DATE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2012
BANK BALANCE: $82,941.70
CASH RELATIVE TO START OF YEAR (“NET CASH”): -$54,212.61
NEW-CONTRACT VALUE, YEAR-TO-DATE: $1,010,615
Goodbye, July, good riddance. Hello, August, please be better. I start the month by distributing the pay stubs to everyone, except me. That task completed, I go out to Henry’s school. The summer session is complete, and he’s going to be home until September 1. As usual, when I pick him up, he’s happy to see me. He really loves the car ride home, bopping to the loud music. I leave him with Nancy and return to work. She still won’t leave the house with him. But starting tomorrow, he’s got three weeks at a day camp for special needs kids.
It’s been a good week for inquiries, fifteen so far. We also get a nice order, for $13,834, from a defense company in the D.C. suburbs. They’ve been sitting on our proposal since November and today they sent a purchase order, out of the blue.
Thursday I’m up early with Henry. He’s awake at dawn, insisting on hearing his favorite Beatles album with the volume all the way up. Nancy and Hugh sleep through the din. I make his breakfast while he carefully listens to each song, loudly inhaling and exhaling in rhythm with the tune. And at track 14, which he doesn’t like, he hurls the boom box across his room, then thumps down the stairs. I have his breakfast ready. Eating calms him down. A few minutes later, a van shows up at our door to take him to camp. Whew! Seven hours of peace. He’ll be dropped off at home at four p.m.
I zoom over to sales training. Today’s session leaves me cold. Bob Sinton is talking about prospecting, the techniques for finding people who might need your product. We don’t do this; we wait for potential buyers to come to us. We don’t have the resources for any kind of sustained outreach. We’re stuck with Google. After I get back to the office, I start thinking about a CRM (customer relationship management) system. Bob’s questions last week highlighted a big problem: we have good ways to administer jobs after they’re sold, but nothing to track inquiries before we write a quote. I need to come up with one, or we might lose track of a potential buyer. And I want to be able to see what Dan and Nick are doing without having to ask them. I don’t want to spend a lot of dough, and I don’t want it to be complicated. No new software packages. It needs to be part of our FileMaker database. To save money and to minimize the learning curve, I’ll do the programming myself.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. In a tiny company like mine, it’s up to the owner to invent the way the company operates and to design the systems that keep track of what is happening. Fortunately, I find this to be an interesting challenge. If I had wanted to build only furniture, I could have kept myself very busy, but the company would not have grown. Without a rational way to handle information, we would have descended into permanent chaos.
Thinking about information is different from ordinary work. The challenge is to find good ways, using data, to describe what’s happening in the real world. It’s aligning the description of the company with the activities of the company. My job as boss is to monitor both of these and to continually modify the description to fit the reality. My employees can’t do it—they each work on their piece of the process. I’m the only one who sees everything. I decide what to keep track of, and how to do it.
I have two information systems. First, there’s my subjective impressions of the state of the shop, the mood of the workers, the eagerness of the customers, drawn from my observations and conversations. The second is objective, actual data that lives in separate fiefdoms: the accounting system, in QuickBooks; the contract and productions system, in FileMaker; e-mails and customer folders sit on our server; AdWords data lives in the cloud. So do our shared Google Docs spreadsheets, which act as supplementary databases. There are also a bunch of Excel sheets, dating back to 1997, when I first computerized (twelve years after starting the company). None of these subsystems talk to one another. Information passes between them via the people who use it. I’m the only person in the company who knows how it all fits together.
This system is neither optimized nor rational. I have tacked it together over the years, and it has grown as my ability to handle the software has evolved and the computing environment has changed. Back in the mid-1980s, the most sophisticated instrument I had was a calculator. For more than ten years, I kept track of all my jobs with some 3-by-5 cards and a corkboard. Now we’re using more than a dozen different software packages. It’s been my responsibility to evaluate these, figure out how we will use them, and introduce them to my people. We’re too small and poor to have someone below me do this.
I never abandon a program if it’s useful. I’m constantly layering new capabilities on top of old ones. Most of the older programs do one or two things very well. There’s no urgent need to replace them, so I don’t. I just start using newer stuff that does different things. I don’t know whether this is a good idea or bad, or whether someone has invented a single program that does everything a small custom woodshop would want (I suspect not). It’s just how things have developed. And if it satisfies me, and seems to be working, then we’ll continue. There’s nobody over me to say otherwise.
I’ve mastered some programs and know just enough to do simple work in others. FileMaker, where I want to put my new sales tracking system, is a mystery. Our database was written by The Partner’s daughter, Sasha, who worked for me from 2003 to 2009. It’s a brilliant achievement and vital to our operations. I’ve been using it for years, but I don’t really know how it works. I’m nervous about tinkering with it. What if I inadvertently cripple it while trying to add a feature? Disaster. So I start small. It takes some hours of Googling to even figure out where to begin, how to switch from just using the program to modifying it. Fortunately, FileMaker is designed to be easy to revise. After the first day, I’ve made some simple changes, like the color of fonts and the location of text boxes. Even after I’ve done these, the program is still functioning, on my own computer anyway. I check on Dan’s and Emma’s machines and see that my changes have propagated throughout the network. Cool. I’m in control. Now I can start work on a CRM system.
