Are Your Bonuses Gifts or Trades?

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                      (Estimated Read Time 4 minutes)

I want to talk about giving, and this is a great time of year to do that. It's time to start thinking about bonuses. Why do you give bonuses? You want to show your appreciation to your team for being there, slugging it out for the year, just being a part of it all, and sharing the year with them. When you give a bonus, it's appreciated once. Your team members will appreciate it one time, the first time you do it, they are very grateful. What happens in the second year? It becomes an expectation, and that's frustrating to you. I get it.

When giving a bonus, you have expectations.

If you are going to be completely honest, you have expectations too. When you are giving this bonus, you have expectations. How do I know that? Because I hear it all the time. So many conversations with shop owners are like, “I did this for them.” I did this when they were going through a divorce. I did this and I did that. And that's an expectation. You are wrapping what you are doing with the expectation behind it. Like, “Hey, I'm going to help you through your divorce. I care.” But there's an unspoken expectation that you're going to want to stick around because I care.

Giving a bonus can be based on trading something.

How do you know when you have an expectation? It's when you are trading. I'm going to do this and you're going to do that. But here's the other time it's an expectation for you. It's when you're rewarding someone. I've seen shop owners give bonuses to a superstar tech way up here they take care of him by giving him a great bonus. The other guy over there, not so much. So again, when you tie any kind of giving to an expectation or a reward, then it's an expectation for you.

When your bonus is a gift, call it a gift.

What do you do about your expectations? Well, the first thing is if you're giving, then it's a gift. It's not a bonus whether they stay or they go, whether they get better or they get worse. You never tie what you are giving or what you did for them to their actions or their performance. It is a gift. If it's a gift, make sure you call it that. Don't call it a bonus. It's about appreciating them and you explain that it can come, it can go, it can go up, it can go down. It's going to be based on different circumstances, situations, events, or your finances. Make sure they understand it's a gift. And it's a gift because they are in your life.

If your bonus is based on a trade, make sure they know it.

If you're going to do it as a part of trading, such as, “I'm going to do this, but I expect that,” then call it out. Do it. Instead of giving this A tech who’s a superstar this much money and a tech lower-level tech not so much, and just doing it willy-nilly, why not tie your bonus to billed hours? Why not give a certain amount for every billed hour throughout the year? And then they know that their bonus is based on performance. But you must give them a chance to understand what the give and take is. You must allow them the chance to say yes or no to the trade. You not only need to manage your expectations and be honest about them but manage their expectations as well.

A gift is simply appreciation.

This is a communication issue. It's about sitting down with each person, letting them know how much you appreciate them being in your life, and that this is a gift. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a Christmas gift. It's a holiday gift. I appreciate you being a part of my life. That's it. That way when you give, you just give and there's zero expectation. Like I said, they can come, they can go, they can get worse. They can get better. It doesn't matter. You don't feel like you're buying something, you don't feel like you're rewarding something. That's when it's a gift. If it's a bonus, tie it to something. If it's trading, tie it to something. Make them aware of it so that they can get on board with it, and they can say, yes, I want to play, or no, I don't want to play, but it's up to them.

We give gifts. We have a formula for it, but it's a gift. We have zero expectations, so I want you to understand this. Is it a gift or is it a bonus? And the bottom line on this is it's communicating openly either way because you're either going to kill engagement or you are going to clarify it.

Please share this video.  We have our Shop Owner’s Round Table, on the second Thursday of every month, 7 p.m. Eastern, and we would love you and your friends to drop by. Shop owners only. And then we have our upcoming Pocket Business Genius webinar on the second Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern time. 

God bless. stay safe, have some fun, and go make some money.  Take care.

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