My plan was to say good-bye to the glass industry with this blog. You see, I knew I had a lock on a new job which would have taken all my time. The Boston Red Sox were hiring a new General Manager, and I was just the absolutely most perfect candidate they could have had.
I coached little league for 12 years, so I know how to deal with children who play baseball. Right now that is what the Red Sox team is made of. While my main team is the New York Mets, my American League team is the Red Sox. After all, I live in New Hampshire, the heart of Red Sox Nation. I even have a Red Sox hat. I have been to a dozen games at Fenway in the last couple of years, so I know my way around the stadium. This proves I am a loyal fan.
It would have been tough leaving my beloved glass industry. It has been very, very good to me over the years. I thought, maybe, I could continue with the blog, but I realized my blogging time would now go to Sports Illustrated rather than USGlass. I had even called some of my consulting clients and told them that I would probably be leaving. They all understood and wished me well.
My resume went to John Henry, the Principal owner of the Red Sox. His secretary called me to set up an appointment, and she whispered that I was the first call she made.
We had lunch yesterday, it seemed to go well. The only sticking point was the salary. I basically agreed to pay Mr. Henry whatever he asked. The job-of-a-lifetime shouldn't be missed because of a few dollars.
Then it happened. The news this morning was that Mr. Henry hired a gentleman from in-house. He had many years experience...blah...blah...blah. I was crushed.
So, this won't be my final blog. The glass industry is stuck with me. The moral of the story is that you always need a back-up plan, no matter how sure you are of the future.
'See you' next week.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Solyndra Wasn't The Greatest Investment...Does That Mean We Stop Investing?
Sure, we got beat up pretty good on this one. All of us. $500 Million is more than most of us make in a month, unless we had a really good month. Is this something to joke about? No. But we can't cry about it either. Mistakes were made, but we have to go forward with investing in the future of America, our people, and yes, our glass industry.
The politicians are going to drag this one through the mud. Blame him. Blame her. Blame the whole east coast. Blame the New York Mets. Yes, we should learn something from this--how to better screen investments and how to create more effecient controls. But we shouldn't give up investing.
You are in the glass business, and most of us feel that we can't grow until the economy picks up. After all, what's the use of a new truck if there is no place to send it doing work? Right. So the answer is to find new places to do work!
The numbers tell us the construction industry is down anywhere from 10% to 30%. That is scary. But that means there is 70% to 90% still out there. Go chase it and you will need that new truck. This is not just taking business away from your competitor down the street. It is opening new markets for your glass shop.
Do you do board up? Do you sell to the local school district? Convince a large contractor to stop doing their own glazing and sub it to you. You would even hire their glazier! Are you calling on every interior designer? Are you calling on aquarium shops pitching that you can build custom aquariums? (It is just 1/2 glass and silicone!) Do you have any boat yards in your area? This is the time that they get dry docked and repaired. Do you call on sign companies? They don't use a lot of glass, but I bet you'll take a small order and be happy.
Enough...I have a proven list of 88 types of companies that use glass. If you want a copy, drop me an email at paulbaseball@msn.com and I will send it to you.
There is still a lot of business out there, and many reasons to invest. Go get it.
The politicians are going to drag this one through the mud. Blame him. Blame her. Blame the whole east coast. Blame the New York Mets. Yes, we should learn something from this--how to better screen investments and how to create more effecient controls. But we shouldn't give up investing.
You are in the glass business, and most of us feel that we can't grow until the economy picks up. After all, what's the use of a new truck if there is no place to send it doing work? Right. So the answer is to find new places to do work!
The numbers tell us the construction industry is down anywhere from 10% to 30%. That is scary. But that means there is 70% to 90% still out there. Go chase it and you will need that new truck. This is not just taking business away from your competitor down the street. It is opening new markets for your glass shop.
Do you do board up? Do you sell to the local school district? Convince a large contractor to stop doing their own glazing and sub it to you. You would even hire their glazier! Are you calling on every interior designer? Are you calling on aquarium shops pitching that you can build custom aquariums? (It is just 1/2 glass and silicone!) Do you have any boat yards in your area? This is the time that they get dry docked and repaired. Do you call on sign companies? They don't use a lot of glass, but I bet you'll take a small order and be happy.
Enough...I have a proven list of 88 types of companies that use glass. If you want a copy, drop me an email at paulbaseball@msn.com and I will send it to you.
There is still a lot of business out there, and many reasons to invest. Go get it.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Have You Hugged A Window Washer Today?
My Brother-In-Law, Les, owns a window washing company in Vermont. He works hard, leaving his house around 5:30 most mornings getting to restaurants and retail stores before their customers start milling around. During the summer it's OK, but in the winter, he mixes anti-freeze in the water on his truck and works in below zero weather.