Later, I’m driving Henry, making a double circumnavigation of Philadelphia, when Peter calls from San Francisco. He’s upset. “Something weird happened at work today. My boss called everyone together and told us that the investors don’t think that the company is going to succeed.” That’s strange. They publish e-books, and unlike many dot-coms, there’s an actual revenue model. I ask Peter: “What, aren’t they selling anything?” He replies that their only successful book is the one that inspired the founder to create his start-up, ironically titled Making Money with Your First Start-up. Revenue growth has leveled off and the investors have lost interest. They’re going to lay off everyone and just let the site run on autopilot, taking in whatever money it can. Half the workers got canned this morning. The rest will take an immediate 30 percent pay cut and lose their health insurance. They’d like Peter to stay on for a couple of months to make sure the site is operational. He’s already got $2,200 saved from his first six weeks working, so he can hang on for a while.
Then the question: “They chose me to stay out of all the others. Should I stay on and finish the job?” Or, I’m thinking, maybe you should come home. He has a month-to-month lease, so he can walk away when he wants. I tell him, “First of all, you don’t owe your boss anything. He hasn’t been loyal to you, don’t waste your loyalty on him. I think they want you to stay because you’re the cheapest guy who can do the work. If I was them, that’s what I’d do. But forget those assholes. Do you want to come home?” Ummm, no. He’s enjoying doing real work and he likes the city. He doesn’t say it, but I think that he doesn’t want to give up on his new adult life and be a kid again. My advice: “So how did you find this job in the first place? Whatever you did, do it again. Right now. Don’t hesitate. You need to look out for yourself first. Keep your head up. If it doesn’t work out, come home. You’ve learned a lot about the work world already. You’ve got your first shady boss story. But remember, I’ve got your back. If you need anything, just ask me.”
—
MONDAY, AUGUST 6. During my pre-meeting shop stroll, I find Steve Maturin standing in front of a table that’s ready to go into the finishing room. It’s got sparkling flame cherry veneer on top, surrounded by a solid cherry edge. The base is mahogany. Wait. We never sell a table with this wood combination. There’s no point—they look similar at first glance but have a different texture, so they end up looking a little strange when used together.
I ask Steve what happened. He turns and stares at me, then says, “That’s what’s on the plans.” Really? I take a look. There’s a mock-up image of the table, taken from the initial proposal, with the woods clearly labeled: both top and base are cherry. But the cut list and notes, on the next page, call for mahogany.
I’m pretty sure I know what happened. Andy Stahl, the engineer, makes all our plan sets. He reuses portions of plans from previous projects. He regularly does this—it makes perfect sense—but he’s supposed to update all the text with the correct species. This time, he didn’t do it. I presume he was in a rush to get a plan sent out to the floor so that the shop guys wouldn’t be held up.
When Andy started drawing, back in 1998, we did fifty projects a year. Since then, we’ve quadrupled that number and added the CNC machine, resulting in even more engineering work. Andy does all this. He’s also in charge of ordering all the wood that the shop uses. Is it fair to have one guy try to keep up with that much work? Maybe not. But Andy seems to be keeping pace with the shop, especially since sales have been so slow. I know that errors like this happen, and I haven’t seen his workload as a crisis. So I haven’t tried to find help for him.
I ask Steve why he didn’t catch the discrepancy. He shrugs. I try to control my anger. “You need to be on top of this stuff. It’s your job to double-check those plans and make sure that everything makes sense. Andy has a lot on his plate, and there are going to be errors now and then. That’s why you need to review the plans, to catch those problems and fix them before they get downstream. Is that clear?” He gives a tiny nod. I tell him to make another base. Out of cherry. Even though that’s not on the plans.
I return to the office, still furious. That mistake cost at least a thousand dollars. I collect myself and start the meeting. Last week’s numbers, for once, were all good. Three new jobs came in, totaling $48,812, from the defense contractor, my dot-com company, and a bank. The last two received our new sales treatment, and it didn’t take months to close the deals. We’ve also had strong inquiries: twenty-three calls and e-mails, a mix of bosses and corporate buyers, the best so far this year. And we received more cash than we spent, despite payroll. Starting balance: $79,021. Income: $39,940. Outflow: $32,040. We’re up $7,900 for the week, and I have $86,921 on hand. I’m still down more than $50,000 since January, but for once, all indicators are positive.
To close, I recap the error at Steve’s bench and make a plea to stay alert for inconsistencies in the plans. “I think that we’re going to get busier soon,” I say hopefully. “Everyone has to pay attention to what they’re doing. Look at the plans and check that the woods match what’s on the first page. If something seems odd, speak up. Tell Steve, or tell me, if he’s not around. Errors are going to kill us, so let’s sniff them out before we build the wrong thing. OK, does anybody have anything to add?” To my surprise, Steve speaks up.
“We wouldn’t be having these problems if Andy didn’t send out so many fucked-up plans.”
Stunned silence from everyone. Steve never addresses the group meetings unless I ask him a question. We all wait for Steve to clarify this statement, but he says nothing more. He’s completed what he considers to be a useful contribution.
