Soooooo, who's seen the Feb 2006 Inc Magazine?

johnny

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
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There Is A Choice by Bo Burlingham, an article about Jay Goltz. Pretty interesting... Didn't know he owned Bella Moulding. "Henry Ford of framing" was quite an honor...

Anyway, pick one up.
 
Alllll-right!

I e-mailed Bo about 2-3 years ago telling him he should do an article on Jay Goltz!

Can't wait to read this one!
 
Here's an old article from Oct 1999

From: 101 Great Ideas for Managing People FROM AMERICA'S MOST INNOVATIVE SMALL COMPANIES | October 1999

Like all CEOs, Jay Goltz was painfully aware of how expenses can whittle away profits. "I'd spend all day looking at bills and think, 'If my employees only knew what it takes to keep this place going,'" says the president of $10-million Artists' Frame, in Chicago. Meanwhile, he suspected his employees were studying invoices for pricey framing jobs and wondering, "Why aren't we making more money?"

"It occurred to me that employees had no idea what workers' compensation costs or what I spend on advertising or rent," says Goltz. So, he decided to demonstrate the business's cost structure -- in a way that they all would be able to understand.

Goltz gathered his 110 employees for a role-playing session, during which Vice President of Operations Mitch Gabel posed as a customer with a $100 framing job and Goltz represented the company. Using a fistful of oversize dollar bills, Gabel handed over increasing amounts of "cash" as Goltz itemized the expenses that went into attracting the customer and completing the job.

"What do you think our advertising costs?" Goltz asked the employees. "It's $50,000 a year, or about 5% of each job." Gabel relinquished $5. Then he watched his stack of money shrink further as Goltz continued collecting for health insurance, maintenance, rent, materials, labor, the telephone, and so on.

When Goltz was finished, Gabel was left with a paltry $5. "It was easy for employees to see that the difference between making money and losing money is sliver thin," says Goltz. "I wanted them to get perspective on the expenses that aren't obvious to them and to use that information to make better decisions. For an hour's worth of time, I couldn't ask for a better payoff."

Goltz is not the only CEO to find this method of communication effective. Prakash Laufer, CEO of Motherwear, a Northampton, Mass., catalog company, did a similar exercise with employees, starting with an average net sale of $100. Laufer then broke the sale down to show how much of the $100 went to each line item on the company's income statement and how much was left over in pretax and after-tax profits.

In August 1997, when the company had $5 million in sales, Laufer held a meeting to celebrate the fact that, instead of losing $3.23 on that typical $100 sale (the spring 1996 figure), Motherwear had raised it to a profit of $11.23. Laufer attributes that turnaround partly to the original expense breakdown exercise.
 
Bo Burlingham wrote a book with Jack Stark called "The Great Game of Business" about this so-called "Open-Book Management" style of business.

I was so impressed by it that I wrote a page (or two) on what it actually costs to "open the doors" every day" for my employee handbook.

It does look like we're making "money hand over fist" when you take a $2.00 a foot moulding and create a $200+ framing job, until the employee understands the "hidden" costs.

Good book, good magazine, great ideas!
 
I saw this article today at a doctor's office. It was excellent. Thanks for the tip. Otherwise I doubt if I would have picked up the magazine. I scooped it up and was happy to see it was the current issue.
 
Jay is certainly in a class by himself

But, the thing I admire the most is his ability to help so many that have asked of his help

I always felt badlt that FramerSelect never developed. In my mind, it was such a great opportunity to help the people that needed it the most.

And, too many of those needing the help, couldn't see that benefit and wouldn't help themselves

There are but a handful of his cut and we are very fortunate he participates
 
I don't think that FramerSelect is an idea which is waiting for it's time to come. I think it was a bad idea. I thought it was a bad idea for the PPFA to try to refer people to frameshops in the 90s as well. I thought it was a truly awful idea to attach a small percentage surcharge to my distributor invoices to pay for it too. That was still leaving a bad taste in my mouth and no doubt influenced my opinion of FramerSelect.

What was the criteria for being referred customers in either endeavor? See, I know some of my competition intimately and I cringe at the thought of having The Professional Picture Framers Association recommend them to my potential customers. FramerSelect I didn't mind so much in that regard because I think it was seen as a private enterprise. Still, refer enough people to knuckleheads and it'll bite you sooner or later.

The thing that I couldn't understand is how it's expected that consumers would take the trouble to go to such a service to be referred to someone who will largely provide a consumer shopping experience and not a service (Think doctor, lawyer, mechanic). No matter how much of a service we may in fact perform it's all in the eye of the beholder. If someone does have an heirloom in dire need of restoration or a genuinely valuable piece of artwork I find that they feel most comfortable asking the local art museum for a referral. I would doubt they would go to a web service, and again what criteria would that service use to refer them to the proper place?

I don't know Mr. Goltz at all. I read through the article and think that he really should be congratulated on his accomplishments. I didn't like how the industry was portrayed and that left a bad taste, but then reread it and realized I didn't quite get the time-jumps the first time through. So, anyway, I thought I'd mention it to gauge the crowd approval.
 
OK I hate to sound so far behind the times, but What happened to Framers Select?


I did a search on the grumlble and couldn't find anything that had to do with Framers Selects going under. Is that what happened? Or is it still there at $10.00 a month? That's the last topic I could find, when Framers Select had lowered thier prices.

Jennifer
 
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