*REVEALED* Compensation plans that ACTUALLY WORK…
Summary
- As an entrepreneur, you always need better people and want to get more out of your current team.
- Culture and training are crucial, but sometimes you come across a process that significantly boosts performance.
- My company, Acquisition.com, does about $85 million a year, and we're working to implement a new performance management strategy.
- We've used Management By Objectives (MBOs) for both company and individual targets, typically splitting variable compensation 50/50 between these goals.
- For example, a Director of Marketing with a targeted earning of $200,000 might get $100,000 as a base salary and another $100,000 in variable compensation.
- Half of this variable portion depends on company growth, while the other half is based on individual objectives they have control over.
- The new approach I'm adopting allows employees to set their own 30-day rolling goals for their variable compensation.
- Employees publicly declare their goals, adding social pressure, and these goals must align with the company's overall objectives.
- This system grants autonomy and ownership, as peers may encourage setting more challenging goals due to the social dynamics.
- The variable rewards system applies well to roles that aren't directly tied to sales, helping employees feel they're contributing to company growth.
- Implementing this strategy should reduce employee turnover by giving them a sense of progress, challenge, and growth.
- Creating an environment that fosters employee fulfillment can ultimately lead to building a better business.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest starting with setting up Management By Objectives (MBOs) for your team. To make it simple, split your team's earnings into a base salary and variable compensation. For example, if someone's target earnings are $50,000, consider giving them a $25,000 base and $25,000 that they could earn as bonuses.
Half of the bonuses should be tied to the company's growth, so everyone has a stake in the success. But the other half should be for personal goals. Make sure you're making this fair and depending on their role in the company.
Next, let's make these goals special. Let everyone pick their own 30-day rolling goals for their bonuses. They'll share these with the whole team. This brings in some healthy pressure and makes people feel more in control.
Make sure these goals they set help the company too. They must be clear, so it's obvious if they hit them or not. Be prepared to see team members challenge each other to set tougher goals. That's good; it means they care and are taking ownership.
This approach isn't just about money. When people can set their own goals, they feel like they're growing and making progress. That's huge. It means they're happier, stick around longer, and everyone does better work.
Remember, your biggest goal is to create a place where your team feels they can grow, take on challenges, and feel a part of the company's success. If you can do that, your business will definitely get stronger.
Quotes by Alex Hormozi
"Every entrepreneur has the same problem which is they need better people and they need to get more out of the people that they have"
– Alex Hormozi
"It's much more enjoyable to have people who are all aligned and driving hard like owners towards the same goal"
– Alex Hormozi
"We have intermittent reinforcement which is another way of saying variable reward for an employee"
– Alex Hormozi
"Your churn will go down because people will feel like they're making progress"
– Alex Hormozi
"If you can create an environment that increases the likelihood that employees feel fulfilled… I think that you're gonna build a better business"
– Alex Hormozi
Full Transcript
a really really interesting way of managing talent to get and drive higher performance and output this will be a short video um but i wanted to share with you so if you're new to the channel my name is alex from rosie owen acquisition.com we do about 85 million a year um and so the reason i wanted to make this video is because at the end of the day every entrepreneur has the same problem which is they need better people and they need to get more out of the people that they have and a lot of that comes from culture and training but every once in a while you stumble upon a process that has teeth and so i haven't implemented this yet it's not normal for me to make a video about something like this but we will be implementing something like this in our holding company and so i think it's super cool because it is reinforced through multiple different psychological uh levers and it's got really cool stuff to it so let's dive in one of the things that he shared with me that he did is that he has a level of variable compensation that's not new it means that there's some level of performance check marks etc that they have to hit in order to get paid makes sense now the way that most companies do this and i'll tell you that what we've done up to this point for us is that in positions where that are not direct like sales for example it's very easy to have a commission structure etc but for let's say leadership and executive positions uh and so this is important if you're trying to build your you know your solopreneurship into an actual company that has values you need to have people who are all aligned and driving hard like owners towards the same goal and honestly it's much more enjoyable that way and so the way that we have split our things up to this point is that we do something called mbos which is management by objectives which are for the company and then also for the individual so we usually split them 50 50. so let's say we've got a a leader who let's say like a director of marketing it's gonna they're not gonna like get a sale but we know