Andy’s face is turning red. Uh-oh. Andy is a very calm, courteous guy, until the very rare occasion when he gets angry. Then it’s an instant transformation into a volcano of rage. And there he goes. He’s up and shouting at Steve, who gives it right back. The rest of the crew is watching this exchange with interest. This is even better than the donuts. I am appalled. I hate shouting, and I try to never do it myself. And I’ve never seen two of my people fighting, ever.
I intercede. “Hold it, hold it, hold it! This is not the way to solve this. Andy, clearly you made a mistake. Apologize. Steve, you should have caught the error. Next time, check with Andy to find out what is correct. The rest of you, this is not the way we interact with one another. When we have problems, I want to concentrate on fixing them, not blaming one another.” I look at Steve and Andy. They’ve both calmed down and look embarrassed. Should I make them apologize and shake hands? Can I turn this into an uplifting moment of renewed brotherhood? Probably not. “OK, time to get back to work. That’s the meeting.”
I watch Steve walk away, then stop to see Andy, since his office is next to mine. “Are you OK?” He nods, then apologizes. “I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know what comes over me. OK, I missed the mahogany notes when I pasted the cut list. He should have seen it.” I ask him if his workload is too much, but he says he can handle it. Now what? I can take him at his word or initiate a giant effort to increase our engineering capacity. Hire a trainee? Except Andy is the only one who knows how to do the drawings and program the CNC machine, and he’s already overloaded, or close to it. Will the workload get back to normal, or shrink even more? Then what will I do? I can’t see how instant action would make my life better, so I decide to trust Andy’s judgment and do nothing.
—
AT THE END of the afternoon, Will Krieger asks to see me in private. My mind races to the worst possible outcome: he’s quitting. I don’t know what I’ll do without him. It’s been an unpleasant day; now it will end with me losing my best guy. I steel myself and lead him to my office. “So what’s up?” I ask. He hesitates a second. “Ummm, I’ve been thinking.” He pauses. “I want a raise. I’ve been here two years now, and I’m still getting paid the same as when you hired me.” I sag with relief. This is easy. “How much do you want?” I’m willing to bump his pay, but in a negotiation like this, the first person to say a number loses. He might ask for what, to me, would be a trivial increase, like a dollar bump to the twenty-five dollars per hour he’s earning.
No such luck. “I was thinking thirty dollars an hour.” Given the amount of overtime he’s working, that’s close to fifteen thousand dollars a year. Hmmm. In his favor: he’s an intelligent, innovative worker with multiple skills. He gets along very well with everyone and has recruited an equally valuable friend. He is very professional: he keeps a clear separation between his personal life and work without being mysterious and aloof. He’s a credit to both himself and the company. I want to keep him happy.
Arguments against? I can’t think of anything. However, thirty dollars an hour is the top pay rate on the shop floor. That’s what I’m paying Steve Maturin. If I give Will a raise and word gets out (and it always does), Steve is going to ask for more money. And I don’t want to reward him. The shop is always a mess, and he’s impossible to talk to. He’s still on my shit list for ignoring Eduardo’s theft. And that display this morning was unacceptable. But I’ve had bigger problems all spring and summer, and I’ve avoided taking action.
As I think these points through, a strategy forms. I can solve two problems at once. I tell Will: “OK. I can do thirty. Honestly, you deserve that and more, but I can’t afford to give you a bigger bump. But there’s something else I want you to do. Thirty bucks is foreman’s pay. And you aren’t doing the foreman’s job. You’re a great bench hand, but you don’t have the foreman’s responsibility. There’s a whole world of planning and worrying that you haven’t done. Steve Maturin has been taking all that on, and I don’t think you have any idea what’s involved.” I’m certain of this. Will is twenty-six years old. He has worked at three jobs since he graduated from technical college, and none of them had any management responsibilities. “If I’m going to pay you more, I want more from you. I’d like to put you in charge of all shop operations. Everything. You’re the only one out there who knows both the finishing and the shop floor. You’re smart enough to learn what Bob Foote does in a day. I want one person to be in charge of running the whole shooting match. And I think you can do it. The most important thing, to me, is that everyone likes you and respects you. Hell, I like you and respect you. But it’s going to be a shock to some of those guys, who are older than you and have been here longer. I’ll back you up, though. So what do you think?”
He’s surprised and hesitates before he says anything. “What about Steve Maturin? I’ve got a lot of respect for that guy.” Sure, as a craftsman, Steve is superb. But Will doesn’t know about all my issues with him. “I’ll take care of Steve. If you want, you can even keep him doing exactly what he’s doing, running the bench guys and the CNC. I want to put you in charge of everything. That’s a new position for us. We’ve never had one person doing that.” Well, except for me. But it’s been impossible for me to really do it. I’ve been stuck in the office, and the shop operations have become too complex.
Will takes all this in and then he repeats my argument back to me, saying it himself in order to own it. And his tone becomes more energetic, more enthusiastic. “I want to do this. I can do this.” He gives me a firm handshake.
On the drive home, I review the logic of promoting Will. My gut says I made the right move. I hadn’t planned on it, but my beef with Steve Maturin has been bothering me for months. If I keep things as they are, someday Will is going to realize that he could be working someplace better, or start his own shop. Will’s request for more money has broken through my unwillingness, on any given day, to confront one of my workers. I’ve let Steve Maturin’s subpar performance continue because I don’t have the guts to address it. The Zen of a very small business: When the Boss Is Ready, the Solution Will Appear (Sometimes). But it’s going to be an unpleasant conversation with Steve Maturin tomorrow.
