What Keeps Businesses Successful?

Travelling in Europe, my only time there, in 1972 with my wife of 7 years, we stopped in a small town in Switzerland, and walked about. A Bakeri beckoned, and we entered an establishment unchanged in several hundred years. The son of the owner, speaking perfect English, told us the business had been established by his great-great-grandfather, and remained a family tradition since. The building housing it was beautiful. Seemingly, no interest had been shown in acquisition of other similar businesses, opening more stores, or any other means of expansion. These folks knew how to make the finest baked goods, had daily repeat customers, made a good living, and were satisfied at that.

Fast forward to 1986, me building our own house, taking a part-time job with Sears in Maintenance, this was I believe Sears' 100th. year. Inexplicably, within a few more years, the business faltered. Why? IMO, too much Management set too far away from the actual sales arenas. The home offices in Chicago had hundreds upon hundreds of corporate managers, who dictated requirements that actually hindered operations at the store level. They dictated the color of doorknobs! I kid you not! The night before a "visit" by one of those kingly upper level managers, one David Kenshol, the very bannister the man would use the following morning to guide himself down the stairs to the business office, was painted as a tribute to assuage his normally overly-gruff entrance. Early the next morning, the paint on the bannister was still sticky! Oh, my lord, what can be done? We are doomed. Every manager in the store was quickly seen wielding hair dryers grabbed from their display places, legions of extension cords tripping them, as a last ditch effort to dry that offending paint was undertaken!

David Kenshol's portrait was vividly displayed in the business office, as befitted a King! His own "act" was one typical of the reason for the fall of Sears from the graces of the buying public, IMO.

I receive a pension check from Sears every month, showing the depth of their gratitude for the thousands of dollars which otherwise would have been paid contractors, as I kept those huge A/C machines running in stores in AZ, CA, NM, and TX. My pension is $ 97.49 per month. Again, I kid you not.
Frank

 

This is why I prefer a 401K plan. I get $10-$12,000 a year from it. I learned the hard way about how loyalty is rarely rewarded except in the company I just retired from. They were nice enough to give me half a year's bonus and keep the thousands of dollars of computers and electronic devices they paid for. I have been screwed by every other company I worked for. Promises broken and out right lies. I learned to work for the highest bidder and get the highest salary I could without counting on any benefits. My former company gave me 25% of the net profits due to a verbal agreement when they lured me to join their company. Even let me work from home and set my own hours as long as my job got done. If I was not burnt out I would still be working for them.

 

There are so many factors that go into opening and operating a successful business but it only takes a couple of things to ruin it.
Beyond a Walmart opening up near a local general store or a Home Depot near a local hardware store, a business owner’s dreams can easily be rendered “just dreams” for the lack of what I call “give a dern”.
Note: Give a dern is when the client, guest, customer or patient comes first and nothing else matters but them.

When staff and employees are only looking at their own back pockets or are lackadaisical instead of being productive then there are going to be problems.
When any one person’s ego is so huge that they believe they aren’t expendable, there’s going to be problems.
When consistency, whether good or bad (hopefully good) is non existent or momentarily abandoned, there’s going to be problems.

Yesterday, we went out to eat lunch. Somebody didn’t “give a dern”. Somebody opened a #10 can of green beans and simply threw them on a steam table instead of cooking them according to an already established recipe.
They were unseasoned, only warm (unsafe) and were not at all consistent with past renderings of the product.
The fault was in the hands of the whole chain of restaurants because that’s what a new guest would experience and an old guest would complain about.
Granted, from management to the line cooks somebody didn’t care but that one mistake reflected on the reputation of all the stores, not just the one.

By the bye, I did write and give the regional manager a heads up. Nothing harsh nor filled with drama, just a friendly “give a dern”.

 

Over the years we have had several little mom & pop businesses in our area that had a winning product and didn't change a thing for two or three generations.

It always seems that eventually. a generation comes along that wants to improve things or expand and within a few short years, the business is gone.

"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Til its gone..." - Joni Mitchell

 

Better to have a 50 seat restaurant that is full than expand to a hundred seats and have the place half empty.

 

We had a local restaurant owner that always said: "I would much rather make a dollar off of ten customers than ten dollars off of one customer."

It must've worked because his joint was always jumpin'!

 

Too true. It’s all about attitude.
When I first started at the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans, I was filling in at the service bar. There were 6 seats for guests but my main job was to keep the cocktail waitresses and the restaurant waiters happy.
Toward the end of the night, a somewhat disheveled character came in and sat at my bar. He had on a very dirty and old hunting jacket and smelled like he hadn’t taken a shower in days.
I served him and then when he ordered I served him again...and again.....and again. No problem, it’s New Orleans.
When he asked for his check, he asked for a pen to sign his check and told me he was the owner of the Monteleone, Mr. Bill Monteleone himself. He didn’t have any cash, no wallet and no hotel key but I stayed friendly and called security who, much to my amazement, verified who he was.

Long story short, when I clocked in the next afternoon I was directed to Mr. Monteleone’s office by the food and beverage supervisor. When I got to the office, Mr. Monteleone personally fired me then rehired me as his new Maitre D’ Hotel. Tailor made tuxedo, free hair style a couple times a week, % of wine and food sales plus an ungodly amount of money in tips each night.

All Bill told me was that he liked how I treated people and the way I took care of his business.

 

Dang it, some guys had all the luck.......

Frank