From Anthony Standard

The first hurdle I had to get over was the money and time away from my business. The next was the question, “Was this just another class that wouldn’t help me?”

The answer to both of these questions was, IT WAS WORTH IT!!

I have taken more technical classes in my career than most and have had some of them be great and some not so great (ok lousy). But where I struggle is not HOW to clean carpet or dry a job, but in how to lead a team toward a common goal. I thought I could and you may think you can, but IF you are honest with yourself, this is probably not your strength either.

For the last 2 years, I have read a dozen books on the subject of leadership, but ALL of them were the same. Here is the theory and how I did it, but you must put it into practice in your business. That is the hard part. This course puts it into practice. You will never look at your staff and your business the same again.

You will leave every class with customized plans and documents for YOUR BUSINESS. NOT JUST THEORY. This is the very reason I bought a franchise. It was for this help.

Don’t get me wrong, this is difficult. Gerry will challenge you to change. He will stretch you. But YOU WILL be a better business owner, manager or team mate because of it. Remember that this is NOT just for business owners. ALL KEY people should learn this.

But first you must answer this question. Are you happy with your business the way it is currently operating?
If you answer no, then this is the course for you.

If you answer yes, then look in the mirror and stop lying to yourself and take the class.

From Curt Bembenek

It is hard to determine the actual benefits of this training as we are not completed with it yet. However, I believe I can reasonably estimate what some of the benefits will be.

Mission Statement-- this part of the exercise is extremely important. I believe that this alone helped our company focus on what we stand for in the marketplace. Our Mission Statement will be in all of our proposals going forward. It tells us who we are and how we will conduct business. It says the same thing to our prospects and clients.

Looking at the positives---so often we get bogged down by all the negative things in our world and in our business. This training has helped us to realize that a lot of good things happen every day, and we need to acknowledge those. Doing so will elevate the morale and attitude of our staff, which will be reflected in the way we treat our clients and fellow employees. A positive attitude will affect our business in a positive way.

Financially---This we have not been able to measure yet, but here is what I believe will happen. Prospects will see our Mission Statement and this will bring more of them to want to be our clients (increased sales). Clients will stay with us longer, due to better communication from us to them (more client satisfaction and less call backs and less cancellations). More client retention and loyalty means lower cost of sales and more time to be focused on sales and expanding our base.

In summary, I believe this is a good program and it will benefit our staff who attended the training, and that will trickle down to all other staff as well, resulting in a better and more effective communication and better service to our clients.

From Evelyn Brown

I want to express my sincere thanks to you, for inviting me and my staff to attend your Leadership Essentials Seminar in Portland. The benefits to me personally, my company and the staff that attended were incredible. Here are a few of the benefits you could share with others interested in purchasing your product.

First and foremost has been the Return on Investment for the company. Within a week of attending the seminar, my operations manager and I realized that we had an insubordinate individual on our team. We confidently (thanks to your classes) ended this person’s employment and went about finding the proper replacement. However, this time we found the replacement by using our Values and Mission Statement as the first tool in our interview process. Ironically, some of the people we felt were great prospects for the position, simply read our Values and Mission Statement and told us they would not fit in our organization; we were amazed! However, we found the right individual that told us this was the type of organization she had been looking for and upon hiring her we KNEW we made the right choice. This has and will save us hours of lost time ($$$) in training and retraining the wrong person for the job.

Secondly, I am so grateful for the benefit to my staff. My key staff members now have a clear understanding of what their position entails an understanding of their performance expectations. They work from a “To Do” list that they have created as a result of us working with me on their Professional Assignment. How can you fully measure the importance and value of an employee understanding that they are “Professionals” with an important assignment to accomplish as their personal contribution to the organization and for the team they are a part of?! I am measuring it in the marked change I see in better attitudes about their jobs and the company, their focus on completing their “To Do” list and how they feel about coming to work each day!

Additionally, and again, another Return on Investment is that marketing does not take a back seat on our agenda, because it is on a “To Do” list and everyone knows it is "Essential" to our growth and survival as an organization, especially the person responsible for getting it done.

Thirdly, and most humbling is the benefit to me. I personally, as the leader of the organization, have become acutely aware of how profoundly my leadership, or lack of leadership, affects the organization as a whole and the individuals that make up the whole. Every day I am reminded from what I learned, that I am never finished working on the “Essentials” of leading the organization and the people that have chosen to be a part of my team. While I am overwhelmed at what needs to be done to shore up the controls of time, money and direction, I now have a road map and know where I need to go and how to make it happen. I just need more hours in my life to map out the trip. However, I find I make a much better map when I “Pause on the Stairs” more frequently.

Last but not least. We have lots of fun as we predict the behaviors and reactions of each key person while working together. We can now do this because we understand each other’s personality traits. This makes it much easier to view ourselves as a team instead of separate individuals with separate agendas.

Thank you Gerry, for combining your years of experience in ServiceMaster, with your new knowledge and understanding of how our organizations should be developed. You have provided me with what I have needed for many years as a business owner, but could not find anyone that had the right information to help me. I appreciate what you have done and wish you the very best in this new venture.

From Charles Hoage

I personally believe that the ROI will manifest itself in the following ways: 1) A team of professionals aligned and focused on KPI's that will drive our top and bottom lines (To grow Profitably). 2) Additionally, the same team will be aligned and focused on delivering the best service experience (To excel with customers). 3) A positive nurturing environment that truly embraces the values (Help people develop and honor god in all we do).

In addition to being aligned and focused your program creates a nurturing and productive accountability. If the system is utilized non-performers have nowhere to hide cannot be enabled by managers that "like them" and "enable them to underperform".

This is not training or education that will produce an immediate return on investment because it requires implementation of the principles into the business culture. However, I am convinced that if the principles are embraced and permitted to change the culture the returns will be phenomenal.

