Their struggle for success requires more focus and a broader business perspective than ever before.

Wal-Mart, Fed-ex, McDonalds, food marts in gas stations, and even the Internet have shrunk geographies. Distant competitors can ply their wares anywhere, with relative ease, including in your back yard.

Customer expectations are that orders should be fulfilled fast – if not right now, then at least by tomorrow morning. Information, once held by a few experts is available to anyone, anytime on the Internet. Consumers can talk to your customers in chat rooms, or to your employees in special interest groups (SIGs), or dig deep into information provided by your competitors all from their computers.

As with all of life, the imperative is adapt or die. The difficulty for most family businesses is that the pace of change is continuing to pick up, while there are no more resources available (people, available cash, technological expertise, etc.) than there ever were.

On the other side of the coin, in my twenty-five years of consulting experience, I´ve found the people involved to be passionate, resourceful and dedicated to what they do. The solution to building a business that´s fit enough to compete and win, however, isn´t to work harder.

All of this can sound daunting, but it really isn´t. Good practices are almost always based on a foundation of enlightened common sense. "Common sense" in that resourceful people, acting to address changing conditions, often do the right things. "Enlightened common sense" refers to something more.

Today, our instincts have to be enriched by continuous learning, choices must be considered and calculated based on rigorous thinking and solid preparation. This doesn´t refer to schooling, but to an openness to new information and alternative perspectives. Working only a portion of the formula limits the overall results.

We want to bring these ideas to life through the use of a story about a successful family business in the glass industry. Jan Brewer, of the Jack Ricks Glass Company, volunteered to tell her story and allow me to insert commentary to illustrate what it takes to be a successful family business in today´s environment. My comments appear in blue while the interview with Jan is presented in black print.

Jan Brewer shares a tale that´s representative of the experiences of so many family businesses. We´ll take a look at her story with an eye on two issues. We´ll and note the good practices that are in evidence at Ricks – how they work to stay fit to win. We´ll also use the story to identify issues that limit or hinder the typical family business and suggest ways for you to cope with them as they threaten your business.

Jan Brewer, of Jack Ricks Glass in Savannah, Georgia, has a first-hand understanding of many of the complexities unique to family businesses. Jack Ricks founded the commercial and residential glass company 35 years ago, and when Jan married the eldest son, she married into the glass business as well. The marriage ultimately ended, but her ties to the family business have only grown.

After many years with Jack Ricks Glass, Jan and her husband left to form West Side Glass. Her husband soon expanded the business to a second location, despite Jan´s concern that rapid growth would stretch resources too thinly.

Jan soon found herself struggling to manage both businesses, and, unfortunately, the friction from diverging business ideas and the stress of managing a business growing too rapidly to stay solvent took its toll on their marriage. When they parted ways, her former husband took over the location he opened, while Jan maintained West Side Glass, the business she had built from the ground up—literally:

"I bought land and built my own buildings. I branched out pretty quickly, but then I began to run into cash flow problems—Too much growth and not enough money to back it up. I pretty much exhausted all of my means for supporting the business financially."

Being able to discuss vital issues and wisely settle disagreements are critical skills in any business environment. Communication about critical issues involves:

• Being able to frame the issues in a way that sets the stage that leads to a good business decision.
• Being able to consider the key issues and their implications as they affect your value proposition.
• Being able to think together, as thought partners, to reach the best decision for the enterprise.
• Being able to constructively resolve conflicts along the way.

However, it is clear that owners need to keep one eye on developments outside their own walls. They need to be savvy about both developments in the marketplace and the implications of their day-to-day decisions upon their abilities to respond effectively in that environment.

Initially, she sought investors, but when an exhaustive search proved fruitless, she found herself in the terribly difficult position—familiar to many small business owners—of having to make decision to sell the business and continue to work for the new owner: "That didn´t work too well. He fired me."

Jan returned to work for her ex-husband at his store, and when he left his company to pursue another opportunity, she returned to Jack Ricks Glass, which she continues to operate today with her former father-in-law, the company´s namesake.

Currently, keeping Jack Ricks Glass going (and growing) doesn´t require hard-sell tactics or a barrage of advertising. If anything, they limit their advertising to a small, specifically targeted market, allowing the years of experience and goodwill associated with the Jack Ricks brand to maintain their customer base.

Successful businesses have to have a core idea, their business idea, that´s robust enough to serve as the framework for making decisions and navigating ambiguous situations. It is against this core idea that observations about market developments are understood. It is also the reference point for how to act day-to-day when dealing with immediate decisions about business transactions.

Ricks Glass has such a deep understanding of how to fulfill their value proposition, a grasp of what´s key to their business success. While it may appear to be simple, this clearly understood business idea is a fundamental ingredient for success.

In a family business, more so than in the large corporate world, your personal identity is your brand. Your brand is reinforced, in the long run, by how you treat people, by what you deliver, and by the experience that you provide for people choosing to do business with you. These brand building activities are all much more import than your advertising. This is particularly true for a business like Ricks Glass that serves a specific, circumscribed geography.

Understanding and then fulfilling the expectations of the people who come to Ricks Glass is the secret to building the "brand" that has today´s customers generating more business tomorrow. Keeping the promise of the brand is Ricks fulfillment of its core business idea.

"Mr. Ricks has been around so long that word of mouth gives us about as much business as we can handle right now. Also, trying to find enough qualified and experienced personnel to maintain our level of service is a challenge."

But branding, particularly within family businesses, isn´t always clear and direct. Particularly when the family name is the brand. Jack Ricks isn´t the only Ricks in town with a glass business. Customer confusion is an ongoing problem, says Jan, and she fields numerous calls every day from customers who are really looking for Jack´s brother´s shop—Ricks Glass Company.

