When Live Gives You Lemons!

So, the glass business has given you a few lemons. Here is what to do:

CLASSIC LEMONADE

• Squeeze 1 cup of lemon juice
• Mix in 1 cup of cold water
• Blend in 1 cup of sugar
• Chill in pitcher with 1 cup of ice

OK, this won't fix the glass business, but it sure sounds good. Now, what can we do when your glass shop starts to feel a recession?

You have only two choices, look to increase revenue or to decrease costs. Let's mash up a few lemons and find some ways to cut costs without hurting your business--

• Ask each and every customer how they heard of you, and eliminate the advertising that doesn't draw customers. This may take a month to do, but is very valuable. If you still want to advertise, go heavier in the places that draw the most customers.
• Ask your employees to take vacations during slow periods. Give an extra week off with no pay for an employee who wants to take a long trip.
• Review your insurances...make sure you are only paying for what you need for the next twelve months. Maybe a long-term savings program that you have for a benefit for yourself can be put on hold for a year.
• Ask for volunteers to go on unpaid leave--continue their benefits, and don't block unemployment. Offer for up to thirteen weeks, or whatever you need until you see a busy time coming up. Place no restrictions on your people other than they have to return to work when called, and while they are on this leave, they cannot work elsewhere in the glass trade.
• Plan your work schedule a day in advance...so that a person who takes one of your vans home can go directly to the job site tomorrow morning rather then coming into the shop first thing.

OK, TO MAKE PINK LEMONADE, MASH A COUPLE OF STRAWBERRIES AND ADD TO YOUR LEMONADE.

• Sometimes we all buy large quantities of items to get price breaks; in lemonade season, buy smaller quantities, even if you pay a slight bit more per item.
• Keep your trucks tuned-up, the tires properly inflated, and remove unnecessary weight from the truck...your MPG will go up.
• Reduce the thermostat in the office and the shop.
• Talk with your vendors about increasing your cash discount incentive. Even with interest rates low, vendors who are short of cash themselves will give up an extra point to gain cash flow.
• Chart when customers both walk in and call in to your shop. You may find that you should open an hour later, or close a half-hour earlier.
• If you have room in your shop, square off your cut-offs and use them on the next job.
• Keep your tools, your suction cups and your trucks clean. They will last longer and be safer, saving you money.
• Concentrate your miscellaneous purchases into as few vendors as possible, increasing your buying power, reducing your paper work and reducing administrative time.
• Explore bartering with some of your customers. There are often situations which may be beneficial to your customer and you.

FOR BRAZILIAN LEMONADE ADD 4 TABLESPOONS OF CONDENSED MILK. YOU'LL GET A TASTE LIKE HAVING A LEMON CREAMSICLE

• Use all of your supplies and products before reordering.
• Call a local school or college and see if they are looking for placements of a summer intern. You do some teaching, and you gain an employee at no or limited cost.
• Reduce the minutes on your cell phones--drastically.
• If you have a spare truck, take it off the road for a couple of months, saving the insurance. You can always put it back on if needed.
• Look at each product line you sell...push hard on the ones where you make profit...and you know this...but the opposite step is to stop doing the jobs where you are marginal. It is always tough to voluntarily reduce sales at a time like this...but if your goal is making an ongoing profit, drop the barking dogs from your line.
• Ask an outsider to look at your expenses...maybe a good friend, maybe your accountant or a consultant. They will look objectively and see things that you automatically skip over. Listen to what this outsider says!
• Look at all of the office equipment with service contracts. If the item hasn't broken down in a year, go ahead and gamble that you can go another year and suspend the contract.
• Don't print every page and e-mail that comes up on your computer. Not only will you save on toner and paper, but you'll also save a tree. (thank you, David D.)

LYNCHBURG LEMONADE (ARGUABLY THE BEST RECIPE HERE) 6 OZ. JACK DANIELS, 6 OZ. TRIPLE SEC, 6 OZ. SWEET AND SOUR MIX, 12 OZ. SPRITE. WILL SERVE 4-5 NORMAL PEOPLE, 2-3 GLAZIERS, OR MAYBE JUST 1 BLOG WRITER.