All night, I’m caught in a mental loop, rehashing the pros and cons of my decision. It’s a relief to wake up and prepare Henry for day camp. Then off to the shop. First task: talk to Steve. He’s at his bench, enjoying a morning cigarette. I sit and greet him with a good morning. His reply—a nod. I start right in. “I’ve decided to make a change in the shop management. I’m creating a new position, operations manager, one person who will be in charge of everything that happens outside the office—bench guys, finishing, and shipping.” He looks at me warily but says nothing, so I continue. “I’m going to put Will Krieger into that position.” No reaction. “That means that from now on, you will be taking orders from him. I expect you two to work closely together, and I expect you to cooperate with him in every way.” Silence. “Do you have any questions?”
He exhales a cloud of smoke, though not in my face, and flicks his butt into a bucket of water. “Are you demoting me?”
“No. The exact scope of your duties is going to be worked out by you and Will. He may take over some of the things you do, or all of them, or none of them. That’s up to him.” We both know that I just dissembled. Of course it’s a demotion. He’s lost power. I continue, “Since you’ve been here so long, I’m not going to cut your pay. I’ll keep you on at thirty, but you’ll have less to worry about. You might even like it more. Less work.” Steve flinched when I mentioned a pay cut. I don’t think it occurred to him that it would be reasonable to do that when reducing someone’s responsibilities. “Do you have any questions?” He has none. “I’m going to announce this at the meeting on Monday. In the meanwhile, I’m going to let Will figure out how to make the transition. And as I said, I expect your full support and cooperation with whatever changes Will decides to make.” He says nothing, doesn’t even move. I get up and go back to the office.
—
WE’RE DEALING WITH the surge of calls from last week, and with our new methods, working through a backlog of inquiries is a lot more complicated than it used to be. More phone calls, more time doing screen shares with Glance, and more discussion among the three of us as we figure out who is on the other end of each inquiry and work out tactics for different types of buyers.
As usual at this time of year, we get a lot of inquiries from the military. Their fiscal year ends on September 30, and senior officers with money left in their budgets are finding ways to spend it. Upgrading their conference rooms always seems to be a popular choice, so they put some junior officer to work finding a table. Here’s an example:
Sir,
We are looking at having a conference table custom-made to fit our needs. I would like to send you a design plan on what we are looking for. Are you on the GSA schedule; and how long does it normally take you to make a customized table?
Federal contracting and invoicing rules are very complex. What’s our relationship with the General Services Administration? Will the government allow this buyer to buy from us, even if they want to? And even if they will, end-of-fiscal-year military clients aren’t as committed as a private-sector client. I’ve been told that unit commanders like to ask for a wide array of proposals and revisions and then choose the ones they like best. I like to do business with the military, because the shop floor guys like to make their very cool logos, and the federal government is a reliable payer. Unfortunately, most military projects end like this one:
Sir,
I am sorry that we were unable to make this purchase due to funding issues and will have to re-address in the future.
We can’t deploy our new methods on military inquiries, because we almost never have access to the decision makers. So we decide to continue sending written proposals. All our other clients are now getting the full treatment, and Dan and Nick feel as if they are guiding them to a commitment instead of just firing off proposals and crossing their fingers.
Thursday’s sales training session is a good one. Bob Waks takes us through a technique called the Up-Front Contract. It’s simple: before you launch into your spiel with a client, give them a brief summary of what you plan to talk about and ask whether that’s OK, or whether they had a different agenda in mind. There are two reasons for this: to force us to understand our pitch well enough to describe it in a single sentence, and to make sure that the client is ready to hear everything we have to say and not be distracted by some other issue. If they are, you can address the mismatch directly.
I marvel at the beauty of the concept. Most of what Bob teaches is plain common sense, but each lesson works with the others to create a coherent approach to sales. Why didn’t I think of any of this? How many jobs have I lost over the years because of my rigid tactics? I’m also amused by how Bob used all these techniques on me in our first meeting. I sensed that I was being managed and didn’t like it. But I bought anyway. My pain was disappearing sales. I needed his help, and I’m glad I got it.
—
ON WEDNESDAY, Nick closes a sale to a Pittsburgh architect. Using our new game plan, he got a commitment from her before making a design. He gave her a price quote and told her that she didn’t have time to do it any other way. She sent us her signed contract and promised that a check was on the way. The deal is worth $17,206. Dan and I, like disappointed fishermen who watch another angler reel in a trophy bass, keep working on our projects. By Friday we’ve had twenty-one calls and e-mails, and again, they’re a mix of bosses, mid-level buyers, military, and worthless. Heavy on the first two, lighter on the last.
On Friday, I take stock. Our monthly tally is $66,209. At this pace we won’t top $150,000 for the month. A small consolation: my cash position hardly changed. I took in $27,169 and spent $27,860. The net outflow isn’t enough to worry about. I’ll start next week with $86,230 on hand.