"By the time we realize they´ve got the wrong company, we´ve already spent ten minutes on the phone with them. It´s an investment in our time to talk with these people until we all figure out they should be talking to the other company."

The point is, however, that Jan spends that time with people who aren´t her customers. In doing so, she is demonstrating a commitment to their satisfaction that is stronger than any advertising slogan. She is delivering a sample of the quality and care that her company delivers along with the glass. Their caring is as much a part of the value they deliver as the quality of their glass and the skill at installation.

Public awareness is also important understanding the ever-changing building codes and regulations and, in turn, making sure her customers understand them as well: Sometimes it´s difficult to convince the customer that there are certain necessities, Jan tells us, and the difficulties are exacerbated by the public perception that glass installation is "just a back yard job that anybody can do."

"With West Side Glass, I did a great deal of advertising to inform the public there are major safety issues at stake. For example, windshields are installed in such a way that they help support the roof during a rollover. If that windshield isn´t properly installed, it compromises the safety of the vehicle. But when people think of car safety, they think of seatbelts and air bags. [The glass industry] is still the ´red-headed step-child´ when it comes to safety issues!"

Similarly, consumers don´t fully grasp the new hurricane code within the International Building Code, which was adopted last year by most states on the Eastern seaboard: "You have to use hurricane-resistant glass, which is very expensive, and it´s a whole new ballgame. And that´s on top of other codes, which sometimes even the builders aren´t even aware of. It´s left up to us to inform the general public."

Another way that Jan and Ricks Glass provide value for their customers is to serve as partners to them. Ricks provides the glass but also the knowledge that the customer needs in order to be successful. Ricks uses its deep expertise about changing, evolving regulations and requirements that affect the industry.

All successful companies know the rules and regulations, but not all of them make the extra effort to teach the consumer about those requirements and the implications of those requirements on the customers´ plans and decision-making. Adding knowledge as a product provides competitive advantage and raises the bar for how business must be done for all of the glass companies operating within this marketplace.

You may be thinking: we care; we share information. What´s the big deal? Success starts with doing it, but there is more that´s required.

• Make sure that what you do and how you do it is broadcast in the features and benefits that you tout with your offerings. Then:
  • Make sure that everyone who works for/with you knows what´s expected of them.
  • Make sure that that everyone knows how to deliver it.
  • Make sure that the quality of what you offer keeps getting better over time.
• Listen to your customers to stay aware of what value they´re seeking. What features and benefits make a difference to them?

Jack Ricks Glass focuses on providing quality service to its customers. As a result, their marketing strategy is highly selective and precisely targeted. While they maintain a display ad in the Yellow Pages, they are careful to try and keep their business close to home. This benefits both the customers and the company.

"From a cost standpoint, customers should chose the company closest to them, unless they have very particular need. If they want me to drive 40 miles to where they are, I don´t mind, but I have to pay extra because of the drive time versus their choice to do business with someone who is only five miles from them.

"In Savannah (Georgia), it can take over an hour just to get across town, and someone has to pay for that drive time. The cost for service calls goes up the further you have to travel because you´ll need to make at least two trips—one to measure and one install. A long drive isn´t cost-effective for most customers, which is why I like to address my advertising to the smaller area that I am best able to serve."

Here is a good example of how understanding the dynamics of your marketplace enables you to craft an approach that let´s you add value and keeps you from making decisions today that create problems down the line. It gives you the appropriate frame of reference for decision-making. While this example is a fairly obvious one, there are many other decisions that are more subtle and nuanced which are also helped by a clear market specific frame of reference.

Since the emphasis is on quality and customer service, Jan must also be conscious of her company´s limits:

"We´re in a position now where we can´t find enough qualified people to do the work we already have, so we don´t want to advertise and end up overextending ourselves."

Limiting their advertising also means that Jack Ricks Glass has chosen not to pursue an online presence for the company. After all, one of the biggest reasons for creating a web page for a business is to increase visibility, a business imperative that, as Jan sees it, isn´t quite an imperative… yet. Besides, their business itself hasn´t quite entered the computer age: "We don´t even have one."

Jan gives us a great picture of a practical, hardheaded approach to the business. It´s attractive to many people to have the latest gadgets and "doo-dads" to make us feel that we are equipped for today´s business. However, Jan knows that spending money to find or train and then retain qualified workers is much more critical to the core idea of the business and concomitantly, to their ability to satisfy their customers.

Jan has a great intuitive feel for what it takes to realize the company´s brand promises and she works to ensure those capabilities, rather than being seduced by the "latest and greatest" technologies that are touted in the media.

The larger players in the industry have embraced high-tech solutions, from computer cutting tables programmed to optimize yield to automotive companies linked to insurance companies for direct billing.

But Jan has good reasons for not putting her company on the cutting edge of technology:

"That was the most important lesson I learned and have retained from West Side Glass—gradual, constant, steady growth that you can handle is the best way to go. I didn´t do that when I had West Side. I grew too quickly. You can get too much work. And if you don´t have people to handle it, you wind up with shoddy work or with other problems that leave you spinning your wheels."

In conclusion, the following 5 capabilities:

• Having a clear grasp of your purpose, knowing yourself
• Accurately reading changes and developments in your business environment
• Continuing to learn
• Being able to talk about and think issues through to good decisions, and then,
• Being able to act on those ideas to realize the company´s purpose are the key capabilities needed by today´s family owned businesses to thrive in tough competitive circumstances.