We have all heard it before, many times before, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend!” Well I am a guy – and diamonds are no friend of mine! Granted, I am not a complete rebel, I gave my wife diamonds for her engagement, and of course for her wedding ring – but since then I have found a type of jewelry that makes us both happy!
During these tough economic times many of us guys (and gals) have found it increasingly difficult to swing the big bucks needed to buy a piece of diamond jewelry with any real substance. Sure – they have diamond jewelry that costs under $100.00 but have you seen those? They are almost invisible diamonds! Just a few months ago when I was shopping for my wife (for her birthday) I was looking both online and offline for jewelry for the special occasion. It was the same old story – either I spend 200.00 on a tiny diamond charm necklace or give in to urge to buy something that looked nice (for much more!).
It was only then when I stumbled across the world of Swarovski and Austrian Crystal Jewelry! Here I sat staring at a necklace for $100.00. I couldn’t believe my eyes! This thing actually could be seen by the human eye without a microscope! To make it even better, it sparkled as much (if not more) than a diamond!!!
My decision had been made…I took the “risk” and bought the nontraditional (at least for me) gift. The result was astounding! She absolutely loved it! She flipped out on me thinking I spent a small fortune on it! (But I didn’t!) I reassured her it was not breaking the bank and that she could rest easy and look beautiful in her new necklace!
So to all the guys and girls out there who are still on this diamond train, I urge you to jump off and give the world of Swarovski and Crystal Jewelry a chance! Let’s face it, if you can maintain quality and simply lose the massive cost, there really is no downside to it!
Yet another benefit of this is that you can buy your loved one more than one item! In the past one of my biggest problems with traditional gold and diamond jewelry buying was that I always came to the celebration with one item. Granted it was a nice item, but now I am able to do so much more with less! I can bring a matching Earring, Bracelet and Necklace for a fraction of the cost of the usual Diamond alternative! Imagine being able to bring three boxes instead of just one! Now that is something worth talking about!
I hope you enjoyed this little tip, and I encourage you to spread the word! Make sure to tell your buddies about it and I promise their wives, girlfriends or other female figure in their life will not be disappointed! Happy shopping, and remember, Diamonds are not a guys best friend!
5/13/2010
Why Entrepreneurship is Better Than Any Self-improvement Program You Can Think Of
Entrepreneurship is self-improvement. When people think of self-improvement, starting a business is not the first thing that comes to mind. But to be a successful entrepreneur you need to mold yourself into a better version of yourself. Not only do you put yourself at a better position financially, you're also forced to challenge some negative assumptions about yourself and the world around you. The entrepreneur grows on his road to success, not when he finds it.
The first thing that the burgeoning entrepreneur needs to acquire is a sense of self-direction. When you take on building a business, you do it on your own - there is no boss telling you to do this. With that you also need to start taking personal responsibility for your successes and failures. You no longer have any excuses to fall back on; no "my boss is an idiot" or "I didn't get much time" or "I hate my co-workers"…etc. You stand and fall on your own merits. You become the captain of your own financial destiny.
As you move along the road of the entrepreneur, you start to realize the importance of managing your time and money. You really start to appreciate the 24 hours you get in a day and the 7 days you get in a week. You realize that time is valuable and cannot be frittered away. The same with the money you have on hand to invest in yourself and in your business. After realizing these things, learning how to effectively manage both your time and money is a no-brainer. You take it upon yourself to learn how to be efficient with your time and frugal with your money, two very admirable and useful personal traits.
When you start your own business, it is necessary to learn how to actually run a business. That means education. You educate yourself to learn how to run a business and how to better your product or service. But acquiring specialized knowledge is not the only thing you get from learning about starting a business. One acquires a different mindset, a different way of looking at things. You begin to see failures as stepping stones to an eventual success, persistence as the wings that would take me to that success. What you were once afraid of you start seeing them as growth-inducing challenges on the way to success.
