by Fronetics | Mar 18, 2015 | Blog, Strategy, Talent
Here’s why paying out actually pays off.
Contract buyouts within the sports and business worlds aren’t exactly a novel approach to making personnel changes. But what about paying employees — employees who don’t have contracts and haven’t yet earned further compensation — to quit? It’s a move that’s finding ground in the business world.
Take Zappos for example. The company pays employees $4,000 to quit. Yes, the company shells out $4,000 to employees who say just two words: “I quit.”
Here’s why it is a great idea.
All Zappos employees must participate in a four-week training program when they are hired. When they complete the four weeks, they are given a choice: They can continue to work for Zappos, or they can quit. Those who quit will be paid a bonus of $4,000.
Essentially, Zappos is putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to cultivating its company culture. Zappos leadership believes an employee who is not happy after participating in the training program or is not excited about the company and its culture won’t be a good match. By offering such employees an out, Zappos can quickly and effectively weed out employees who are not a good fit within the company’s culture.
This may seem crazy, but the reality is that when unhappy employees leave the company within their first four weeks of employment, the financial implications are much, much lower than the cost of unhappy employees who are likely to be uninspired at work and quit in less than a year.
Why does Zappos do this?
It wants to attract and retain great talent. In his book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh says: “Your personal core values define who you are, and a company’s core values ultimately define the company’s character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.” In short, Zappos is big on company culture. This focus has made it successful — very successful.
So how many Zappos employees take the money and run? You might be surprised to learn that only between 2 to 3 percent of people quit and take the $4,000.
Another example of front-end hiring processes from eBay
During his time as the COO of eBay, Maynard Webb also employed front-end hiring processes to determine if a candidate would be a good fit within the company’s culture. To assemble a solid team, he recommends asking the right questions during the hiring process. He gives as an example of a question he would routinely ask job candidates to determine fit at eBay. “If something breaks at 2 a.m. but miraculously resolves itself before anyone understands it, is it okay to unplug and go to sleep? The answer should be no.”
With the U.S. Department of Labor currently estimating the average cost of a bad hiring decision to be as much as 30% of an individual’s first-year potential earnings, a single bad hire with an annual income of $50,000 can equal a potential $15,000 loss for a company. It might actually pay to create a company payment system that is designed to weed out new hires who reveal themselves to be less-than-stellar prospects for long-term employment.
What do you think about the idea of paying your employees to quit? What processes do you have in place to detect personnel issues up front?
Related posts:
by Fronetics | Mar 18, 2015 | Blog, Strategy, Talent
Here’s why paying out actually pays off.
Contract buyouts within the sports and business worlds aren’t exactly a novel approach to making personnel changes. But what about paying employees — employees who don’t have contracts and haven’t yet earned further compensation — to quit? It’s a move that’s finding ground in the business world.
Take Zappos for example. The company pays employees $4,000 to quit. Yes, the company shells out $4,000 to employees who say just two words: “I quit.”
Here’s why it is a great idea.
All Zappos employees must participate in a four-week training program when they are hired. When they complete the four weeks, they are given a choice: They can continue to work for Zappos, or they can quit. Those who quit will be paid a bonus of $4,000.
Essentially, Zappos is putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to cultivating its company culture. Zappos leadership believes an employee who is not happy after participating in the training program or is not excited about the company and its culture won’t be a good match. By offering such employees an out, Zappos can quickly and effectively weed out employees who are not a good fit within the company’s culture.
This may seem crazy, but the reality is that when unhappy employees leave the company within their first four weeks of employment, the financial implications are much, much lower than the cost of unhappy employees who are likely to be uninspired at work and quit in less than a year.
Why does Zappos do this?
It wants to attract and retain great talent. In his book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh says: “Your personal core values define who you are, and a company’s core values ultimately define the company’s character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.” In short, Zappos is big on company culture. This focus has made it successful — very successful.
