More Money in Tough Times

More Money in Tough TimesMore Money in Tough TimesMore Money in Tough Times There are creative ways to make your package bigger without necessarily stretching the salary past the breaking point.Bill got a 20 percent raise during a salary freeze. He was wellJeff, in finance, noticed that the 10-ounce jars of a soup base were overfilled by a half-ounce or more. Why? The FDA fines for underfilling a jar were substantial, so they added an extra half-ounce to be on the safe side. Armed with an idea, Jeff created a BEB.He found digital scales that could replace the less accurate analog scales currently in use eliminating the need to overfill. The half-ounce savings per jar, over a years production of 1.75 1000000 jars, came to 54,427 pounds of stock, valued at $10,000 in annual savings.Doing the MathTen thousand dollars probably wouldnt even hit the radar for a cost accountant in a large food processing company, but whats peanuts to them is significant money to you. And if you figure that at a 5 percent profit margin it requires $200,000 of sales to generate $10,000 profits, thats not chump change Neither was the $5,000 bonus Jeff negotiated.TimingThe key to making a BEB pay off is timing. If you ask after youve succeeded, top brass will say, Hey, thats part of your job. If you askbefore youve brought home the bacon, theyre all eager to tell you to go out and win one for the Gipper and sure, theyll be glad to give you a spiff.Going Outside Normal ChannelsA client of mine had a smart but difficult anfhrer who had high turnover in his division. Management put the boss on notice Clear it up. High turnover wreaked havoc on profitability, since the organization was constantly training new people and cleaning up messes from people who dropped the ball when they left in the middle of a project.Because my client knew this mattered to the boss personally, not just as a company goal, my client was able to get a bonus for lowered turnover. She got to go to a seminar on employee retention and turned it into three days of work and four days of vacation. And all this occurred when the board had declared that the top raise would be 3 percent that year.So, when looking to increase your compensation, consider taking extra value in terms of time and bonuses. Both can enrich you outside the parameters of a traditional raise.Bonne chance