When Jon Silberman and his business partner bought NAI
Houston in 1999, they quickly determined that they needed to overhaul the company’s culture if they were to succeed.
The key to making the major change work was the ability of
Silberman and Randy Wilhelm, the company’s co-owners and
co-managing partners, to clearly communicate their new plan
to their employees.
“Explaining it and communicating what the game plan was
and what the vision was, we did
that regularly,” Silberman says. “People saw that there was a
plan in place, and they understood that it wasn’t going to happen overnight but that there was a plan and there was a culture.”
The healthier culture has helped the 55-employee commercial real estate firm grow its revenue from $9 million in 2005 to
$12.5 million in 2006.
Smart Business spoke with Silberman about the importance of having a plan and sticking to it.
Q: What is the best way to manage growth?
Have a plan. We have a planning retreat once a year where we
sit down and spend two days going through our plan. What
happened last year? What’s our plan for the next three years?
How did we do?
That’s probably the most valuable thing that we do because it
sets the direction every year. It sets the goals and objectives of
the company as a whole. It gives us that map. It’s really helped
us a lot to get everybody focused on that map and what they
have to achieve during that year.
It has to be realistic and achievable. It has to be in steps.
Little steps lead to big steps. Sometimes people try to accomplish too much in one year when they could accomplish 10
times that amount in five years. Execution is critical. You can
plan all you want, but if you don’t execute, you’re not going to
get there. It’s having the focus and motivation and discipline to
focus on those things that are going to get you to where you
want to go.
Q: What is an important lesson all leaders should keep in mind?
What you can accomplish in one year is very little. But what
you can accomplish in five or 10 years can really blow your
mind. We live in a culture where everybody wants everything
yesterday, and they aren’t willing to be patient, and it makes it
very difficult. If you’ve been through it before, experience,
perspective and commitment (are key). Be willing to say, ‘I’m
going to give this two or three years. I’m not going to quit. I’m
going to stick to it.’
A lot of people fail because they quit too soon. It gets a little
difficult, and they quit. They give themselves the latitude to
quit versus saying, ‘You know what, I’m going to do this for
three years. Maybe after three years, if I’m still flat broke and
not generating any revenue, I might want to quit.’
Don’t give yourself a chance after a year to evaluate and quit
because you didn’t get there as fast as you unrealistically
thought you should.
Q: How do you approach the hiring process?
We’re very slow to hire. We take our time. We will interview
at least three times. We look at references and talk to people.
We look at their background and what they have accomplished
in other jobs.
We’ll accept a little lower level of technical performance for
somebody who just has the right attitude and is pleasant and
helps out wherever they can. I’m not sure I would relate it to
energy as much as attitude, enthusiasm, work ethic, reliability
and dependability. Those all supersede the skill set.
We combine all those to determine if it’s the right fit. If we
think we made a mistake, we’ll make a change very quickly. We
won’t let the one bad apple ruin the rest of us.
Q: How do you help employees who want to move up?
You have to show a path. It depends a little on the position
and the person. Some people are in a position they are very
happy with, and they are not really interested in, ‘Where do I
go next?’ For those people, they can just choose not to try to
follow a path. The majority of the people want to know, ‘How
do I get to the next level? How do I go from here to there? What
do I have to do? What do I have to accomplish to get there?’
We have a very specific plan that is written and published that
says exactly what you have to do. There is no mystery to it. A
person knows, ‘If I do these things, I get this level, I get this promotion, I get this partnership.’ It’s very clear.
HOW TO REACH: NAI Houston, (713) 629-0500 or www.naihouston.com