This is one of my favorite and least favorite times of the year. My favorite because its winding down time for the nursery and minus the snow plowing and salting, I can take some time to relax and get caught up on other projects. I also get to buy the people I care about nice gifts. The bad, is end of year reviews and bonuses for 30 plus employees. I take pride in giving great bonuses and raises but I fight expectations. I hate it that people expect bonuses. Bonuses IMO are for doing a job above and beyond what you were paid for, or getting a piece of the pie if the company had a good year. If both of those didn’t happen its tough to give a bonus. But everyone expects one. Don’t give one and you turn into the boss from Christmas vacation that gave the jelly of the month club. I know I am being more than fair but I don’t like the feeling of disappointing anyone. Fortunately we have been having really good years so meeting expectations hasn’t been too difficult. But I must admit, I am most happy when its all over.
The other issue is never getting a bonus myself. If you have ever owned a business you know that every penny you make goes back into reinvestment. You become asset rich and cash poor. Then end of the year really means nothing more than checking the numbers, closing the books and preparing for next year. If you are growing its the best thing you can do with your money is reinvest. You are going to make a lot more putting it back in to your business than putting it in the bank. As much as I like Frank Schilling’s car’s, I have trouble buying things that expensive that don’t create revenue for me. I buy lots of tractors that cost $100,000 but they load and move and create revenue. I get tax breaks buying them. They don’t sit in a garage and collect dust 27 days a month. I guess if I had 20 million or so in the bank then I would buy a $300,000 car but until then I will continue to buy high quality used cars and put the money back in to the business. Eventually the big payday will come and that Berlinetta Ferrari will come. Until then I’ll keep the employees happy, the business growing, and wants tempered.
Quote of the Day: Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds -Jo Jo Jensen
Domain of the Day: Santa.biz No bigger person in the world than Santa right now. Met reserve. Christmas site just waiting for a buildout
Namejet and Sedo Names at Auction
FireDomain.com Good name for a domain portfolio. Everyone can remember fire. Especially on the West Coast
CyberCannabis.com Eventually you will be able to order cannabis products. Right now this is more of a research name. And yes people still use cyber as a naming convention
SewerServices.com Good marketing name for the side of the truck. We all know the real money is in the jobs nobody wants to do
Xalen.com I am a fan of these 5Ls that start with X and you can pronounce. Although I have no sales to confirm my likes
XIQ.com Same here but even better
Photos.io Going to sell. Met reserve and its under $1000
WZKJ.com Sounds like an old radio station. A radio station headed to China
PBAA.com No reserve on this one. 1996 birthday
MyCanada.com Canada is good as long as you’re not buying .ca
DrugWar.com No reserve. Sounds like the top app on Apple (with in game purchases)
EveningSong.com No bids. Smooth sounding brand. Sounds like a tea
CCO.biz Might be worth a $69 flyer in the hopes the a Crypto Currency person wants it. Your choice. Don’t buy it because I put it here. Just pointing things out. No bidders
CUZ.com Has the best chance of selling at the Sedo Great Domains Auction. The rest are going to have to start moving to get there
Godaddy Domains That I Like With Multiple Bids
AudioTechnology.com Name is timeless. As long as people can hear and their is technology, this one will be relevant
Informinc.org Name has great history. Why its at four figures
BinCode.com Binary Code 24,000 backlinks
DDQB.com It would be hard to throw a good pass with DDs. 2005 birthday
Tatli.com Means dessert in Turkish. Top price on the GD board today
CoinZoom.com “A focus on crypto coins” 40 bids
CryptoLover.com My favorite name on the board. Somebody who has made millions is going to want this
VeganDrinks.com Everywhere I go they are adding vegan options.
RootFunder.com 183,000 backlinks can’t be a bad thing. Under $200 at press time
TheBitcoinChannel.com A bit long but certainly has suitors right now
HomeCareMatch.com Helping seniors through the process is a booming business.
