Intro
Broadcasting live from the Business Radio X studios in Dayton, Ohio. It's time for Dayton Business Radio. Now, here's your host.
The Mag
Welcome to Dayton, Business Radio Stone Payton here with you and you are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with All Service Glass out of Dayton, Ohio. Mr. Eric Wiechart. Good morning, sir.
Eric Wiechart
Good morning. Thanks for having me.
The Mag
Well, it is an absolute delight to have you on the show. Would you give us a little bit of an overview, a mission purpose? What are you guys out there trying to do for folks?
Eric Wiechart
Well, you know, I think most of what we do is, is really glass-related, but we try to put things in a bigger perspective. And we really look to be a company that provides 100% satisfaction no matter what, and we're dedicated to that. And we do it for a purpose beyond that, in terms of, we want to create a value for folks and make a difference in every life we touch. And this goes back to my philosophy, really growing up, I love small businesses, I think there's nothing better than to be a part of a small business. I've always wanted to be a leader in business. Sometimes in my life, I wanted to run big businesses, sometimes, I just loved the fact of being able to be involved in small businesses. And I think there's nothing greater that you can do, as a person or as an organization than offer somebody an opportunity to work in an area that they can have an impact, have a purpose, and have a meaningful career, and the opportunity for growth and the ability to to be something more than what they started with. And I think small business delivers that better than frankly, any other organization size.
The Mag
Well, you're certainly singing our song, both for us here at Business Radio X and our listener base in our client base. Was there a particular triggering event that got you into this specific business? What's the backstory on that?
Eric Wiechart
Well, I have always loved understanding how businesses work. So different businesses, unless they're extremely tactical, like engineering-based. None of them really scare me, because I love understanding how business works. I understand how I love figuring out how people can be successful in an industry doing things very differently. But can they still be successful? So I ran a family-owned business that was a medical equipment business, and a local hospital came to us and decided that they wanted to buy it. We sold to him, I went to work for him. And I thought this would be a great opportunity for me working for a bigger company. And the first year was tough for me because we were growing at an accelerated pace. The hospital itself was not. So for example, if I wanted to hire a part-timer, I'd have three signatures above me all the way up to a senior vice president.
The Mag
Ouch!
Eric Wiechart
Yes, exactly. So for somebody that's entrepreneurial, driven, and trying to do the right thing for the customer and the people you work with. That's those are constraints that really take it out of you. So I went to my accountant, doing my year-end tax planning. And at the end of that session, I said, listen, this is literally killing me. I've got to find a place for a small business that I can buy and run. And if you find any let me know. Well, the very next day, the person that owned All Service Glass came in and said that they wanted to buy a car dealership did he know of anybody that wanted to buy a glass business, and literally within 90 days, we made that transition?
The Mag
Isn't that amazing? And I realized that sometimes we do sort of trip over some interesting opportunities and it feels like luck. But there's just something to that when you start to open your eyes to new opportunities. They tend to surface the whole day.
Eric Wiechart
They absolutely do. I think that's a great observation. Having your eyes open all the time and looking for opportunity and for people that have incredible potential and value beyond where they are now. To be honest with you what how we've been successful is not through me. It's really been through the folks that we've been able to attract and they're dedicated to our focus on customer satisfaction. And having a purpose is really what has made us successful. And frankly, I've been involved in, in helping several businesses transition by helping identify people that had far more potential than where they were at that moment. We just a couple of years ago helped a young man by a construction company and supposed to be a five-year plan. And within three years, he bought us out. And he's doing incredibly well and can credibly be proud of them, what they've done and how they've done it. And it brings me incredible joy far beyond. Other things that you can measure, probably in checking accounts and savings accounts. It gives me more joy, knowing that we've done that as an organization and the group that it just can't even describe the comparison.
The Mag
So do you have a handful of disciplines or a checklist or some rules of thumbs that your rules of thumb that you utilize to help you identify, recruit, select and begin to develop new talent as you bring them in? If you do, I'd love to hear him? And I think our listeners would do.
