This Entrepreneur Also Paid All His Employees a Living Wage and It Worked (Even if He Didn’t Get a $500K Book Deal)

By now you may have forgotten about Dan Price, the founder and CEO of Gravity Payments who made an audacious decision in April of 2015 to pay all his employees a starting salary of $70,000.

The move led to accolades from the media, a $500,000 book deal, and some heated debates over income inequality, as well as questions about his motives. (You can read Inc.'s takes on the story here and here.)

Last year, I met an entrepreneur who did almost the exact same thing—with very little publicity in return. He's Trevor Burgess, the former CEO of C1 Bank, a community bank based in Florida and acquired by Bank of the Ozarks last summer. Named one of Ernst & Young's Entrepreneurs of the Year in 2013, Burgess is also known for being the first openly gay chief executive of a publicly-listed bank.

That fact means Burgess has always had a different view of hiring. In our interview for the Radiate podcast, Burgess said:

I think the best thing about it is that I'm able to attract a really amazing workforce because there are too many places in corporate America where women, people of color, gays and lesbians, aren't given the opportunity to thrive. And by hiring from 100% percent of the population rather than the 30% of the population that are straight white men, we are able to attract some of the very best people to work.

He joked that he has plenty of "straight white men" in his office, "but we're open to hiring everybody and judge people based upon the value that they add."

There's more. Through the course of our conversation, Burgess described growing up poor after his parents divorced. He was raised by a single mother. That gave him a serious appreciation for the value of a dollar, which was a factor in his decision to boost the pay of all of his employees—the same move Price has been given so much press for.

"About a year and a half ago, I looked at the earnings of all of my employees and I saw that we had 26 people...[A] little over 10% of our employee base...were making less than $30,000 a year. Now, if you go on MIT's living wage calculator, you'll see that $30,000 is about what is considered the living wage in the state of Florida," he said.

"I said, 'You know what, this just isn't the right thing.' Then I looked and realized that all 26 people were women and I really thought about my mother and my childhood experience, so on April Fool's Day 2014, we became the first bank in the country to institute a living wage."

Burgess says the wage hike turned out to be a "really shrewd business move," because his bank tellers were making, in some cases, 50% more than the competition.

"As I'm trying to serve entrepreneurs, very sophisticated business owners, I need to have the very best, even on the front lines. And so it's been a huge win for my business."

Two years later, Burgess's bank was bought out by Bank of the Ozarks for a cool $402 million, netting him and his shareholders millions. Turns out that when everyone makes more, everyone wins.

For more expert advice on money and finance, check out this Radiate video, featuring Gary Vaynerchuk, Scott Galloway, Mellody Hobson, and Bob Nardelli:

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