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Touchy-feely
How to create better relationships to help spark growth
By Mike Cottrill
Smart Business | September 2009
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Marc Brownstein, president and CEO, Brownstein Group
Look, he knows he’s the boss and everything, but Marc Brownstein can’t help but admit he likes his 57 employees.
He really does.
And do you know what? That affection hasn’t stopped him from taking the family business, the Brownstein Group, to the next level. As president and CEO, Brownstein has helped the multipronged advertising agency take charge by opening a digital marketing division well ahead of the competition, and he’s overseen growth to $10.4 million in fee income.
All the while, though, Brownstein has hired carefully, instilled systems of accountability to keep people motivated and taken care of the people who make the company’s creative motors run.
“By doing that, you build a great team,” he says. “You have great culture, and within that, you do great work.”
Smart Business spoke with Brownstein about how much easier it is to check references in a world filled with social media and why he can tell a lot about a job candidate by how they treat a waiter.
Take care of those who will take care of you. The best advice I ever got is probably something my dad always said to me growing up, ‘Take care of the company and the company will take care of you.’ And by that he means don’t abuse the business, be modest in how you live and operate, and it will always be there to take care of you and your family. So we don’t have any debt — we’re debt-free. We don’t live lavishly. We take care of the family business, and it provides a good lifestyle, not just for me but for everyone on the team.
You keep people by creating the right atmosphere, and we’re not micromanagers. Everyone here is measured on performance. So everyone knows what they have to achieve, and then we measure their achievements because everyone wants to know, ‘How am I doing?’ If you leave it nebulous and in a gray area, then people don’t know where they stand, and human beings, in my experience, want to know where they stand. And we’re really generous with recognition when you do a job well, and then we get to know the human being.
We want to know how you are doing — ‘Hey, how’s that new dog? How’s the baby; is she walking yet? Hey, how are you feeling?’ We just want to know, and we care about the individuals. We’re a very human organization. That may sound touchy-feely, but it’s genuine, and it helps keep people here because they know that they matter.
It’s pretty easy. I don’t sit in my office, I’m out there; the sleeves are rolled up. It’s a pretty hands-on business, and when I’m walking to someone’s office, I make sure to stop along the way at other people’s offices, even the interns, everyone matters.