—
AT MONDAY’S MEETING, after the numbers, it’s time to announce the regime change: “I have one more thing. I’ve decided to change the way that we run the shop. I want to have one person, not me, in charge of all operations: build, finish, and shipping: an operations manager, responsible for making sure that everyone is working together and that work flows smoothly. I’m putting Will Krieger in this position. I think you all know by now that he’s the right guy for this job. He’s been coming to me with great ideas for how to make the shop work better, and I want to get those projects going as soon as we can afford to do them.” Pause. What next? Should I go through all my other reasons for picking him? Talk about Steve Maturin? I don’t want to say anything negative here. Most of the guys look happy and nod toward Will. With two exceptions: Steve is gloomy, as expected. Ron Dedrick looks a little sour as well. He’s older than Will, has worked for me longer, and was in charge of the shop at his last job. He’s brought me ideas in the past, and I like him. But the other guys don’t—he has a tendency to point out their mistakes in a very grating manner, and he leaves a mess everywhere he works. And he has never asked me for more responsibility. I make a mental note to talk to him later.
After the meeting, I ask Will if I can see him before he heads to the shop floor. We retreat to my private office. I start with a question: “What do you plan to do first?” Will says, “I’d really like to start cleaning this place up. I wish we had Jésus back.” Me, too. We’ve heard nothing from him for two months. I have another question: “What are you going to do with Steve?” Will has already addressed the issue. “I spoke to him about that last week. I’m going to keep him doing what he’s doing, running the CNC. I want to learn how to run it myself, but that will take a while. And I’ll start getting the plans from Andy and reviewing them myself. I guess I’ll keep assigning work the way Steve does it. And I’ve got the jobs I’m working on, I’ll keep building as much as I can.”
That sounds sensible, but I have some other thoughts as well. “I think that’s a good place to start, but there’s a lot more to this job than you might realize. What I really want you to do, first, is to spend more time looking at how the other guys are doing their work. I believe Steve likes to just stay at his bench and work, right?” Will agrees—Steve is hardly a micromanager. I continue, “So right now, everyone is doing their job a slightly different way. And they can’t all be the best way. I don’t know which guy has the best approach to any particular task, but I suspect that it’s usually you or Steve.” They are the best craftsmen in the shop. “But it might be anyone. Ron Dedrick knows a lot, too. He’s worked in a bunch of different shops, more than anyone else here. So he might know some method that nobody else has heard of.” Will doesn’t look too enthusiastic about this. Ron can be arrogant. I keep talking. “Aside from just the basics of running the shop, you have two big problems: Steve and Ron. Those two are very productive workers. They both have good reason to be pissed off: Steve because you just took his power, and Ron because he didn’t get this promotion. So I’m challenging you to show them that I’ve made the right decision, and the best way you can do this is by treating them with respect and using some of their suggestions. Show that they’re valued for their ideas as well as their hands.”
Will nods, and I give him my last piece of advice. “When you’re out there, I want you to do it like I do it. I may not be a rich man, but I’ve kept the doors open for twenty-six years, so I know something about running a shop. And people don’t quit, so I can’t be all that bad. Here are my rules: take everyone seriously. Don’t discount someone because of how they look, or where they came from, or because you don’t like the way they talk. I’ve had a lot of employees, and they all usually have some flaws along with their strengths. Try to get past the weaknesses and bring out their strengths. Always stay calm. Never shout, never even raise your voice. If someone does something good, tell them, right there and in public. If somebody screws up, take them to a private area to discuss it. I don’t like to spend time blaming people for mistakes. Move right to figuring out what happened and how to keep it from happening again. And don’t forget to listen. Let your people have a chance to contribute their ideas, or their excuses. Then you get the final word. That’s being a boss. Does all that make sense to you?” Will thinks for a minute and then starts to talk. As on Friday, he repeats my advice back to me, in his own words. I’m relieved—it looks as though he’s got it down. “So you’re ready for this?” is my last question. He says that he is, and heads out to the shop floor. I hope I’ve made the right decision.
—
WHEN I GET HOME, Nancy has bad news. “They’ve kicked Henry off the bus. They said he attacked the driver. They wanted to kick him out of camp, but I spent all day on the phone begging them to reconsider, and got them to agree that he could come tomorrow. But we have to drive him both ways.” The driver swore that Henry grabbed him from behind and started shaking him. “While they were driving?” It seems unbelievable. He likes to look out the window and rock back and forth to his music. We agree that I’ll make the morning drive, and she’ll pick him up.
The next morning, after driving an hour, I pull up to the camp. I’m fifteen minutes early. A woman with a clipboard tells me that I need to wait in my car until camp opens at nine. While we’re waiting, buses and vans carrying more campers are showing up. The clipboard woman directs them to a circular drive, where they line up and wait. Nobody gets out. All these vehicles are packed with special needs kids, simply sitting.
At a few minutes to nine, I can see the camp staff come out of the cabins and line up near the vans. There are lots of them, mostly young women. Everyone waits, but the counselors are smiling and waving at the vans and buses. And then at nine, Clipboard Woman blows a whistle, and the first van opens its doors and disgorges about a dozen campers. This first group is greeted by about a half-dozen counselors and heads off to the cabins. The counselors are very cheerful, and most of the campers seem happy as well. The same procedure is repeated for each bus and van. There are fourteen vehicles. This is going to take a while.
