A New Name for February

First, My wife will receive roses and chocolate on Valentine's day. I may write about some off-the-wall ideas, but this is one date that cannot be changed.

February should become "The Train Your Glass and Metal Shop Staff Month".

I called my Congressman and after explaining my idea, he assured me that he would work hard to make sure that all Americans have proper mental-health insurance coverage. Was he trying to tell me something?

OK, here is the idea. Following on my previous blog about glass shops being slow in February, try this. Switch every body's job for a day or two.

Be sure to include yourself in this program. Give plenty of notice about the training day. People will want to dress appropriate to their new position. Safety training is key for people who will be new to working with shop conditions. Put a sign up at your front register telling customers what is going on. If your order taker is slow, you have bad customer service, BUT, if they have a name tag or a sign that says TRAINEE, every one will go out of their way to help.

Either you or a Foreman should check every hour how things are going.

This is not observe the other job; it is do the job of the other person. The trainer should be doing just that, training a new person. This allows his/her training skill to be developed for new people coming in, and allows others to learn training skills. Learning how to handle glass and metal is part of this, but the best part is the people-to-people skills.

I promise you that you will hear this at the end of the day: "Gee, I didn't realize how tough that job was!", or maybe even better, "I could help fill in when that person is absent for a day", or the best of all "Can we do this again? I am learning more about the glass business, and that will help me grow"!

You're right, one or two people will think this is silly. But keep your eye on the one's that take it seriously, they will grow with you.

Winter Downtime

We all know, at least those of us above the Mason-Dixon Line, that winter is slower for the glass and metal industries. Here are some ideas to keep the crew going and hopefully avoiding layoffs:

• Paint your ceiling white. This will make your shop brighter, reducing your need for electric lighting, and will save you energy dollars.
• Repair every extension cord in the place. Without even looking, I can guarantee that half of your extension cords have nicks or loose plugs.
• Power wash the glass racks on your trucks. Road grit and sand will cause scratches, and a small pebble on the baseboard will break a lot of glass.
• Call your local community college...many of them will, on short notice, create a special class for you. Teach your crew the basics of Word or Excel.
• Send an employee to a speciailzed school, like a welding school. This knowledge will help you!
• For the office, call every customer you did business with last year, confirming their name and address is still current. While your are on the phone, ask if the work your company did was satisfactory. If the answer is yes, go ahead and ask if they know anyone who my be doing similar type work, and could you call the potential customer based on your current customer's recommendation? If the answer is 'no', find out why and work on fixing it now.
• Ask if anyone on your staff wants to take vacation now instead of the summer. Help an employee book a last-minute cruise. This type of booking is usually half of the up-front price. Your employee will love your forever.
• Clean every piece of machinery in your shop. Get rid of scrap by cutting to a usable size, and creating an inventory of cutoffs, both glass and metal, and be sure to use this inventory up before buying fresh stock.
• Take your truck in for a tune-up, even if it is a couple of thousand miles less than your manual states. Getting it done now saves a down-time day in the spring.
• Volunteer a day's time for your crew at a local hospital. Ask the hospital to only pay for whatever materials are needed. Then, call three local newspapers and a tv station. Have them do a story about your volunteer effort. This type of public relations is worth more that the time it costs you to send a 2-3 person crew to the hospital for the day.
• Give every employee all of your back copies of US Glass and Metal. Encourage them to read from cover-to-cover and they will know more about their jobs and industry.

Do you have any ideas? Post your ideas on the US Glass News Network (USGNN.com) and click on the glass forum. We would love to hear from you.

What do you think of today's news?

A lot of people write blogs like this and tell you what to think. I'm guilty of this. Some really smart people are in Sarasota, Florida, thinking through the future of our glass and metal industry. They are guilty of this too. It sure is frustrating for writers to tell the world what to do, and the world doesn't listen.

There is a great place to go, though, where people do listen, and most care about what you have to say. Go to the website: www.congress.org. Type in your zip code, and you can e-mail your Congressional representatives.

Pro or con, dove or hawk, this is the way to make America work better. We have to plan business, with events like Glass Week, but every once in a while, with a few minutes free on your computer, write a note to your Senator. While the elected representatives won't read every note, they do get summaries from their staffers. Your voice counts.

Do this with your kids, and when they ask you what something means, take five minutes and explain your position. If you can explain it so that your child understands, you know your postion well. By the way, if your kids disagree, then you have taught them to think for themselves.

Here is the business part: If you agree or disagree with US Glass & Metal, our editorials and comments, or you just want to make a point, you can e-mail us at usglassmag.com and click on the Glass Forum on the right hand column. Write us, write your Congressman, write the President. Don't be surprised when you get an answer!

Glass does have a future!

Last week, General Electric announced an 8.5 billion dollar purchase of divisions of Abbot Pharmaceuticals, as GE is growing its medical and diagnostic divisions. They also announced they saw limited growth in their plastics divisions.

