Want Your Small Business to Make Big Ripples in the Business World? Try this.

You may have read the trending news story about Dan Price, the CEO who took a cut in pay in order to give raises to everyone in his company that weren’t making $70,000.00 a year.  Turns out, the average salary at the company is around $48,000.00, which means the majority of employees are going to see a substantial increase in their income.

His reasons?

Mr. Price said he wasn’t seeking to score political points with his plan. From his friends, he heard stories of how tough it was to make ends meet even on salaries that were still well-above the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.

“They were walking me through the math of making 40 grand a year,” he said, then describing a surprise rent increase or nagging credit card debt.

“I hear that every single week,” he added. “That just eats at me inside.”

What does this have to do with you or me as small business owners who may not even have employees?

Consider it a wakeup call to abandon the accepted business practices of paying the least amount you possible can for everything.  The next time you see a message in your WordPress dashboard that says “Do you like this plugin?  Consider a small donation.” Do it. Donate.  Instead of deciding on a virtual assistant based on the one with the lowest rate rather than the one who seems more suitable for the task, be willing to pay for that experience and expertise.  The same goes for other service providers, services and software too.

We may view ourselves as too small to make a difference.  We may group ourselves in with those not making minimum wage.  Let’s face it, in some instances we may not be after paying our own taxes and insurance.  That’s not an excuse to ignore the problem.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Many people who complain about clients not paying their rates are the ones who want everything for free.” quote=”Often times the same people complaining that clients won’t pay their rates are in turn trying to get everything for free themselves.”]

Mr. Price could have viewed his relatively small company as not being large enough to make a difference.  Instead, he saw it as a situation where he could do something to change the disparity between CEO income and what regular people make within his own sphere of influence.  That one action within his own company is sending big ripples across the business world this week.

Imagine if we all took the actions that were possible within our own spheres of influence to do what we could?