So how many Zappos employees take the money and run? You might be surprised to learn that only between 2 to 3 percent of people quit and take the $4,000.
Another example of front-end hiring processes from eBay
During his time as the COO of eBay, Maynard Webb also employed front-end hiring processes to determine if a candidate would be a good fit within the company’s culture. To assemble a solid team, he recommends asking the right questions during the hiring process. He gives as an example of a question he would routinely ask job candidates to determine fit at eBay. “If something breaks at 2 a.m. but miraculously resolves itself before anyone understands it, is it okay to unplug and go to sleep? The answer should be no.”
With the U.S. Department of Labor currently estimating the average cost of a bad hiring decision to be as much as 30% of an individual’s first-year potential earnings, a single bad hire with an annual income of $50,000 can equal a potential $15,000 loss for a company. It might actually pay to create a company payment system that is designed to weed out new hires who reveal themselves to be less-than-stellar prospects for long-term employment.
What do you think about the idea of paying your employees to quit? What processes do you have in place to detect personnel issues up front?
Related posts:
by Fronetics | Mar 16, 2015 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
How your business can use social media to generate leads.
Leads are essential to the growth of your business, and your marketing strategy is built around finding and connecting with leads. So when 92% of all marketers indicate that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses, you should take note and make social media part of your prospecting strategy.
Building a network of online connections is an effective way to find new leads. And with social media, you can find new leads by doing something called social prospecting. Social prospecting is the art of searching the social web, identifying potential prospects for your business, and engaging them in a manner that draws them to your company’s website and through your funnel. At the core, social prospecting is about listening. It’s about listening to social media conversations in order to generate leads for your business. It goes beyond monitoring keywords to engaging people that may or may not know what your business can do for them.
As you build your social prospecting strategy and develop new approaches to connect with leads, keep these 25 handy tips close by to guide your efforts.
Twitter
- Post content that draws prospects back to your website.
- Aim to share useful content on Twitter two to three times per week.
- Make customers feel appreciated by prioritizing their questions.
- Keep prospects engaged by retweeting some of their organic content.
- Favorite tweets with content that leads share.
- Respond to and offer help to industry peers’ questions.
- Delight customers by replying or favoriting tweets when they mention your company.
- Engage with potential prospects by offering help using relevant content.
LinkedIn
- Post at least twice a week to your company’s LinkedIn page.
- Join five LinkedIn Groups that could connect you with potential prospects.
- Join conversations in the group where you can add value with your content.
- “Like” content that others are sharing in the group.
- Share your own content to the group.
- Use LinkedIn Answers to respond to questions posted by others in your industry.
- Make a habit of routinely reviewing the content posted within your groups.
- Comment and add value to posts from others in the group.
- Ask for an offline meeting with your most engaged prospects.
Facebook
- Link to your blog from Facebook.
- Add calls to action to posts.
- Promote a special product or service offer solely for Facebook fans.
- Create and post visual content, like infographics and videos.
- Share a quote or industry statistic with your fans.
- To draw more comments from fans, pose a question.
- Create a Facebook event to promote trade show appearances or webinars.
- Update your company’s profile and cover photos routinely.
Ready to build a more full-bodied social prospecting strategy? We’ve laid out the quickest ways for you to find more leads and prospects on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+ in our social prospecting workbook. In a dedicated worksheet to each of those social media platforms, you’ll find every worksheet includes: a short preparatory work to make the actual prospecting easy; visual instructions on how and where to find prospects; pro tips that will help you get the best results; prescriptions (Marketing Rx) for success; and take-home exercises for follow-up prospecting. To get started growing your prospecting opportunities and building alternative lead generation and nurturing strategies, download our free workbook.
Curious about what we’re up to on social media? Find out.
by Fronetics | Mar 16, 2015 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
How your business can use social media to generate leads.
Leads are essential to the growth of your business, and your marketing strategy is built around finding and connecting with leads. So when 92% of all marketers indicate that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses, you should take note and make social media part of your prospecting strategy.
