What would you take a pay cut for?

What do you hate about your job so much that you’d take a pay cut for it to go away?

As I write the book (help me, if you’d like), I’m constantly being reminded how important secrets are. Every successful business that’s come out of Tacklebox started with one — something the founder knew that competitors didn’t.

Secrets give us our best chance at success.

If the problem you’re working on is public knowledge, you’re probably not going to be successful. An obvious problem will require you to out-execute a ton of competitors, which isn’t going to happen since this is likely your first time starting a business. Pick a niche, underserved, unknown problem with no other competitors. That, you can win.

These types of secrets are rare, and your early days should be entirely focused on finding them.

Which brings us to our question:

“What would you take a pay cut for?”

My wife’s back in school getting her social work degree (she left a high-status, high-paying job to do it because she walks the walk), and last week she came across this article.

In it, women with families in high-pressure jobs were asked what they’d take a pay cut for. Was it more vacation time? Flexible hours? Remote work?

Nope. What they really wanted was a job with clear boundaries between work and life. When they left the office they didn’t want to have to think about their job until they clocked back in the next day.

Obviously this is not how most jobs in tech/finance/marketing work. You might not be expected to work each night, but you are expected to respond to a 9pm emergency email, which means you’re “on call” nightly even if that email only happens once a month. You can’t ever be fully present.

Using the “paycut” question got to a core, potentially secret problem. And if you’re running a business trying to attract this type of worker, you might build systems that ensure employees know when they’re “on” and “off.”

So, add the question to your interview stack. Ask your customer what they’d take a pay cut for, then get ready for a secret.