum value I can offer them and still get them to accept a deal. If I really know what someone else wants, it might allow me to recognize solutions that are really low cost to me but high value to them and allow me to ask for something that's high value for me, and thereby make both parties better off. What perspective taking allows people to do is to recognize the core underlying things that another person cares about, and, in doing so, come up with deals that leave you with a better outcome in the process.

Trying to understand their needs is a rational process. What Adam warns against is feeling the other side's position instead of just cognitively understanding it.

Research shows that when you feel rather than think, you're more likely to make unnecessary concessions. Here's Adam:

There's a difference between a cognitive appreciation of what someone else wants and a sympathetic emotional reaction to what they want. What we've shown in our research is that sympathy creates concessionary behavior. Sympathy leads to worse distributive outcomes because you either get exploited for your sympathy or you give things up on your own as a way to make yourself feel better. What perspective taking allows you to do is not just get blindsided by your own emotional sympathy, but to really recognize what the other person wants and to ask yourself cognitively, "How can I offer that to them in a way that doesn't cause me a lot of pain?"

(To learn FBI Behavioral Unit techniques for getting people to like you, click here.)

Okay, so you're taking their perspective. Who should make the first offer? When do you want to go first and when do you want to keep your mouth shut and let them present a deal?