Five Tips to Motivate Small-Business Workers

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WHEN YOU RUN A lean operation, how do you motivate your work force?

Sure, large corporations with deep pockets can easily dangle bonuses, perks and an array of fancy reward programs (often created by outside consultants) to encourage employees to outperform. Yet, small businesses with limited budgets have a distinct advantage: Chances are, you probably know all your employees. So it's easier to show 'em you care.

In many cases, employees will perform best for a boss who can accommodate their needs, whether that's giving them an afternoon off to take care of a personal situation, re-arranging their work schedule so they can pick up kids from school, or allowing them to telecommute as needed, says John Challenger, head of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago.

"Small business can be so flexible," he says. "Big companies have policies, and if they make an exception they think the whole world will fall apart."

So when it comes to energizing your staff, being small can be your best advantage. Here are five steps to engage your employees:

1. Communicate your vision

A boss at a small firm should explain the company's missions and goals, preferably right when a new employee starts, says Jeanie Adkins, a rewards consultant at Mercer Human Resource Consulting in Louisville, Ky. Studies at larger corporations show that employees perform better when they understand the company's vision, think the company's mission is worthwhile, and think they can contribute to the success of the organization, she says. "Small businesses have perhaps an easier task than big ones because it's easier to create that line of sight," she says.

2. Acknowledge your limitations

Admit it: You may not be able to provide the same opportunities for promotion that a large company can. But, "what you can do is make sure employees are getting the mentoring, training and development that they need to build a career with you — or someone else," Adkins says. While it sounds counterintuitive, offering an employee valuable (and marketable) work skills can reinforce good performance, she says.

3. Involve workers in special projects

Ask your employees to step away from their routine jobs and come up with creative solutions to customers' problems, suggests Ron Wince, president of Guidon Performance Solutions, a Mesa, Ariz., consulting firm. That sends a message that you value their creativity, which in turns boosts their job satisfaction. "If you go into a company and all people do is punch the clock, you as a customer can almost always tell how the morale is in an organization," he says. Once a month, invite a cross-section of employees to meet for a few hours and work on a particular issue, usually one involving customer service. Not only will you probably get some good ideas, but "the employee feels like they're part of something," he says.

4. Offer "add-ons" in addition to wages

Younger people, in particular, have grown up hearing catch phrases like "work-life balance" and value benefits such as child-care programs, flexible schedules, and even wellness initiatives almost as much as competitive salaries, says Pete Stoddart, a spokesman for Ceridian, a Minneapolis human-resources company. A small-business owner might not have the resources for formal programs, but can promise the flexibility to work with individuals in the event of major life events, such as the birth of a child, the death of a relative or health problems. And consider employee-assistance programs, which have come down in price and can be purchased by small businesses for roughly "a few dollars per employee per month," he says. "It's a very easy thing for a small-business owner to have in place."

5. Get creative with rewards

At trucking company Admiral Merchants Motor Freight in Minneapolis, which has about 60 employees, human-resources manager Augusta Kirk has come up with an original (and relatively low-budget) rewards program called "Run to the Border" to encourage the office staff to exercise. Working under a $2,000 budget, Kirk doles out gift certificates to restaurants and sporting-goods stores to employees who agree to work out for 30 minutes, five days a week, for all of 2007. (Kirk says each work-out session equals about six miles, so by the end of the year, employees who stick to it will log 1,508 miles, roughly the distance between their office and the Mexican border.) "You definitely do have better-performing employees if they are more active," she says. If an exercise routine doesn't work for your staff, Challenger suggests something like an NCAA basketball tournament. "Rather than drive the pools underground, do it for free and give an award out to the winner," he says.
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Taking the Mystery Out of Mystery Shoppers

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Who wouldn't love to try luxurious products for free? It's this premise that entices many people to become mystery shoppers.

Market researchers often solicit real consumers to anonymously evaluate the quality of a product or service by purchasing it and then reporting back. It's a seemingly great deal for consumers -- mystery shoppers are reimbursed for their expenses and get to keep the product.

