Going Virtual to Go Green Leads to Other Issues

Fifteen months ago, TaxLoopholes did some massive changes in order to “go green.” We went largely virtual. In our case, though, it was really two-fold. (1) We turned the bulk of products into electronic format and (2) We closed down our main office and everybody pretty much works from home.

There were a number of reasons why we did this: more efficiency, lower costs, happier employees, and mainly it just felt right.

Some of the troubles we’ve run into though demonstrate, I think, why “going green” is so difficult in the US. Downloadable products are harder to sell because a significant portion of the US still doesn’t have or use high speed access. It takes a whole different form of compensation and systems to have workers not report in.

For example, we can’t pay hourly of straight salary anymore. Pay becomes based on value. And someone people just can’t make that shift in thinking. It really is a shift from getting a paycheck in the old rate & time world to being paid based on the value you bring. The interesting thing is this very same shift is the one shift that can make them, and us, wealthier. If you can go from just putting in time to instead creating value, you’ll be paid more. That’s because it’s easier to put a price tag on what you do. If I can save you $10,000 in taxes legally, ethically and morally, how much would you pay for that? $5,000 would mean a 2:1 return. That’s a pretty good return in today’s market. Does it really matter how much per hour I get paid to do it?

On the other hand, if I just charged you the normal $520 per hour (for my education and experience that’s average) and said I couldn’t tell you how long it would take and if I could even save you anything at all….well, that’s like putting your money on a number and then waiting for the roulette wheel to see if you get anything. It’s a gamble. Yet, the hardest thing has been to try to get employees and new independent contractors to realize that they will now get paid for a result, not for just putting in time.

The information age is causing us to look at a lot of the underlying principals and structures of the old industrial age. Sometimes it is interesting to just take a moment and look back.

Where will we be in another 10 years?