Distribution
Focusing on success
How to keep your sights set on gaols
By Meredyth McKenzie
Smart Business Broward/Palm Beach | May 2008
Page 1 of 1
Robert Toney
CEO, G. Robert Toney & Associates Inc.
In the constant hustle and
bustle of each business day,
Robert Toney does his best to stay focused. The founder,
president and CEO of G. Robert
Toney & Associates Inc. keeps
his day organized using planning
tools that keep him on task and
help him make sure his 71 employees are on task, as well.
“If you stay focused and obtain
your goal, and it’s the right goal,
it works,” Toney says. “If you get
out of focus and away from the
goals, it’s not going to work.”
Toney’s company is the parent company of National
Liquidators, a vessel recovery
and remarketing firm, and
National Yacht Sales, which
offers boat sales and boat
storage. Toney’s focus has
helped his companies reach
2007 sales of $11.9 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Toney about how to focus on
your business and prepare for
changes in that focus as your
business grows.
Q. What are the keys to staying focused on your business?
Communicating and then establishing goals and staying with
them. Profitability has a lot to do
with it. When you see a goal
work and it’s profitable, it’s much
easier to explain to everybody
why it’s a good goal and why
everybody has the right focus
on that issue. Lack of profitability also gets your attention as to
how you need to adjust your
goals or change your strategy.
Q. What are the keys to
setting goals?
Set goals that are going to
keep the company successful.
Communicate with the person who’s responsible for setting the
goals. I try to put some bullet
points forward — for instance,
do we want to open a new
office location — and then let
the person give their input.
Listen to what they have to
say before rushing to a decision.
Focus on the big picture and let
the person responsible put the
pieces in that can work within
their comfort level.
Q. What do you do if you
lose that focus?
Communicate more
clearly. You don’t have to
communicate all the
time, but when you do
communicate, communicate efficiently. When you
talk to somebody on the
phone, sometimes it’s better to follow it up with an
e-mail or a note that says,
‘Based on what we talked
about earlier, here’s what
I want you to do and
when I want you to do it.’
If you and the person
you’re working with
agreed on a goal and neither one of you can stick
with or stay focused on
that goal, you’ve got other
problems. Either you keep
the manager focused or
they keep you focused,
but if you can’t keep each other
focused, it isn’t going to work.
Q. How does your focus
change as the business
grows?
I stayed the most focused
when the business was growing
and struggling because I had to.
You focus on it 24 hours a day,
seven days a week because you
have to. Every penny counts,
every task you do during the
day counts, and everything you read for pleasure has to be related to your business because you
want to learn more on how to
stay focused on your business.
If you grow and have good
quality people working for you,
the staying focused aspect is
more about the bigger picture.
Hopefully when you’re successful, your people can enjoy their
work and free time a little bit
more because they are successful at work.
Q. How do you prepare yourself for that change?
You work so hard on your
own without much help when
you’re small, new and not as
profitable. But when you get
bigger, successful and profitable, you want to see other
people learn from that area and
you step back.
I still come to work early and
stay late, but I’m able to enjoy
myself when I’m not here
because I know everybody’s taking care of everything and the
place isn’t going under. In the
early days, if I wasn’t here, the
major decisions didn’t get made.
If you don’t step back and let
your managers take over, then
you’re micromanaging, and it’s
going to end up causing you
more problems than it’s going to
save. If you want to be successful and grow, you’ve got to put
that trust in other people.
I enjoy putting trust in other
people, especially good people
who are loyal to me and have
been working for me a long
time and who go the extra mile.
It’s a great feeling.
Q. How do you build trust
with employees, and what are
the benefits?
You can send them out on
their own, and they’ll do the
right thing. You can sense that
in their excitement and communication levels with you.
A good employee who wants
to be on his own knows when
to come and ask questions and
ask for guidance. You’ll find that
the more successful people who
work on their own will communicate better with you and come
asking for guidance and suggestions and proposing ideas to get
your feedback more than someone who’s not comfortable
working on their own.
HOW TO REACH: G. Robert Toney & Associates Inc., (954) 791-9601 or
www.nationalyachtsales.com or www.natliquidators.com