• Deliver all of the product within your control on-time.
• Communicate with your customer if you can't deliver on time.
• Pay the vendors who support you with product and service before you pay other vendors.
• Learn Green Glazing--it is the future.
• Keep your website current.
• Start drug testing--you will hire better people, and have fewer accidents.
• Don't deliver to customers who are 90 days past due.
• Hitch your star to a wagon--find a product that is growing, find a vendor who is growing, hook up with this growth.
• Remember your 3 R's--Reuse and Recycle, then Replace.

The single most important action you can take is

DISCUSS THE SITUATION WITH YOUR EMPLOYEES AND ASK FOR THEIR IDEAS. THEY KNOW YOUR COMPANY. YOUR EMPLOYEES WILL HAVE THE BEST IDEAS!!!!!!

There are many more ideas out there...leave your comments here and we will add them to our list.
(Next week we are going to discuss lami, and then go back to our hiring series in two weeks.)

Let's Finally Hire Someone

Finally, we've spent a lot of time on the interview, let's hire someone! This is the most important decision a manager can ever make. I have seen glass shop owners spending untold hours shopping for a glass washer or diamond edger, yet they don't want to invest more than an hour for an interview and hiring conversation. This is totally backwards. The hiring decision will have much more impact to your organization than the choice of machinery for the shop.

You are going to hire the best available person, aren't you. Of course NOT.

If the best person you interviewed wasn't as good as you need, then start over next week. Don't settle for someone who 'may' do well. Don't hope they will work out. Be sure that this person will add to your team. There is no middle ground in hiring, no compromise in selection. Either the person will succeed, or you should reject them. You might compromise in salary negotiations, but never in the basic yes or no decision.

I would love to tell my readers what the perfect person's charteristics are...there have been hundreds of books written, thousands of articles, and no one has it right yet. You have to use your judgment as a leader of your company to hire people that fit. That said, here is my list of the one hundred attributes that I look for:

• 1-95 Attitude .
• 96 Reliability.
• 97 Current job skills.
• 98 Previous job history.
• 99 Education history.
• 100 Legal qualifications (Has driver's license, etc.).

That's it...references don't mean a thing to me, they can be too easily manipulated.

Google has about 3,000 people apply for each job hired, and applicants go through roughly 20 interviews. I know of no one in our industry that has this kind of influx of applicants, but I do recommend the Google model for multiple interviews. Have a second opinion, always. Another person will see different things than you do; will give a different point-of-view on the applicant. You want the applicant to come back for a second interview with you and another person, at a different time of day than your first interview. I generally like early evening for a second interview, when hiring a first shift, or day shift person. See them after they have put in a day's work, see if they are grumpy or upbeat...how do they handle the stress of their current job?

When you make your decision, the applicant still has a decision to make. Are you the company they want to work for. My instincts warn me when, during the first interview, the applicant says that this job is perfect for them. Have they done homework? Do you know them from the trade, or maybe a previous job? The stranger who after thirty minutes of discussion says you are the one, is just a little too desperate. They should think about you, just as you should think about them.

After a strong second interview I let the applicant know they are being seriously considered, and to think about the job so they can have an answer ready if we call them. I want my applicant to want this job more than anything else. When I call back to announce a conditional offer of employment (remember this phrase--we'll discuss it next week), I want the applicant to jump for joy. Not to say, "Give me a couple of days to consider it." What have they been doing during the interview process?

I tell an applicant who wants to think about the job, to call me when they are through thinking, and if the job is still available, I'll start thinking about them! If I have a second choice who is enthusiastic, that's my new employee. If a person has to now contemplate their future, they weren't true during their interview when you asked them why they are looking for a job. If they were just window-shopping to get salary amounts to throw back to their current employer, you don't want this person on your staff. They will do the same thing to you.

If you are replacing a current person who is leaving for a good reason, building a family, or a spousal relocation, then it is OK to hire a new person with the old person in place. If you are hiring for a negative reason, replacing a current dud, then let the dud go before you do the final hire. You will get burned more often than not. Your new person wants to give two weeks notice, (which they should!), and you think you will let the dud go in two weeks, so the next day the new hero can take right over. Remember this, the new person will be telling their friends, who may mention it to their friends, and often times, the dud will hear they are being replaced. Trust me, this does happen. You don't want this kind of scene in your place of work, they are nasty.

