Rich Klein gives a simple reason for why Fogarty Klein Monroe has grown from being a local Houston advertising agency with
no clients into a national firm with 38 clients since it was founded in 1980: The firm’s 195 employees are nice people. This
attribute has helped engender the confidence of clients and created a solid reputation for the company in the advertising industry,
leading it to 2006 revenue approaching $260 million. Smart Business spoke with Klein, the firm’s co-founder and co-chairman,
about finding nice people and turning them into productive employees.
Create a friendly work environment. People
seek out others that they are comfortable
with. They must be motivated to work with
clients to bring new ideas to the table. They
must believe they are in a very entrepreneurial environment, which allows them to
think freely and speak freely. It really starts
at the top with the CEO.
The CEO must have a vision that people
in the company can relate to in terms of the
company’s goals and where the CEO is taking the company. But they also have to
relate to it in terms of their own progress
and their own goals. If they feel motivated
to participate and work long hours and
weekends, it’s because they believe in the
vision.
We meet and visit with every new
employee that comes into our company.
Our HR director will sometimes put a welcome mat in front of their office. We introduce them not just to the people in their
department where they are, but she’ll take
them all around the agency. Even if our
door is closed, she’ll knock on the door and
introduce us to this new employee, and
we’ll visit with each of them.
We actually walk the halls, not in a systematic basis, but on a regular basis a couple of times a day. We try to have one-onone discussions with our people and talk to
them about their problems. We try to help
each other.
Make the interview process challenging. We
really spend a lot of time looking at people’s backgrounds and their relationships
and where they came from. We ask them a
lot of questions about themselves and
about what they have accomplished.
What are some of the best things they
have done in their life? What they are
proud of? We ask them what mistakes they
have made and what they would do over if
they had a chance.
People need to feel that what they contribute to the company will, in fact, help
them in their success, as well. We look for
individuals who are motivated and that
want to better their lives. We look for people that don’t have bureaucratic and political motivations. We look for people that
have entrepreneurial underpinning.
Deliver the vision to everyone. Have a vision
for the business and be able to communicate that vision to the lowest level, to
everyone in the company and not just a few
people at the top. Our associates should
understand where we want to go and
where we believe that this business should
be taken.
While it may be hard work, our business
is full of change. We have to get people that
want to support that. We need their help to
take us through.
Having dreams and having the vision are
a little different. A dream is something that
may not come to fruition. A vision for a
company is something that can and should
come to fruition if properly communicated
and properly motivated to the organization.
On a biweekly basis, we have meetings in
our atrium. Openness is very important. We
talk about our goals and what we’re trying
to achieve. We tell them about the business, tell them where our plans are and talk
about the future. We try to use that as an
open forum.
Be a good listener. You have to be able to
work together. So many entrepreneurs
have a good idea, but they don’t listen. You
have to seek out good advice.
Start with a good plan and seek out good
advice from people that you respect. Make
sure that you have a product or a business that is unique and understand that you will
now be on a new plateau in your life. If
you’re a successful entrepreneur, you probably will be consumed by your business
over the short period of time and maybe
over the longer period of time.
Understand that fear may not be an
enemy, but it may be one of your best motivators. Fear of failure can be an extremely
strong motivating device.
If you’re not open and if you don’t listen
and if you’re not willing to change what
you’re doing today and do something different tomorrow and do it better, then you
might as well retire and go home.
Never lose sight of your reputation. A good reputation is never accomplished overnight.
It’s usually one that is earned and not
sought. It’s one that people bestow on you,
not one you take upon yourself.
It is earned in other people’s eyes before
it becomes a reality in your own company.
It’s one of those fine intangibles that gets
word-of-mouth treatment by your clients
or by media or vendors or people who call
upon you. They are the people that really
spread your reputation.
Unfortunately, a reputation takes many
months and years to build. At the same
time, it can be eroded very quickly. I don’t
think reputations are typically destroyed.
They are eroded over time by changes in
management, changes in significant policies and by the management in companies
embracing earnings per share as their principal objective, as opposed to growth of
the company through good practice.
Once you do acquire a good reputation,
it’s easy to mistreat that. A good brand
takes many years to establish. But once a
company stops either managing the brand
in a positive way or not managing it at all
and maximizing the profitability of that
brand, the brand will begin to erode.
Having a good reputation is a constant
process of making certain that you’re
investing into the company’s future in a
positive way and not draining the
resources for a short-term gain.
HOW TO REACH: Fogarty Klein Monroe, www.fkmagency.com
or (713) 862-5100