Eric Wiechart
You know, it's kind of interesting to ask that question. I think I've been spending more time trying to answer that question myself lately, especially through the virus is how do we continue to find and attract people that have this strong belief in satisfying the customer and making a difference in people's lives? And I think if we can get better at that, I know it's going to serve us well if we can help identify those folks. So we have tried, we've tried interviewing opportunities we've had just observing, you know, you're in a business like ours, we interact with, you know, 200 people a day. And we try to get all of our folks to look for those people that had that same desire to improve themselves to grow, to be a part of something that serves people well. So I don't necessarily have a checklist, but we do seem to be able to attract people that had that same belief.
The Mag
When you identify a hole in your swing and this some I'm getting good at, which I guess is step one, right, in the 12-step program. But when you identify a hole in your swing gaps, as where do you go? Like, what's your process for mending that gap?
Eric Wiechart
I think you had the first thing right, admitting you have a problem is the first step absolutely. I think what we try to do here is go back to again, our vision, mission, purpose values, and say, how is what we're doing or not doing well? Where can we attack that, to serve what we've said we're going to do? So for example, we've, we've had opportunities through this virus, to try to figure out how to treat our own folks well, and our customers well, and develop that. And we always go back to either 100% Customer satisfaction is what we're doing making a difference in somebody's lives. You know, are we doing it with integrity? And with a drive for quality? And are we really doing it for service? If we aren't, there's that's generally where we have to start to make the change.
We have the opportunity, we can see it, then if we can use those guiding principles, we generally can figure it out. It may take us well, frankly, you know, and we have plenty of bumps in the road. But we are dedicated to turning those bumps in the road route. So I think it's a great question. I think it's something that everyone's going to face during, especially these times. But even in the future, as technology changes as a society grow and challenges itself, I think we're going to continue to have to look back at a set of standards, a set of guidelines if you want to put it back to just the word purpose, what is our purpose? Are we serving our purpose by how we're doing what we're doing right now?
The Mag
So the foundation as you suggested is kind of centered around being diligent and willing to look yourself in the mirror and had that conversation and then take some action in that direction. But you're also a big believer of looking the other person in the eye. That's a specific quote I dug up from some of your materials. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Eric Wiechart
And I think it actually leads back to what you're saying. So, again, to paint a little bit of a picture, I grew up in a family-owned business literally, were right, right beside it. When my father came over for dinner, my mother went over and ran the pharmacy counter and they just literally went out of wide, one side door to the other. So very early, I learned that serving your customers and your neighbors in that case, it was literally never a drugstore. There was a direct relationship between doing that and doing that well and food on the table literally. And then we all started working in the business it was in those days, you almost describe it like a family farm. We all started working around third grade emptying trash cans, etc.
And then we worked our way up to two of my siblings are pharmacists, so had a big impact on our family. Then my mother's father and mother owned a farm in an old town called labor Ohio. And every summer they rotate us, kids, though I think, kind of as a helping hand, frankly. And also, it was great to have 100 percent attention, grandparents when you come from a family of five kids. And so we worked hard while we were on the farm, no doubt about it. One of the things you look forward to is if it rained that day, grandpa would take into town because you couldn't do your chores if it was raining. Manure doesn't shovel very well when it's wet. That's one of the things I learned.
Anyways, as we were going in, I'll never forget this day, I was probably 13. Maybe we're riding into town, as he called it in town, little it was three, three stores, a church, and a funeral home. Only sidewalks on one side of the street. And because of rain, there are a lot of farmers at the breakfast place as my grandpa used to call it. And we had to park a little way down and we start walking up and there's a man on the sidewalk walking towards us. And he crosses the street. And I've always been an observer of people, even young, I'm trying to understand why somebody would cross the street. There's no sidewalks on the outside, it's raining.
