Hey, entrepreneurs. It's your podcast, Mogo, feel better here. I am excited for this episode as as as I know you are. Before we jump into this episode, I'm gonna ask you, if you are also a podcaster and you're looking to grow your podcast or monetize your podcast, make sure you stay till the end of the episode. I have a special deal for you or a special offer, if you will. But ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's jump into the episode.

Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living

in the digital world.

Now, let's join your host, feel better, and your special guest today on invest in yourself, the

digital Gentlemen, welcome back to invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. I am, of course, your host with most feel better. And today, I'm excited because we have a guest today that is all about empowering women to be paid what they deserve, how to negotiate, how to pretty much she's the founder of the 30 k for program. Please, everyone, put your hands together for Mia Smithson. Mia, thank you for being here today.

Awesome. I'm excited to be here.

So I talked a little bit about what you do. If you've worked with companies like Disney, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Microsoft, all these amazing companies. But I would love for you to introduce yourself to my audience.

Yeah. Definitely. So I have scaled my career to the global director of talent management, leading, hiring, and leadership development for a workforce of 800 in 7 countries. And I started the 30 k program after finding out that I was underpaid by $30,000, which is not fun. No one wants to hear that. No. It is. No.

Yeah. So right after I found that out, I hired a coach. I learned the fundamentals of negotiation, and then I got 3 promotions within a year. So, yeah, it was, yeah, it was a bit of a crazy year. But I I know what the vendor pay gap feels like. Right? Because I personally experienced it. And then I've interviewed about 5,000 tech professionals at this point, about 2,500 of which have been female. And if I had to quantify it, about 1,500 of those women just haven't even tried to negotiate.

Like, there's been no negotiation on their end at all. And so, yeah, I'm I'm here to empower women to effectively negotiate and be all that they can be, in the workplace and beyond.

So I want wow. A workforce of wow. That's that's huge. And so when you found out because I'm always interested, because I I don't understand why people think that women need to be paid less or there's a pay discrepancy. It's the same job. Everyone gets paid the same. I I how did you find out that you were being paid 30 k less than, was it inside the company or was it, industry wide?

That's a great question. So it was a bit of an unusual situation. So I my boss had asked me to recruit a senior recruiter role. My title was also a senior recruiter. And the comp range that he gave me to recruit this person went up to 30 k more than I was making. And I was like, Oh, this is super interesting. Like, is there like a reason why I'm not paid the top of that pay band? Like, was there a skill gap or anything? And my boss was like, no, like you didn't negotiate. And so here's the thing, right? I could have sat there and I could have been like, At the end of the day, though, it is my fault.

What? Yeah. I didn't negotiate my salary because I thought that if I negotiated that they wouldn't offer me the job. Right? So I didn't believe in me. And so they didn't believe in paying me more. And when you believe in your power to get the compensation that you deserve? Right? Because not knowing what is possible held me back, and I hold back millions of women.