Costco Connection - December 2010

small business
Carrot

PHOTODISC

or stick?

How to motivate employees and clients to do the right thing By Karen Haywood Queen

For employees

Recognition. Although a raise is always nice, you may be surprised to hear that a little recognition and TLC will go a long way. “People don’t always know what the carrot is,” says Costco member Elizabeth Lombardo, author of A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness (Morgan James Publishing, 2009). “A lot of companies think they have to give more money. The real carrot is often announcing at a meeting that this

BAKER’S EDGE STARTS relationships with customers and vendors with a “carrot” approach of trust and confidence, says company president and CEO Matt Griffin, a Costco member.

Baker’s Edge ( www.bakersedge.com) makes the Edge Brownie Pan, aimed at brownie-edge lovers and designed so that every brownie can be a coveted edge piece. The company also makes the Simple Lasagna Pan, designed with extra edges that keep the lasagna layers neatly stacked.

Part of the company’s carrot: Baker’s Edge will replace its pans, sight unseen, before any so-called bad pan is returned, Griffin says. The company, based in Carmel, Indiana, has also been known to send free replacement spatulas to customers who accidentally lose the one that comes with the pan.

As for vendors, all new vendors are set up with net- 30 terms with no prepayment required, Griffin says.

“Our customer base loves to be treated
like people, not a managed risk,” he adds.
“That is our biggest carrot.”
The stick? If you are dishonest about a
pan’s quality or consistently pay late, then
you’re out. “We simply cease doing business
with the folks that take advantage or betray
our trust,” Griffin says. “The bad players usu-
ally weed themselves out. It’s truly an Old
World way of looking at business, and it is a
very personal way of doing business.”—KHQ

BIG CARROT:

a case study

employee has done something [special], or a handwritten note from the CEO.”

Food, glorious food. “Food and drink go a long way toward making people feel taken care of. We stock up at Costco on snacks,” says M.P. Mueller of Door Number 3, a marketing firm in Austin, Texas. What works? Chips, cheese sticks, microwave popcorn and, of course, chocolate.

Time will get them on your side. Door Number 3 closes its doors between Christmas and New Year’s. “That works out to four or five bonus days a year,” Mueller says. “It’s usually a dead time for us anyway and gives people a chance to recharge their batteries at the end of the year. That helps us be competitive with bigger firms.”

Fit the perk to the workplace. “Obviously, a policy that works great in one workplace can be a disaster in another,” says Flip Brown, a business culture consultant and Costco member in Burlington, Vermont. “Zutano, a designer and fabricator of funky infant clothing, allows new parents to come to work with their babies because they have found it actually increases productivity of their staff.”