I walk in with Henry, and one of the counselors, a young man in his late twenties, comes up and introduces himself. “I’m Robert. I take care of Henry. And how’s he doing today?” He takes Henry by the hand and leads him to one of the buildings. I ask Clipboard Woman what happened yesterday with the bus driver. She seems very happy to meet me. “Oh, I heard about that. It was right here, while the bus was waiting to unload.” Now it makes sense. Henry, packed in a van with a dozen other kids, waiting for some indeterminate period. A recipe for disaster. I ask her whether he is still welcome if my wife and I do the driving, and she says, “Sure, we love Henry. We didn’t have a problem with him. Just that driver.” Whew. Driving him out every morning will eat two hours of my day, but it will give my wife some relief.
—
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. It’s a payroll week, and my AdWords credit card payment is up as well. And the other credit card, which now carries a balance of $36,644, is due next week. And one of the orders we got, from the huge bank in Washington, has net-30 terms (meaning they have thirty calendar days to pay). I won’t be getting any money from them until a month after we deliver. My cash position is not secure. I’m trying to feel confident that all my fixes are going to work, that the clump of sales that started the month wasn’t a fluke. Are all those inquiries as good as they seem?
Thursday morning finds us back at sales training. In last week’s session, Rob Sinton gave us an hour on bonding and rapport. Schmoozing the client to establish a human connection is critical when there’s repeated interaction between the buyer and the seller. That’s us. Sinton gives us techniques, but he doesn’t address something that intrigues me: charisma. Some people are just fun to talk to and be with, and others, you can’t get away from fast enough. I don’t think that I have an unusual amount of charisma. I’m not a good schmoozer, which probably comes across very clearly. It’s why our old selling process was so hands-off. Our proposals demonstrated our expertise without a lot of personal interaction. Sinton reminds me that getting caught up in some friendly chat with buyers is less important than making the effort to do it. It’s like the hymn that starts a church service—a way to separate buyer and seller from the dramas of their day and get them to focus on each other. It’s a prelude to the real action. “You’re in a great position to close the deal, or to work the situation in other ways. To see your competitor’s proposals. To get a chance to revise your bid. To get referrals.”
Later on Thursday, a couple of big jobs come in. Dan’s client in Maryland follows through. It’s a $33,180 order for three tables. And two weeks after we shipped their prototype, Brand Advantage at last is ready to go ahead with the whole order. No complaints about the prototype. They still need us to ship by the beginning of September. For $40,266, we’ll make it happen.
On Friday, Nick closes with a trucking company in Virginia, an eighteen-foot table that we can make in our sleep. Another $16,042 goes onto the week’s tally. We finish the week with a total of $89,488. It’s our best since February. Even better, Dan’s computer client and Brand Advantage sent us checks to seal their deals. We’ve picked up $62,795 in cash. I send out $45,903 for payroll, the AdWords card, and to pay my vendors. My bank balance is $16,892 bigger than it was on Monday.
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ON MONDAY, I report that sales this month have been good so far. The total stands at $157,128, with two full weeks remaining. We have work through the end of August and the beginning of September—almost a month of backlog. I’d really like to see the shop speed up production. July’s total was terrible. The guys completed projects worth $115,337, way below our target of $200,000. I’m hoping that Will Krieger will help turn this around. Is there anything I can do to help him? It’s odd that I should even ask this question. But I’m used to a very different relationship with my shop foreman, and I’m not sure what to do differently.
A way to help Will falls out of the blue. After lunch, Bob Foote comes to my office. “There’s someone here to see you.” A very tall, strongly built young man gives me a big smile and holds out his hand. Grip like iron. “I’m Nathan Johnson, sir, and I’m looking for work. Any work. I’m strong, and smart, and I work hard. Are you by any chance hiring today?” I hadn’t considered it, but now that this fellow is here, and some work has come in, maybe it’s time to hire a helper.
“We could use someone to keep the place clean and take the trash downstairs. Would you be interested in something like that?” He gives another huge smile. “Absolutely, sir, you bet I’d consider it. When can I start?” Hold it, pal. “I haven’t decided to hire you yet. Put together a résumé. Make sure it has three references. You can fax or e-mail it to me. I’ll call your references, and if I like what I hear, I’ll call you for an interview. Make sure you have a phone number on the résumé.” Nathan promises to have a résumé to me first thing in the morning. We’ll see.
Tuesday, seven-thirty a.m. I’ve persuaded Nancy to drive Henry to camp so that I can attend my Vistage meeting. I’ve invited Will to join me. A guest speaker starts with the steps he took to transform his business, an ordinary accounting firm, into a place where people enjoy their work while taking care of customers, too. And everyone makes money. I wish I had that kind of business. The second half of the talk is about how we can transform our own culture. His people have to follow thirty-six rules, and he’s instituted a ritual to make sure they live up to them. Each week, one of the rules is the focus of their team meeting, and employees are asked to contribute examples of how they implemented it. And after thirty-six weeks, when they’ve gone through the whole list? They start again at number one.