But perhaps one of the most profound ways entrepreneurship brings growth is by how it changes long held beliefs. The best example I can give of this is the commonly held belief that you need to take so you can make money. In fact, I found the opposite to be true. In a paradoxical sense, you start need to give and give so you can make money. When you have a money centered mentality, seeing each customer as a dollar sign instead of a person, you decrease you're chances to make a sale because you're not focused on giving them anything, just parting them with their money. But if you start viewing your customers as people with needs and wants, you start giving them things of value, sometimes even for free, and that's when you start raking in the money. It's a very important lesson that can be applied to almost any aspect of social life; give more to get more.
At the end of your entrepreneurial journey, you don't only have a new source of income, you also have a new you. All of it stemming from the requirements of the nature of entrepreneurship. You are forced to grow when you become an entrepreneur.
The first thing that the burgeoning entrepreneur needs to acquire is a sense of self-direction. When you take on building a business, you do it on your own - there is no boss telling you to do this. With that you also need to start taking personal responsibility for your successes and failures. You no longer have any excuses to fall back on; no "my boss is an idiot" or "I didn't get much time" or "I hate my co-workers"…etc. You stand and fall on your own merits. You become the captain of your own financial destiny.
As you move along the road of the entrepreneur, you start to realize the importance of managing your time and money. You really start to appreciate the 24 hours you get in a day and the 7 days you get in a week. You realize that time is valuable and cannot be frittered away. The same with the money you have on hand to invest in yourself and in your business. After realizing these things, learning how to effectively manage both your time and money is a no-brainer. You take it upon yourself to learn how to be efficient with your time and frugal with your money, two very admirable and useful personal traits.
When you start your own business, it is necessary to learn how to actually run a business. That means education. You educate yourself to learn how to run a business and how to better your product or service. But acquiring specialized knowledge is not the only thing you get from learning about starting a business. One acquires a different mindset, a different way of looking at things. You begin to see failures as stepping stones to an eventual success, persistence as the wings that would take me to that success. What you were once afraid of you start seeing them as growth-inducing challenges on the way to success.
But perhaps one of the most profound ways entrepreneurship brings growth is by how it changes long held beliefs. The best example I can give of this is the commonly held belief that you need to take so you can make money. In fact, I found the opposite to be true. In a paradoxical sense, you start need to give and give so you can make money. When you have a money centered mentality, seeing each customer as a dollar sign instead of a person, you decrease you're chances to make a sale because you're not focused on giving them anything, just parting them with their money. But if you start viewing your customers as people with needs and wants, you start giving them things of value, sometimes even for free, and that's when you start raking in the money. It's a very important lesson that can be applied to almost any aspect of social life; give more to get more.
At the end of your entrepreneurial journey, you don't only have a new source of income, you also have a new you. All of it stemming from the requirements of the nature of entrepreneurship. You are forced to grow when you become an entrepreneur.
12/28/2009
Entrepreneurs Seek Ways to Draw Out Workers' Ideas
When Andrew Schuman bought Hammond's Candies in 2007, the nearly 90-year-old candy company was operating in the red. Mr. Schuman, who says he knew nothing about the candy business, soon learned that an assembly-line worker, rather than an executive, had dreamed up the design of the company's popular ribbon snowflake candy.
View Full Image
SBINNO_SB
Monica Munoz
Hammond's Candies' Andrew Schuman, right, and Gerardo Gutierrez, whose idea reduced candy-cane breakage.
SBINNO_SB
SBINNO_SB
It was an "aha" moment, he says. "I thought, 'wow, we have a lot of smart people back here, and we're not tapping their knowledge.' "
So last year Mr. Schuman decided to offer a $50 bonus to assembly-line workers who came up with successful ideas to cut manufacturing costs.
"They're the ones making and packing the candy, so I thought they probably know how to do things better and more efficiently," says Mr. Schuman, president of the Denver, Colo., company, which has about 90 employees.
The informal idea program, which is open to all Hammond's Candies workers, has handed out more than $500 in employee bonuses since it began last year. One worker suggested a tweak in a machine gear that reduced workers needed on an assembly line to four from five.
