Your vision: You are a uniquely skilled individual making a valuable contribution. You deserve far greater compensation than you currently receive.

Your boss's vision: You are one talented individual among many. Given your firm's economic constraints, you shouldn't be paid significantly more.

The question: How can you make your vision prevail?

Every negotiation is a competition between contrasting views of reality. To be paid what you deserve, you have to persuade your manager that your version of reality is correct. Here's how:

Establish Your Market Worth

Like it or not, no one is paid for intrinsic worth. Instead, we're all compensated based on market demand, what others in the market are willing to pay for our services. To earn more, you must show your company that your market value is actually greater than your current salary. To do that, find out what the market is willing to compensate a person with similar experience, tenure, skills, and credentials. Target organizations that matter to your company, firms that it uses as benchmarks.

To find out what others in similar jobs earn, start by working your contacts. Ask your network of business colleagues inside and outside your firm how they are being compensated. Ask professional associations to which you belong for a survey of member salaries and benefits. Review trade magazines for compensation trends in your field. Also, check out Monster.com's Salary Center for more information on compensation for your position.

Next, contact human resources departments. This is the source your manager uses for compensation data. In many companies, the HR folks will share basic industry information with employees, including facts about companies used as benchmarks. You can also call your competitors' human resources departments and ask for the range of compensation typically offered to candidates like you.

The result of all of this work should be a compensation range, including salary and other typical compensation items, that will help you establish your market worth.

Record Your Contributions

Gathering competitive compensation data is not enough. To persuade your boss to compensate you in the upper part of your job market range, you need to show how you have generated value for the company.

Think about what standards your company uses to measure performance and what achievements it values. Then, keeping these in mind, compile a record of your activities over the past year or two. Highlight those activities you led or contributed significantly to that generated value for the company. For example, you could record that you led a project team that developed a marketing strategy for a new product that resulted in 20 percent higher revenues. Or show that you helped improve the customer response process by reducing the time needed to return emails.

Based on the accomplishments you record, select a narrower band from your compensation range that corresponds to your demonstrated value. This band should include the highest and lowest figures that your demonstrated work can justify. When you discuss numbers in your compensation negotiation, this is the area within which you should negotiate.

Share Your Research

All the preparation in the world will not matter unless you find a way to use it effectively in your negotiations. But how?

Avoid talking numbers right away. Many negotiators try to get you to put a number on the table and negotiate down from there. If someone says, "How much do you want?" say something like, "I want to feel fairly treated and appropriately compensated for the work I do. Before we talk numbers, let's establish what a reasonable range for my services would be." If you persist, you can get your data on the table. Then you can refer to your portfolio of accomplishments and say, "Based on the value I provide to this company, I think I should be compensated in the upper (or middle or wherever) part of this range. That leads me to think that X would be appropriate."

Focus on persuading the other side. It is likely that your manager will suggest a lower figure than you had in mind. Again, use your data to carry your point. You could say, "Here is the reasoning path I took to conclude that X amount is what I should be compensated. Are there problems with this reasoning that prevent you or others in the company from agreeing with it?"

Bear in mind that to be persuasive, you have to be open to being persuaded. If your boss can demonstrate a flaw in your research, you should be willing to change your mind. You could say, "That particular figure is significantly lower than what I have found to be a justifiable amount for my work. I am open to being persuaded that, based on my merits, I ought to be paid less than I concluded. Could you share with me the data and reasoning that leads you to suggest that amount?"

For most of us, it is never easy to ask for a raise. Even after we gather the courage, it can still be difficult to obtain the goal. But your preparation should let you know if you deserve more compensation, and if so, how much. It also will give you the confidence to ask for it. You will be able to say, "I believe I deserve more. This is why," instead of merely stating, "I want more." By taking the time to determine your market value, and making a point of sharing it with your managers, not only do you give yourself the facts you need to persuade your company to pay you more, but also you give yourself the confidence to have that negotiation.