Glenn Shepard’s Personal Blog

Earlier this week, a woman in Mobile, Alabama, asked how to stay enthusiastic and keep up the energy level when giving the same presentation day after day. While I love what I do, the other part of it is that you can never get bored when you work in front of a live audience. Because each audience is so different, they always keep you on your toes. This is why actors on Broadway never get bored doing the same play six times a week.

Yesterday was my last road date of the year, and it was a perfect example of why audiences never cease to surprise me.

At one extreme was Big Kenny, a sheriff’s deputy who works in a police officer training academy and teaches young men and women how to become police officers. When I ask a group of managers how they would respond to an employee who asks “Why do I have to do it?”, the responses usually fall somewhere between “Because I told you to” and “Because you’re the best person for the job”. But Kenny gave an answer I’ve never heard, which was, “I hit them in the throat!”. He did recommend, however, that managers who don’t have a badge and gun not respond that way.

At the opposite extreme, Amy Brossette from Ivey Lumber Company in Mansfield, Louisiana, took my hand between both of hers and said, “I just want you to know that I’ve been a fan of yours for years. I love getting your emails, and appreciate you”. What a sweetheart. The part of my job that I hate is that I never know who’s in an audience, or if they know me. So I appreciate it so much when people like Amy take time to say such things. (The people who hate you are usually the most outspoken).

Then Terrie Fulco from Cornerstone Child Development in Bossier City, Louisiana, brought me a Christmas present from her boss, Theresa Hunsicker (haven’t opened it yet). Even sweeter.

What a great way to end the travel schedule for 2008.

Not that I needed a reminder of how dysfunctional employees can be, a manager today had the most disgusting story I’ve ever heard. Her employee threatened to blow his nose in his handkerchief and then wipe it off in her hair. Now don’t you feel better about your problem employee?

As much as I wail on idiotic government bureaucrats who seem incapable of making smart decisions or being business-savvy, I love to recognize good government when I encounter it. The city of Galesburg, Illinois, is one such example. One of their managers who attended my seminar yesterday informed me that they have a 12 month probationary period on new hires. Good for them! It is nearly impossible to get a good read on someone in just 90 days, yet so many organizations make the mistake of hiring on a 90-day probationary period.

Yesterday’s most memorable management minute came after my seminar at Maryville University, when I stopped for lunch at Subway. The woman in line in front of me refused to accept her foot long sandwich because the employee making it had touched ham with her plastic gloves and then touched the woman’s sandwich. The employee was probably 19, and didn’t understand the customer’s accent. She finally comprehended that it was against the customer’s religion, and then said sternly, “But you didn’t tell me that before!” While there was no way the employee could have known about the ham, this was a battle she should have walked away from. It wasn’t like the woman was going to say, “Well in that case, I’ll make an exception to my religious beliefs and eat the sandwich anyway”.

Craig, a manager who attended yesterday’s seminar, has an employee who was a “hypochondriac by power of suggestion”. Craig would tell him that he looked sick and ask if he was feeling okay, just to mess with him. The guy would say, “I’m fine”. Then, without fail, he’d come back an hour or so later and say, “I’m not feeling so good. Think I might need to go home sick”.

The Morons in the Media are soooooooooooo determined to convince everyone the sky is falling, and that there are no jobs out there. What a croc. Over 60% of all job openings are never posted anywhere. Those of us who’ve owned a business for many years know that sometimes we’ll hire someone even when we don’t have an official job opening. There’s no green light that goes on and tells us when we need more people. It’s usually a guess. The owner of a flooring company in OKC who attended yesterday’s seminar is the perfect example. He has 38 employees and would hire another sales rep is the “right one” came along, but he hasn’t posted an ad anywhere. The average annual income of his reps is $60K, which is not bad money in Oklahoma.