One of the best pieces of advice
Frank St. John has on growing a
business is that the process never really ends, at least not if you want to
keep growing.
“It’s an ongoing effort every day, every
hour, to keep the business growing and
moving forward,” St. John says.
The co-founder and president of Applied
Engineering Services Inc. says he and his
executive team are constantly looking at
the future and checking their vision
against it to make sure they match up.
“You have to have some way to look
down the road a little bit and say,
‘Is what we’re doing going to
continue to grow?’” St. John
says.
That strategy has helped grow
the engineering solutions company to 2006 revenue of $10 million with 47 employees, up from
$5.8 million in 2004.
Smart Business spoke with St. John about how to find the right
people to grow with your business.
Q: How do you find the right
people to help grow your business?
We will talk to just about
anybody who sends in a
resume that looks like they
have got the experience and
the knowledge that corresponds with the work that we
do. Whether we have a current opening or not, you
never know until you actually meet them.
Our interview process for
those types of people
includes more than just
meeting me or my partners. We’ll
run them through a whole morning of
talking to some other key people here.
By the time we’re all done with that person, he knows quite a bit about us, and
we know a lot about him.
Sometimes somebody will send a
resume in, and we look at it and go, ‘We
don’t really have a mechanical engineering position open right now, but this guy
is just too good not to talk to.’ If we bring him in and find that to be true, often
you’ll find a way to get that guy in here.
If somebody drops on your doorstep that
you think is a good fit for you long term,
then you talk to them.
Q: How do you empower employees?
If we hire a brand new engineer out of
Purdue, and even within the first three to
six months, he shows that he can do more
than just sit there and do calculations for a
senior engineer or sit there on a board and
do drawings, we recognize that and start
giving him opportunities to grow early.
It’s all just part of our culture to allow people to grow in our company as they are
ready.
Younger people definitely want to see a
path. That path often is dictated by a
growing company. If everybody is sitting
here this year, the company is the same
size, and they are doing the same thing
they were last year, the growth isn’t
there.
Q: How do you encourage employee input?
As I walk by my partners’ offices, there
are always people in there. There are
people in my office. When they have
something to discuss, they know they
can walk right in. They don’t need an
appointment. They don’t need to call me.
They just walk in.
If I’m not on the phone, I tell them to sit
down and let’s talk. I think it’s just by
example. It’s just part of our culture.
People know we’re very approachable,
and if there are problems or issues or
something they want to discuss, people
don’t have any problem talking.
Be sincere. If there is an issue,
it doesn’t end when they walk
out the door. You have to follow
up on that issue or make a
change or dig into it some more.
The follow-up when somebody
does have an issue they want to
talk about is the important part.
Q: What is the key to a healthy customer relationship?
Honesty is a key element. We’re
being hired for our professional
expertise. The client may not want
to hear what the facts are, but it’s our
job to tell him what our opinions are.
I’ve always stated that very clearly. This is what we believe. You’ve
hired us to give our opinion. It’s still
your building and your project; you
don’t have to do it this way, but here
is our opinion.
Q: What one thing can really help any
company?
Any product or any report or anything that would go out to a client, it
needs to be reviewed by somebody
who didn’t spend the last 12 hours trying to produce it. He’s done looking. He’s
burned out. He’s looked at the thing, and
he thinks it’s done. Our process is to get
some fresh eyes looking at it and say, ‘Yes,
I understand,’ or, ‘No, I don’t. Why did he
say it this way? Why is it laid out like this?’
HOW TO REACH: Applied Engineering Services Inc., (317) 585-8920 or www.applied-e-s.com