So, why is this important to someone in the glass business?
Because Les knows when a window is fogged and he knows when a store front leaks air or water. Les talks with his customers every day, and they talk about their windows and entrances. And when people finally ask him about upgrading their store front, he knows who to recommend. Does he recommend you?
Translate this to the thousands of commercial window washers with at least a couple in the trading area of every one reading this, and you have a convergence of businesses that can help each other. Window washers see your customers more often than you! They can be your best friend in getting leads! Add to this the residential windows that are cleaned, and you have a great source of leads.
On the other hand, you should recommend a good window washer after you do an install. You just put in a new storefront. If the customer doesn't keep it clean, they will blame you in year when the glass is stained. Give the name of a reliable window washer in your area and you will have less call back problems!
It is a perfectly equal relationship. You will help each other on just about every job that either one of you works on. A good window washer won't use razor blades on coated glass. They know how to deal with our products.
So, if you run into Les, give him a hug. You'll recognize him, he has a squeegee stuck in his belt.
So, why is this important to someone in the glass business?
Because Les knows when a window is fogged and he knows when a store front leaks air or water. Les talks with his customers every day, and they talk about their windows and entrances. And when people finally ask him about upgrading their store front, he knows who to recommend. Does he recommend you?
Translate this to the thousands of commercial window washers with at least a couple in the trading area of every one reading this, and you have a convergence of businesses that can help each other. Window washers see your customers more often than you! They can be your best friend in getting leads! Add to this the residential windows that are cleaned, and you have a great source of leads.
On the other hand, you should recommend a good window washer after you do an install. You just put in a new storefront. If the customer doesn't keep it clean, they will blame you in year when the glass is stained. Give the name of a reliable window washer in your area and you will have less call back problems!
It is a perfectly equal relationship. You will help each other on just about every job that either one of you works on. A good window washer won't use razor blades on coated glass. They know how to deal with our products.
So, if you run into Les, give him a hug. You'll recognize him, he has a squeegee stuck in his belt.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Healthy Pays Off For Everyone
Like most of you reading this blog, I am a small business owner. I purchase health insurance for two full-time people, both over 60, both in general good health and no recurring illnesses. That's the good news...I am healthy. The bad news I pay over $27,000 per year, plus a $4,000 deductible. And, I think this is a good rate. I switched companies this year and saved almost $6,000!
I have a good plan, with lots of coverages, including pharmacy and dental. But, the best thing my new carrier gave me was a wonderful chart on the benefits of keeping employees healthy. This is right from the carrier, based on solid, current data.
"Studies have shown that as employees become healthier, they also become more productive, and companies with highly effective health and productivity programs have cost increases that are:
You will still get increases year over year, but your increases will be a lot less if your employees stay healthy. Sounds so basic, you use less insurance, your costs are lower. But the key here is to keep employees healthy. Here are some tips:
(*) This data is from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
I have a good plan, with lots of coverages, including pharmacy and dental. But, the best thing my new carrier gave me was a wonderful chart on the benefits of keeping employees healthy. This is right from the carrier, based on solid, current data.
"Studies have shown that as employees become healthier, they also become more productive, and companies with highly effective health and productivity programs have cost increases that are:
- 5 times lower for sick leave
- 4.5 time lower for long-term disability
- 4 times lower for short-term disability
- 3.5 times lower for general health coverage
You will still get increases year over year, but your increases will be a lot less if your employees stay healthy. Sounds so basic, you use less insurance, your costs are lower. But the key here is to keep employees healthy. Here are some tips:
- Encourage all employees to get flu shots.
- Most insurance policies pay for an annual physical without the deductible... check your policy and explain how important it is to go, even if you feel fine today.
- Quit smoking, help your employees quit.
- Encourage healthy life styles---have fruit around the office for snacks, not candy
- If you have room, put a treadmill in the office somewhere and encourage people to use it during the day. Don't make people work through lunch; in good weather encourage walking teams.
- When you go out for lunch, avoid fast food. It only takes five minutes longer to eat a salad than a couple of hot dogs.
- Don't encourage drinking of alcohol.
- Eat your vegetables. (Sounds like your Mother, doesn't it?)
- Quit smoking (It's worth repeating)
- Get mammograms and colonoscopies when you are scheduled. Don't put this off.
- Pay for a gym membership for all employees who have been with you for a year, provided they go at least twice a week. You can get this info from the gym.
- And the toughest one of all, loose weight. Take it from one who knows.