Cryptolutions.com, Tiacoin.com, and TopBitCoinWallets.com Just to show you anything crypto gets bids right now
MinnesotaWeed.com I think most state weed/canna names have some value
Godaddy Names With One or No Bids
KickBrain.com Good energy drink name. No bids
ThumbCrazy.com Video games are all thumbs
Neety.com No bids on this 2005 5L.com
Godaddy Names With Bids
AliveFor.net
alvingolf.com
AndroidClub.com
AndroidHelp.com
AndroidSmartPhones.com
ArabPress.com
ArabPress.net
AssureInc.com
Bedam.org
BedfordChicago.com
BlackGlasses.com
BloggingEgg.com
BotswanaTourism.us
Casino-ItAlia.com
ClassyKidsCook.com
ClutchMagazine.com
ColumbiaEsc.com
CoreOfEducation.com
creation-site-web-joomlamontreal.com
DaveTheFox.com
EmmaActive.com
FacesByRebeccaWood.com
FVH.co
GemsJewelry.com
Gosax.com
GrapHiCarts.org
Hazelleng.com
HealthiestUniverse.com
HotBollywoodActress.net
Iconosys.com
Internest.com
Izidress.com
LingerieMore.com
LLHD.net
LotteryBitCoin.com
MainStreetCupcakes.com
MineralRightsCoach.com
MomsWhoNeedWine.com
MtXL.net
mycomputer-shop.com
NeverLetoff.com
NoMoreSlave.com
Octavia-Brown.com
OGJ.co
Orthophoniste.com
PDFCompressor.org
pf-institute.com
Polun.com
PowerPivotGeek.com
PremierTouchHousecleaning.com
Recreate68.com
Richmond2015.com
SenatorSmucker.com
SimplyHere.com
SimplyMovies.com
SmartcardSolutions.com
SustainLabour.org
TechieBots.com
TheNewMendicants.com
Tumweb-th.com
UnwaterBestPractices.org
Vocalid.org
WarmPot.com
WDWD11.com
WNWN11.com
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I was just talking to my wife about this the other day Shane –
“Bonuses IMO are for doing a job above and beyond what you were paid for.”
At where I work everyone expects to get bonuses, and they’re often related to how long you’ve been there (and not your performance). At the end of the day it’s all up to the owner, but I hear so many co-workers complaining “I only got $800.” or “I only got $1,200 this year.”
In my mind that’s free money they got just for doing their job, many of them not even doing a good job in reality bc they’re lazy and spoiled. I saved the company over 6x my salary this year in a position where no one had never saved more than 1x it and they were able to hire on a second employee (we more than doubled in size) and made the company more efficient than they had ever been in the company’s 10 year history. This is the kind of thing I feel like warrants a bonus…not just doing your job. I also can’t help but think that my last job there were no bonuses at all. I’m so thankful to get one at all.
Another note last year for my scenario is I’d been there for only like 6 weeks when they gave our Christmas bonus and I was given $150. I couldn’t believe that they gave me anything at all. People need to be grateful and understand that you don’t deserve a bonus just for showing up.
Tom,
I’d have you on my team any day. You’re going to do my review for me next year 🙂
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You all need to remember that Clark Griswold saved breakfast cereal from turning to mush ,, he did indeed deserve more than jam!
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As for bonuses in general .. as long as things are clearly defined that’s what matters most. Bosses/owners can choose to do what they like .. as long as they deliver on what they themselves defined. The only real non-obvious responsibility on your end is that if someone is under performing to the point where they won’t get the bonus they expect, then you should be pointing out to the employee in question what they are doing wrong or how to improve before it’s too late.
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Where I work we used to get bonuses .. but we gave them up in order to get 3% more breaks .. then they took away the better break system and you guessed it .. we still don’t get a bonus! 🙁
Ategy,
You can tell you are union. When you trade bonuses for breaks. Salesman have targets and defined bonuses. Employees within departments have department bonuses. My university friends say it is wrong to do anything but a straight across bonus of a determined amount at the end. Yet there are people that outperformed their salary in ways that aren’t measured on paper. And are above and beyond a share of the profits. People around them enjoyed working with them. Never missed a day. Came in too low of a salary. etc. If you underperform then as long as you aren’t let go then they should get any profit type bonuses but nothing else.
And in my company everyone gets a raise every year. Because I expect everyone who is with the company to be better than they were last year because they have one more year of experience under their belt. They are a better employee than last year so they should be paid more. I also have no employees making under $11 which I consider minimum wage. Waterers, field hands, they all make more than that.
You can tell I’m right in the middle of all this at work 🙂
Hey .. I didn’t vote for that .. lol .. but we do have pretty demanding jobs at times .. it’s physical not in that it’s heavy lifting .. but very prone to repetitive motion injuries .. and need to stay mentally sharp at all times.
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More importantly .. when we lost the breaks I was one of the few screaming that the loss of breaks translates into 3.12% of our salary .. and that when you’re negotiating a collective agreement .. EVERYTHING translates into money. But the bosses were playing games and threatening layoffs .. which they did (then 3 weeks later were FORCING overtime .. it was pretty disgusting IMO) .. so my co-unionites buckled and accepted giving up our 3% for nothing. Most of us at this point are at the top pay scale, so only get the standard inflationary raise (even that was skipped once or twice). What’s worse is that the bonuses were only given on good years (some years they actually weren’t given if they didn’t meet the sometimes overly eager targets) .. so the justification that they couldn’t afford to give us a bonus seems rather disingenuous.
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Anyhow .. now you know why I’ve ventured into domaining .. eventually would like to be my own boss! lol
What worked well at a company I used to have was to create a bonus pool. If we did better that last year, the pool increased. If we did worse, the pool amount went down. If we lost money, no bonus. This helped to manage expectations.
Once we decided the size of the pool, we then calculated the amount for each employee based on how long they worked (partial year = partial share), position and then performance.