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Published: September 2007
Frank Grant, shares how the personal attention provided by CR Wireless has made his company able to successfully compete with national providers.
Success Magazine: What does success mean to you?
Frank Grant: I heard this definition a long time ago, and I've always liked it: Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. I like it because it's appropriate for everybody, no matter what their unique path in life may be.
SM: How did you get started with your business?
FG: I developed the skills, experience and confidence to open my own business through my experience at larger corporations. After College I worked for Keebler in sales and management, which was a large corporate entity. After that I worked for BFI as a sales manager for a couple of years and, even though it was a large corporation, it was decentralized, so a lot of the decisions were made locally. Finally, I worked as a branch manager for Message Center Beepers, where I reported directly to the owners in Hartford, CT. With each successive job, I grew closer to the entrepreneurial mindset closer to thinking, I can do this. I also came to learn what separates business owners and entrepreneurs from people who choose to work for an organization for thirty years. The entrepreneur makes a fundamental decision that they want to do it themselves. I worked for Message Center back in the early 90's. One of my jobs was to set up resellers, and I encountered a lot of reluctance. A couple of high school buddies from East Greenbush and I recognized that there was nobody selling on that side of the river, nobody in Rensselaer County, it was an open a market. If we brought in the cellular side of the business, we felt that we could actually make a go of it
SM: Did you have a business plan, a sales plan, or a marketing plan?
FG: I thought about going out on my own for a long time before I actually decided to do it. I like to say that I practiced for six to twelve months before I started the business. Every morning I would wake up and say to myself "What would I do today if I wasn't employed by this company? What would I do if I had my own company? Who would I call? Who would I talk to? What would I need to accomplish today to start and grow the business?" When I decided to start my own company, my initial intention was to be able to control my own destiny. Not just in the classic financial sense; I wanted to create value in the market place in my own way. I felt that enough people would appreciate my vision that I could make a living at it, and develop a sustainable business. I established relatively early that it was a viable business, and that really lead to the ambition to serve more people. I continued to develop the strategy of being a community based retailer. I thought, if I can sell phones and pagers to my friends and neighbors in East Greenbush, and make a fair profit, then let's duplicate this. Let's go to Delmar. Let's go to Queensbury. Let's go to Clifton Park, Let's go to Saratoga. My life didn't become complicated when I went from one location to two, it became complicated when I went from two locations to three. When I had two locations, I could physically be in one, and I could be on the phone with the other location. I had a presence there. Once I had three stores that became impossible. I learned very quickly that it would be critical to have the absolute best people I could, because they were representing me and my ideals. Very early on, it became about the people who were going to be representing the organization. We have always aspired to hire the best people, and train them well so that the customer experience is as consistent as possible throughout the whole organization, whether we have two locations or twelve locations, or however many we may have in the future.
SM: As other people were folding up shop, how did you survive and then thrive?
FG: We were fortunate that the business was profitable from the beginning. We kept our overhead low, and were able to fund ourselves. I didn't take on any debt until the business was four or five years old. There were definitely lean times, in terms of not having all the capital or the funding that we wanted, but we made the best of it.
SM: What made you different?
FG: I think what made me different was a fundamental desire to serve the customer and give them a great value for their money. I think I've been able to create that culture within my organization. I will say, unequivocally, that we had phenomenal customers from the beginning. While other businesses grew faster or had lower prices, at the end of the day our business was always about relationships. We're here for the customer, and our attitude conveys that.
SM: How do you keep up with the training to make sure your people know the product and the competition?
FG: I have been committed to training and development from day one. At first, the training focused on sales and customer service skills, but it has transitioned to include the technical aspects of the business. As the industry continues to change, as the pace of the business gets faster and faster, we need to change, grow, and stay ahead. The industry is so dynamic and it changes so quickly, people need to understand that if you don't change you will be left behind. The corollary is true too. If you do change, and you can anticipate where the changes are going, not only will you get ahead, but you will prosper. If we've enjoyed any success, at the core, that's why.