I’m looking at the rules, printed out on a business card. I try to imagine how this would play out with my crew. Would any of them contribute a sparkling anecdote for tip number 3: “Practice A-Plus-Ness as a Way of Life”? Would Steve Maturin follow tip number 10: “Keep Things Fun! The world has much larger problems than our own. Keep perspective! Be lighthearted, and smile, smile, smile!”?
When the meeting adjourns for a few minutes, I ask Will what he thinks. “It’s a different way of doing things, that’s for sure. And a lot of it makes sense. We should try some of this stuff.” I’m a little surprised to hear this, as I had dismissed it as fast as I was hearing it. Will continues, “We’re already doing a lot of it. Some you tell us all the time: ‘Do What’s Best for the Client.’ Or ‘Practice Blameless Problem Solving.’ And ‘Maintain a Solution Orientation Rather Than a Problem Orientation.’ That’s exactly what you told me to do last week. And you remember when he was talking about how they treat new hires, how they give them all these rules and make sure they know what to expect and what to do? We should do that.” He’s got a point. Will heads back to the shop, and I stay and report to the group that there’s been a small improvement in my situation. Trying to revamp our sales process has been very interesting, but it’s too soon to tell whether I’ve really fixed the problem. And I just replaced my shop manager with a new guy who has a lot of ideas and energy. My peers seem glad to hear that I’ve done something.
After lunch, I’m surprised to find Nathan Johnson’s résumé on my desk. Three jobs listed, no typos or grammatical mistakes. Nathan has been working at a local moving company for almost a year. Before that, six months with a temporary agency, then a four-year gap, preceded by a year at McDonald’s. And he’s got three references: a fellow worker at the moving company, his mother, and a minister.
I call the minister, who tells me he’s the pastor of a Baptist church. I tell him he’s been listed as a reference. Does he know Nathan? “Nathaniel Johnson? Sure, I know him. Nathaniel is doing pretty well these days. I’d say that of all of the younger men I have, he’s a pretty good bet. He’s been coming to church since . . . for a couple of years now. A very energetic young man.” Would he hire Nathan for the kind of job I have open? He would; Nathaniel would make a good fit. I arrange for Nathan to come in at eleven-thirty tomorrow and then I tell Emma to do a background check on him.
—
WHEN I PICK UP HENRY, Robert the counselor tells me that Henry is sweet, and no trouble, especially compared to some of the other kids. He laughs. “One of them came after me with scissors yesterday. And I got bit last week.” He shows me a crescent-shaped scab on his arm. Robert has been working at this camp for seven years. During the school year, he’s an aide in an autism support classroom. That’s a hard job—I’ve been in those classrooms. So what does Robert do during his summer break? The same thing. Robert is a good example of the kind of person who works with kids like Henry. They genuinely love children and do their best to work with the most challenging ones. It makes me wonder. Why is one person devoted to helping kids while another spends his day at a workbench, making furniture? How does our internal circuitry determine the jobs we do? Was it inevitable that I become a boss, no matter where I worked? Or am I better suited to be a worker and am in charge only by accident?
—
THE NEXT MORNING, I contemplate my $36,644 Chase credit card balance. I have more cash on hand than I’ve had in months. Just three days into this week, I’ve added $31,018 to Monday’s balance, $95,835. I sent out a bunch of bills yesterday, to lumber vendors and for the health insurance. I have $113,898 left. Sales are not bad. I closed a deal yesterday, to the accounting firm on the receiving end of my first Glance session. Total for this month: $172,490. I could pay off the whole thing. Is this prudent? I’d have $77,254 left, with another bunch of bills due on Friday. And next Tuesday, another payroll. And at the end of the month, rent. All that will add up to another $50,000 or so due before Labor Day, when everything slows down. I decide to send Chase just enough to cover my new purchases and a bit more. That’s $15,000. I’ll roll the rest to next month and see what happens after Labor Day.
Financial decisions complete, I find Will Krieger. Does he want to interview a potential helper? He’ll be in charge of Nathan Johnson if I hire him. He’s happy with the idea. “We’re wasting so much time moving trash. These guys should be busting out tables, not hauling garbage. If you like this guy, come get me and I’ll talk to him.”
Nathan Johnson appears at 11:25. I take him into our little conference room. I’m struck by how large and strong he is. He could be an NFL linebacker. “I see that you’ve been working at the movers and temping for the last two years. Before that there’s a four-year gap, and then the McDonald’s job. What were you doing during those four years?” I suspected that he might have been in prison, but Emma’s background check turned up nothing. Was he in the military? Traveling in foreign lands? Or just hanging out?
Suddenly, he’s sweating, but he keeps smiling and delivers his answer with surprising confidence. “Oh, you know how it is when you’re young, you can make mistakes and fall in with the wrong people.”
“So you were in jail?” He hesitates, then admits that he was. “What for?” I’m not sure I’m legally allowed to ask this question, but I don’t want to hire someone with a conviction for a violent crime. “Listen, I just want you to tell me the truth. I suspected that you might have done some time. If I weren’t interested in giving you a chance, I wouldn’t have called you for the interview. Your minister had nice things to say about you. So tell me what happened.” He relaxes a bit. He and some friends robbed a local drug dealer. Nobody got hurt, but they got caught. He’s been trying to stay straight for the past two years. If I give him a chance, he’ll make sure I’m glad I did. I do want to hire him. He showed up on time and he’s made a great impression with his confident demeanor. Will meets with him and confirms my impressions. “I’m OK with it if you want to give him a try.” I offer Nathan twelve dollars an hour, full time, benefits. He’s delighted. He’ll start on Monday. I watch him go through the door, walking tall, a man with a new job. A good day for everyone. It’s one of the best things I get to do.