that they're in charge of all of the you know rain making for that particular business line they might get let's say let's just use round numbers let's say they're making their targeted earnings is two hundred thousand dollars we're gonna give them a hundred thousand dollar base and we're gonna give them a hundred thousand dollars of variable compensation right now of that variable compensation that half we split that again in half half of that which would be 25 of their total comp is going to be of whether the company grows overall so if we hit x y and z metrics they'll get you know of growth or new sales or profitability then they're going to get those things right and the other half is going to be on whether they did something personally that they have control over so it might be adding a new uh channel or a new platform or creating some sort of process that we want to automate um or bringing in a new xyz manager right those would be things that they have complete control over that we can checkbox even if the business doesn't do well or it doesn't hit the goals of growth or just you know marginally grows they can still get half of their variable comp so if you've got a hundred grand they got that guaranteed and they've got 50 that as long as they do their all their stuff they've got and then they get to participate in the upside of the business if the business overall grows right and so that is how we've done it up to this point it's worked well right but what he presented was a different way that i really really really liked and a key part of this is that the management by objectives and the things that we set we set for our team okay so they don't have a choice in it they just accept it or you know they might try to negotiate a couple terms but that that's more or less how the compensation structure works right with the way that he sets it up is that every position has a level of variable compensation that level you can determine you know you can say you want it to be 10 or you can be 20 or it could be 50 you know it depends on the role but maybe let's say a frontline customer service role let's say we wanted to make a you know let's say 15 of their compensation variable so if they're targeting let's say 50 000 a year then that would mean 7 500 would be potential to be variable so that would be like whatever 600 bucks a month ish right of their compensation is kind of in the air hung in the balance and so here's the cool thing what he does is that he says this is the variable comp and you get to set the goal every month so it's a 30 day rolling goal and every month they get to set the goal of what they're going to do they have to you know show it publicly so you get some social pressure in there right you also get autonomy because they're the ones who are picking it and so here's what's cool if everybody on the team has to say what their personal goal is right and they get to set it and if they hit their personal goal as long as it's aligned with the company goal overall like it's going to contribute to that goal then they can make it right they have to obviously prove that it in some way furthers the overall uh division or department's goal but as long as it's aligned in that the extent to it and the amount that they have to hit has got to be quantifiable right if they set that goal they can set it as bigger as little as they want what happens is that the social pressure of wanting to set good goals automatically self corrects you might think well what if they just say they get you know a half a percent you know improvement or something like that and then they hit it cool but the thing is is that people on the team are going to be like dude come on that's the goal and then all of a sudden they raise it but they raised it no one else and so they have complete autonomy and ownership over that goal now for you as an owner what you can do obviously is let's say that your targeted earnings for the person's 50 000 a year that's fine you just take 15 and make it variable so like they have the potential to earn the whole thing or they have to earn somewhat less like don't worry about the variable the the piece is that we have intermittent reinforcement which is another way of saying variable reward for an employee they have complete autonomy and they have social pressure and they have some level of competition and this is really useful in roles that don't necessarily a directly you know tied to the bottom line like sales does and are more difficult uh to quantify right and so this gives those roles the opportunity to feel like they're contributing to the overall growth of the company and have something in the balance that matters so i wanted to share this with you because i thought it was really really cool we're going to be implementing stuff like this in some of our portfolio companies but i thought it was just incredibly sexy and i didn't want to i didn't want to keep it from you because i think it's really really cool because there's just so much psychology behind doing things this way and it just allows everyone to participate and grow as employees within the company and as a as a tangential tertiary benefit of this your churn will go down because people will feel like they're making progress pretty cool right you know they'll feel like they're making progress and that they are growing and that they are challenging themselves and that at the end of the day is what you want every workplace uh to fulfill for your employees now whether they feel fulfilled you have no control over but if you can create an environment that increases the likelihood that they feel that way given a normal human construct um i think that you're gonna build a better business so lots of love keep being awesome mozy nation love you all and i'll see you guys next video bye