Another employee devised a new way to protect candy canes while en route to stores, which resulted in a 4% reduction in breakage. "It's these little tiny things that someone notices that help us in the long run," says Mr. Schuman, who adds that the company was able to earn a profit this year.
[SBINNO]
Mike Hall
As more entrepreneurs turn to employees for innovation to gain even the slightest advantage in a still-sluggish economy, many are discovering the usefulness of cash incentives or other rewards to encourage workers to come forward with ideas. Particularly for small businesses with limited resources, it's a relatively cheap way to gather "lots of ideas and get people proactively thinking about what would make the product, service or company better," says David Hsu, entrepreneurship professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Mike Hall, chief executive of Borrego Solar Systems in San Diego, introduced two quarterly employee contests this year, each with a $500 prize. Beyond the competition, the company's 55 employees are rated on innovation in their annual reviews.
One contest seeks the best business innovation, which Mr. Hall says must be formalized on paper to include the problem the idea solves, as well as its costs, risks and benefits.
The other competition rewards the best "knowledge brief," which requires employees to share valuable information that can benefit the company as a whole. For example, one worker won for creating a glossary of acronyms in the solar industry.
"It accentuates the importance of disseminating knowledge and trying not to hold it in silos," Mr. Hall says. Winners are determined by a companywide secret ballot.
Prof. Hsu says finding unique ways to reward employees for their ideas is a way to foster esprit de corps. "It's why a lot of people work for small businesses in the first place; there's a closer connection in the effort they put forward and the final product," Prof. Hsu says.
Jared Heyman, founder of Infosurv, a market-research firm in Atlanta, says his company has long turned to employees for business ideas. "In every industry, as soon as one company creates an innovation everyone else is then playing catchup," he says.
Five years ago, Mr. Heyman began awarding a $150 restaurant gift card every quarter to the employee with the best business idea. One employee won for developing a technology innovation that helped the company retain a major client that was about to jump ship.
"The [ideas] program has paid for itself a thousand times over," Mr. Heyman says. "In terms of cost savings, revenue enhancement and efficiencies, it's certainly in the six-figure range."
This year, he upped the ante with a second contest, 100 Days of Innovation, in which the company's 15 employees have to come up with a total of 100 innovative ideas by year's end in order to each receive a $100 reward. Employees write their ideas on post-it notes and stick them on the "Innovation Board," created to provide a visual reminder.
"I think a lot of folks are motivated by the fact that if we fall short nobody wins anything," Mr. Heyman says. "It reminds everybody that we work together and we'll succeed or fail together
View Full Image
SBINNO_SB
Monica Munoz
Hammond's Candies' Andrew Schuman, right, and Gerardo Gutierrez, whose idea reduced candy-cane breakage.
SBINNO_SB
SBINNO_SB
It was an "aha" moment, he says. "I thought, 'wow, we have a lot of smart people back here, and we're not tapping their knowledge.' "
So last year Mr. Schuman decided to offer a $50 bonus to assembly-line workers who came up with successful ideas to cut manufacturing costs.
"They're the ones making and packing the candy, so I thought they probably know how to do things better and more efficiently," says Mr. Schuman, president of the Denver, Colo., company, which has about 90 employees.
The informal idea program, which is open to all Hammond's Candies workers, has handed out more than $500 in employee bonuses since it began last year. One worker suggested a tweak in a machine gear that reduced workers needed on an assembly line to four from five.
Another employee devised a new way to protect candy canes while en route to stores, which resulted in a 4% reduction in breakage. "It's these little tiny things that someone notices that help us in the long run," says Mr. Schuman, who adds that the company was able to earn a profit this year.
[SBINNO]
Mike Hall
As more entrepreneurs turn to employees for innovation to gain even the slightest advantage in a still-sluggish economy, many are discovering the usefulness of cash incentives or other rewards to encourage workers to come forward with ideas. Particularly for small businesses with limited resources, it's a relatively cheap way to gather "lots of ideas and get people proactively thinking about what would make the product, service or company better," says David Hsu, entrepreneurship professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Mike Hall, chief executive of Borrego Solar Systems in San Diego, introduced two quarterly employee contests this year, each with a $500 prize. Beyond the competition, the company's 55 employees are rated on innovation in their annual reviews.
