Keep That Money Carrot Dangling!

Hi guys, it’s me again, Alex Pardo. Today, we’re gonna talk about something I’ve learned that is incredibly important when it comes to building a strong team full of key players.

I’m talkin’ about incentives.

For today’s, lesson I’m going to cover how to build team incentives and why doing so can mean the difference between making money and not making money. While it might seem counter-intuitive that by giving away money so that you’ll make more money, I’m about to tell you how implementing this strategy can be a real game changer.

But first, for those of you who may be new here at Mogul and not familiar with me, feel free to check out my awesome previous lessons to learn more about me and my background. As for the rest of you, let’s keep movin’…

Why Have a Carrot?

So, why have incentives? Well, it can be extremely beneficial if you currently have a team that you would like to get more results out of (and this should always be the case since you always want to raise the bar)… or if you ever plan on building an extremely successful team in the future.

So, pretty much, all you guys should get something out of this lesson.

Human nature is that we're motivated by certain things. For most people, it's (of course), money. For other people, it could be other things. But, you gotta know what motivates the people on your team so you know what kind of carrot to dangle.

And, it’s also about knowing how to dangle that carrot.

What Type of Carrot

I’ve had tremendous success by creating a bonus pool. Team members are rewarded if they reach numbers/monthly goals at the end of the month and then they get a portion of that revenue. Right now, we're taking 5% of our total monthly revenue and we're putting that into our bonus pool. And again, that's assuming we hit our monthly goal.

So, I'll give you an example:

Every single month we have a certain revenue dollar goal that we need to hit. (In some months, we might adjust that upward. In some months, we might keep it at our baseline.) So, let's say in the month of February we want to produce $30,000 in income. (And, that could be a combination of all the different types of deals that you might be doing in your market)…

oprah So, your goal is $30,000. If as a team, you guys are able to achieve that goal and you are able to do it at a minimum $30,000 in revenue for that month, then a certain percentage of the total revenue dollars that was produced is going to get paid out to your team members based on what percentage of deals they were responsible for.

Let's say that, right now, we produced $40,000/month, right? So, we had our threshold to at least $30 grand. Let's say we had a $40,000 month. Again, right now, what we're doing is we're taking 5% of that $40,000, which is $2 grand, and we're putting that into a bonus pool. Now, that $2 grand is going to be divvied up based on position.

We have a pool of $800 that goes to all the virtual assistants who are involved in closing a deal. So if 8 VAs were involved in the deal, each one would get $100. And then, the acquisitions managers (who brought in a certain portion of those deals) get a payout.

So, let's say we have $40,000 in revenue that we produced. One acquisitions manager was responsible for $20 grand and another one was responsible for $20 grand. Our Excel spreadsheet calculates what percentage of that $20 grand they're going to get. Those acquisitions guys are the sales people and they would get the lion's share of that bonus pool based on how much they contributed to the company's bottom line.

Sometimes, it’s all about the Benjamins and Sometimes it’s Not

But, in a nutshell, I just want to kind of plant the seed in your head to think of different ways to incentivize your team so that they're always striving for more and so that they're going above and beyond and always try to do more.

A lot of times, inevitably, people aren't going to care as much about your business as you do, right? And, that's fine. You need to understand and realize that. And, one of the ways that you can compensate for that is to incentivize people, and most people, again, are going to be incentivized by money.

Now, you could offer to buy them a flat screen. “This month… whomever produces X amount of dollars in revenue or if they bring in these amount of deals, we're giving away a 65-inch flat screen.”

And, like I said, this is something that could work even if you just have a virtual assistant. For every deal that your virtual assistant brings you or for every deal that a bird dog brings you, you pay them $100 bonus. Or, it could be based on a tiered schedule. So, for every third deal they bring you, you give them a $500 bonus.

It could be anything. Get creative. Have some fun with it. But, hopefully, you kind of realize the importance of having some sort of bonus program or bonus pool to incentivize your team to go out and strive for more.

Hopefully, that's what you guys are after.

What’s Sup, Doc?

(So corny, I know, but I had to do it!) All joking aside, what kind of creative incentive programs have you guys came up with? Share some of your experiences below!

Mogul Elite Members: Download an audio version of this lesson in the Power Pack tool in the side bar.