I had another experience that taught me--we were going to replace an inside salesperson, had hired the replacement and were ready to go, but we hadn't told the current person. Well, three days before the transition point, the current person got very sick, stayed home for a couple of days, and then came to the office first thing on Monday, only to be fired with their replacement already there. Never a good scene. Always, when you make up your mind on a replacement, terminate the current employee. Yes, you will be short-handed for a week of two...do it anyway. Give the person a two-week severance and ask them to leave. Don't let them work out the severance period. They will be mean, vindictive and will sour the rest of the work force.

Next week we will discuss the "conditional offer of employment" and how to use it successfully in hiring great people.

Questions You Can't Ask In An Interview, and How To Ask Them Anyway!

Let's continue our series on hiring and interviewing, discussing questions you can't ask in an interview, and yet, still learn the information you need to create a good hiring decision.

First, this column is not written to evade or endorse a prohibited practice. I think some of the questions you can't ask, like national origin or religious beliefs are correctly banned in our multi-faceted country. I won't offer any alternatives to these, as they should never be a condition of employment.

In general, the questions you can't ask about are:

• Age
• Religious Beliefs
• Family or Marital Status
• Gender requirments of A Job
• Health, Including Physical and Mental Disabilities

You'll notice that some things, by not being on this list, are acceptable. You can ask if someone is a Cubs or a White Sox fan, A Mets or a Yankee Fan. Unfortunately, this is not a great predictor of job success.

During an interview you want to ask questions that give you an insight into the person's work habits, their motivation and their job skills that are relevant to the job you are offering. Asking prohibited questions may open a can of worms--an applicant can go to a Federal or State agency, which can make your life miserable. There are people who go on interviews, hoping a prohibited question is asked, and then, when they don't get the job, file a charge. They will make the charge go away for a $5,000 settlement. You'll soon learn this is cheaper than fighting...lawyer fees and your lost time will humble you.

Let's get specific. You cannot ask a person's birth date, age, date they graduated from High School or College, or anything that directly infers their age. You can say this: "Our insurance carrier will only insure drivers over 18 (or 21), are you insurable?"

You can't ask "How long until you retire?", but you can ask, what do you see yourself doing in your career for the long-term?"

The biggest concern that employers have is the health and physical capabilities of the applicant. You can't ask "Do you Smoke?", "Do you take drugs?", or "Do you drink?" Here are some alternatives. Tell the applicant that you are a non-smoking company, and you don't offer extra breaks for smokers to go outside. "Do you think this is a good policy?" You can ask, have you ever been disciplined by another company for not adhering to their guidelines on cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol?"

You can't ask, "How tall are you, and how much do you weigh?" for any job, including those that do heavy lifting or climbing. You can state, "The job you are applying for requires you to stand all day, and be able to lift 60 lbs on a regular basis. Can you do this? Describe all of the physical needs of the job, and ask, "Can you perform the tasks I have just described?"

You can't ask if they have been ill, and can't ask how many sick days they took last year. You can't ask if they have had a specific illness or operation, but, you can ask, in total how many days of work did you miss last year. This may include vacation, holiday or whatever. You can then decide if this person works enough for your needs. You can't ask if they took time off for a child, or take care of an ill parent.

The best catch-all questions is to ask, "Can you perform the essential job duties with or without reasonable accommodations?" Many companies send applicants for physicals before employment. This only occcurs after a conditional offer of employment, and is itself a seperate can of worms for another blog.

A few more---Don't ask their religious affiliation or organizations they belong to. You can ask what do they enjoy doing in their spare time. (Here's a Paul tip--if they play golf, ask their handicap. If it is below eight, they are a superb golfer--which takes a lot of practice time, or they are a cousin of Tiger Woods. That much practice time can lead to attendance problems.)

Don't ask if they are a citizen--just ask if they are legaly eligible to work in the United States; don't ask if they have young children at home or how many children, just ask can they be at work, consistently at 8:00 am, or whatever your start time is.

You can ask have you ever been convicted of a crime? But not, "Have you ever been arrested?" You can ask, if they show a military tour on their resume, "What did you learn, what did you do in the Service?", but don't ask what kind of discharge they received.

Are your hands tied? Is this another intrusion into the rights of a business owner? NO and NO. These prohibitions came about because there are unscrupulous employers who do take advantage of people and are not fair due to prejudices.

