When her workday is
done, Carol Roehrig
runs, but she doesn’t do it to escape her challenges
as president of BKM Total
Office of Texas LP.
Instead, she pounds the
pavement to get her adrenaline pumping, to find balance
and to refocus. The next day,
recharged, she returns to her
$41.7 million office furniture
company ready to tackle the
challenge of leading employees and customers through the
ever-changing economic shifts
affecting businesses today.
Smart Business spoke with
Roehrig about how she stays on
top of things when the accepted
norms are constantly evolving.
Q. How do you keep your
business on track during
economic shifts?
You first have to focus on the
key revenue opportunities and
make sure those are tended to
properly — meaning customers.
Have some understanding and
be flexible to supply what they
need as their world changes.
Even when times are good,
processes are changing and people are changing. Every time a
person changes within an organization, the accepted norms
might not be [the same] anymore, so you constantly have to
be on your toes in any kind of
circumstance to understand
that things aren’t always going
to be as you expect them to be.
Q. How do you keep in touch
with the customer?
You’re never too far away
from them. We don’t have layers
and layers of management in
our organization. That way we’re all closer to the customer.
People are touching them, and
they don’t feel like they’re layers
away from hearing what the
customer might say.
There’s a whole series of
checkpoints. It’s listening to the
feedback that comes in after we
complete a job. It’s calling a customer and checking in with
how they’re doing, meeting with
them quarterly to hear how
things are going with them.
It’s always asking, ‘How are
we doing? What could we do
differently? What would you
like to see us do that we
might not be doing? How
are we interacting with
you? Is it effective, or is
there a better way?’ It’s
just asking questions.
It’s important all the
time, but it’s almost more
important during [shifting] economic times
because their world is
changing as much as ours
is. What was once important to them may shift
and change dramatically
because of the pressures
they’re under.
Their needs will change,
and, in that set of needs,
there is still something
that we can supply in the
service or product format
that will assist them to get
through their difficulties.