My first automobile was a ’46 Chrysler New Yorker that was bigger than many vehicles on the road today. I loved it! In fact, it started me on my path to collections of all sorts: coffee cups, admission tags to various industry events, leather briefcases. etc. You get the idea! Or should I say the Big Idea?
I have been called the packrat of the alarm industry. I love things that remind me of precious moments. And that brings me to today’s Big Idea column: Let’s call it “Great Ideas from the Past.”
Through a quirk of time and circumstances, I went back to the things I have written over the past 50 years, during which time I have interviewed a large proportion of leaders who have taken their place in the hierarchy of the alarm industry and the integration industry. If you, our readers, like it, let me know. I’ll gladly do it again.
The First Big Idea
The first idea comes from the late Rod Garner. He died several years ago. He was president and founder of Mountain Alarm in Ogden, Utah, and a wonderful friend of mine.
His idea was this: “The best idea I have is building relationships.”
Garner continued, saying, “In our company, we set ourselves apart by the relationships with our customers, our lenders and vendors…everyone with whom we try and build [something]. We practice The Golden Rule, building our company’s success on relationships, friendships and on our company honesty. In other words, we treat everyone as we would like to be treated.”
After Garner died, several of his sons moved into positions of responsibility within the company. They have functioned well, and almost everyone who worked in the company who was a family member or personal friend of Garner’s did their jobs very well. They all subscribed to the philosophy that he had espoused.
Shortly after Garner died, one of his sons, Eric, became president of the company. I’ve read the success stories that refer to Eric and his team, who seemingly overnight became powerhouses of the industry.
He became president of the company that acquired him, and soon the company awarded him the capital necessary to acquire more than 100 companies in less than a couple of years.
The company seems to have grown to a conglomerate, including the biggest and best companies in the industry, with Eric as president of the whole operation. Even as I sit here writing this, they’ve announced several new acquisitions.
I am so proud of him, and I’m envious of the way he took the helm of the company and seemingly managed it to perfection. I have to think it was Garner and his philosophy, embedded into the heads of the management team that Eric put together, which created conditions conducive to building a company to the size it is now.
The Best of the Best
I think back to another good friend, operating a company, C.I.A., out of a suburb of New York City. John Lombardi, the president and CEO, was among the best of the best. He had built a fairly large and successful company that was the envy of most its competitors; moreover, it was the model for other companies to grow in a similar fashion.
At the height of the business frenzy going on in the alarm industry, Lombardi received an offer to merge his company with a larger New York company. And then, it happened.
Two years later, Lombardi retired, a successful former businessman and someone who grew into and has remained a close friend of mine.
He is now a grandfather, living the good life in Naples, Fla., and enjoying the memories of all the good things he did and the successes he achieved.
He worked hard for those successes, just like Garner and many others in the industry did. In the process, he adopted four questions and shared them with everyone he met in the industry.
As a result, he became “the industry guy” in the New York area. Are you interested in hearing the four questions? Well, here they are:
- What’s new and exciting in your business?
- What’s the most new and exciting thing you’ve learned in building your business?
- If you had just one really great idea you could share with me about your business, what would it be? (I know…I know…but it still works.)
- What is the most significant thing you’ve learned about (e.g., new people, new products, financial opportunities)?
A Great Big Idea
Just for a change of ideas, I’ll share with you a great one. I got it from Steve Berniklau, the owner of Home Security Systems, Inc., in Albuquerque, N.M. His great idea is pretty simple: “The relationship factor in family and businesses needs to be preserved at all costs.”
He was one of several people across multiple familial generations who helped run the business. I got those words from Berniklau at a meeting in 2008, and they’ve stayed with me all this time.
He is still running the company, and he continues to preserve all the family relationships that he had when I first met him almost 20 years ago. And I hope that never ends.
