WARNING!!!

It is really ironic that I should be writing this at this moment because I just received a very interesting phone call which I will tell you about in a minute.

But at this moment, let me give you some inside information and I really want you to think about this for awhile.

This company charges $75.00 per hour with a $40.00 travel charge for the first hour and there is no getting around the fact that, that amount of money is expensive. I can understand when customers want to find someone, or some company who they think might be less expensive and try to save a few dollars; but let me mention a few things to make you think.

I hope that you will agree with me when I say that “Cheaper is not always better.”

I assume that if you are reading this you are a manager or an employer, just like me. And one thing you know is that good employees are hard to find. Both you and I could probably use more good employees at any time to replace those that are not exactly meeting our standards. And sometimes while we might have a certain criteria when hiring, from time to time we might compromise accepting 7 out of 10 of our requirements of the new employee hoping and thinking that we will work with the new person and see if we can develop them. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Hiring good people (or my extremely high unbending standards) is the number one reason why I do not have 100 technicians today.

As a business person, you also know that in order to run a successful business there is this little thing called overhead. Employees do not always see this.

I once had an employee who told me that I was making $75.00 per hour and he was only making $20.00 per hour and because of this, he was getting screwed and I was getting rich. He failed to see and understand the cost of rent, insurance, vehicle purchases, vehicle maintenance, cell phones, tool purchases, theft of company property, secretaries, phone bills and all the other stuff that you and I know about as business people.

I could never explain to this employee with any credibility that there were many times in the past when I went without a paycheck to make certain the checks of my employees did not bounce. All he could see was that he got $20.00 an hour and that cheap ass Ted Baker was getting $75.00.

There are other situations with employees who come into this company and do okay or maybe even well for 5 or 6 months and then decide they are going to leave and go into business for themselves. And this is what I really want to talk about here in this discussion.

Only once in the history of this company have I ever had an employee leave because I could not pay him enough. Several have left (like the guy in the preceding paragraph) who thought I was not paying them enough.

The bottom line here is that people who are good qualified technicians do not leave this company for more money because I pay more than any other competitor under just 2 or 3 conditions.

You have to be a hard worker, honest and correct when ever you are fixing something for a customer. If you are not, I do not pay a great deal for laziness, lies and failure.

If you make a mistake, you have to pay for your own mistakes: you cannot charge the customer for your screw up

The reason why I am telling you all this is because of a certain situation that has occurred more than once and I want to make you familiar with it.

The strength of this company is the team work along with the standards I set, and ME.

I am always watching. I hope this does not sound bad but when it comes to loyalty, the truth of the matter is that my loyalty is to my customers first and employees second. My job as the owner of this company is to service customers and protect their interests. It is my job to make certain that the man I send to fix any problem can actually do the job, does it for a fair price and that the machine is still working tomorrow and next month.

And just like you, I have an obligation to make sure he is honest and not a thief.

And let’s face it, when something does go wrong, for the most part, while I did not personally fix your problem, you are probably going to be on the phone yelling at me and not the employee who actually did the work. And that’s okay because I believe in the idea “The Buck Stops here.”

There is a lot of strength in team work. There is a lot of value in an organization who is constantly watching their employees to make certain the interests of the client are always protected.

I am going to guess that in my 15 years here in San Antonio there have probably been about a dozen technicians who have left me and gone onto business for them selves in competition against me. And what always happens is that this terminated technician will convince a certain number of clients to let him do their work instead of Restaurant Repairs.

And what happens then with 99% certainty is that they fail. They do not deliver the service and the quality because they do not have to. There is no one at a main office to watch the employee because he is his own boss.

In all my time in San Antonio with respect to all employees I ever hired there is only one employee who has left and competed against me and succeeded. And he left because at the time I could not pay him enough money. His name is Fernando Garcia. If you are fortunate to know this person, let me tell you that he is as good as myself and has more honor and integrity than anyone else I have ever known in my entire life. I would trust this guy with my naked wife!

But everyone else left because they could not achieve the standards set forth for them of honesty, integrity, reliability and 20 or 30 other positive characteristics that are required of the people who work here to maintain employment. If you work for me, you simply have to be the best.

If you are ever approached by someone who says that they worked for Ted Baker or the Restaurant Repair Company, just ask him one question: “How long did you work for Ted?”

If his answer is 3 years or more, you should probably hire him,. If his answer is less than that, I would be very careful because he was probably fired for failure ESPECIALLY if he has worked with me less than one year.

And here is the really sad part. Often times this has happened in the past and certain customers have been persuaded to leave. What has always happened is that the former employee screws up on a job or two (or three) and then the customer is dissatisfied and no longer wants to do business with this guy but then: they are too embarrassed to call us back.

I hope you can see: when this happens, everyone loses.

Consider one last aspect of this whole situation. When you and I hire an employee, as much as possible we try to do back ground tests, drug tests and criminal record inquiries. Sometimes this takes a while.

Not too long ago we had an employee who we hired (James) and his background check came back after 30 days and we discovered that of every crime that could be committed, this person had committed two or three of them. Of course we immediately fired him because none of this information was on the application.

BUT…

After he left, he went and took one of our biggest clients, The Argyle. The Argyle is a private exclusive club for millionaires and if they knew who this person really was they would never want him even in the building. Did I call them up and warn them? No.

All I can say is “Buyer Beware.” Sooner or later they will find out, but can you imagine the damage that will already have been done.

In the first sentence in this paper I told you that something Ironic happened just today.

Here it is.

A few minutes ago, I got a phone call from a person who said they had done business with a former employee. The former employee is named Andrew. This person told me that Andrew came to fix his Margarita Machine and never returned the sides to the machine and he asked Andrew where the sides were. Andrew told him that they might be at The Restaurant Repair Company but he (Andrew) could not go back to Restaurant Repairs to check, because he was fired from there.

It was almost amusing that he would admit that he was fired!

Because of the name of the client, we know that we never serviced him before and that when Andrew did this, it was side work he was doing while employed with the company. I don’t know about you, but I think that side work is the same thing as lying and cheating.

This client told me that the machine is very old and the missing parts are not longer available. He begged me to see if I had them and I told him I would check but I think there is very little chance of that, in that Andrew was fired several months ago.

The client said that he would have to have some new custom panels made.

What can I say. Be careful. Ask questions. Ask them how long they worked for me.

AND

BUYER BEWARE*

And if you do make a mistake, please feel free to call us back. We don’t hold grudges. Chances are good we may be able to take you back as a customer.