What a relief. I have always admired GE as a company, ( I do own a few shares) and my recurring nightmare for the last twenty years is GE would reinvent Lexan sheets so they would be glass replacements, not merely great in just some areas, as is now.

Unbreakable, solar control, and handleable, that would be a combination. With this announcement, we can be comfortable that GE doesn't have a breakthrough in the pipeline that will eliminate glass. I bet they are still trying, and if anyone can do it, GE will. But it doesn't look like it will be announced in the near future.

So that leaves us with our current roster of glass types which seems to grow with a new tint or spectrally selective product being added regularly. These new glasses are always specified to be used over a low-e inboard lite.

Where we are building new storefronts and showing a client what tints and reflectives we have in stock is the time to promote the low-e as the inboard lite. Whether it is lami, heat-strengthend, tempered or annealed, every IG unit you can build, should be recommended with low-e.

So, don't be afraid of polycarbonate taking over our industry. Glass will be the choice for a generation coming. It is our responisibility to make that glass as effecient as possible so some committee doesn't mandate less glass. If we all used low-e, fenestration everywhere will be more efficient.

Do You Love What You Do?

Since this is not a consumer-oriented blog, let's assume we are all business people and somehow or another work with glass, metal, or energy savings. Looking at the readership surveys from 'US Glass and Metal', our sponsor, another assumption is that most of us are owners and/or managers. This would lead us to the concept that most of us made a decision to do what we do.

So, the question is: Do you love what you do? In a non-scientific survey the most common answers were:

1. I love this part of my job, but not that part.
2. I love most of my job...except......
3. Some variation on 1 or 2.

Now What?

This survey also told me that people who love what they do, do a better job at what they do. So the key to a successful career, and a successful glass shop is: love what you do.

Yep, it is just that simple.

OK, it is not that simple if you are a one-man company with no help.

But for the rest of us...do what you do best! The hardest part of being in a leadership position is delegating some authority to others. Take what you do best...be it setting up quotes, field installation or paper work and delegate the other duties to the rest of your crew. It doesn't mean that you are not the boss. It means that you have analyzed what you and the people around you do best, and have made that your work plan. If you love working with customers, then that is what you should do the most.

Yes, when you file the tax return it is all your responsibility, but if you delegate properly, you will have a larger tax return to file! Make a personal inventory of what you love to do at work, and then arrange the responsibilities of your company for you to do those jobs, and hire or train your staff to do the other jobs. If you are a two-person company, then hire your opposite self. Make this a conscious decision as you hire. Look for talents that compliment what you have, and then, let those people do what they do best. When you interview, ask the candidates if they like doing certain tasks, the ones you don't. Ask them if they are better at paper-work, or with their hands. Ask if they are computer literate, or would be willing to learn. Do they speak a language that you don't?

For the last twenty years I had the privilege of working with a gentleman who taught me this concept. He knew what he was good at, and he created my job description to balance his strengths. It is a mistake to think that just because you are in a leadership position that you have to do everything. It really means that you have to lead the people who do everything. Whether it is one person or a dozen, if you balance your talents with those around you, and you take the parts you love the most, you will be successful, and those around you will be successful too!

The Turtle Quote

Behold the lowly turtle--
He makes no progress until he sticks out his neck.

Think about it.

In My Company We Sell Glass AND.....

In the current techspeak world the question is: Do you know your elevator speech? This refers to the one chance in a million that you run into your biggest potential client and have his or her undivided attention for 30 seconds.

So, you are talking with someone and they ask what you do. You say you are in the Glass business. WRONG! You have two seconds of undivided attention...what are you in besides the glass business? You could be in the Glass and Window business. You could be in the Glass and Door business; you could be in the Glass and Energy Savings business.

You could be in the Glass and Bomb blast resistance business.

It doesn't matter what you say, whenever you get the opportunity, know what the 'and' is, and use it to your advantage.

My personal take on Global Warming

On New Year's day last year, New Hampshire had over a foot of snow. We have none now. If you believe the National Geographic Channel (and I do), the arctic ice cap is smaller. The Bush administration wants to name Polar Bears as an endangered species because their hunting ground, which is the polar ice cap, is fading away, but Mr. Bush says there is no global warming.

Our country consumes more energy than any other. People say it's our right. Isn't it also our obligation to help prevent a world wide problem?

We in the Glass Industry have one of the greatest tools to help this world-wide problem. Use LOW-E wherever you can. When you sell low-e, you are helping your customer, you are helping our world. One tiny-little-bit at a time. Your one sale helps.

If you are in a warm or cold climate, you know the glass that will be the most energy effecient for your region. Is your storefront made of this? I would hope your main fabricator would give you a special deal on a low-e purchase for your own storefront. I urge all fabricators to have your customer's showrooms looking like a modern showroom. They more they sell, the more you sell.

Don't be afraid of Low-e. Recommend thermal-break aluminum, talk about warm-edge IG. Sell these as fenestration products that help your customer, and by the way, help the whole world too.

Please go to USGNN Glass Forum and ask questions about Low-e. Tell us what problems you have selling Low-e, and we will get you answers and suggestions.