Kindle Edition
Download to your Nook (eBook)
Amazon
Barnes & Noble.com
The Reluctant Mentor
The Reluctant Mentor
Lew Sauder
Category:
Business/Investing
Publisher: Lew Sauder
ISBN-10: 0983026653
Pages: 149
Copyright: 11/5/2013
ISBN-13: 9780983026655
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
In The Reluctant Mentor, Lew Sauder and Jeff Porter have weaved a tale of a baby boomer who hires Phil, an intelligent and ambitious millennial.
An engaging and informative story on mentoring between baby boomers and millennials
Roger Stewart Thinks he needs to mentor his young new employee. He doesn't realize that he's only half-right.
In The Reluctant Mentor, Lew Sauder and Jeff Porter have weaved a tale of a baby boomer who hires Phil, an intelligent and ambitious millennial. Roger immediately sees some differences in his young new employee that he doesn't understand. After conferring with others his age, Roger decides to mentor the young man. It comes as quite a surprise that the millennial has a few things to teach Roger.
The Reluctant Mentor is an enjoyable and easy to read business parable that provides a model for how baby boomers and millennials can work together more efficiently. By sharing the knowledge that each group uniquely holds within, both generations can become more productive and happier in the workplace.
If you struggle with professional development, employee satisfaction, or retention of millennial employees, this business coaching parable will help you develop a plan for working with other generations. Whether you are an experienced manager or an emerging leader, The Reluctant Mentor will help you motivate your employees and get optimal performance from your entire staff.
Excerpt
Chapter 1 – Stewart Bicycle Manufacturing
Roger looked at his watch as he heard the knock on the door. It was 9:31. He looked up to see Phil.
“Hi Roger. Ready for the meeting?”
“You’re a bit early.”
“I thought you said we were going to meet at nine thirty?”
“Ann had a conflict and we had to push it back by thirty minutes. We’re meeting at ten o’clock now. I sent you an e-mail.”
“Oh yeah, I don’t check my e-mail all that often,” Phil said. “Why didn’t you just text me?”
Roger crinkled his face. “I just figured you would check your e-mails.”
Phil started to reply and decided to stop. “I’ll just see you in a half hour.”
After Phil walked away, Roger Stewart shook his head through a half-exasperated sigh. In the twenty-five years since he started Stewart Bicycle Manufacturing Company in his garage, he had always prided himself on how well he related to his employees. Back then it was just a few part-time employees that helped him with assemblies.
Roger had always been an avid cycling enthusiast. He was also into hunting, fishing, and just being in the outdoors. His mountain bike passion led him to start his business at the age of thirty. Prior to that he was employed by a large financial corporation in a management role.
His hobby for as long as he could remember was bikes. He tinkered with and fixed not only his own bikes but also those of his friends. This hobby transitioned to a business at a time when Roger was feeling out of place in the corporate world.
The company launched when he came up with a design for a mountain-bike frame that was significantly lighter and more durable than others on the market. He developed a process to make it relatively easy to produce. It was considered “state of the art” for its day and Roger made a big impact in the industry. His company grew quickly in its first five years.
When he started getting more orders than he could fill out of his small shop, he borrowed some money, rented some warehouse space and hired some full-time workers to help with assemblies and take orders. He eventually hired a sales staff to begin selling his bikes out of local bike shops.
His business grew each year. Stewart Bicycle Manufacturing Company outgrew the warehouse space within a few years. For the company’s tenth anniversary, he built a new facility to include the corporate offices, the warehouse, the manufacturing plant, a showroom, and a retail outlet. Roger had forty-five employees. He was now president of a formidable company.
A few years later Mark Smith, his head of sales, suggested he get a website and sell bikes online. This was a huge jump for Roger. He had used the Internet a little and seen its popularity grow. He had also seen the infamous burst of the dot-com bubble over the previous year. Roger was a smart businessman but this melding of technology and business was new to him so he wasn’t sure where to start, and he was nervous about getting into something he knew little about. Mark connected Roger with a small firm that specialized in web development; they met with Roger and within a few months they were up and running on the web.
Roger was proud of their website; he felt like he was riding the tech wave. The site proved to be very lucrative in a surprisingly short period. People were somehow finding their site--although Roger had no idea how. Sales orders began rolling in from all over the country. At one point, eighty percent of their sales were from online orders and as a result Roger had to expand the new facilities to allow for another assembly line.
Now as Roger prepared to complete his twenty-fifth year in business, he was seeing sales begin to lag. He still sold bicycles out of his small storefront attached to the manufacturing plant, but they had come to rely primarily on their online business. Online sales had been flat for the past year and he was beginning to see the numbers fall faster in recent weeks.
He called a meeting with some of his staff for a brainstorming session to see if they could come up with some ideas for increasing sales. He felt he had the right mix of talent for the meeting. Mark Smith was Roger’s right-hand man. He had been with the company for thirteen years and was instrumental in helping Roger make the move to the Internet. Mark started as head of sales. Within a few years, Roger asked him to head up the marketing group. At fifteen years younger than Roger, he seemed to have a good handle on technology, which Roger lacked.
Roger’s office manager, Ann Hewitt, was also a trusted member of his inner circle. She always seemed able to take a problem and explain it in words that made it simple for everyone to understand. She also never held anything back. If she disagreed with Roger, she would always let him know in terms that were just diplomatic enough that he didn’t feel like she was undermining him. Maybe it was because she was only four years younger than Roger, but he seemed to relate to her better than anyone at the company.
Phil was another story altogether. Only two years out of college, he had proven himself as a valuable employee. Phil was an avid biker and fell in love with Stewart’s bikes in his second year of college. A business major, he wanted to get into sales. He interned at the company as a sales associate the summer between his junior and senior years and impressed everyone, especially Roger.
Phil Sullivan was a natural at sales and his passion for cycling was palpable. There was a noticeable increase in store traffic soon after Phil started. He really had “the gift of gab” and was great with customers. He was equally popular with the girls. Although he always seemed to have a steady girlfriend, there also seemed to be no end to the female visitors to the store to “look at bikes.” Everyone could see they were more interested in Phil!
In mid-October, after Phil went back to school, Roger drove two hours up the interstate to meet Phil on campus and offer him a full-time job as a sales rep upon graduation, along with a sizable signing bonus. Phil couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. This was Phil’s dream job and he considered quitting school on the spot to start right away. Fortunately, Roger set the condition that he had to finish his degree, fighting the temptation to drive Phil back to the office that day.
Phil started his new job the Monday after graduation. Traffic was up on the website and sales continued to increase steadily over his first year.
Because of the recent drop in sales, Roger wanted to get some fresh ideas from the team. Phil had been talking lately about social media and some new marketing ideas that he had. Roger didn’t know anything about it. He knew that Phil knew a lot more about that stuff, but he was reluctant to invest a lot of money in something he didn’t know anything about. Phil was a smart kid, but Roger needed to figure out a way to convince him that there was more to the bicycle industry than the Internet and technology.
Roger’s Journal:
I’m anxious to meet with Ann, Mark, and Phil to discuss the slump in sales and try to figure out how to turn it around. We rely so heavily on Internet sales, but how can we increase this market when we don’t really know who the customers are. I have no idea how they find us.
While Ann and Mark know the business well, I think Phil can provide some fresh ideas. He’s young, which is both good and bad. He relates better to the generation that is a large part of our market. But it seems all of his ideas are technology based. I wish he’d focus more on increasing sales than just throwing technology at everything.
|
