How to 'Get Paid More'

Inspiration for the ambitious

By Porter Anderson
CNN Career

(CNN) -- What's not to like?

"Get Paid More and Promoted Faster." The title alone tells you that this book's author is one right-thinking dude.

But the good news is that Brian Tracy hasn't turned out Book No. 6,523 of the get-rich-quick variety. Instead of telling readers what they might want to hear ("Just five minutes of your free time per day ..."), Tracy tells us what we need to hear: Success comes from mapping out where you want to go and committing to doing what's required to get there.

If you want to rise to the top while never budging from a barstool in your break room; if you're looking for the secret to success in long lunches; if you're one of those folks who loves to say you're not going to devote an extra minute to your career beyond what you're paid to do -- then you won't like this one. This isn't armchair careerism.

In the second sentence of his introduction, Tracy makes it clear to whom he's talking in this book: "There have never been more opportunities and possibilities for ambitious people to achieve their career and life goals than exist today."

QUICKVOTE Here are 10 of Brian Tracy's 21 points in "Get Paid More and Promoted Faster." Which one of them do you think is the surest key to success? Decide exactly what you want. Select the right company. Choose the right boss. Develop a positive attitude. Create a successful image. Start earlier, work harder and stay later. Push to the front. Guard your integrity as a sacred thing. Put people first in everything. Develop positive personal power. View Results

Got it? This book is for ambitious people. No apologies. No instruction to burn yourself out, either. But in Chapter 6, for example, Tracy is going to suggest that you "Start earlier, work harder and stay later."

"Two extra hours of productive work each day is all you really need to invest to become one of the most valuable and effective people in your company," he writes. "You can create this extra two hours by coming in an hour earlier and staying one hour later. This will expand your day slightly, but it will increase your career tremendously."

Of course, popular thinking -- more accurately, popular whining -- loves to perpetuate the myth of no-pain, big gain: You shouldn't have to give up any of your own time to further your career, you're owed all good things simply for punching in and out right on time and never give your company an even break.

Tracy has the guts to point out that that's rubbish.

"The top 10 percent of money-earners in America," he writes, " work 50 hours or more per week. The highest-paid 1 percent of Americans work an average of 56 hours per week. And more importantly, they work all the time they work. They do not waste time. They arrive at work early and they immediately start on their most important tasks. They work steadily throughout the day. They are friendly, but they do not spend the day making small talk or engaging in idle chitchat with their co-workers."

It would have been decent for Tracy to attribute those figures about top earners and the lengths of their workweeks to one survey or another, but they tend to echo the sort of numbers we're seeing in other literature these days. The bottom line when it comes to getting what you pay for is that you should plan to pay for it. And if you can't understand the rationale of giving some extra to your career to make it better, then you're likely not someone for whom career is that important a part of life. Nothing wrong with that -- but as Tracy keeps urging his reader, make a choice.

Some of his other 20 points are more predicable. For example, there's Chapter 4: "Develop a positive attitude." Thanks, Dale Carnegie. And there's Chapter 10: "Think about the future." It's pretty hard to run around in current society without having heard the wisdom of thinking forward, keeping your eye on the prize or the brass ring or the big chalupa that someday might just be dropped in front of you -- what are the odds?

But then Tracy throws in some gratifyingly rare suggestions, and each is handled in a tidy, concise chapter that's short enough to be read as a daily meditation. This is not to say that the rarer entries are out-of-nowhere surprises but that they can give an ambitious careerist that "aha" moment, as some psychologists call a quick and useful little epiphany.

Brian Tracy, inspiration for the ambitious: "The more that people like and respect you, the more doors they will open for you and the more obstacles they will remove from your path." -- "Get Paid More and Promoted Faster," Chapter 15

* Here's one: "Focus on the bottom line." Have you ever gotten into a water-cooler discussion with co-workers about various changes going on in your offices and discovered that someone there had never realized the profit motive behind some of those developments? It's pretty shocking, isn't it? Lots of laborers in our corporate fields never quite get hold of the fact that what they're harvesting is money.