And I turn around and watch him and he crosses behind us. And I say hey, Grandpa, why would that guy do that? And he said I'll tell you in a minute. So we go inside, you know, I'm very interested and focused. And as soon as we sit down and I say, you know, grandpa, tell me the story and he says Just wait a minute. Later on, as I thought about it, he didn't want to say anything in front of the waitress. So we ordered our food and got our orange juice and coffee. And in his case, and we're sitting there say, okay, Grandpa, tell me. And he says, Well, son demanded something to me that he can't look me in the eye. And you don't want to live your life that way.
The Mag
Wow.
Eric Wiechart
So when we have onboarding with our fellow employees here, I tell that story. Because I don't want them to be in line at the grocery store. I don't want them to be at church, I don't want them to be at a basketball game or a football game. And for them to be worried about looking somebody in the eye for what we do as an organization. We always want to be able to do everything we have to do to be able to be proud of what we do and be able to look somebody right, straight in the eye, and tell him we did all we could do to get them to that satisfaction level. And to make a difference for him.
The Mag
What a marvelous story in a terrific illustration, that's something that it will stick with me and I'm sure it sticks with the people that you're working with. You've I can just tell your energy comes through. Over the phone instantly listeners, we're not in the studio, we're kind of as some of you who may be listening to this in 2021 or 2022. We're neck-deep in this COVID-19 thing. We don't even have a studio in Dayton really yet. It's, we're doing this work virtually. But even coming over the zoom, which is the technology we're using right now. Eric, your energy and your genuine desire to serve come through. So you've already touched on this a lot, but I'm going to ask it anyway, at this point. What are you finding the most rewarding about your work?
Eric Wiechart
I think, you know, as a guy that's approaching 60, it's interesting because you start having these slideshows in your head almost of things that went well things didn't go well opportunities. And most of my focus is on really giving people opportunity that maybe wouldn't have had that opportunity and giving them providing an environment where they can be successful. And serve, you know, not everybody's cut out for that. And not every you know, not every entrepreneur has that kind of drive for that execution. But that's always been me and I'm most proud of the people I get to work with and extremely proud of the work they do. In satisfying our customers, we have an incredibly high satisfaction rate.
And we work to make it 100% every day. So I think that that's really probably the heart of when you look at your life, and you look at success. And you think about relationships, in my opinion. And most of this is about relationships. And I really hate to see talent wasted. Those, there's, there's just so much of it that is wasted. And frankly, in my example I don't think large companies really do that as well, small businesses, I think we're much better at developing people and turning someone from not being successful or having the opportunity to grow to give them that opportunity. And that's why I'm so passionate about small business.
The Mag
This is a much more tactical question. And then we've taken the conversation so far, but I am curious because I'm sort of from the professional services world. But how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a company, like All Service Glass?
Eric Wiechart
Well, because we're in several different markets, you know, some of its referral base and business to business. Some of its direct, you know, over the kitchen table, discussions, that what we focus in on is trying to deliver just what I've been saying, the terms 100% customer satisfaction, and what's interesting, we do track, you know, lead generation in certain parts of the business. And what's amazing is, and I think it goes back to really our focus on these kinds of things, that over almost 70% of the people that are referred or that they come to us are referred by either a customer or an employee.
The Mag
Wow.
Eric Wiechart
Think about that, think about the money that people spend marketing, just to fill the funnel. And we don't look at it as a funnel, you know, we expect every person that calls us for us to be able to fulfill their needs. And so it's, it's a pipe to us, it's not a funnel. So we try to treat every single person, like you look him in the eye, as I say, and also that we should be the one to service them, we're the best at what we do. We deliver the best quality and value. And we provide a great opportunity for it to be delivered. So I don't know if I answered your question exactly. But I think the facts, support that you can do things differently. And you don't have to follow a model, that maybe somebody else designed for your industry. You can come up with your own, as long as it's tied to your purpose, your direction, and your vision for what you want to be.