Your role is to ask questions that are open-ended--you don't want to ask yes-or-no questions. Ask, "What was your favorite job, and why?" "What talents or skills do you have that make you the best candidate for this job?"

For the last couple of years, you had to work to get more than one applicant to apply for a job. That is changing now, and you have the opportunity to select the best qualified person.

For the flip side, if you are an applicant for a job, don't hide behind regulations. Volunteer information that will make the interviewer comfortable with you. You may not want to talk about your religious beliefs, but you should talk about your job skills, your motivations, and why you would be an asset to the company.

Let's Interview Somebody!

We have talked about inviting the right candidates for your job openings. Let's talk about the first interveiw. The purpose of the first interview is to see if the candidate meets your minimum standards; at the second interview you'll decide who the best candidate is from those who meet your standards.

How do you get to the first interview? For a factory job, usually you want to have people apply in person. Set up the interviewing hours before or at the same time as the shift. Don't expect an applicant for a night shift to come in during the day. For a customer service position, have a phone number to call. You want to hear their voice and their enthusiasm through the phone. For a professional position, ask for resumes.

For the office and professional areas, try to spend five minutes on the phone with potential applicants seeing if they fit your rough idea of the job. Ask them why they are looking for work. If they go negative about their current job, drop them like a hot potato. Without being pushy, ask what their current earnings are--you'll get a lot of push back here, as people who have special arrangments, like bonuses or commissions want to take time to explain. Ask them to just give you a general ballpark figure. If someone makes 30% more than your job, tell them that you just can't get anywhere near that figure, and saving yours and their time, don't offer an interview. People may say that this doesn't matter, but anyone who is willing to take that kind of pay cut will continue to look for a job that pays them what they were used to making, while they are working for you.

It is wise to have all applicants fill out an application. Take a minute to read this application while you hand the applicant a brochure about your company. Look for neatness and to be fully complete. When looking at job history, look for gaps in time, and question this during the interview.

The first interview should be about 20-25 minutes. You shoud try to speak for less than 10 minutes, letting the candidate speak as much as possible. Your first impression is extremely important, in fact, research has shown that most job interviews are decided in the first two minutes, and the rest of the time is spent being polite. What do you look for to make that first impression? Are they on-time? Are they dressed appropriately? The attire should be one level above their regular job duty clothing. A factory worker should be in clean clothes, a customer service person should look professional. Their first comments should be clear and concise, not rambling. They should hand you a new, clean resume for any supervisory or office position, and if you have applicants fill out a job aplication, it should be completely filled out. If someone writes "see resume" and doesn't fill out your form, they will always look for shortcuts in the job. Not a good sign. If your application says fill out completely, and they take a short cut, they don't follow directions well, either. This sounds petty, but believe me, this is true. The applicant should have some prepared questions...it shows they did a little homework and are interested in the position. All this in the first sixty seconds, and then you start the interview.

I've always looked to see if a job candidate fit the job and our company first, and then went on to discuss their qualifications for the position. How do you do this? I ask each applicant "What do you want to hear about first, a description of the potential job, or our company benefits program?". A choice for the benefits tells me this is not our person. When you do discuss benefits, which should be near the end of the first interview, use a checklist to mention all of your benefits.

At the beginning of the interview I try to make people feel at ease. A question about their favorite football or baseball team perhaps. Never politics, religion of their health. I then go into either a short job description or a short review of benefits, based on the previous question. As an interviewer, you should practice this a couple of times, so you cover the key points, and get it finished promptly. Then ask, "Do you have any questions so far?" I intentionally leave one important thing out of the presentation to see if they do ask a question.

Remember, this interview is not the final one, and you can add that information next time.

After your presentation and you ask them if they have any questions, ask this simple open ended question--"So, tell me about yourself", and let them ramble on. If they ask "What do you want to know?", say "Just anything you want to tell me about yourself". Whether they talk about their work history, or themself, take notes. There are many things you can't ask, (we'll cover that in an upcoming blog), but for now, just let them talk. If they tell you something, then you know it. I guarantee you will learn more about your candidate with this question than any other.

Next week we'll go deeper into the first interview, discussing specific questions you can't ask, and some you absolutely should!