SM: What do you do internally to maintain the culture and the quality of service as you expand?
FG: You get the best people, you communicate with them, you set clear expectations, and you hold them accountable to those expectations by giving them the tools they need. Things change over time, but we've always maintained a high level of communication and we've established a standard for how we approach our customers, and our industry. Every morning we have what we call the daily huddle. Our whole staff gets on a conference call and talks about any good news from the day before, any roadblocks, and the goals for the day. We have monthly sales meetings, which we call training meetings, because we have a philosophy of continuous training. We believe that better training for our employees will result in a better experience for our customers. My personal definition of business culture is the shared understanding of purpose. Our business culture is one of achieving our goals by helping customers achieve their goals.
SM: Where are you planning to go in the future? How are you marketing your image?
FG: In the last twelve months, we've crystallized the way that we create value for our customers. We've created the "Loved Customer System," which we like to say is unique on the planet. It has quickly become the philosophy we measure everything against, both internally and externally. It consists of a series of things that we do to create value for our customer, starting with the "Greety Guest Program." When someone enters one of our stores, we say hello to them within the first eight seconds. That's hardwired into the people who work for our organization. Another component of the Loved Customer System is the Appreciation Matrix. We call our customers on a scheduled basis after they've done business with us. Every customer receives a three day call, a one month call, a three month call, a seven month call, a twelve month call, and an eighteen month call. We also look proactively at our customers' bills. If there's a better rate plan for them, we'll call and suggest it. That creates real value, because it's the unexpected extra. We want our actions to speak louder than words, because it's our actions that truly matter. Our business is no longer just about products and services, but about the experience that we're creating for our clients. You can buy a cell phone just about anywhere, but you can only get the Loved Customer System at CR Wireless.
SM: Repeat customer and the referrals are critical to building a business.
FG: About sixty percent of our business is repeat business, and our churn ratewhich is a measure of customers leavingis below one percent. Essentially 99.5% of the people who do business with us remain our customers. Industry wide, those metrics are better than the best in the industry, which at the present time is Verizon. When it comes down to the satisfaction of our customer base, we're out-performing the big guys. To me, that validates that the efforts we're making to create value for our customer are really working.
SM: Now, twelve stores, twelve headaches, how do you balance your life?
FG: I'm extremely fortunate to have a phenomenal team around me, as well as phenomenal clients and customers. Sometimes the demands of being a business owner can be stressful, but my wife and my family and friends are tremendously supportive. My company president, Bob Parna, has done a great job of taking the day to day demands off my plate. He and I are a great team, and that allows me to focus the long-term voice and vision of the business while he keeps an eye on the day to day stuff. I also protect my free time away from the business. Over the last several years, as my three kids continue to grow, I think it has really become important to be more present. We love to travel as a family; we spent eighteen days in Italy last July. I also exercise on a routine basis, which not only helps eliminate stress, but also makes you stronger, more confident, and prepared to handle bigger challenges. Professionally, I participate in a program called The Strategic Coach. I fly out to Chicago once a quarter, review the results from the previous quarter, and plan out the next quarter. I've been participating in the program for about three years, and it has definitely helped me keep balance in my life. I have a tremendous amount of interaction with other entrepreneurs. I'm a member of an organization called the Entrepreneurs Organization. There are about forty members locally, and we gather about once a month to share our experiences. It's not a networking group; it's a peer to peer exchange group. I've been a member of that group since 2000, and many of those peer business owners have become my closest friends, because our shared experience is so powerful.
SM: Do you have any advice for new entrepreneurs?
FG: You need to expend energy to reap benefits. You need to be willing to invest, of yourself, of your money, of your time. I like to tell people that you don't stand in front of a fireplace and ask it to warm you. You need to find the kindling and the wood, build a sturdy foundation, and ignite a spark. You need to tend it. Only then will it burn steadily and give you warmth. Business, too, is like that. You need to give of yourself before the rewards will come.
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