Clean and steady ascent

When you climb the ladder
of life, don’t poop on the rungs, says R. E. Crawford.

If you do, you’re going to
encounter a big mess should
you have to come back down.

While some might be offended by the musings of the
founder, president and CEO of
R. E. Crawford Construction,
the benefits of their insight
should be lost on no one. No
business relationship should
ever be overlooked, he says,
adding that a loyal, long-term customer should be given just
as much attention as the new
customer you’re trying to woo.
This burn-no-bridge approach
to customer service has helped
propel the construction service
provider from a humble start-up
in 1979 to a nationally recognized, 74-employee outfit with
2007 revenue of $74 million —
up $6 million from 2006.

Smart Business spoke with
Crawford about how to keep
those rungs on the ladder
clean, so to speak, as well as
how to extend that commitment
of maintaining relationships
inward toward your own
employees.

Do not forget about your long-term
customers.
What happens in a
lot of companies is that long-term customers get pushed
aside for the new customers.

You have to take care of your
long-term customers. You can’t
forget about them. They’ve been
there with you for a long time
and, in some cases, from the
beginning.

Because you have a long-term
relationship with a customer,
you feel that they’ll always
understand when something
goes wrong or if you need to
change a schedule. But really,
they don’t.

You have to work harder to
keep your long-term customers
than you do your new ones. A
lot of times, people do the opposite.

The bigger the company is,
CEOs forget that they need to
be out there meeting customers,
seeing customers. Call on your
customers: ‘Hey, how are you
doing? Are people taking care of
you? Is there anything I can do?’

If you don’t make sure that
you’re listening to your customers, then you won’t (develop
a good) reputation.

That goes a long way. It’s just
being in touch with them. Don’t,
don’t, don’t forget about them.

To lead your people better, get to
know them better.
Putting the
right people in place is difficult.

That goes back to when you
hire the people initially. You
have to know what type of person you’re looking for.

The more input that you can
give to your HR department or
your headhunter about the type
of person you’re looking for, the
better the candidates will be.

Then, it’s just knowing your
people and having a good feel
for how they think and operate.

You have to try to get to know your people. You have to try to
not only know them on a business level; you need to try to
know them on a personal level.

Every year, we take our whole
company, including spouses, on
a trip. We’ll just have time to
really get to know each other a
little bit.

Play games together, have a
cocktail together, have dinner together and meet their families.
Basically, your employees have to
be part of your business family.

Getting to know people personally, you can get a better feeling
for their loyalties. If they’re loyal
to their family, they’re going to
be loyal to their business.

The more you get to know
someone and understand them,
the more you get to know how
honest they are and how dishonest they are.

Treat employees with respect. To
get buy-in, you have to have
(your employees’) respect, as
you have to show to them in
return.

Once they respect you and
they trust you, they’ll normally
buy in to your vision, whatever
that might be, and they’ll offer
some good input on the direction it should go.

The best way to get respect
from somebody is to show it:
Make sure you’re compensating
your employees fairly for the
job they do. Make sure that you
are reviewing your employees
annually, sitting down with
them and discussing their long-and short-term goals. Make sure
you’re keeping everybody
informed on company procedures and policies.

To get their respect, you have
to show respect.

Address change head on —
whether it’s good or bad.
When
there is change, the president,
owners or CEOs have to be the
people out their telling their people about the change, answering
questions about the change, and
talking about the positive and
the negative about the change.

There are some changes you
have to make that are negative.
If you’re honest about a negative change and don’t try to
mask it in a positive way, then
change is always welcome.

It seems like we’re all afraid to
bring up negative issues. The
best way to solve a negative situation is to have a positive conversation about it. That’s part of
being a good leader — not being afraid to make change.

The most positive thing you
can do in a negative situation is
to put everybody in the same
room and sit down and discuss
it and work it out. Just by getting everybody together and
having a conversation is a positive way to deal with a negative
situation.

People get disgruntled rather
quickly when you make changes
without getting input. Get their
input.

The benefit goes back to people trusting you. They feel you
didn’t try to mask a negative
change with a positive spin.
They feel that you were honest.
They feel that you have integrity.

If they trust you, and if they
feel you have integrity, they will
follow change.

HOW TO REACH: R.E. Crawford Construction, (724) 274-5000 or www.recrawford.com