One contest seeks the best business innovation, which Mr. Hall says must be formalized on paper to include the problem the idea solves, as well as its costs, risks and benefits.
The other competition rewards the best "knowledge brief," which requires employees to share valuable information that can benefit the company as a whole. For example, one worker won for creating a glossary of acronyms in the solar industry.
"It accentuates the importance of disseminating knowledge and trying not to hold it in silos," Mr. Hall says. Winners are determined by a companywide secret ballot.
Prof. Hsu says finding unique ways to reward employees for their ideas is a way to foster esprit de corps. "It's why a lot of people work for small businesses in the first place; there's a closer connection in the effort they put forward and the final product," Prof. Hsu says.
Jared Heyman, founder of Infosurv, a market-research firm in Atlanta, says his company has long turned to employees for business ideas. "In every industry, as soon as one company creates an innovation everyone else is then playing catchup," he says.
Five years ago, Mr. Heyman began awarding a $150 restaurant gift card every quarter to the employee with the best business idea. One employee won for developing a technology innovation that helped the company retain a major client that was about to jump ship.
"The [ideas] program has paid for itself a thousand times over," Mr. Heyman says. "In terms of cost savings, revenue enhancement and efficiencies, it's certainly in the six-figure range."
This year, he upped the ante with a second contest, 100 Days of Innovation, in which the company's 15 employees have to come up with a total of 100 innovative ideas by year's end in order to each receive a $100 reward. Employees write their ideas on post-it notes and stick them on the "Innovation Board," created to provide a visual reminder.
"I think a lot of folks are motivated by the fact that if we fall short nobody wins anything," Mr. Heyman says. "It reminds everybody that we work together and we'll succeed or fail together
Entrepreneurs Seek Ways to Draw Out Workers' Ideas
When Andrew Schuman bought Hammond's Candies in 2007, the nearly 90-year-old candy company was operating in the red. Mr. Schuman, who says he knew nothing about the candy business, soon learned that an assembly-line worker, rather than an executive, had dreamed up the design of the company's popular ribbon snowflake candy.
View Full Image
SBINNO_SB
Monica Munoz
Hammond's Candies' Andrew Schuman, right, and Gerardo Gutierrez, whose idea reduced candy-cane breakage.
SBINNO_SB
SBINNO_SB
It was an "aha" moment, he says. "I thought, 'wow, we have a lot of smart people back here, and we're not tapping their knowledge.' "
So last year Mr. Schuman decided to offer a $50 bonus to assembly-line workers who came up with successful ideas to cut manufacturing costs.
"They're the ones making and packing the candy, so I thought they probably know how to do things better and more efficiently," says Mr. Schuman, president of the Denver, Colo., company, which has about 90 employees.
The informal idea program, which is open to all Hammond's Candies workers, has handed out more than $500 in employee bonuses since it began last year. One worker suggested a tweak in a machine gear that reduced workers needed on an assembly line to four from five.
Another employee devised a new way to protect candy canes while en route to stores, which resulted in a 4% reduction in breakage. "It's these little tiny things that someone notices that help us in the long run," says Mr. Schuman, who adds that the company was able to earn a profit this year.
[SBINNO]
Mike Hall
As more entrepreneurs turn to employees for innovation to gain even the slightest advantage in a still-sluggish economy, many are discovering the usefulness of cash incentives or other rewards to encourage workers to come forward with ideas. Particularly for small businesses with limited resources, it's a relatively cheap way to gather "lots of ideas and get people proactively thinking about what would make the product, service or company better," says David Hsu, entrepreneurship professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Mike Hall, chief executive of Borrego Solar Systems in San Diego, introduced two quarterly employee contests this year, each with a $500 prize. Beyond the competition, the company's 55 employees are rated on innovation in their annual reviews.
One contest seeks the best business innovation, which Mr. Hall says must be formalized on paper to include the problem the idea solves, as well as its costs, risks and benefits.