At whatever level you function in your organization, look around and see where you fit in financially. Tracy tells you in Chapter 19 that the only two ways to increase profitability are to increase revenues by producing more, or to decrease the costs of producing the products or services at hand.

"The lifeblood of a business is sales and cash flow," Tracy writes in Chapter 19's "Take Action Now!" conclusion. "Study your business closely and determine how you could increase sales or cash flow in some way. One good idea could change your career."

It's too bad about those "Take Action Now!" boxes, by the way. But they're the book's only concession to the current "For Dummies" style of cluttering up how-to books with sayings in the margins, nuggets of wisdom in 14 typefaces and even pictures of prancing cartoon characters usually used to distract you from the fact that you're reading banal material. In Chapter 11, "Focus on your goals," Tracy does encourage you to write down what you want in your career and how you plan to get there. But this book is mercifully free of the workbook pages, the self-tests you fill out and send in like something off a cereal box, the true-or-false quizzes and the coloring contests. You can read it without a writing implement in your hand.

Tracy needs no such farce to put across his points, which include:

* "Ask for what you want." And he's talking money as well as other things.

Brian Tracy's 21 points from 'Get Paid More and Promoted Faster' 1: Decide exactly what you want 2: Select the right company 3: Choose the right boss 4: Develop a positive attitude 5: Create a successful image 6: Start earlier, work harder and stay later 7: Push to the front 8: Ask for what you want 9: Guard your integrity as a sacred thing 10: Think about the future 11: Focus on your goals 12: Concentrate on results 13: Be a problem solver 14: Unlock your inborn creativity 15: Put people first in everything 16: Invest in yourself continually 17: Commit to excellence 18: Concentrate on the customer 19: Focus on the bottom line 20: Develop positive personal power 21: Get the job done fast

* "Choose the right boss." That one may surprise people who tend to think that bosses are determined by fate at best and by the parent company at worst. But Tracy tells you that, at least at the point of a job search, you should audition your potential bosses. "When you see your boss coming," he writes, "you should feel confident and happy rather than nervous or insecure. Perhaps the best measure of all is that when you are working with the right boss, at the right job, you feel happy and relaxed. You laugh a lot at work. You enjoy yourself and you feel valuable and important as an employee and as a person."

* "Create a successful image." Sound like the oldest dress-for-success stuff in the world? Well, pretty much it is. But if you doubt the viability of this concept, try doing a little of your weekend shopping in sharp work clothes. You know, those Saturday errands you usually run in a T-shirt and jeans? -- run them in a necktie or a business skirt. You may be surprised how much better service and attention you get from clerks, other shoppers, service people. Much to the disappointment of many, particularly in the comfy-clad IT sector, image counts. And so does this old advice.

* "Push to the front." Now we're talking real nerve. Tracy isn't afraid to write, "You are in competition with everyone else who wants to be paid more and promoted faster, whether you like it or not. A race is on and you are in it. Your job is to move yourself into the lead and then figure out how to move ahead faster than the other people around you." Doesn't it feel great to find somebody openly discussing gang-way, coming-through, cordial but determined ambition?

* One more with a bit of detail: "Develop positive personal power." It's a moment about charisma here, basically. "To have power means that you have the ability to determine what people do and how money is spent. With power, you can make decisions or alter decisions that have been made by other people. ... The more you acquire and use your power in a positive and constructive way, the more power you will attract to you. ... You will definitely be paid more and promoted faster."

And that's what this book is here for. A fast read, a clean presentation, "Get Paid More" is as straight-ahead on its pages as it is in its title. There aren't too many jokes. This is a serious set of suggestions for people who are serious about moving their careers forward. None of the advice is earth-shaking. But it works like a fine no-frills roadmap, to remind you of the lay of the land and the route you're taking.

Good journey.