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.

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.

A person was telling me how he just signed up for this in-store credit card and how he got such an awesome deal. Basically, anyone who signed up got this free small portable radio player of some sort that was the size of a cell phone it seemed. To him he basically got like $30 for free.

The funny thing was I passed by a store not too long after and was surprised that I saw that exact same player for sale. Wouldn’t you know it, the price was $1 and there was a stack of them. And no, I didn’t end up telling him that.

You always have to think too as if the guy is willing to throw in all these little items for free just how much are they really worth? Buying a cell phone is a great example as many times dealers say they throw in all these phone holders and extra goodies that are worth over $50 yet you can probably find them in places like dollar stores as well.

Seminars and workshops are the most prolific examples too I’d say as companies often clamor that just for attending you get these high valued items for free. Similarly, they are probably only worth few dollars in the market.

A person was telling me about a radio show she was listening to today. One of the topic apparently dealt with a police officer who was a regular visitor to a particular Starbucks and he would always receive free coffee. One day there was a management change and the store decided to not give the person free coffee anymore.

As a result, the police officer apparently told the manager not to expect him and his team to come right away if they call for help. This then generated a conversation between us about whether or not one thinks that was a bad business decision as it probably costs the company barely anything anyways as an extra guarantee you will be on the person’s good side when you need their services to make sure they will do a good job.

I was inclined to think that this wasn’t even a business issue as opposed to an ethics one. This type of issue is actually very common the more I thought about it. Example, for various services if people don’t feel that you tipped them to their standards then next time they will simply give a below standard effort. Doesn’t really make too much sense when you think about. I can see not wanting to work/perform above what is expected though as that would be in-line with what the other person is offering.