How to Keep Your Best People When You Can’t Compete on Salary

Big companies can offer big salaries. Small businesses usually can’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t retain your high performers. In fact, money is rarely the number one reason people stay.

In this episode, we share practical ways to keep your best people engaged and loyal even when you can’t give them the largest paycheck. From meaningful work to growth opportunities, we explore what really matters to A-players and how to build a culture they don’t want to leave.

We cover:

• Why money often comes fifth on the list of what high performers value most
• How to challenge and empower A-players so they stay motivated
• Why recognition and meaningful work outweigh salary alone
• Creative alternatives to cash like flexibility, autonomy, and training
• The dangers of over-praising and how to balance recognition with accountability
• How to create win-win incentives that align personal and business goals

If you’ve ever worried about losing your top people because you can’t compete on pay, this conversation will show you how to lead with creativity, culture, and vision.

Want to learn how other founders are keeping their best people without big salaries? Join our free Visionary Founders Club, a community for small and mid-sized business owners to share, learn, and grow together.

“High performers don’t stay for money. They stay for meaning.” – Anna Angelova

Transcript for “How to Retain High Performers When You Can’t Offer Big Raises”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

Anna Angelova   0:04
Happy Wednesday. This is more than just Task Management, your favorite daily podcast where we help you build a thriving business with me, Anna Angelova, business coaching consultant, and my favorite co-host and business consultant, Joris Minosvan. Hey, Joris.
Here’s your is.

Jores Minasvand   0:23
Happy Tuesday. Tuesday. Wednesday. OK, I’m. I’m jet lagged. I blame the jet lag. I’m 10,000 kilometers. It’s Wednesday for me already. Or is it Tuesday for me? Anyways, I’m all mixed up. I blame jet lag. All good.

Anna Angelova   0:27
Wednesday Wednesday
OK.
Anyway, anyway.

Jores Minasvand   0:42
All right, so what’s our beautiful subject today?

Anna Angelova   0:42
Oh good. Oh good. It is all good. Oh, the the subject today is retaining high performers when you can’t offer big pay increases. And this is something that like a lot of our clients and and and and other small business owners we we talk with and.
Like we work with, they do face this limitation. Like as a business owner, small business owner, you are not a corporation, right? Like you you’re not, you don’t have unlimited resources and especially when you are.
Looking into your business like running it the right way with the the financial prudence and everything, it’s sometimes this thing comes up and and for for a lot of people. So it’s an important topic and that’s why that’s why we’re discussing it today.
And one thing I would actually start with is that when it comes to high performers, when it comes to the best of the best people who are the exceptional, ultimately the ones who are the best.
In in their field and what they do. What’s interesting is that I, if I’m not mistaken, when it comes to what matters to them, when it comes to what matters to them, actually money is.
The fifth one. So when it comes to to to what a players want, like they actually first and foremost, they want to work with other a players. They want to be part of a winning team. They want to be surrounded by like-minded people who are.
Exceptional and as amazing as they are.
Then the second thing they want is something meaningful. They want to do work that’s meaningful. They want to do work that is challenging them, that that’s helping them grow and and progress and become better.
Human beings, better people, better professionals and the third thing they want is opportunities for for growth, opportunities to develop and to see progress and.
The 4th one is what what they’re looking for is.
Actually being able to grow like training and things like this, they’re looking for training ways to expand from where they are. And then the fifth one. So the fifth one is ultimately money.
So.
You can take a breath, deep breath and kind of release some of that worry and anxiety because the best people out there use your A players. Yes, money is important, but this is not the the driving force behind who they are and how they show up.
And why they are a players. So this is where I’ll start. And Joris, I want to hear your thoughts before we continue with how, how, how to retain them.

Jores Minasvand   4:07
Yeah, I think if if I were to again, like a few episodes back, we talked about the dead weight, right? The ones that quit and stay and how to deal with them. The key was to identify them, right? Same thing here, however.
It becomes a little bit easier for you to identify high performance because they’re like a they glow like the Christmas tree, like they’re lighting up everybody, your, your, their teammates, your bottom line, the customers, so.
If I were to go over the five traits that you just mentioned, I would say two things that high performers stimulates a high performer’s brain is challenge.

Anna Angelova   4:55
Yes, yeah.

