Written for the leaders, owners and professionals of the 11 million businesses with between $50,000 and $50 million in revenue.

Salary.com CEO Kent Plunkett has been addressing challenges like pay transparency, fairness, and industry-by-industry compensation data since he launched the site in 1999. A quarter century later, those are hotter topics than ever.

With the release of his new book Get Pay Right: How to Achieve Pay Equity That Works, Plunkett seeks to help business owners and HR directors make step-by-step changes to remain competitive in attracting top talent. Check out our interview with him below and be sure to read an excerpt from Get Pay Right at business.com.

Salary.com: CEO Kent Plunkett on how to set fair compensation

Poppi: Prebiotic soda owes its success to founder’s gut troubles

Schitt’s Creek: Episode shows how not to pick a brand ambassador

Until recently, job applicants could only guess how much compensation to request. Salary ranges were rarely public info, and (once hired) discussing your own income at the office carried a harsh stigma.

However, with pay transparency laws in many states and young people’s greater willingness to reveal their salaries, it’s a different ballgame now. For legal and moral reasons, many business leaders are thinking about how to address pay gaps. So, where to begin? Salary.com CEO Kent Plunkett breaks it down into three parts:

Perform an internal salary audit

You want to make sure the people in similar roles, with similar experience or education levels, are earning similar pay. Otherwise, it could look like discrimination. “The goal of pay equity is not necessarily to cap the pay of people who earn a lot of money — it’s about making sure that others aren’t discriminated against,” Plunkett tells b.

If you “find a red flag” without an “explainable difference,” Plunkett emphasized that “pay can only go up,” not down, to make it even.

Fresh talent vs. longtime employees

Discrimination isn’t the only reason behind a pay gap. It can also be due to salary demands for new hires outpacing raises for older hires.

“The current biggest challenge that organizations face is something called salary compression,” Plunkett says. “When you’re competing for talent in the outside market, there’s a recruiting number, which is what your competitors are hiring people at. [That] doesn’t always match up with how people who already work in the organization … earn.”

You need to stay externally competitive, but it could spark resentment if workers who’ve stuck with you start to feel underpaid.

“Your employees are forming their opinion as to how fairly you pay based on the opportunities out there with competitors,” Plunkett says. 

Keep communication transparent

Nobody is recommending that you post all your employees’ salaries on the lunchroom door, but keep things on the level with them individually.

“Transparent communication doesn’t mean you get to see what everyone else in your company earns,” Plunkett says. “It means your company agrees to be transparent with you about how and why you’re paid as you’re paid,” Plunkett says.

If you can define and address these three pillars within your organization, “You’ve nailed 75% of the problem.” 

Read our full Q&A with Kent Plunkett at business.com

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For Allison Ellsworth, co-founder of the prebiotic soda brand Poppi — one of the fastest-growing nonalcoholic beverages in the U.S. — a sensitive stomach led to a reported $100 million in sales. 

The drink, which is available in flavors such as raspberry rose, ginger limeade, and classic cola, began as an at-home experiment. Ellsworth disliked the taste of pure apple cider vinegar, even though it seemed to improve her digestive issues, so she (and her husband Stephen) mixed it with fruit juices and other ingredients in their Dallas kitchen. The result was a soda with only five grams of sugar per serving.

Friends loved their creation, which they began selling at a local farmer’s market as Mother Beverage. Word of mouth about the flavor and potential health effects earned them hard-to-get shelf space at Whole Foods.

“Mind you, we just bought a house,” she recounted to dot.LA. “I was three months pregnant. I was convincing [Stephen]: ‘Let’s quit our job.’ This is how much I really believed in this.”

An appearance on Shark Tank ultimately launched their drink — renamed Poppi — into grocery stores nationwide. A Super Bowl ad made it a household name. While experts are skeptical that prebiotic soda helps irritable bowels, hey, at least it tastes better than Pepto-Bismol.

An ambassador is the personification of a product, so choosing an inappropriate one can look a little … sloppy, as evidenced by the classic Schitt’s Creek episode “Wine and Roses.” In it, Moira Rose (Catherine O’Hara) disastrously becomes the face of Herb Ertlinger Fruit Wines.

A few takeaways, in case you’re currently looking for an influencer:

Find someone who legitimately enjoys your product

Throughout Moira Rose’s early interactions with Ertlinger, she refers to the fruit wines as “liquid stink.” Do not ignore red flags that indicate your spokesperson dislikes the product. When it comes to endorsements, there’s no replacement for actual enthusiasm; not even a sauced-up former soap star can fake that. 

Create healthy boundaries with the talent’s entourage

While Moira shoots the commercial, her husband John (Eugene Levy) attempts to share ideas with the camera operator, and he also has thoughts on the catered cheese and too-soft melon. Make it clear to the talent’s team that your team is in charge.

Hire talent that won’t mix business and fruit wine

Moira’s footage isn’t exactly usable, as she mispronounces “Herb Ertlinger” as “Herb Livhienger Line Ling Burt Herken.” Keep the set professional and be wary of talent that wants to pop the cork while the cameras are still rolling. Your influencer shouldn’t be under the influence.

• 1789: The Bank of New York provided the first loan to the newly formed U.S. government for infrastructure and other projects.
• 1857: Hershey Company founder Milton S. Hershey was born. (It’s no coincidence that today is International Chocolate Day.)
• 1955: Hate the sound of Velcro? Blame Swiss inventor George de Mestral, who was granted a patent for it on this date. 

Written by Dawn Allcot, Elizabeth Barton, Tess Barker, and Ali Saleh. Comic by John McNamee.