His son is now the vice president of sales and marketing, and Wasserstrom is planning on a 10-year horizon. By then, he hopes to take a visionary role that’s less day in, day out, but he doesn’t want to retire. That’s another reason why growth is so critical.
It’s also important to always treat your family right — no matter what generation and whether they’re actively involved in running the family business, he says.
“I think that people just don’t get that. I think whoever is in power gets the opportunity to think that they’re the ruler and they can’t think that way. They’ve got to think bigger than that,” Wasserstrom says. “And it’s not just your family, you’ve got to treat the people that you hire’s family just as good.”
Relationship building, inside and out
Advance Sign Group has tripled in size over the past decade and now has 56 full-time employees and as many subcontractors who install three or four projects a day. Its clients are large companies with ongoing sign projects who need strong project management.
“We’ve been doing this fully as a national sign company for the last five years, when we transitioned over, and that’s when we started the path of creating this transition team to allow succession to happen,” Wasserstrom says.
The transition team of eight meets every week and each member has projects that need to be accomplished on a quarterly basis. The company also started using the EOS Traction program last year to help add accountability and focus on end results and positive outcomes.
“We pride ourselves on building relationships with our clients for multiple years,” he says.
Wasserstrom believes it’s important that his employees, including the succession planning group, know who he is and the company’s values.
“They need to know who we are, because our values need to match up. So, I want their values aligned with my values, and so they get to see me and my value system,” he says.
Discussions on the values of both Wasserstrom and Advance Sign Group are part of its onboarding training and the Traction program, because he says it should be a “we” effort, not a “me” one.
“Because the intimacy of the group is more important than just telling somebody what to do, when to do and how to do,” Wasserstrom says.