But beware: There are a number of fraudulent mystery-shopping promoters waiting to pounce. In fact, last week the Federal Trade Commission charged a company called Mystery Shop Link with promoting fraudulent claims to consumers who lost millions of dollars because of the service. In a written release, the FTC states:

"In exchange for the $99.95 fee for one year of service, consumers thought they would be trained and certified as mystery shoppers, and would gain access to job postings available through the company, with enough paid assignments available to ensure a steady part-time or full-time income. Instead, consumers received a worthless certification and access to re-postings of other mystery shopping assignments posted by other companies, who were unrelated to the defendants. Consumers still had to apply for these jobs, most of them low-paying, and had no advantage over anyone else who found the postings elsewhere for free."

So how do you find a legitimate mystery shopping gig? First of all, know that you will almost never have to pay to become one. If you come across an ad promoting a mystery shopping service that requires you to fork over any cash, move on.

Also, you should avoid mystery shopping promoters who claim they can get you "certified." Companies that need mystery shoppers usually require no such thing. And if you get a pitch to become a mystery shopper by e-mail or see an ad in your newspaper's "help wanted" section, it's probably best to move on.

To make sure you're not swindled, follow these steps from the FTC to find a real mystery shopping job:

• Do a Web search of mystery shopping companies. Look for ones that are accepting applications -- and don't charge a fee for you to complete it.
• Do your homework. There are many books available on the subject, such as "The Mystery Shopper's Manual" and "How to Become a Mystery Shopper." Read up and understand what it takes to be a good mystery shopper.
• Start with the Mystery Shopping Providers Association Web site at www.mysteryshop.org. You can find out how to register with an MSPA member company, browse available jobs and feel confident that the ones represented there are legitimate.

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Marketing With Myspace?

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For those who may not have heard of it, http://MySpace.com is an enormous "social networking" website that has taken the internet by storm. As of early 2007, it was estimated that nearly half of the American populace over the age of 14 had at least one account at MySpace, with the result of account numbers approaching 150 million as of this writing. Every day thousands of new accounts are created at MySpace, many of these for marketing purposes. But is it a good idea to use this vast resource for marketing and attempts at making money online?

The story goes that MySpace was originally designed with musicians and artists in mind, even thought its founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe were clearly tried-and-true businessmen themselves whose previous businesses included selling email addresses to marketers, resulting in numerous complaints about spamming. The long and tumultuous history of MySpace ended up with young Tom and Chris making a fortune when MySpace was bought by megamedia maven Rupert Murdoch for hundreds of millions of dollars. Murdoch promptly aimed to turn MySpace into another of his corpulent cash cows.

With such a background, it would seem that MySpace would be a rich mine for marketing and marketers, and many people believe that it is. In fact, many marketers have made thousands - some, rumor has it, even millions - of dollars on MySpace, and an entire industry of MySpace marketing techniques and products has cropped up, including ebooks, video courses and software. Some of these methods and products are legit, in the sense that they play by the MySpace rules, but a number of them violate MySpace's rigid "anti-marketing" terms of service. This fact has not stopped either unwary or unscrupulous individuals from using these services to create a massive amount of accounts with automated software that includes the ability to add thousands of friends per day, for example, essentially developing a huge "mailing list" to send messages and bulletins to. MySpace's non-marketing population, however, becomes peeved with the endless solicitations to download ringtones and engage in other marketing ploys. With enough complaints from the MySpace community, these accounts are quickly deleted, without notice. With such a large number of accountholders, however, not a few innocent individuals have gotten caught in this trap as well and had their accounts summarily removed. The question remains then, can the MySpace community bring fruits to its laborers? Technically, yes, because MySpace's purported purpose is to showcase talent and creativity, such that musicians and artists, for example, are actually encouraged to market or "show themselves off."

All of the marketing prohibition appears odd in consideration of the fact that MySpace itself appears to have been devised with the desire of targeting the youthful demographic of 18-35, with its large amount of disposable income. MySpace itself uses the personal information provided by users to sell to them, but its TOS are evidence that it is jealously guarding its market. Nevertheless, even while adhering strictly to MySpace's terms of service there are certainly "kosher" ways to make money on this megasite, and many will continue to do so. With an enormous online presence that has eclipsed even Google, it seems that MySpace and its bevy of hungry artists and marketers are here to stay.

By: Jamie Clarkson -

Jamie Clarkson has been making money online since 1997. For more information about Internet Marketing, you can go to supermarketingaffiliates.com.