The Mag
Well, you did answer my question. But more importantly, I'll tell you what you did for me, you opened my eyes in my mind 30 minutes ago, someone would have asked me about your business, I would have been under the impression that yours would be a more transactional kind of business, and it's at least the way you choose to run it. You're not in a transactional type of business at all, it truly is relationship-oriented, isn't it?
Eric Wiechart
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, if you're going to have 70% of your customers be referred to you. It's a relationship business. Right. And I can't say that our industry runs it that way. And you know, frankly, I don't believe that to be the case. But I guess the amazing thing for me is I always believed that relationship was the best basis however you can deliver that in it because you have to be able to look at somebody's eye and relationship right? And they have to understand what you're about, or you can't have a relationship. So I'm extremely proud of that. You know, there are days I probably doubted it to be honest with you. That's why sticking to your standards and your values are important because there's some days it doesn't feel like that. But when you take a step back and consider that it's kind of amazing. As you're right, most of our industries look at this as a pure transaction on one-off, and we don't, we absolutely don't.
The Mag
Before we wrap up, one more question, what's next for you? What, Where are you going to be putting your energy in the next I don't know, 6, 12 months?
Eric Wiechart
We're working very hard here, to be able to identify how to take our culture and, and use it in either acquisition or opening new markets. And we don't know quite how to do it. You know, it's, it's one of those things that we have developed this culture over time. And we just assume that the next person walking in will, you know, as a teammate, will, will accept it, and take it on. And we've proven ourselves, that's not quite the case, those that we do find that are like this, you know, like us love the environment. But when we go like we did an acquisition, so we're over these next 12 months, we have to figure out what it really is, we have to be able to describe our culture, we need to be able to implement it, we need to be able to hold people accountable to living to those standards.
And that'll be a great challenge for us because we do it through osmosis. In most cases, that's kind of how we've grown and with people. So it'll be a real challenge. In addition, you know, I, family in the business, at some point in time, we have to continue to work out how that transition works, you know, so hopefully listening to me, you get the idea that I could probably leave here tomorrow and go do something else and love it. I'm always, you know, enthused about that. So I also don't want to be in the way, if there's a group of people here that can run it better than me, I'll go find something else to do. So I think those are the challenge personally. And then the first challenge is really, us as an organization to understand and figure out how to replicate this culture, either in an acquisition or in new startups.
The Mag
Well, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that you and your team are up for the challenge. If someone would like to reach out and have a conversation along these lines or learn more about All Service Glass. Have a conversation with you, or someone on your team, what is the best way for them to connect with you, whatever you think is appropriate phone, email, website, LinkedIn, you know, whatever.
Eric Wiechart
Yeah, so our website is www.allservglass.com (without the E, on serve). And anyone should feel you know, more than willing to call us at 1-800-521-7059. But we are on Facebook, and I'm on LinkedIn. And I think the company is on LinkedIn. And we have a, we have a Twitter feed and all those kinds of things. But just think you can tell that I'm probably more of a phone call kind of guy anyway. So if anybody ever wants to, to call us, please do and, and from a business standpoint, I've learned so much from other business owners I've surrounded myself with, with other great business owners to talk to because it's lonely, frankly, in a small business, it gets very lonely. And so it's important to reach out to others. And I think, you know, there's an organization in Dayton, Aileron, that's very, very good at connecting people and providing education and providing an opportunity to learn and grow. So I'd also recommend that people access that organization, people from all over the country come down the line, but certainly in the Ohio, Indiana area. It's a great resource.
The Mag
Well, thanks for the pro tip on that Aileron. Okay, fantastic. Well, Eric, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show. Thanks so much for joining us and sharing your story.
Eric Wiechart
Well, thanks for inviting me. I've had a great time.
The Mag
Alright, until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today Eric Wiechart and everyone here at the Business Radio X family, saying we'll see you next time on Dayton Business Radio.
Image source: https://allservglass.com/about-all-service-glass-3-2/