—
WE BOOKED ONE MORE SALE on Thursday for $15,419. Total for the month: $187,909 with a week to go. On Monday, I rush through the good numbers: $30,781 in sales last week, for a monthly total of $187,909. We took in $7,880 more cash than we spent. And we received twenty-three inquiries, tying our best inquiry week, also this month. Then I introduce Nathan. “I’d like to introduce our new helper, Nathan Johnson. He’ll be doing what Jésus was doing, keeping the place clean and helping bring in materials.”
I’ve been thinking about something the Vistage speaker said about on-boarding a new employee: you want to tell them how the company works and explain how they fit in. Fill their mind with your message before they come to their own conclusions. I ask Bob Foote to give me a minute. We go into my private office.
“So you are going to be in charge of Nathan Johnson minute-by-minute. Will spoke to him last week at the interview and he thinks that he’s OK. But he’s going to let you take charge of him. Here’s what I want you to do. Don’t just hand him a broom and walk away. I want you to tell him why it’s important that we have a helper. That keeping the shop clean makes the other guys more efficient; that they rely on him to do a good job; that his trips to the loading dock for materials are essential for feeding the factory; that everyone will respect what he does if he does it well. And that he can ask you any questions about how it’s going, and that he’s free to ask me questions as well. Can you do that?” Bob says he certainly can; he’ll have that chat right away. Terrific.
Out on the shop floor, Will Krieger is heaving a 5-by-10-foot sheet of melamine onto the CNC machine. It weighs about a hundred and forty pounds, but he manages to shift it onto the machine bed. “Is this Brand Advantage?” He confirms that it is. “How long to cut all of them?” He tells me that they will be done by midday tomorrow. “When will the legs be here?” They are shipping today, if I sent them a check last week. I did. We sold the Brand Advantage job for $40,266, but the leg sets are costing me $15,574. Subtract as well the sheets, crating, and shipping, and the balance is not adding nearly as much to the bottom line as I would like.
—
WEDNESDAY MORNING is our second monthly company meeting at Bob Waks’s office. We report that we’ve been having a decent month using his new methods and spend the rest of the time going over the Sandler way of addressing our problems with customers. Sometimes that advice makes sense, and sometimes it doesn’t seem to fit very well. We discuss some instances where we think the method won’t work. To my surprise, Bob accepts our judgment. He tells us, “Every company lives in a different world, and I want to understand it. We need to be flexible to be effective. It’s OK to adapt the training to what’s happening at the moment.” That’s a reassuring message.
After an hour, Bob and I have our private counseling session. His first question: “What did you do about the commissions?” I tell him that at the beginning of the month I was worried about cash and did nothing. But since things are going a lot better, I paid them out in yesterday’s payroll. “You gave them everything you owed them?” Uh, no. Just what they racked up since the last payroll. “And how did they react?” Happy, as you might expect. They’ve both been more cheerful over the past couple weeks. I think that just making sales has been the most important factor. They don’t feel like they’re failing at their job anymore, and we’re getting close to making our target for the first time in six months. Maybe they can see that I’m feeling better, too, although we’re still behind on cash. Sure, I’ve changed our advertising and our sales methods, but what if I’m doing something else that’s causing another problem? I blundered into the AdWords situation without realizing what would happen. How can I know that whatever I do next won’t cause bigger problems?
“You can never know, unless you never change anything. And then a competitor will show up and eat your lunch.” Bob’s right. I can’t avoid taking risks, even if they don’t always work out.
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ON THURSDAY, Nancy and I try something daring: we take Henry to New York City. Our plan is to take him to Times Square and, if that goes well, have lunch. On arrival he starts crying, but as we maneuver him through the crowds, he starts grooving on the energy of the city. We have a quick meal at a diner, and on the way back, Nancy and I marvel that we all had fun. It was a joy to see him in Times Square, dancing around as he looked at all the lights. It’s easy to focus on his bad moments, harder to remember that most of the time he’s good.
I’m back at the shop on Friday morning, Henry in tow. I can see Bob Foote and Nathan Johnson working on the crates for Brand Advantage. The tables are complete. Bob tells me that they’ll be on the dock by four p.m. He hopes they get picked up today. Good. Monica has been asking us every day to confirm the ship date. In the sales office, Nick says the phone’s been ringing off the hook and he closed a deal yesterday worth $12,698. That gets us to $200,607 for the month. We’ve hit our target for the first time since February. He’s done a great job implementing the new methods and his monthly sales total shows it—six sales, totaling $115,465, more than half of our total for August. I sold three jobs, worth $50,340. Dan was even worse. He closed just two, worth $34,802.
Should I put up with his performance anymore? I’m supposed to be holding my salespeople accountable. On the other hand, we’ve hit our target and I wasn’t such a hot performer, either. I can’t claim that the new methods are an inevitable path to success if I didn’t match Nick’s results. I decide to give Dan more time.