I was looking at this company where all of its employees have this site that people can buy discounted products and services from where it would be like everyone can buy things at employee prices. The interesting thing was that they actually encourage employees to give their friends and family members these discounts.

I was just thinking how this was kind of smart from the company as it’s almost like getting your regular employees to be commissioned sales people as well. While that may seem like a normal company tactic, in this instance it doesn’t come across as apparent since this is a pretty large company that most people probably have to get their services from anyways so it just seems like you are giving people an insider discount of sort.

In reality it’s almost like you are doing the work for the company in trying to acquire and retain existing customers. For example, ordinarily a large business would have departments dedicated to things like offering people special discounts to retain customers or to take them from other carriers. You can imagine the expenses involved. This way it’s almost like you get to hire that department at no extra cost.

I guess designing a sales tool that appears to be an incentive program on the outside is how you could label this. It’ definitely one method that most people don’t feel apprehensive in participating in.

I was looking at various sites that were offering people incentives to reveal inside company promotions where the general public would not normally know about until the actual time period of the event. The incentive isn’t that much too as we are talking like $20+. Sure enough, a lot of people go ahead with it.

Thinking about this, essentially those people are jeopardizing their careers for a measly $20 or so. That just shows you how far a dollar can go to get people to do some crazy things. As well, I was just reading this advertisement about a company paying people to solicit their friends to attend its event. The compensation? 10 cents per friend.

I guess from a business and marketing point of view that shows how even with the minimalist of budgets as long as you target the right people you can do anything.

Looks like book is coming to an end as this is the second last chapter titled “Teamwork Is Vastly Overrated.” It’s kind of similar to the other points I read in the other chapters where Cloutier emphasizes that employees and your business structure should be follow a military type of setup. Basically, you are like the leader and they are just soldiers.

He essentially focuses specifically in this chapter on those issues. He is going for the polar opposite advice as opposed to what most people would give you about establishing a happy and productive work environment through a teamwork mentality. I’m sure everyone has heard the phrases such as there is no “I” in teamwork and that everyone should be treated as if they are the same.

Throughout this chapter he gives so many examples on how relying on a “team” to get things done can be disastrous where it’s like there is no leader and everyone is doing their own thing. He also notes that he feels employees actually want to be delegated as they want to know what is expected from them while following a strong structure. So you as the small business owner should always have a full hands on approach in controlling everyone. People shouldn’t be answering to you and not amongst themselves.

Another fallback of a team, especially in a small business, is he mentions how a team is only as strong as its weakest link. With that in mind, Cloutier goes back to how you have to have a system that rewards and punishes people individually based on results. He even goes as far as implying if an employee wants personal growth he/she should just go to a seminar on their own time.

Cloutier’s advice really is on the far side compared to others I must say. One more chapter to go.

“I Am Your Work God!” was the colorful title for this section of the book. It was pretty familiar advice I thought in terms of taking the more no nonsense and non emotional approach to running a business. It revolved around handling employees and that you need to make sure that everyone follows orders. It’s that mentality too where people don’t have to like you but they should respect you.

The way Cloutier gives this advice though is a little surprising. Example, he says things like turnover is usually good as you can in a sense constantly get more motivated workers that way. As well, it seems like he thinks the whole notion of a friendly and nurturing environment is garbage as fear is the best motivator. He doesn’t like it when workers think, such as having different ideas on how to do things, as he just wants them to obey.

Another way he puts it is that he feels a business is not a democracy as you should be the end all decision maker. If you are too light then people will make all the excuses in the world costing you time and money where you need to get rid of them. I suppose you can say it’s more of an army commander type of mentality he encourages.

Okay, I think you need like a human resource consultant or lawyer before implementing any of the tips in this chapter. It is titled “Pay For Performance” and it revolved around how you should set everyone in the business with a compensation structure where their paycheck can increase or decrease based on performance. Very much like a commissioned sales person. If you must pay someone a base as a result of stipulations such as people being in a Union then you should pay them the lowest base salary and make them earn the rest through a bonus structure.

As well, Cloutier was expressing how it’s not good enough if your pay for performance structure is a one lump some setup such as how companies have a year end Christmas bonus if the company does well. Basically, with this no one has the urgency in between to do well.

He used examples too of companies that he convinced to implement this type of compensation structure. Not surprisingly, the majority of the employees disliked this and quit. Just as fast as they quit he mentioned that they were able to find new replacements. The profits and productivity have soared since then.

Now here was the biggest shocker. He mentioned that even for his own company when someone does something bad he would deduct their pay. Example, he said that he began to deduct $50 when people failed to return calls within thirty minutes. Not surprisingly, people smartened up afterwards.

I have no idea how you can do that with an employee. Example, to my knowledge you can’t just deduct an employee’s wage if they did something bad. If these were like contractors or business partners then that would be completely different. So that’s why I say that you should really research this and the laws in your area.

There was also an interesting point on how employees like the job security though and so this type of plan wouldn’t fly in most cases. Cloutier then tries to counter that view by saying there is no such thing as job security and that it is actually more secure this way since people are in control of their pay in many ways and can make more.

Overall, I personally agree with the underlying message here where it makes most sense to have a structure where people are rewarded and compensated from producing results. In many ways I think many people have too much of an entitlement mentality when it comes to earning money.

In some ways you can say that it is just better to be an entrepreneur if you have to work under this type of pressure. Another way I see it is that you basically are an entrepreneur except you don’t have to pay for all the expenses in running a business.