During the past several months, Paul and Teresa
Slate, body shop owners in Tennessee, have been sharing both their
positive and negative business experiences with us. In this issue,
we read from their May chapter of events …

May – We experienced a situation in May that
all owners must absolutely hate to encounter. Our assistant manager
– who began with us shortly after we bought the shop two years
ago – was in his late 20s, single, good looking and socializing
too much. Several instances occurred in which his socializing
affected his job performance. We discussed this problem on five
different occasions, and each time he promised to do better. Well,
May was the end of the road, and we told him to find a new job.
This, of course, brought a great workload on us – immediately.
We found many loose strings left untied, supplements not submitted,
parts not ordered, etc. It was rough for a few weeks.

During this same time period, we also had
to find a new assistant manager. First of all, we had to decide
what we wanted in an assistant, as well as what we did not want.
We interviewed several candidates and concentrated on referrals
from our network of business contacts we’ve developed through
suppliers and our SCRS membership. This proved to be our source
of results. We hired a middle-aged man with a lot of experience
[and with] the attitude and mindset of doing what is right. We
met with him and his wife and found them to have the right hearts
and minds that we want for our business. He’s been with us since
May 14, and it’s been a mutually satisfying relationship. He’s
definitely brought a lot of good ideas and insight to us.

– Our youngest body technician quit in May,
and we replaced him with a middle-aged man with 20 years experience.
He’s also been an asset to us, and we feel fortunate to have him.