When John Westerberg inherited the
reins of the family company from
his father in the 1960s, Nelson Westerberg Inc. had a solid reputation as a
local Chicago moving company. But it didn’t take long for Westerberg to introduce a
new philosophy, one aimed at expanding
the company beyond small, neighborhood
accounts.
“If you’re going to get on a national and a
global plane, then you’ve got to have
a whole different approach to life,
and that has to be that you’re
absolutely the best thing out there,”
Westerberg says. “It’s all based on
quality.”
Smart Business spoke with
Westerberg, whose company posted $78 million in 2005 revenue,
about how growing your business
really can be as fundamental as
being the best you possibly can.
Q: What is the key to building customer loyalty?
If your initial philosophy in being
in business in the first place is to
be better than your competition,
then your initiative is going to be
quality. There are three Qs in business: quality, quality and quality.
If you’ve got a service that’s
directed toward that initiative all
the time, if that’s the main focus
that you have — to be a quality
provider, a quality supplier, a
quality company to your customers — then your customers
are going to stay with you for a
long time. I’ve never had a customer come to me and say, ‘You know,
you’re the best thing since sliced bread,
you are absolutely the best there is in the
industry and we love you, but we can’t do
business with you anymore.’ I’ve never had
anybody tell me that.
If you can’t deliver the quality, then you’re
not going to last very long in our company.
I don’t care if you’re an owner/operator, an
operations manager, a customer service
representative or a warehouse man, if you
don’t have at the forefront of your thinking
every single day you come to work that
you’re going to do the best you possibly
can for our customers, you’re going to be in trouble in our company.
I’m driven by that myself. I’m not going to
have anything with my name on the door
that’s going to embarrass me.
Q: How do you set goals?
The Japanese have a very good philosophy about business. They don’t worry quarter to quarter or half to half or one year to
another; they see a very long-range vision.
I see my company exactly that way. I
don’t worry about how much profit we
might make in a three-month period, I’m
interested in how we are doing on a long-term basis. I want to look out there four,
five, six years and see where we want this
company to be and ask if we are still happy
with our business model.
Every time I have a meeting with our top
people, I ask them the same question: Is
our business model still viable in today’s
marketplace? That, to me, is one of the
absolute most important things. Every
company has a business model, and every company has a culture, but is it still viable
in today’s marketplace?
Q: How would you describe your leadership
style?
I’ve always believed in order to run a
small business effectively, you’ve got to be
involved in the processes and you’ve got to
be involved in truly managing the company
and making sure that the initiatives that
you set out for your people are being
carried through.
Otherwise, you’re going to lose
your business really quick. There’s
no guarantee in American business
that you can make it from one year
to the next if you let go of the
process and you don’t manage it
effectively and closely.
If you’re far removed from the
street, where things are really happening for your people and for your
company, if you step back too far, you
might get a nice macro look at your
company, but it won’t tell you what’s
really happening on the ground. In
our business, or in any business for
that matter, you’ve got to know what’s
happening on the ground.
That’s the difference. Don’t confuse
it with being a micromanager. This is
hands-on management, understanding
what your people are doing but not
necessarily trying to do their job for
them.
Q: What is one thing that can limit a
company’s growth?
Losing track of where you’re trying to
go. If you don’t have a clear idea of
where you want to go and what customers
you want to serve and what company you
want to be in, you can’t grow anything. You
won’t know what to do or how to even get
the thing started.
Success is defined by your customers
and by your people. You’re successful if
your customers love you, if they think
you’re doing a great job for them and they
don’t think there’s anyone else out there
who could do as good a job as you’re doing
for them.
HOW TO REACH: Nelson Westerberg Inc., www.nelsonwesterberg.com