Jores Minasvand   4:57
Challenge their mind, and not in a negative way. Don’t BS these guys. These guys know what they’re doing. Give them challenging tasks that creates real results, and that’s what they live for.
So make sure you you give the you you you absolutely challenge them.
In uh.
Yeah, so to give them something that that’s meaningful to do, right. So yeah, I mean, I I think it will be the biggest money is not an object for these guys, but challenge is big. I think recognition is also big for these guys.
Even the smallest recognition, that also helps a lot motivate these guys and I think money will probably come. I would have to, if I have to say it, money will come last.

Anna Angelova   5:45
Yes.
It is, yeah, it is last. It doesn’t mean don’t pay them. Like of course it doesn’t mean don’t pay them. You still want to pay them a salary that is ideally it’s above average because they are A players. And one of the things is what you were saying, Joris, like when you.

Jores Minasvand   5:55
One in two months.

Anna Angelova   6:13
Empower a players, high performers. When you empower them, they actually pay for themselves, like you said, giving them the challenge, that ownership to do and and that meaningful work where they know that they’re contributing to business. And this is one thing that.
Small.
Business, it’s so much more achievable where you can see as a person in the small business, you can see how your own actions contributed to the business growing. When you are part of a corporation, it’s like so many days. It’s why am I here? What am I doing? What’s the meaning of this all? But when you’re part of a small.

Jores Minasvand   6:47
Mm.

Anna Angelova   6:53
Team like 5 or even 10 people. You can see how what you do contributes and it makes you feel good. It makes you feel amazing. You want to get up and be like, oh wow, it’s Monday. So awesome. The work week is starting. I’m going to work.

Jores Minasvand   7:01
Mhm.
Mm.

Anna Angelova   7:09
And you don’t have to double their salary or triple it or something like this. Yes, if you want to compensate them appropriately. And when you think about compensation, there’s so many ways to compensate people, right? And The thing is that.
One thing we’ve mentioned before, the best of the best out there. Chances are that your high performing people, they can work four days a week and still deliver results better than the others in your team. So maybe offer them this, maybe offer them.
To work four days a week or or instead of working 8 hours a day, maybe like still the same pay, right? Still the same pay. But instead of working like 8 hours a day, maybe working six hours a day or or or something like this where they they still deliver the amazing.
Results, they’re still compensated and this way their per hour compensation actually goes up. So and what you said as well, Joris, like challenging them, giving them work that’s meaningful, helping them grow.
Investing in their training, in their growth, hiring a coach for them for example, or something like this. Like there’s so many ways like expenses in terms of like a car or or or gas or things like this.

Jores Minasvand   8:29
Mhm.
Yeah, I just this is I will.
We just covered.
8590% of the high performance, but I like to caution business owners that some of these high performance, they don’t have the capacity of accepting praise with humility.
And you need to keep a balance on how you praise them, how you enable them, and monitor how they’re reacting to it for them to not to become these untouchable, yeah.

Anna Angelova   9:17
Oh, grow their ego. Yeah, yeah.

Jores Minasvand   9:20
Yeah, don’t blow their heads that they they float on top of your right above your ceiling. So and then they they they become poison for the rest of the team that it will completely put a 180 on on what your goal was in praising them. I have had to deal with a few people like.
This, unfortunately, over time they became. I don’t want to use the word, but I’ll use it. Prima donnas. It’s like they are untouchable. I actually one person said it.
When he was asked not to treat the customer like that, be part of a team player, he said. I don’t have to do anything. You guys need me more than I need you.
And I don’t even know where that guy is anymore. Definitely not part of my team.

Anna Angelova   10:15
This is a very, very good point that like A players and high performers, they don’t. Chances are that that some of them will not remain at this level for eternity, right? Like the things change and you’re right that the moment you start getting and we talked about this on Monday.
Where having those systems, it’s really, really important. When you hire the right people though, you know that the people that you have, they are not with that kind of attitude. And also when you have the processes, those reviews, quarterly reviews with people.
People like it’s still, it’s still a good thing though to look at the because sometimes they’re saying that the money and success, it doesn’t change people, it actually reviews them.
So.

Jores Minasvand   11:08
100 percent, 100% because they’ve had that that small notion of becoming egoistic and and and self-centred that praise that that extra step that you take. Yeah, it will expose who they are, who they truly are.

Anna Angelova   11:11
Yeah, so.

Jores Minasvand   11:28
I like that.

