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 […]

Imagine going to your local car dealer and ordering a brand new Chevy. When you go back to the dealership to pick up your new car, the dealer insists that you take a Cadillac home with you at the Chevy price. This does not make sense and you can’t imagine that it would ever happen this way. But I see this kind of thing happen in businesses more often than you would think. Why would The Boss allow this? The Boss stresses high quality in everything the company does. Without proper direction from The Boss, employees may tend to sell Chevy quality and deliver Cadillac quality for the Chevy price. When I see this, I will bring it to the attention of The Boss and I may hear “Our company is driven on top quality, we advertise top quality, and we deliver top quality!” I will begin the conversation by saying, if the customer pays for Chevy quality, they are expecting to receive Chevy quality. When you deliver Chevy quality, you have met the customer’s expectation and you have done your job well. If the customer expects Chevy quality and your company delivers Cadillac quality for the Chevy quality price, […]

Click the link below for a preview of Gary’s new book. https://www.guidentbusiness.com/garys-new-book-is-coming-soon/  

Lower prices are not always the answer! 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 to 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 […]

I’m much smarter in a room full of people! As I work with small to mid-size businesses, I struggle to convince the business owner that he or she would be much better off with an advisory team.  As business owners we think we are pretty good.  We are!  That’s how we get to be business owners.  But that sense of confidence can also be a deterrent to business owners increasing the owner’s equity in their organizations. A client once said to me, “I can’t talk to my employees, I can’t talk to my spouse, I can’t talk to my banker, who can I talk to about my business challenges?”  This is a problem in a lot of smaller organizations and the answer is “your advisory board”. For most advisory boards of smaller companies the board members are volunteers.  For starters, I recommend inviting your banker, your lawyer, your CPA, and old sage (retired) business professional you know, maybe from your church or Rotary Club, etc.  In my experience an odd number of members is best for voting and I would keep it small to start, seven members at most.  These people may not know your business as intimately as you do, but […]