How to Double Your Salary in the Next Two Years?

If you’re reading the headline and saying, “No” then you must have a pretty good reason (perhaps you’re planning to retire soon, I don’t know). But for most of us, the answer to that question would be a resounding, “YES!” In the next few hundred words, I will give you the exact details that you need to double your salary (or at least increase it significantly); the best part is that it really is not that hard to do.

Your Employment Situation

Before we dive in, we need to make it clear that not everyone is able to do this. There are some jobs where you simply will not be able to increase your salary drastically. But that’s ok; you can still follow these tips and become smarter, more rounded, and more marketable if you ever happen to be out there looking for a job.

Tip #1: Track Your Progress

This is probably the hardest part of your entire journey of doubling your salary. It’s not easy to quantify some parts of your job, and sometimes you do so much that it becomes a chore to determine which ones you have increased in productivity.

Without tracking your progress, you will have no way of proving to your boss that you have become more valuable to your company. Over the next two years you will increase your productivity, knowledge, and application little by little. Without seeing that change all at once, your boss will likely not be aware of all that you have done. Sit down and write things out now, and every week or two keep a running journal of what you do and how productive you are. This looks differently for every job, so I can’t tell you exactly how to do it; but for those in sales, keep hard numbers.

Tip #2: Expand Your Knowledge

In order to become an indispensable member of the company, you have to be smarter than everyone else. The good news is that becoming smarter than everyone else can happen within a matter of a few weeks. The bad news is that being smarter doesn’t mean being better.

This tip will add hours to your workweek, but fortunately those hours can be done on your lunch break, while on the toilet, in the car, on the subway, or even at home relaxing. It is done by learning something new, for at least 30 minutes per day, about your industry. This means reading up on the latest news, analyzing the competitors, diving into the details of the products your company offers, and even brushing up on the history of the company itself.

If you want to become an apparent expert in something, all it takes is about 20 hours of studying. By committing a few hours per week, you can soar past your peers when it comes to knowledge about almost anything.

Tip #3: Practice, Practice, Practice

But knowledge alone doesn’t do you any good if you don’t apply it. So here is where things get a little tricky. Use your new knowledge to help build your career and company like this:

There are most likely multiple products or services being offered by your employer. Choose one of those and focus your efforts on becoming the best of the best in that department. For instance, when I worked in financial services, the company offered investments and insurance. In our network (which included a few cities around the state) there were specialists in each area. If I had a life insurance question, I could approach the life specialist and almost always get the answer. If he didn’t know the answer, I could turn to the head of the life specialists company-wide. Because he had positioned himself as an expert on that one area, he was making immensely more money than others who tried to know everything about all of the other products.

Put your knowledge to practice by choosing one area to become an expert. Find some mentors that know that area and quiz them. Take them to lunch and get tips and pointers, then turn around and apply those to your career.

Tip #4: Negotiate

After your first six months of becoming indispensable to your company, your boss should notice. By this time you will be an expert in your chosen area (at least when compared to your coworkers). Sit down with your boss and explain your plan and goals. Tell him, or her, what you intend to do, and show your progress tracking. Negotiate a raise at this time, it doesn’t have to be big, even 10% would make a huge impact in most people’s lives.

Every six months go back and review your progress with your boss. After a year you should know almost everything there is to know about your area of expertise. Then after a year and a half, you may be the best in the company. And after two years if you’re not one of the top experts in that area, then it’s either highly competitive, or you need to find a new area.

You can increase your earnings, and if these tricks don’t get you there, you now have a highly developed skill that you can likely take to the private market. Branch out on your own, or look for another company that will pay you what you want.