Finding the Right People

 

By Deb Weidenhamer

 

In my travels, I have the unique opportunity to meet a lot of different business owners from other industries than that of auction or liquidation.  And it is typical that every entrepreneur I know thinks their business is different from all the rest with its own distinct set of issues and challenges.  However there is always a common theme among every enterprise leader and that is the issue of finding great people to work for their organization and finding good customers with which to conduct business.

 

Which comes first – good customers or great employees?  I know that when one of our “favorite” customers calls or stops in for a meeting that all the employees light up and are excited to be of service in anyway possible to that client.  The client in return believes highly in the skills and the abilities of the team members that are serving him or her.  It starts a domino effect or a love affair for all involved.  Employees need to be appreciated and there is no better adorner of attention than a happy customer.

 

If the theory is that everyone likes to be made to feel important and that everyone includes employees, customers and the business leaders alike than it only makes sense that we strive to make all of them believe they are central to our success.  This isn’t a new business concept but there is always that difficult customer that gets in the way of turning theory into reality.  There is only one solution – don’t do business with customers that are difficult.

 

In our firm we actually have a set of value statements that include “we will work with exciting customers who turn us on and stretch us from whom we can learn and with whom we enjoy associating.”  Customers that don’t meet the criteria are not our customers.  I know you probably are thinking that for the right amount of money we would overlook a potential customer’s quirks.  And you couldn’t be farther from the truth.  The voice of experience has taught us that difficult clients make for unprofitable auctions. 

 

Let me give you an example.  Two years ago we competed for the auction business of a large corporation.  They asked us to bid as competitively as possible so they could give us the contract and made a promise that they would not put the business out to bid again for at least five years allowing us to raise our rates in the second year.  Of course their request was not in writing and their legal department would not allow the concession to be recorded, they asked us to work with them on a handshake.  We did exactly what they asked us to do and dropped our rate to break-even.  We conducted a highly successful auction for them and knew their business would prove to be very profitable in the future.  We were looking forward to their next auction and found that they put the auction work out for bid yet another time.

 

We spoke with the firm and asked what had happened to our handshake agreement.  Their response was that someone higher up on the management chain had asked to get competitive bids and it was out of their hands.  So the bid went out and we received a copy.  We did not submit a proposal for the work.  Their procurement people called and asked us when they should expect our bid – and we told them we were not planning on participating.  Over the past two years we have received several calls from various members of their organization encouraging us to bid on their work and lamenting over how much they miss the quality of our service.   We politely decline each time that they call.  It is substantial revenue but we know we don’t want to work with this client.  And the reasons aren’t just because they didn’t honor their commitments.  It goes deeper than that.  We believe if we insist on integrity from our employees than we must encourage the same in our customers.  When we let one slip, the other invariably follows suit and so follows the company.

 

Attracting good people whether employees or customers is about letting them know what the expectations for their performance will be.  I believe you can have great employees if they know that they are well respected and that the company they work for walks and talks the message.  If the company stands firm then employees stand strong behind the company. Good employees are not so much a matter of the people themselves but the culture and environment that the company sets.