From Richard Schroeder

I am a small franchise owner and I was hoping by investing in this leadership seminar it would help me grow into a larger business. This seminar has given me a pathway of understanding how a business should function. It has shown me the two pillars on either side of the bridge between my vision and the to-do list.

The seminar has given me an understanding of the role of a leader, a vision for the present and future, and a guide to fulfill that vision. If I implement the steps laid out in the seminar, what I hope to achieve is to become a better leader and that my employees feel an ownership and clear vision of their role in the business. When I start to hire, I hope to use the things I learned about my values and to hire employees that will share those values.

From Howard Homesley

Return on investment: Improved employee morale & reduced turnover. The Leadership program teaches better hiring practices, how to better utilize employees and how to give them a sense of contribution (significant contribution). Leadership Essentials teaches the importance of planning and gives real time tools to aid in the process. Leadership Essentials teaches you how to verbalize your vision for your business and share it with your team and get them on board. Make them meaningful contributors to moving your vision forward.

Another ROI is the importance of effective communication and tools to aid. We have decreased the time its taking to get agreed costs with adjusters. We are able to start and plan jobs better.

I know everyone wants it spoon fed to them, hard numbers that are easy to understand, showing the benefits of something but I can't do that. Not at this time. Ask me next year when we have had the Essentials fully implemented for some time and I am sure there will be P&L type numbers to share showing Essentials significant contribution to the bottom line.

I give the class my strongest vote of confidence. It has and is continuing making a difference in my business. Team members are talking and planning alone and with each other like never before. It has been huge in helping me share "my" vision for our business both short and long term. I now have people who feel as if they truly belong. I would like to see all SM classes wrapped into a format using the Essentials methods.

From Jon Buckalew

I have known Gerry for many years and have respected him and what he has done in those years, this is the reason I even bothered to look at another leadership training class. Our operation is small, myself, Janet-my wife and Kathy (our crew chief). He has put together a tremendous program that is helping me to systematically organize and put into action strategic planning and tactical operation in a combined effort to get everyone and everything on the same page and working together for the same goal, improvement. Essentials not only organizes the chaos but includes the tools for getting the "stuff" done. In 28 years as an employee then owner of ServiceMaster of Klamath , and now ServiceMaster Carpet & Upholstery Care, there have been a lot of pieces inside and outside of ServiceMaster to operate a business. This has put all of them together with a structure for implementing them that can be duplicated and adjusted to fit any position.

The most important question to ask is "Will this make me money today". Yes, is the simple answer, for me comes from our average sale. We started as a team having Progress Reports on what, how and why are our sales like they are, in August 2007 our average sale =$186.00, in August 2008 it was $212.00. This has continued improving, October 2007 our average sale =$203.00 & in October 2008 it was $249.00.

The second question is "will it continue to make me money". This will be answered better as more time passes, but now we are focusing on what is going on and working our time better, giving us time to spend on client relations, not rushing off to get the next thing done.

Another measure is attitude. We first implemented the Progress Reports, this alone has made us focus on what, how and why we are doing anything. We all have our reasons for getting stuff done; this is making us "buy into" the program, to make it better. Our second implementation task was our combined effort to write a new Mission Statement along with Business Values. The team sees me leading, not just doing, from the Big Picture to the daily To-Do List. I see them doing not just following. We see together what, why and how business is happening.

Business is an ongoing process that can always be improved, but we needed a SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE way to keep everything on track. Essentials may not be new information, it has probably all been out there since people started working in one form or another, I know successful individuals who do similar parts, but this is all together in one place and SIMPLE to do. It does require your individual participation, change or adjustment, working with others and sometimes painful honesty but improvement is not always easy. This is helping us build a better more profitable business.

From Kelly Norton

People generally need a reason to do something. This class gives the outline to help identify different aspects of the business allowing an entity to correct and rectify the structure of the business in a positive and forward moving way. It helps the leaders/managerial team come up with a step by step plan on how to come to the end picture they want that will be beneficial to the entire company. Once the managerial team comes to a solid base in defining the business entity as well as the rolls of those that are employed there, it will streamline production, reducing hours spent in the field and time managing internal calamity. Having a defined roll allows for an employee to achieve their best along the guidelines and expectations of the company by giving them a purpose, no matter what rank they hold. When an employee knows their function and understands the reasoning behind their job, it helps alleviate some of the uncertainty life can hold for people in general and helps them to focus on their work because they know, at least for 8 hours of the day, what is expected of them.

I would recommend this class to any size business no matter how long they have been around. It has helped our managerial staff come together with a more clearly defined purpose that allows us to make decisions that we know will be on the same page as other managers even when we don’t have the opportunity to talk with them in regards to it. Understanding the different personalities has allowed us the opportunity to have the right person for specific jobs that has in turn let us balance responsibility and accountability with our staff. We have been able to implement aspects of the course into our work flow daily and that has increased our productivity in a positive and growing way. I can’t wait to see the end result when we are able to implement the entire plan into our business. Thank you!

From Kerry & Frankie Jensen

We want to sincerely thank you for bringing your knowledge and expertise in the form of Essentials to our group in Salt Lake City. This training has already made a tremendous impact on our team in that we find ourselves discussing issues and referring to the class as well as the book on a daily basis. This we can see is a working process of becoming how we conduct business on a regular basis.

Each of our 3 team members attending the course clearly see the opportunities, wisdom, potential business & personal growth we can all achieve by implementing & practicing the tools you have provided.

You have taught us well and we thank you, more importantly we feel we will be thanking you for many years to come as we master and fully implement these leadership skills, seeing and feeling the countless benefits for years to come.

If you would be so kind not to offer this course to our competition we will be sure to be forever grateful to you and all you have brought in to our lives.

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