Building a network of online connections is an effective way to find new leads. And with social media, you can find new leads by doing something called social prospecting. Social prospecting is the art of searching the social web, identifying potential prospects for your business, and engaging them in a manner that draws them to your company’s website and through your funnel. At the core, social prospecting is about listening. It’s about listening to social media conversations in order to generate leads for your business. It goes beyond monitoring keywords to engaging people that may or may not know what your business can do for them.
As you build your social prospecting strategy and develop new approaches to connect with leads, keep these 25 handy tips close by to guide your efforts.
Twitter
- Post content that draws prospects back to your website.
- Aim to share useful content on Twitter two to three times per week.
- Make customers feel appreciated by prioritizing their questions.
- Keep prospects engaged by retweeting some of their organic content.
- Favorite tweets with content that leads share.
- Respond to and offer help to industry peers’ questions.
- Delight customers by replying or favoriting tweets when they mention your company.
- Engage with potential prospects by offering help using relevant content.
LinkedIn
- Post at least twice a week to your company’s LinkedIn page.
- Join five LinkedIn Groups that could connect you with potential prospects.
- Join conversations in the group where you can add value with your content.
- “Like” content that others are sharing in the group.
- Share your own content to the group.
- Use LinkedIn Answers to respond to questions posted by others in your industry.
- Make a habit of routinely reviewing the content posted within your groups.
- Comment and add value to posts from others in the group.
- Ask for an offline meeting with your most engaged prospects.
Facebook
- Link to your blog from Facebook.
- Add calls to action to posts.
- Promote a special product or service offer solely for Facebook fans.
- Create and post visual content, like infographics and videos.
- Share a quote or industry statistic with your fans.
- To draw more comments from fans, pose a question.
- Create a Facebook event to promote trade show appearances or webinars.
- Update your company’s profile and cover photos routinely.
Ready to build a more full-bodied social prospecting strategy? We’ve laid out the quickest ways for you to find more leads and prospects on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+ in our social prospecting workbook. In a dedicated worksheet to each of those social media platforms, you’ll find every worksheet includes: a short preparatory work to make the actual prospecting easy; visual instructions on how and where to find prospects; pro tips that will help you get the best results; prescriptions (Marketing Rx) for success; and take-home exercises for follow-up prospecting. To get started growing your prospecting opportunities and building alternative lead generation and nurturing strategies, download our free workbook.
Curious about what we’re up to on social media? Find out.
by Fronetics | Mar 2, 2015 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy
Frank Underwood and his house of cards offers up valuable business lessons.
Netflix’s Emmy-winning drama House of Card’s is one of the most binge-watched shows. Two percent of U.S. Netflix subscribers watched the entire 649 minutes of the second season in just over 72 hours. Around 6 to 10 percent of US subscribers watched at least one episode of the season the weekend it was released.
At the heart of House of Cards is Frank Underwood (F.U.), a man you hate to love. Notwithstanding Frank’s blatant disregard for morals and ethics, Frank and his house of cards offers up business lessons.
1. Relationships matter
Frank focuses much of his time on forging and nurturing relationships. He understands that relationships matter.
Relationships between individuals and relationships between organizations are what drive success. Develop and nurture relationships.
2. A strong team is essential
Frank’s team is critical to his success. This is not happenstance. Frank has assembled a team comprised of individuals with the right skillset to achieve his goals. He understands that success cannot be achieved without these individuals.
Assembling the right team is critical whether it be at the project or organizational level. A strong team is essential for success.
3. Be proactive
Frank once said: “If you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table.” Frank does not wait for things to happen, he makes things happen.
If you don’t like how it is going (or not going), do something about it.
4. Stay true to your word
In business as in life it is important to stay true to your word. In Frank’s words: “The nature of promises, Linda, is that they remain immune to changing circumstances.”