The other competition rewards the best "knowledge brief," which requires employees to share valuable information that can benefit the company as a whole. For example, one worker won for creating a glossary of acronyms in the solar industry.
"It accentuates the importance of disseminating knowledge and trying not to hold it in silos," Mr. Hall says. Winners are determined by a companywide secret ballot.
Prof. Hsu says finding unique ways to reward employees for their ideas is a way to foster esprit de corps. "It's why a lot of people work for small businesses in the first place; there's a closer connection in the effort they put forward and the final product," Prof. Hsu says.
Jared Heyman, founder of Infosurv, a market-research firm in Atlanta, says his company has long turned to employees for business ideas. "In every industry, as soon as one company creates an innovation everyone else is then playing catchup," he says.
Five years ago, Mr. Heyman began awarding a $150 restaurant gift card every quarter to the employee with the best business idea. One employee won for developing a technology innovation that helped the company retain a major client that was about to jump ship.
"The [ideas] program has paid for itself a thousand times over," Mr. Heyman says. "In terms of cost savings, revenue enhancement and efficiencies, it's certainly in the six-figure range."
This year, he upped the ante with a second contest, 100 Days of Innovation, in which the company's 15 employees have to come up with a total of 100 innovative ideas by year's end in order to each receive a $100 reward. Employees write their ideas on post-it notes and stick them on the "Innovation Board," created to provide a visual reminder.
"I think a lot of folks are motivated by the fact that if we fall short nobody wins anything," Mr. Heyman says. "It reminds everybody that we work together and we'll succeed or fail together
View Full Image
SBINNO_SB
Monica Munoz
Hammond's Candies' Andrew Schuman, right, and Gerardo Gutierrez, whose idea reduced candy-cane breakage.
SBINNO_SB
SBINNO_SB
It was an "aha" moment, he says. "I thought, 'wow, we have a lot of smart people back here, and we're not tapping their knowledge.' "
So last year Mr. Schuman decided to offer a $50 bonus to assembly-line workers who came up with successful ideas to cut manufacturing costs.
"They're the ones making and packing the candy, so I thought they probably know how to do things better and more efficiently," says Mr. Schuman, president of the Denver, Colo., company, which has about 90 employees.
The informal idea program, which is open to all Hammond's Candies workers, has handed out more than $500 in employee bonuses since it began last year. One worker suggested a tweak in a machine gear that reduced workers needed on an assembly line to four from five.
Another employee devised a new way to protect candy canes while en route to stores, which resulted in a 4% reduction in breakage. "It's these little tiny things that someone notices that help us in the long run," says Mr. Schuman, who adds that the company was able to earn a profit this year.
[SBINNO]
Mike Hall
As more entrepreneurs turn to employees for innovation to gain even the slightest advantage in a still-sluggish economy, many are discovering the usefulness of cash incentives or other rewards to encourage workers to come forward with ideas. Particularly for small businesses with limited resources, it's a relatively cheap way to gather "lots of ideas and get people proactively thinking about what would make the product, service or company better," says David Hsu, entrepreneurship professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Mike Hall, chief executive of Borrego Solar Systems in San Diego, introduced two quarterly employee contests this year, each with a $500 prize. Beyond the competition, the company's 55 employees are rated on innovation in their annual reviews.
One contest seeks the best business innovation, which Mr. Hall says must be formalized on paper to include the problem the idea solves, as well as its costs, risks and benefits.
The other competition rewards the best "knowledge brief," which requires employees to share valuable information that can benefit the company as a whole. For example, one worker won for creating a glossary of acronyms in the solar industry.
"It accentuates the importance of disseminating knowledge and trying not to hold it in silos," Mr. Hall says. Winners are determined by a companywide secret ballot.
Prof. Hsu says finding unique ways to reward employees for their ideas is a way to foster esprit de corps. "It's why a lot of people work for small businesses in the first place; there's a closer connection in the effort they put forward and the final product," Prof. Hsu says.
