Beware the slippery slope

Your competitor has talent on his roster. Talent, which you think would look good on your side. So, you decide to make a pitch. You invite the coveted “talent” for coffee and suggest that the grass is greener.

Surprise, the “talent” says he is very satisfied with his current position and that he has no intention of leaving.

Now what?

Guaranteed that the “talent “ is going to report the recruitment and any proprietary information that you divulged back to his Boss. By attempting to lure the “talent” you are suggesting to the market that you current roster needs improvements (not good for staff morale) Moreover, the door is now wide open for the competitor to come after your staff.

Whoops, you’ve just clamored up a very slippery slope!

If you are thinking about stealing “talent” you had better be sure your target is unhappy with his current lot. Underestimating your competitors corporate culture and staff loyalty, can lead to trouble.

If “talent” approaches you by all means recruit and improve your team. Attracting talent is paramount for any entrepreneurs’ success. But don’t get obsessed with the players on the other team. In the end you are probably best served to support and nurture you own talent and avoid the slippery slope.

Builder of the Decade?

I attended the Builder of the Decade event mostly out of curiosity. Having seen Premier Campbell speak a few times, I wanted to see if he had been humbled. Nope, the man is as defiant as ever.

Considering the botched roll out of the HST, the “now you see it now you don’t” fifteen percent tax cut and his resignation, you would have thought it was time to crawl under a rock! But, there he was proudly recounting his accomplishments for a packed house.

Look at it objectively and the Liberals achievements are impressive: the Sea to Sky Highway, Golden Ears Bridge, Abbotsford Hospital, the Gateway Project, Canada Line and the 2010 Olympics! Together these projects created thousands of jobs and helped to make the province a better place for everyone. Campbell and his liberals don’t deserve all the credit for these projects but they did their part.

Under Campbell the residents of BC pay lower income taxes, dodged a real estate crash and the subsequent economic meltdown. Not bad.

Campbell’s speech last night captured his time as Premier nicely. Solid performance with snippets of unfortunate clumsiness (his Schwarzenegger impression was brutal)

Say what you will about Premier Campbell you can’t deny that under his leadership the province got infrastructure, jobs and lower taxes.

Err on the side of Fun

My business partner likes to say “Err on the side of fun”. Kevin likes to have a good time. In both business and personal, it’s good advice. Looking to feel more connected to your family, goof around in the basement, play Wii together or go jump around in the local swimming pool. Want to feel more connected to your clients, take them out for some fun.

Last weekend the Wolfgang Team and one hundred and fifty clients went out for some fun. We hosted a private screening of the new DreamWorks movie Megamind. We picked up the tab for movie and the treats. It was a great family event. Parents and kids loved the movie and had fun.

The Megamind event was our way of saying thank you to our valued clients. The event was very casual; no hard sell, just a great time. For me, the best part was having a laugh with our guests as they entered the theatre. It was great to touch base outside of work and meet the families.

Will the event generate some immediate business? Probably not, our business is seasonal not much painting goes on in the winter. Generating business was not the point, saying thank you was. But, I believe that people want to do business with good people. So, come spring, when our clients look to tender their paint jobs, they will probably remember that they had some fun with the Wolfgang.

Learning from our Customers

Every year we survey our customers in an effort to improve our service. We enquire about the quality of our work, service and our people. Thankfully our wonderful clients take the time to answer our questions. The feedback is invaluable and we use it as the foundation for our business strategy.

This year our survey respondents told us that we are easy to work with, our workmanship is solid and our customer service is great. At the same time, our customers suggested that Wolfgang should work to become more consistent. Specifically, we need to start and finish projects in a more timely fashion. After all, any construction project is pain in the rear and no one wants it to drag on.

We’ve listened and learned. In fact, consistency is our organizational theme for 2011. And, we are putting our money where our mouth is.

For 2011 Wolfgang Commercial Painter will be offering a “Start and Finish” guarantee. In short, we guarantee to start and finish your project when promised or you get five percent back.

The “start and finish” guarantee is risky for Wolfgang. Commercial Painting is competitive and we don’t want to give away five percent of our hard earned profits. But, improving our service is important and this guarantee gives our customers another compelling reason to buy from us.

So, we thank our customers very much for the feedback and helping us to make Wolfgang a better company.