Manufacturing
Service learning
How Stanley Slesnick grew Slesnick Iron & Metal Co. through strong customer service
By Meredyth McKenzie
Smart Business Akron/Canton | January 2008
Stanley Slesnick started Slesnick Iron
& Metal Co. in 1957 with a mission of
putting service first, and he has grown his company by getting his 75 employees to
believe in that mantra. Many of Slesnick’s
customers at the scrap metal recycling
business are the second or third generation
in their families to patronize his business
— which posts revenue of between $7 million and $10 million each year — and they
keep coming back because of his
focus on service, he says.
Smart Business spoke with the
company’s president about the keys
to sustaining a business.
Q: What are the benefits of strong
customer service?
I liken it to a maitre d’ in a restaurant. People like to be recognized
and know that you appreciate their
business. You frequent a restaurant
because you like the help or the
owner, and you want to give them
business because they appreciate
your patronage. Then you walk
into a place where they ignore you
completely, and you don’t feel like
you want to go back there or even
tell your friends.
Know what your customers
want and like and what sells and
doesn’t sell. You need to know
your industry. You need to know
everything about what your people are doing. You have to be
hands-on, especially in the
beginning, and as you grow and
become successful, you hire
people to be hands-on, and then
you watch them and make sure
that they’re doing what you know has to be
done.
Q: How do you get customers to trust you?
It’s easy to get people to like you if you
acknowledge them and take a few minutes
to talk to them and ask how they’re feeling,
how they’ve been, how their family is
doing. Keep it on a personal relationship,
and then talk about business. And they’ll
talk to you and tell you how they’ve been
doing.
I had a man tell me years ago about how he used to travel selling luggage and would
make a file of each customer and the customer’s wife and children. After he became
successful, he would call the customers,
and the first thing he would ask was how
their family was doing. Whether he remembered them or not, he had a file on them
and knew everything about them.
This is what people like — the personal
touch.
Q: How do you get employees to know you
care about them?
You’re here every morning when you
open up; your employees know you’re
here. Get out of your office and go out and
see what your people are doing. They see
you. Employees like to know that their
boss knows what they’re doing. Make the
rounds, talk to everybody, and tell them
they’re doing a good job; they want to hear
it. People do not like to be ignored. You talk
to them.
You should be 100 percent involved if
you want to be successful. You should
know just about everything that’s going
on. It’s hard to run a business being an
absentee manager, and it’s hard to run a
business even being on top of everything.
Q: What are keys to starting your own
company?
Pursue your interests. It’s
hard today to start in any business. You have to know something about whatever the business is that you’re starting. You
need to know your industry.
Education is a big thing. If you
want to delve into any particular
area, then definitely an education, and there are all ways to
get them. Or else you go to work
and have someone teach you
your field. Talk to the customers
and see what they like.
See what sells and what doesn’t
sell, and you get an idea of people’s tastes. Then you get an idea
of what looks attractive and
who’s successful and who’s not
successful in the same type of
business you want to go into.
Q: What advice would you give to
leaders to be successful?
Start with hard work and a love
for what you’re doing. If you have
family in the business, you’ve got to
get along. You’ve got to know when
to back away and give control to
others. And there’s a certain
amount of luck involved in any business over the years.
They have to like what they’re doing.
They have to like getting up in the morning and coming to work. If you reinvest
your time, money and experience in
your own business, it will grow. Do
something that you know and will profit
from, instead of investing money in
somebody else’s business and not know
anything about it.
HOW TO REACH: Slesnick Iron & Metal Co., (330) 453-8475
