Aileron Community, Your friends and peers at Aileron are here to support you during many challenging times, including last week’s destructive storms that ripped across Dayton and caused widespread damage. Get Help Campus Usage: For any business affected - whether you’re currently aware of or engaged with Aileron or not - we invite you and your team to use [ Read More ]
Value Added Packaging (VAP) has an Elite Customer Service Standard. It’s a standard that all customer service team members agree to and sign off on as soon as they join the VAP team. (Headquartered in Ohio, VAP offers custom corrugated packaging manufacturing solutions.) That service experience includes a 30-minute response time when dealing with customers. “It’s just respectful. For one, [ Read More ]
While watching many of his employees grow and evolve, Marty Grunder noticed that one of his long-time team members seemed to be losing his spark. Marty is President and CEO of Grunder Landscaping Co., a business he started in 1984 with a lawnmower he bought at a garage sale. Today, some 34 years later, Grunder is one of the most [ Read More ]
There are two models that can describe the way people are valued and managed in organizations. One is the centuries-old model associated with Isaac Newton where the physical world is thought of as a machine. This model also was adopted by biology and physiology as well as the social sciences of psychology, sociology, economics, and politics. The other is [ Read More ]
When the very first employee was hired at The Greentree Group, Travis Greenwood (now President & CEO of the strategic technology consulting firm), talked to his wife about how to bring the new team member onboard. His wife, Lisa, said, “Let’s send him something to welcome him, like a fruit basket.” So they did, and after 25 years, the [ Read More ]
It’s been said that in the knowledge economy, it’s now every individual's responsibility to innovate with the customer in mind. When developing a new product or service, does your organization get feedback from customers along the way? And, do you seek, find, and use those customer-driven insights to shape your products or services? Here are two things to keep [ Read More ]
People picked on my generation. People picked on my fathers’ generation. People are picking on this generation, and I think it’s wrong,” says Scott McGohan, CEO at McGohan Brabender, a company that provides employee benefit consulting, compliance, and health risk management. “We have to understand technology and communication paths that are going to be attractive [across generations], but to pretend [ Read More ]
It's hard enough to define your culture. And it's even harder to align your business to it. Once your culture is defined and aligned, how do you ensure your culture is ready to scale? “When we were a smaller organization, I had a lot more influence on the culture than I do now,” says Sean Kelly, CEO of SnackNation, [ Read More ]
Throughout my career, I’ve developed many products and services that were good, sometimes even great. But more times than I would like to admit, they never got noticed. Never got talked about. Never achieved the desired results. Why? Because they were really just another offering in a sea of offerings. Imagine you compete in the market for rock bands. [ Read More ]
John Werner, President/CEO of White Commercial Corporation, knew something had changed around his organization when, one day, he walked by a conference room and noticed a meeting he was completely unaware was taking place. No invite or no notification—nothing. “We have a big window that you see from the hallway, and it looked like they were really getting work accomplished,” [ Read More ]
What’s one of the biggest challenges in small business today? Keeping employees motivated and productive, says Marty Grunder, President and CEO of Grunder Landscaping Co., in Dayton, Ohio. Knowing how difficult this can be, Marty shared a few lessons on how to create a high-energy, productive atmosphere at work. Lesson #1: Make Time For Individuals to Express How They [ Read More ]
Those that have attended my competitive strategy workshops have heard me say that the key to a great strategy is choosing what not to do: what products/services do I choose not to offer; what activities will I not undertake; and what customers will I not attempt to attract. But we all know that its hard to say “no” to a new opportunity. Especially the [ Read More ]
