Recently, I hired a marketing firm to work with my company, Guident Business Solution, LLC, because I thought I needed a subject matter expert to help me evaluate how I communicate the benefits of my company in today’s dynamic business environment. Even though I was the one who initiated the relationship with a very well-known professional company I had resisted making some of the changes they suggested. One such change was the redesign of my company logo, which I have had since 2009 when I started the company, and by the way, I designed the logo myself. I don’t know why I resisted, maybe because I designed it or because I invested significantly in promoting the logo in the market. So what did I do? I went on a quest to prove that my logo was the better design, of course. After all, I am the business owner and I launched this company many years ago and just to be sure, we are doing very well helping businesses succeed and grow. Why change something that is not broken, I thought! So I began to ask the opinions of some of my most trusted advisors and others who did not know […]

One morning Jake came into my office. He sat down and with a serious look on his face said, “Gary, you’re going to have to fire me.” Of course I asked, “Why?” We had just purchased the company, and when you do that you get the good, the bad, and the ugly of the old company. Jake was definitely part of the good. He was a certified welder, trained in the military, and a genuine, nice guy. He said that he would not be able to pass the drug test. We did pre-employment drug testing but did not do it for employees who came into our company through acquisition. We did do random drug testing and Jake was certain when his number came up he would not pass. I asked him, “Do you want to leave the company?” He emphatically said no, but what were his choices? He knew that everyone was subject to the random drug testing, even the owners, so he was certain we would not make exceptions. He was right. But in my mind we did have some options if Jake was willing to comply with certain rules. We began to discuss our Employee Assistance Program (EAP). […]

I recently began to work with a company that had a problem with employees not showing up for shifts and/or often leaving shifts early. We called a meeting of the management team and began to discuss the problem and how to correct this type of damaging behavior. I asked the boss if the company had a disciplinary policy and the proper forms for the managers to use to correct these types of activities. The boss said no, the company never had anything like that. The boss said in the old days he would just threaten to fire any employee the next time “stuff like this” happened, and that would be enough to correct the problem. As of the date when I wrote this, with the unemployment rate so low, the boss said he was afraid to discipline anybody because of the worker shortage, and as the boss said, “We got to get shit done and we can’t afford to lose anyone!” As we continued our discussion, the boss was not comfortable saying anything to the employee because he was afraid to lose another worker. I stressed the fact that at least disciplining the employee or even letting the employee go […]

I once had a client who owned an auto repair business. He was a very good mechanic and worked on cars all the time. You could often find several cars and trucks in his backyard waiting to be worked on. As his family grew, his wife wanted the vehicles out of the yard. His solution was to start a business and open a shop of his own. He called me because his banker was asking him for accurate financial statements. He would work twelve hours a day under the hood of a car and then spend a half hour every other day trying to get caught up on his book work. I would visit him every week on a specific day, let’s say Tuesday, for ninety minutes. During our initial conversations—actually all the time we worked together—he would give me grief that I wore a white shirt. “As you know,” he would say, “anyone who wears a white shirt all the time definitely is not working.” He would wear the typical blue and gray striped mechanic’s shirt covered with grease and dirt stains. Often times when I first came to work with him, he did nothing but shop work from […]

One of my first “official” jobs I held, not counting the paper route that I had for years, was a clerk at a local grocery store. One of my first memories of working in the local store was when the owner, Mr. Prellwitz, came to me with a roll of scotch tape and several rolls of new pennies. He told me to tape a penny, with Lincoln’s head facing up, on each of the loaves of bread, which were on several racks lined up against the wall. So I did exactly what Mr. Prellwitz asked of me, but even as a sixteen-year-old high school kid I had to wonder why I was doing this. When I was done and Mr. Prellwitz came to inspect my work, I asked him, “Why did you have me do this?” He said the other grocery store in town was running a promotion and giving bread away to everyone who shopped in their store that day, and he was going to “do him one better” and pay his customers a penny to take his bread! He said it with an aggressive tone and, as I remember, was rather proud of the idea. Still, I couldn’t […]

This lesson was taught to me by my oldest grandson a few years ago. One Easter Sunday, my daughter planned an Easter egg hunt for my grandson. She placed tiny miniature marshmallows into a dozen or so brightly colored plastic Easter eggs and placed them in the yard in plain sight and in a row. She then pointed them out to my grandson, who immediately went to the nearest one and opened it. He was excited to see the miniature marshmallows inside and promptly ate them. He then went to the next nearest egg and opened it, thrilled to find more marshmallows. All the time this was going on my daughter was recording him on her iPhone. She was planning to share the video with friends and family on Facebook. Everything was going great until this cabbage moth showed up. This tiny white moth flew in front of my grandson, distracted him, and led him off in another direction. Obviously this frustrated my daughter, who was busy filming. She became noticeably agitated with the boy. I suggested she be patient and wait a few minutes. My grandson, who was easily distracted, knew where the next colored egg was and I […]

In past newsletters I have written about the challenges facing business owners when they have an “enablement” culture verses an “accountability” culture.  Recently I began working with The Boss to change a company’s enablement culture to an accountability culture. I asked the six supervisors in this organization to list the eight most critical job duties of each of their direct reports.  Then I asked the employees of these supervisors to list what they thought their eight most critical job duties were.  In the next step we compared what the supervisors identified as critical and what their employees reported as their most critical.  In most cases the supervisors and direct reports were in-line on about five or six of the most critical job duties.  This left us with an opportunity to improve efficiencies and workflow.  Efficiencies can be gained when employees understand what The Boss sees as most critical to the company’s success and in turn their success.  The other duties listed by employees, but not seen as most critical by The Boss, were taking valuable time away from the truly critical duties necessary for the organization to reach its full potential.  This does not mean the less critical duties are […]

I was invited to present at a self-employment in the arts conference where my audience was artists, musicians, and other self-employed artist types in a variety of fields.  My topic was “Financials and the Arts”.  I have experience presenting on financial literacy to executive directors of non-profits, so I had a sense of the relationship between understanding the mission of an organization and understanding the financials of an organization.  These artists had a very strong sense of mission, not much of finance.   I began by explaining the three financial statements.  The profit and loss statement is like your paycheck.  If you worked 40 hours a week at $10 an hour your take home pay was not $400, it was less taxes, insurances, and other deductions.  This is how the profit and loss statement works.  Your revenue minus your expenses and then you get to take home the difference in the form of profits. Your cash flow statement works like your personal debt card.  If you have money in your account, you can draw funds from your debt card or pay bills with it.  You don’t have to put money into your debt card account every day in order to use […]

In the post-pandemic area several of my clients are finding it more difficult to get employees in the door, and that puts pressure on the current employees who must “tow the load.”  The Boss is having to ask his employees to work longer hours and to work at multiple jobs due to the open positions.   Recently, I received a call from The Boss.  He is a young entrepreneur with small children and a newborn at home.  He called to vent regarding the long hours and the lack of people to do the work.  This Boss had been working too many hours, not getting enough sleep, and missing quality time with this family.  The Boss was asking his family to pick up the slack at home because he was exhausted from working all those hours.  He was also feeling guilty because of this family situation and that also played poorly on The Boss’s demeanor.     I asked The Boss what he would do if he could go home right now, lock the doors, and leave.  He said he would buy his wife some flowers and go home, hold his newborn, and take his wife to dinner.  I said, “Do it!”  I don’t mean every day, but when the frustration peaks, […]