(*) This data is from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Sometimes It Is Just Too Easy
My blog is published on Tuesdays at US Glass News Network. I start thinking about it on Saturday, and usually have it roughed out by Sunday. Occasionally, my mind goes blank, (cut out the wise cracks), and Tuesday morning I am frantically looking for a topic.
But this week is just too easy. There was a story on MSNBC about a Barbecue restaurant that wouldn't buy a phone directory listing from a local publisher. In apparent retaliation, the salesman for the publisher made up a category called 'Carcass Removal', and listed the restaurant. Here's the story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44459855/ns/business-small_business/
This story was picked up by Jay Leno and used in his monologue, asking would you go to a Barbecue Rib restaurant listed in the carcass removal section of the phone book?
The restaurant owner found out about it when people called asking to take away dead animals from their farms. Read the story, you will feel that the suit by the Restaurant against the phone book company sure sounds valid.
The moral of the story? Check your local phone book for the headings:
But this week is just too easy. There was a story on MSNBC about a Barbecue restaurant that wouldn't buy a phone directory listing from a local publisher. In apparent retaliation, the salesman for the publisher made up a category called 'Carcass Removal', and listed the restaurant. Here's the story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44459855/ns/business-small_business/
This story was picked up by Jay Leno and used in his monologue, asking would you go to a Barbecue Rib restaurant listed in the carcass removal section of the phone book?
The restaurant owner found out about it when people called asking to take away dead animals from their farms. Read the story, you will feel that the suit by the Restaurant against the phone book company sure sounds valid.
The moral of the story? Check your local phone book for the headings:
- We break your glass
- Shower doors that leak
- Safety glass that isn't
- Windows broken
- Guaranteed heat-loss insulating glass
- Used glass--cleaned up somewhat
- Glass wholesalers--we sell glass with a hole in it
- Bullet proof windshields for your motorcycle
- Partially tempered glass
- Picture frames with smudges on the inside
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Have You Ever Whelmed A Customer?
Most people have, and when they do, they only do it once.
By the way, what is a 'whelmed' anyway? When you deal with a customer, you can overwhelm them with good service and quality. They will return to you again and again. Or you can underwhelm them, with poor value and weak service. You won't have to remember their name for their next visit to your showroom. A simple, single whelm is when you do neither under or overwhelm your customer. When you are just a ghost in their memory where you didn't stand out either good or bad. The customer, when they need glass again, will always try someone different, because they are looking to be overwhelmed. No question about it.
The simple key to success in our glass business, or any business, is repeat customers. And you earn them by consistently doing your over whelming thing. Be on time, leave the job site cleaner than you found it, clean the glass, be polite and neat in their home, stay quiet in their retail store or office. These are overwhelming things to do.
Underwhelm your customers by showing up late, not calling early enough when you have to reschedule or doing the minimum amount of work you can.
Think about it...do you want to do just this one job for this customer, or do you want the next job and a couple of referrals as well?
A glazier once whelmed his client
He was lazier and defiant
His work was so bad
His clients were mad
And never became compliant
By the way, what is a 'whelmed' anyway? When you deal with a customer, you can overwhelm them with good service and quality. They will return to you again and again. Or you can underwhelm them, with poor value and weak service. You won't have to remember their name for their next visit to your showroom. A simple, single whelm is when you do neither under or overwhelm your customer. When you are just a ghost in their memory where you didn't stand out either good or bad. The customer, when they need glass again, will always try someone different, because they are looking to be overwhelmed. No question about it.
The simple key to success in our glass business, or any business, is repeat customers. And you earn them by consistently doing your over whelming thing. Be on time, leave the job site cleaner than you found it, clean the glass, be polite and neat in their home, stay quiet in their retail store or office. These are overwhelming things to do.
Underwhelm your customers by showing up late, not calling early enough when you have to reschedule or doing the minimum amount of work you can.
Think about it...do you want to do just this one job for this customer, or do you want the next job and a couple of referrals as well?
A glazier once whelmed his client
He was lazier and defiant
His work was so bad
His clients were mad
And never became compliant
Monday, September 5, 2011
Where Were You On 9/11
There have only been three news-significant points in my life. You know, it's when you remember exactly what you were doing when you heard the news. For me, it was the assasination of John F. Kennedy, the moment Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon, and when the second plane hit the World Trade Center.
There is no joke at the end of this blog or moral to this story. It is just what happened to me and my best friend, Chuck Kaplanek, who owned our company, Floral Glass.
We were in Houston, Texas, on Monday, September 10th, visiting a major fabricator, looking at a software system they had installed. We were flying to Newark, NJ, Tuesday morning, visiting our plant in E. Rutherford, NJ where we would meet Chuck's son, Corey, who also worked in the business, and would drive us back to our homes on Long Island that evening.
