Performance Is Everything

14How to Compile and Assimilate a Bonus Performance Plan

“In business, words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.”

—Harold S. Geneen

Compiling and assimilating the performance bonus plan are the last pieces in the performance management puzzle. Once you reach this stage, you are well on your way to achieving superior performance. By this time, the firm has developed its compelling vision, set its strategy and goals, and is ready to match rewards with performance.

In this chapter, we share with you our approach for developing an owner or employee performance bonus plan that builds on the performance management concepts we presented in part 2, “What You Need to Reward,” of the book.¹ We also provide examples of written win-win agreements we have discussed in earlier chapters, so you can see how everything ties together.

The Right Performance Bonus Plan

In his book, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do about It, Michael Gerber emphasized that most entrepreneurs can’t, nor should they, do everything themselves. Building a sustainable business or accounting practice requires a team effort. Firms that grow and prosper embrace this concept. Owners in CPA firms often find it difficult, however, to embrace this idea because much of their security rests with their book and their personal relationships with their clients. It is the wise group of owners who treat clients like firm assets rather ...