5. Knowledge is powerful
“I don’t want to assume, I want to know”
Knowledge is critical to Frank’s success. Frank doesn’t make assumptions, rather he takes the time to learn the facts and to learn how the information he has gathered can best be used.
Do the same. Take the time to learn about what matters to those around you, to your customers, and your industry. Use this knowledge constructively.
6. Emotions matter
Not all decisions are made based on logic. Although often ignored, emotion plays a significant role in business. Understanding and speaking to the emotions of a customer or potential business partner, for example, can be the key to success. Or as Frank puts it: “I should have thought of this before. Appeal to the heart, not the brain.”
7. Change often
Remy Danton, Frank’s former Chief of Staff, gives Frank a watch inscribed with a quote from Winston Churchill: “To improve is to change. To perfect is to change often.”
Change is critical. Without change it is not possible to meet the dynamic needs of customers and of your business. Without change growth opportunities will diminish.
8. Don’t let your weaknesses be your downfall
Don’t let your weaknesses be your downfall. Work at strengthening your weaknesses so that you are not an easy target. As Frank points out: “Even Achilles was only as strong as his heel.”
9. Don’t lose sight of the details
The details often get lost in the big picture. However, it is often the details that are critical to success. As Frank puts it: “Pay attention to the fine print. It’s far more important than the selling price.”
by Fronetics | Mar 2, 2015 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy
Frank Underwood and his house of cards offers up valuable business lessons.
Netflix’s Emmy-winning drama House of Card’s is one of the most binge-watched shows. Two percent of U.S. Netflix subscribers watched the entire 649 minutes of the second season in just over 72 hours. Around 6 to 10 percent of US subscribers watched at least one episode of the season the weekend it was released.
At the heart of House of Cards is Frank Underwood (F.U.), a man you hate to love. Notwithstanding Frank’s blatant disregard for morals and ethics, Frank and his house of cards offers up business lessons.
1. Relationships matter
Frank focuses much of his time on forging and nurturing relationships. He understands that relationships matter.
Relationships between individuals and relationships between organizations are what drive success. Develop and nurture relationships.
2. A strong team is essential
Frank’s team is critical to his success. This is not happenstance. Frank has assembled a team comprised of individuals with the right skillset to achieve his goals. He understands that success cannot be achieved without these individuals.
Assembling the right team is critical whether it be at the project or organizational level. A strong team is essential for success.
3. Be proactive
Frank once said: “If you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table.” Frank does not wait for things to happen, he makes things happen.
If you don’t like how it is going (or not going), do something about it.
4. Stay true to your word
In business as in life it is important to stay true to your word. In Frank’s words: “The nature of promises, Linda, is that they remain immune to changing circumstances.”
5. Knowledge is powerful
“I don’t want to assume, I want to know”
Knowledge is critical to Frank’s success. Frank doesn’t make assumptions, rather he takes the time to learn the facts and to learn how the information he has gathered can best be used.
Do the same. Take the time to learn about what matters to those around you, to your customers, and your industry. Use this knowledge constructively.
6. Emotions matter
Not all decisions are made based on logic. Although often ignored, emotion plays a significant role in business. Understanding and speaking to the emotions of a customer or potential business partner, for example, can be the key to success. Or as Frank puts it: “I should have thought of this before. Appeal to the heart, not the brain.”
7. Change often
Remy Danton, Frank’s former Chief of Staff, gives Frank a watch inscribed with a quote from Winston Churchill: “To improve is to change. To perfect is to change often.”
Change is critical. Without change it is not possible to meet the dynamic needs of customers and of your business. Without change growth opportunities will diminish.
8. Don’t let your weaknesses be your downfall
Don’t let your weaknesses be your downfall. Work at strengthening your weaknesses so that you are not an easy target. As Frank points out: “Even Achilles was only as strong as his heel.”
9. Don’t lose sight of the details
The details often get lost in the big picture. However, it is often the details that are critical to success. As Frank puts it: “Pay attention to the fine print. It’s far more important than the selling price.”
