Idea of the Month

If you had just one really great idea you could share with the alarm industry, what would it be?

This month’s great idea comes from Lou Resweber, president and CEO of Baton Rouge, La.-based Pelican Security Network.

Resweber’s great idea:

Our lives revolve around the people we work with, the customers we serve and the first responders who are the foundation of the industry to which we belong. Never lose sight of their worth to you.

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Lou Resweber is founder, president and COO of Pelican Security Network, a multistate, rapidly growing organization with corporate offices in Baton Rouge, La. Resweber also serves on the Louisiana Life Safety & Security Association (LLSSA) board of directors, and he was responsible for me serving as a speaker at a recent LLSSA meeting.

Anyone who knows Resweber knows he is a man of many words and is knowledgeable in many subjects. So when the time arrived to solicit a great idea from him, he struggled a bit to condense his notion into only a few words. You can review his abridged idea above, but essentially what he is emphasizing is “we truly are in the people business.”

 Of course, like many of the forward-thinking executives I have interviewed in the past, Resweber lives the thoughts he expresses. During the program in which I served as keynote speaker, other guests included a state fire marshal, representatives from local and regional fire departments and law enforcement agencies. Resweber also brought what seemed like his entire staff to the meeting.

Golden Rule Defined

By focusing on people we tend to talk to them and communicate with them more as partners, rather than employees or customers or suppliers. And that means that we follow the old adage of, “Treat every person you meet as though he or she were the most important person in the world, and almost assuredly you will receive that treatment in return.” Building that level of rapport makes for a productive environment in the workplace — the benefits of which show up frequently in the sales process. Importantly, excellent customer service becomes a byproduct of this philosophy.

Converting this philosophy into the language of business means you can achieve more referrals, fewer cancellations and more favorable comments from customers than any of your competitors would ever dream of. This is exactly what Pelican Security Network has done so successfully. They have converted the concept of “being in the people business” to a profitmaking reality.

Here’s a little test you can try to prove the point of how motivated people can make a difference in your workplace and your life. For the next two days, make it an absolute priority that everyone you come in contact with will be treated as the most important person in the world. This will entail you look each person in the eye, smile, inquire about something personal with them, and make the contact a pleasurable experience for each of you. What will come back to you is a positive response that is so amazing you will wonder why you haven’t been doing this your whole life.

Incidentally, Resweber and I practice this approach; in fact, it comes naturally to both of us. Considering the growth of Pelican Security Network, it’s hard to imagine that they would have experienced the growth they did without the attitude they display day in and day out.

As I look around our industry and think about its more successful players, I can’t help but to be less than surprised by the fact that the real winners tend to treat everybody they meet as the most important person in the world. When you think about it that’s really the definition of the Golden Rule. It works, try it. See why it works so well for Resweber.

Ron Davis is a SSI Hall of Fame inductee and President of Davis Mergers and Acquisitions Group Inc. Also known as The Graybeards, the company is active in acquisitions and mergers exclusively in the alarm business.

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