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This article was excerpted from MadScam. Buy it today from EntrepreneurPress.com.

Sit down. Pour yourself a stiff drink. Then, on one side of one sheet of paper write down all the reasons why you think you should be advertising. After you’ve done that, refill your glass, turn over that same sheet of paper, and write down all the reasons why you shouldn’t be advertising. Only if the reasons on the first side of the sheet outweigh those on the reverse should you consider committing a portion of your hard­-earned revenues to an ongoing ad program.

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Hailing a taxi with a mouse click

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Business travelers have been going online for a decade to book airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars. But until recently they still had to hail a cab the old-fashioned way

Now, 34-year-old New York cab driver and entrepreneur Jason Diaz is trying to change that. Six months ago, he launched 1-800-cab-ride.com in hope of using the Internet to create a national brand and sales organization for the highly decentralized taxicab business.

"I want to do for the taxi business what 1-800-flowers.com did for the flower delivery business," Diaz says.

Americans spend more than $12 billion a year on taxi rides, Diaz says, which makes the taxi business about as large as the ice cream industry. And taxis carry more customers each year than do all the rental car companies combined. "But there's no Dreyers or Breyers, and no Hertz or Avis or Enterprise. There are no big name brands. It's all mom and pop."

Backed by private investors — he won't say who, or how much they've invested — Diaz created 1-800-cab-ride.com by enlisting locally owned cab companies from around the USA into a network that extends to about 40 major markets. He's adding about five markets a month.

Currently, only about 300 people a day book taxi rides through the service, Diaz says. But he is expecting rapid growth.

Flat fee charged

Travelers can schedule a cab ride with as little as 10 minutes advance notice, though the company guarantees only that a cab will be available within three hours of booking. Travel agents can also book cab rides online for their clients at the same time they book airline tickets and hotel rooms.

The company quotes a flat fee at the time a trip is booked. It includes fare, tip, taxes and tolls. The customer must pay with a credit card at the time of booking. That reduces the need for business travelers to carry cash and improves the accuracy of corporate expense reporting.

It also eliminates the possibility that a dishonest driver will sell the customer's credit card number.

Another selling point for business travelers: If anything goes wrong for customers — a laptop left behind, for example — the company can pinpoint their cab quickly.

Diaz sells the service to local cab companies by highlighting the potential for greater productivity and increased revenue. He says 60% of drivers' time is spent "doing nothing but waiting for the next ride, just hanging out."

Local operators keep most of the fare and pay 1-800-cab-ride.com fees for sending them business. In competitive big-city cab markets, the fares represent money the cab companies wouldn't otherwise get.

"It's well worth it to them to share a part of that incremental revenue with us," Diaz says.

Rick Hewatt, owner of Checker Cab of Atlanta, which has been in business for 60 years, signed up because he saw Diaz's proposition as "an opportunity to bring us additional sales and to get us into the world of online reservations."

James Hickey, senior director of marketing and sales at Chicago's Flash Cab and 303 Taxi in the suburban Chicago area, calls 1-800-cab-ride.com a "really great idea."

"I've heard many, many horror stories of people who've had bad experiences with cabs when they've gone to other cities," he says. Diaz's plan assures travelers a clean, safe cab with protection against overcharging, he says.

Brian Deely, a financial planning associate from Tacoma, Wash., says he's sold on the concept after one use last month in Houston. "I found it online very quickly," he says, "and the really cool thing about it was that I paid right then and there."

He's planning to use the service again on a trip to Las Vegas, and expects to use it on trips elsewhere. "It sure beats having to scramble for transportation after I land," Deely says.

Still drives occasional shift

For Diaz, his venture is the combination of two loves: big business and taxis. He first got interested in the cab business during his college days at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where he earned a bachelors degree in 1995.

After graduation, Diaz landed a job as a management consultant in New York.

Motivated by the murder of a friend in a street crime, Diaz threw himself into the creation of a crime-watch-on-wheels called Cab Watch. The non-profit trains cabbies to look for and report crime.

Along the way Diaz got his hack's license and still occasionally pulls a shift behind the wheel. Eventually he left his consulting job to focus on his taxi business interests, which includes TaxiPass. That company allows local customers to buy taxi credits from ATM-style machines.

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