Focus on retention
Geier’s success is also a result of another technology industry
anomaly: His employees don’t often leave the company.
“We’ve changed our sales compensation plan only once in 26 years,”
Geier says. “We haven’t lost a top sales rep in 15 years. To keep
people, you’ve got to create a sense of pride within the staff, and
to do that, you have to have a comfortable work environment. In
some companies, people just get comfortable, and then management changes the rules by changing the comp plan. To me that’s
just not a smart business decision.”
Geier says that 70 to 80 percent of the company’s total work force
receives incentives through bonus plans, including the engineers
and the collections staff. Allowing employees to have skin in the
game also contributes to a sense of ownership throughout the company.
“I think it’s important to offer financial incentives to employees
because it encourages the staff to take ownership and have some
personal pride in the results,” Geier says. “You want to create a
company culture that has an element of pride, and that culture will
help you attract the kind of people who take pride in their work.”
Employees are invited to fun activities, like a bowling night,
because it contributes toward a family atmosphere and helps people feel like owners.
“If I truly knew the secret to hiring great people, I would have
retired long ago,” Geier says. “Anyone who tells you that they
always make great hires is not being truthful, but I have always
favored hiring a more experienced person who can step right into
the position and hit the ground running. Even though we pay a premium for experience, I think the clients prefer working with someone with experience, and more experienced staff are definitely
more productive when they work on projects.”
Geier also tries to find the seam between being overstaffed or
understaffed when it comes to hiring decisions. That management-middle-ground hiring philosophy allows Geier to hire proactively
while avoiding the burden of taking on overhead too quickly.
“I’m generally not of the mentality of ‘build it and they will come’
when it comes to hiring,” Geier says. “My mentality is more of a
just-in-time approach to hiring.”
To achieve his goal, Geier establishes hiring priorities by position
allowing a green light to new staff additions that can generate revenue and more careful scrutiny for additional head count in areas
that represents overhead.
“I would hire any qualified sales executive at any location at any
time provided they fit within our pay structure and don’t have any
noncompete restrictions,” Geier says. “The same is true for certain
types of engineers. That need is established by the senior management of the engineering group, and it’s often predicated by the needs
of manufacturer partners or customers.
“I believe that if you make your underlings cost-substantiate
any new hire, much of the decision to hire or not is pretty obvious. So what you really need is a good internal structure to
evaluate their needs and justify those needs. I balance the decision by position and based upon the current utilization review
by branch, especially as it relates to engineers.”
No matter what the challenge, it’s always a matter of spreading
the risk whenever possible.
“Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of talented people leave the
business because they didn’t spread out their risk but spread
out their business,” Geier says. “When the technology bubble
burst in 2001 and the hardware and software business went
away, the services business pulled us through. I truly believe in
a balanced portfolio, measured growth and that you have to be
in the right place at the right time to achieve success.” <<
HOW TO REACH: Technology Integration Group, www.tig.com