Jared Heyman, founder of Infosurv, a market-research firm in Atlanta, says his company has long turned to employees for business ideas. "In every industry, as soon as one company creates an innovation everyone else is then playing catchup," he says.
Five years ago, Mr. Heyman began awarding a $150 restaurant gift card every quarter to the employee with the best business idea. One employee won for developing a technology innovation that helped the company retain a major client that was about to jump ship.
"The [ideas] program has paid for itself a thousand times over," Mr. Heyman says. "In terms of cost savings, revenue enhancement and efficiencies, it's certainly in the six-figure range."
This year, he upped the ante with a second contest, 100 Days of Innovation, in which the company's 15 employees have to come up with a total of 100 innovative ideas by year's end in order to each receive a $100 reward. Employees write their ideas on post-it notes and stick them on the "Innovation Board," created to provide a visual reminder.
"I think a lot of folks are motivated by the fact that if we fall short nobody wins anything," Mr. Heyman says. "It reminds everybody that we work together and we'll succeed or fail together
Entrepreneurs Seek Ways to Draw Out Workers' Ideas
When Andrew Schuman bought Hammond's Candies in 2007, the nearly 90-year-old candy company was operating in the red. Mr. Schuman, who says he knew nothing about the candy business, soon learned that an assembly-line worker, rather than an executive, had dreamed up the design of the company's popular ribbon snowflake candy.
View Full Image
SBINNO_SB
Monica Munoz
Hammond's Candies' Andrew Schuman, right, and Gerardo Gutierrez, whose idea reduced candy-cane breakage.
SBINNO_SB
SBINNO_SB
It was an "aha" moment, he says. "I thought, 'wow, we have a lot of smart people back here, and we're not tapping their knowledge.' "
So last year Mr. Schuman decided to offer a $50 bonus to assembly-line workers who came up with successful ideas to cut manufacturing costs.
"They're the ones making and packing the candy, so I thought they probably know how to do things better and more efficiently," says Mr. Schuman, president of the Denver, Colo., company, which has about 90 employees.
The informal idea program, which is open to all Hammond's Candies workers, has handed out more than $500 in employee bonuses since it began last year. One worker suggested a tweak in a machine gear that reduced workers needed on an assembly line to four from five.
Another employee devised a new way to protect candy canes while en route to stores, which resulted in a 4% reduction in breakage. "It's these little tiny things that someone notices that help us in the long run," says Mr. Schuman, who adds that the company was able to earn a profit this year.
[SBINNO]
Mike Hall
As more entrepreneurs turn to employees for innovation to gain even the slightest advantage in a still-sluggish economy, many are discovering the usefulness of cash incentives or other rewards to encourage workers to come forward with ideas. Particularly for small businesses with limited resources, it's a relatively cheap way to gather "lots of ideas and get people proactively thinking about what would make the product, service or company better," says David Hsu, entrepreneurship professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Mike Hall, chief executive of Borrego Solar Systems in San Diego, introduced two quarterly employee contests this year, each with a $500 prize. Beyond the competition, the company's 55 employees are rated on innovation in their annual reviews.
One contest seeks the best business innovation, which Mr. Hall says must be formalized on paper to include the problem the idea solves, as well as its costs, risks and benefits.
The other competition rewards the best "knowledge brief," which requires employees to share valuable information that can benefit the company as a whole. For example, one worker won for creating a glossary of acronyms in the solar industry.
"It accentuates the importance of disseminating knowledge and trying not to hold it in silos," Mr. Hall says. Winners are determined by a companywide secret ballot.
Prof. Hsu says finding unique ways to reward employees for their ideas is a way to foster esprit de corps. "It's why a lot of people work for small businesses in the first place; there's a closer connection in the effort they put forward and the final product," Prof. Hsu says.
Jared Heyman, founder of Infosurv, a market-research firm in Atlanta, says his company has long turned to employees for business ideas. "In every industry, as soon as one company creates an innovation everyone else is then playing catchup," he says.
Five years ago, Mr. Heyman began awarding a $150 restaurant gift card every quarter to the employee with the best business idea. One employee won for developing a technology innovation that helped the company retain a major client that was about to jump ship.
