The EA Who Got the Raise Did This First

The running evidence file

The reason most comp conversations fall flat is that they're reconstructed from memory the week before review season — so the whole year shrinks to "I've been busy." The fix costs you five minutes a month: a running file of what you actually did and what it was worth.

You don't need software. Open the surface you already look at all day — a OneNote page, a pinned Google Doc, a notes file — and title it "Evidence." On the first of each month, drop in the three or four things you handled that your executive would have had to do, drop, or hire out otherwise. Rescued the board packet at 11pm. Caught the double-booking before it hit the CEO's calendar. Ran the offsite for 20 people under budget.

That file is the raw material for everything below. Start it today, even if your review is months away — the person with receipts negotiates from a different position than the person with a feeling.

From "I deserve more" to a case you can hand over

1. Turn the year into impact bullets

Paste your evidence file (or just brain-dump the last six months) and let AI do the shaping:

Here is a list of things I handled at work over the last 6 months: [paste your evidence file].
Turn these into 6-8 concise, impact-focused bullets for a compensation conversation. Each bullet should start with a strong verb and show the outcome or the value protected — time saved, risk avoided, money saved, capacity freed for my executive — not just the activity. Do not exaggerate or invent results beyond what I gave you.

2. Anchor to a real market number — without letting AI make one up

This is where people either overreach or undersell. Use AI to structure the research, not to guess the figure:

I want to benchmark my compensation. I am a [your title] with [X] years of experience supporting [level — e.g., C-suite + one EVP] in [city / metro], currently at [$ base].
Do NOT estimate a salary from memory. Instead: (1) list the specific, current sources I should check for real numbers — salary guides, comparison sites, job postings for my level and city; (2) tell me exactly what to search for on each; (3) give me a template to record what I find so I arrive at a defensible range from real data.

Then go pull the real numbers — the Robert Half salary guide, current postings for your level and city, comparison sites — and let the range come from evidence, not a chatbot's guess.

3. Draft the ask — in your voice, for your situation

Once you have the bullets and the number:

Help me prepare to ask for a compensation adjustment. Using the accomplishments and the market range below, write two things: (1) a short, professional email requesting a compensation review meeting, and (2) a talking-points script for the meeting itself — how I open, how I present the evidence, and how I state my number. Confident and collaborative, not apologetic and not aggressive. Keep every fact exactly as I've given it.
Accomplishments: [paste your bullets]
Market range: [paste your researched range]
My current comp and my ask: [$ now → $ target]

4. Pre-write the pushback

The conversation rarely ends at your ask. Rehearse the replies before you're in the room:

I'm about to ask for a raise. Play the role of a reasonable but budget-conscious manager and give me the 5 most likely objections or deflections I'll hear — "it's not review season," "there's no budget," "you're already at the top of your band," etc. For each one, give me a calm, non-defensive response that keeps the conversation moving toward a concrete next step or a date.

Notice what none of these four do: none of them ask for more than you've earned, and none of them hand the judgment to the machine. AI assembles the case. You decide what it's worth and you say the number out loud. That last part is still yours — which is exactly why it's worth being paid for.

Three quick finds

1. The ceiling is higher than the forums think. In an r/ExecutiveAssistants thread this month, an EA supporting a C-suite exec and an EVP in NYC asked whether $125–135K was "unreasonable." Buried in the replies, an actual CEO wrote that his remote EA makes $160K base plus a 10% bonus — "she's that good." The number that feels like a reach to you is a Tuesday to someone else. Anchor to the market, not to your own nerves.

2. Bonuses are quieter than salaries — ask anyway. Another popular thread: an EA of eight years discovered peers were getting bonuses she'd never been told she was eligible for. The lesson from the comments was blunt — check your offer letter and handbook, and ask your manager directly what your role is eligible for. You can't negotiate a thing nobody told you exists.

3. Fluency is leverage. Every move in this issue runs on knowing how to drive the tools — the same fluency that's quietly becoming the thing employers pay a premium for. The Digital Zen library has free templates and guides that pair with these prompts. Browse it here.

Do move #1 this week

Before your next review — even if it's months out — brain-dump the last six months and run the impact-bullets prompt. Read what comes back. Most people are quietly stunned by how much they've been carrying once it's on one page.

Hit reply and tell me the one bullet that surprised you. I read every reply, and the misses are how next issues get better.