Best Marketers

The best marketers: are the employees themselves. When I used to work for fashion Company X I had a really good employee discount which I used it to my advantage. Why do you think companies offer staff discounts? There are 2 categories of these discounts: First is the discount on one own products’ and then discounts on other companies’ goods and services. What about the second one?

 Many companies give their employees a package of better prices for a variety of services and goods. Why? I met a greek guy on my way to Disneyland in January. His company had offered his a trip to Tokyo. Well one might ask isn’t that expensive? Actually it is cheaper than giving them money and on top of that money incentives may spoil employees. TO give cash is one of the worst ways to award good behavior. Money off for other services will be more valuable to the staff. The discounts can be attractive. I used to have a 50% off(which fell to 40% though) and in another company a friend of mine gets 20% of petrol(well THAT is important now). The providers of these services are more than satisfied. Increased revenue with less advertising. What happens if somebody abuses their discounts?

Buy a Dell PC cheaper and then sell it to another person for a profit? Or just “transfer” the discounts to one’s friend? Well I have no problem with that and it cannot be stopped. What if these discounts are on the companies; own products? It may a bit more complicated than the previous situation. Companies have motives for selling their staff their won goods at reduced rates. They want their employees to be “brand ambassadors”. Imagine if a friend of yours worked at Zegna but preferred to wear Armani!. But these discounts are also perks. Without them companies cannot rely on good employees. A way to recruit and retain people for the long term.