"The [ideas] program has paid for itself a thousand times over," Mr. Heyman says. "In terms of cost savings, revenue enhancement and efficiencies, it's certainly in the six-figure range."
This year, he upped the ante with a second contest, 100 Days of Innovation, in which the company's 15 employees have to come up with a total of 100 innovative ideas by year's end in order to each receive a $100 reward. Employees write their ideas on post-it notes and stick them on the "Innovation Board," created to provide a visual reminder.
"I think a lot of folks are motivated by the fact that if we fall short nobody wins anything," Mr. Heyman says. "It reminds everybody that we work together and we'll succeed or fail together
View Full Image
SBINNO_SB
Monica Munoz
Hammond's Candies' Andrew Schuman, right, and Gerardo Gutierrez, whose idea reduced candy-cane breakage.
SBINNO_SB
SBINNO_SB
It was an "aha" moment, he says. "I thought, 'wow, we have a lot of smart people back here, and we're not tapping their knowledge.' "
So last year Mr. Schuman decided to offer a $50 bonus to assembly-line workers who came up with successful ideas to cut manufacturing costs.
"They're the ones making and packing the candy, so I thought they probably know how to do things better and more efficiently," says Mr. Schuman, president of the Denver, Colo., company, which has about 90 employees.
The informal idea program, which is open to all Hammond's Candies workers, has handed out more than $500 in employee bonuses since it began last year. One worker suggested a tweak in a machine gear that reduced workers needed on an assembly line to four from five.
Another employee devised a new way to protect candy canes while en route to stores, which resulted in a 4% reduction in breakage. "It's these little tiny things that someone notices that help us in the long run," says Mr. Schuman, who adds that the company was able to earn a profit this year.
[SBINNO]
Mike Hall
As more entrepreneurs turn to employees for innovation to gain even the slightest advantage in a still-sluggish economy, many are discovering the usefulness of cash incentives or other rewards to encourage workers to come forward with ideas. Particularly for small businesses with limited resources, it's a relatively cheap way to gather "lots of ideas and get people proactively thinking about what would make the product, service or company better," says David Hsu, entrepreneurship professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Mike Hall, chief executive of Borrego Solar Systems in San Diego, introduced two quarterly employee contests this year, each with a $500 prize. Beyond the competition, the company's 55 employees are rated on innovation in their annual reviews.
One contest seeks the best business innovation, which Mr. Hall says must be formalized on paper to include the problem the idea solves, as well as its costs, risks and benefits.
The other competition rewards the best "knowledge brief," which requires employees to share valuable information that can benefit the company as a whole. For example, one worker won for creating a glossary of acronyms in the solar industry.
"It accentuates the importance of disseminating knowledge and trying not to hold it in silos," Mr. Hall says. Winners are determined by a companywide secret ballot.
Prof. Hsu says finding unique ways to reward employees for their ideas is a way to foster esprit de corps. "It's why a lot of people work for small businesses in the first place; there's a closer connection in the effort they put forward and the final product," Prof. Hsu says.
Jared Heyman, founder of Infosurv, a market-research firm in Atlanta, says his company has long turned to employees for business ideas. "In every industry, as soon as one company creates an innovation everyone else is then playing catchup," he says.
Five years ago, Mr. Heyman began awarding a $150 restaurant gift card every quarter to the employee with the best business idea. One employee won for developing a technology innovation that helped the company retain a major client that was about to jump ship.
"The [ideas] program has paid for itself a thousand times over," Mr. Heyman says. "In terms of cost savings, revenue enhancement and efficiencies, it's certainly in the six-figure range."
This year, he upped the ante with a second contest, 100 Days of Innovation, in which the company's 15 employees have to come up with a total of 100 innovative ideas by year's end in order to each receive a $100 reward. Employees write their ideas on post-it notes and stick them on the "Innovation Board," created to provide a visual reminder.
"I think a lot of folks are motivated by the fact that if we fall short nobody wins anything," Mr. Heyman says. "It reminds everybody that we work together and we'll succeed or fail together
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