Anna Angelova   11:30
Yes, absolutely. And this is what they’re saying. So one of the things is that even if you have the the processes in place, even if you have all the checks and you never know. So one thing is that you never know how someone will respond to.
Challenge and pressure until you put them under pressure and until you challenge them. And then you also never know what will show up once people are get to that level. Like you said, you’re sick with the praise, with the empowering, with the.
Compensation flowing in and that’s why all these pieces, they work together like the the reviews, the conversations you have with people and it’s it’s a good point what you mentioned that you want to monitor it, you want to monitor it and make sure that it doesn’t get into to their head and like.
It’s it’s ultimately you want to have a great relationship with your high performers and help them achieve their personal goals as they are helping you achieve your business goals and when you think about retaining them and keeping them.
Make the best of the best. When you think about this, again, money is #5 in the list. They want to work with other great people. They want opportunities for growth. They want meaning and and and fulfillment. They they want training. They actually want training. They want to be challenged.

Jores Minasvand   12:54
Yeah.

Anna Angelova   13:01
They want to be able to step out of their comfort zone and progress that they want to see progress. They want to contribute to something bigger and of course they want to be compensated well. Again, there’s so many ways to be creative and and offer something that’s not the monetary.
The the monetary, it’s not in terms of like more dollars, it might be more free time. It might be like additional training as I said, covering some of their expenses.

Jores Minasvand   13:27
OK.

Anna Angelova   13:35
And of course the the best possible thing is where it’s like a win, win, win is where you challenge them, where it’s like, OK, let’s get you, you want to have a down payment for your house.
Let’s build the business, increase our revenue by 20% in the next quarter and you get this, this bonus. Let’s go and do this. So you challenge them, you give them ownership to something amazing and you help them.
Help you in a way it’s it’s like it’s an amazing collaboration and this is the beauty of a small business as I said because in the small business in a way we are all owners and we can all.
Get the rewards. We can see the rewards. We can get the rewards of building a business together.

Jores Minasvand   14:32
Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah.

Anna Angelova   14:36
So anything else to add, Joris, to on how to retain your high performers?

Jores Minasvand   14:42
And.
No, I think you covered it pretty well. You need to get to know the person, what makes them happy, title, salary, whatever. But yeah, most of these high performance, we call them geeks.

Anna Angelova   14:53
Yeah.

Jores Minasvand   15:02
They are uh.
They just want a challenge and and like like if they’re single, they may have a hobby. If they’re family, then they want family time. So understand who they are and give it to them.

Anna Angelova   15:08
That’s.
Yeah, who they are, what they want. Absolutely. Get to know them on a personal level as well. Good point. Good point. Yeah, in a fantastic way to to wrap up the conversation for today. People leadership, people management leadership. This is one of my favourite topics actually and.

Jores Minasvand   15:21
Hello.
Yeah.
Hello.

Anna Angelova   15:38
A topic that we continue discussing in the Visionary Founders Club. So if you’re not there yet, join it. The link is in the description. It’s an awesome community where you as a business owner can share your.
Knowledge your your wealth of expertise and experience and learn from others and continue the conversation with us. Share how you retain your top performers or maybe if you’re struggling to find them like get some help in this area. So again highly highly.
Recommend. We would love to see you there to continue the conversation and expand it and help you build that thriving business that you are already building and you are already leading in an amazing way.

Jores Minasvand   16:32
Absolutely. Love it, Donna. Thank you so much for another great.

Anna Angelova   16:36
Oh, thank you, Joris. Thank you for another wonderful conversation in More Than Just Task Management, your favorite daily podcast where we help you build a driving business. And tomorrow we are talking about handling refunds, disputes.

Jores Minasvand   16:40
OK.

Anna Angelova   16:51
Or difficult clients professionally, especially if this is like in the beginning of your business journey where like this is the first time you are seeing this and you have no idea how to do this and what what’s going on. So this episode is for you.
Come back tomorrow and yeah, thank you for listening. Have a wonderful Wednesday and we’ll be back tomorrow on Thursday for another insightful conversation. Thanks, Joris. Enjoy your.
What? Last day in Vienna? Woohoo.

Jores Minasvand   17:27
No.
Tomorrow I’m also in Vienna. Tomorrow is the event day.

Anna Angelova   17:30
OK.
Oh, yeah, true. OK. OK. OK. Bye.

Jores Minasvand   17:35
All right. OK. Thank you. Bye, bye.