Our hosts in Houston were extremely cordial. Our original plan was to stay in Houston that evening, have dinner with the salesman, and then leave Tuesday morning. Since we weren't completely sold on the system, we finished early, went to the airport, and got a flight to Atlanta with a connection to Newark, landing around 1:15 in the morning. We took a cab to the hotel near our plant in East Rutherford. Chuck and I both commented that the driver was crazy. He was from the Middle East, and spoke little English, but what he did speak was his anger with everything American. We don't know what caused his outbursts, but the half-hour drive scared both of us. This petty fact means nothing if not for the events the next morning.
We had set up for Cory to pick us up at 10:00 am, allowing us to catch some sleep.
At 9:00 am the phone rang. It was Cory on the line, saying turn on the TV and look out the window if I was on the New York City side of the hotel. I was. I looked out just as the fireball on the second tower erupted. I still didn't know what was going on, but knew that it was something horrible.
I got dressed quickly and met Chuck in the lobby. We both knew what was happening by then and were both upset. The plant is only a half-mile from the hotel and we got there around 9:50. Ten minutes later, someone from the plant screamed out, "look at the city!" By the time we turned we saw a huge dust cloud and plenty of smoke coming from the towers. We didn't know it was now singular.
The plant shut down and we all watched a small TV in the lunch room. I wandered outside to see the city just as the second tower fell. I saw the big antenna slide down out of sight. I knew thousands of people just died. I couldn't speak.
We called the plant together. All of us held hands, owner, and glass cutters alike, and many said a prayer.
Chuck and I got home about 10:00 that night, thanks to Cory driving north about two hours to find a bridge over the Hudson River that was open. Watching the news all day was frightening. Chuck and I should have been in the air that morning at 8:00 am. I still think of that.
Over the next couple of days the stories came in. There was a student in Elaine's class who lost an Uncle, a firefighter. We knew other families that had lost members. We knew many of the first responders who went into the area for the rescue and recovery.
I will never forget that day. I will never forget we should have been in the air that morning. I will never forget 9/11.
There is no joke at the end of this blog or moral to this story. It is just what happened to me and my best friend, Chuck Kaplanek, who owned our company, Floral Glass.
We were in Houston, Texas, on Monday, September 10th, visiting a major fabricator, looking at a software system they had installed. We were flying to Newark, NJ, Tuesday morning, visiting our plant in E. Rutherford, NJ where we would meet Chuck's son, Corey, who also worked in the business, and would drive us back to our homes on Long Island that evening.
Our hosts in Houston were extremely cordial. Our original plan was to stay in Houston that evening, have dinner with the salesman, and then leave Tuesday morning. Since we weren't completely sold on the system, we finished early, went to the airport, and got a flight to Atlanta with a connection to Newark, landing around 1:15 in the morning. We took a cab to the hotel near our plant in East Rutherford. Chuck and I both commented that the driver was crazy. He was from the Middle East, and spoke little English, but what he did speak was his anger with everything American. We don't know what caused his outbursts, but the half-hour drive scared both of us. This petty fact means nothing if not for the events the next morning.
We had set up for Cory to pick us up at 10:00 am, allowing us to catch some sleep.
At 9:00 am the phone rang. It was Cory on the line, saying turn on the TV and look out the window if I was on the New York City side of the hotel. I was. I looked out just as the fireball on the second tower erupted. I still didn't know what was going on, but knew that it was something horrible.
I got dressed quickly and met Chuck in the lobby. We both knew what was happening by then and were both upset. The plant is only a half-mile from the hotel and we got there around 9:50. Ten minutes later, someone from the plant screamed out, "look at the city!" By the time we turned we saw a huge dust cloud and plenty of smoke coming from the towers. We didn't know it was now singular.
The plant shut down and we all watched a small TV in the lunch room. I wandered outside to see the city just as the second tower fell. I saw the big antenna slide down out of sight. I knew thousands of people just died. I couldn't speak.
We called the plant together. All of us held hands, owner, and glass cutters alike, and many said a prayer.
Chuck and I got home about 10:00 that night, thanks to Cory driving north about two hours to find a bridge over the Hudson River that was open. Watching the news all day was frightening. Chuck and I should have been in the air that morning at 8:00 am. I still think of that.
Over the next couple of days the stories came in. There was a student in Elaine's class who lost an Uncle, a firefighter. We knew other families that had lost members. We knew many of the first responders who went into the area for the rescue and recovery.
I will never forget that day. I will never forget we should have been in the air that morning. I will never forget 9/11.
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