Set big, hairy, audacious goals for 2010; don't give up on 2009

We are in the 4th quarter of the calendar year. What can you do to impact the current final weeks of 2009? It is at this time of year that many companies get off schedule. They lose their focus as holidays approach, the temperature changes, and preparation for winter begins. To use a sports analogy, most games are won or lost in the 4th quarter; most races are won or lost in the final meters.

Lessons from dad
Now is the time to implement strategies that impact the 4th quarter results while simultaneously laying the foundation for 2010. My father sold pots and pans door to door in 1940. Remember, the world was still in a depression and a war was in its inception in Europe. From Thanksgiving to Christmas he walked, without much success, from house to house trying to sell his wares. The week between Christmas and New Years Day is, in our culture, a slow time.

But dad needed money for tuition, so he decided to keep knocking on doors. He had his best sales week ever. It seems that there were many men who had either not gotten their wives a Christmas gift or had gotten them an unsatisfactory gift. He set company sales records. His company was so impressed that they offered him a full-time sales manager position. His company noted that he was one of a very few that worked that particular week. Most of his peers had quit for the year. Yet he was successful because he kept knocking on doors.

Now or never!
Now is the time to implement strategies that impact your 4th quarter results while simultaneously laying the foundation for 2010. Set some Big Hairy Audacious Goals for 2010. If you knew you couldn't fail, what goals would you set? Remember, though, these goals have to be measurable and have a specific time frame.

The two reasons people don't hit their goals are that they never really set them or they set them and forget them. So, write them down. Post them. Get pictures to remind you of them. Get someone to hold you accountable.

In a few weeks I will be meeting with 10 fellow glass shop owners. I will announce my 2010 BHAG and challenge them to participate. Start running the race for next year now. Get a head start on your competition.

Break the tape!
Don’t quit on this year! Keep “knocking on doors.” Keep “running the race.” Don’t “quit” before the end of the game. Will you finish with a burst of speed to hit your goals or will you limp across the finish? It’s up to you. Do something today to break the tape in 2009!

—Bill Evans, president, Evans Glass Co., Nashville

The credit crunch

When I bought a home in 2005, banks were more than willing to finance the purchase. Some were offering loan amounts that exceeded my comfort level by tens of thousands of dollars.


Today, banks are much more cautious, and loans are hard to come by, say glass company execs. “From our standpoint, one of the most major challenges right now is the availability of money,” says Newton Little, executive vice president, Ace Glass, Little Rock, Ark. “Money is available, but [banks] want you to have more skin in the game than we think is reasonable,” he says.

It’s the banks, not the number of jobs coming in, that’s more of a problem, says Charlotte Broussard, owner and CEO, Universal Window and Door LLC, Marlborough, Mass. “This year, we are quoting more projects than we have in the last three years, with continual value engineering. After the engineering, unfortunately many banks are not funding the projects,” she says.

Credit will be instrumental for us to move forward, agrees Ed Sieber, president, Glass Doctor of Charlotte, N.C. “We’re going to need the capital to buy vans, equipment, etc., for when we do grow. Dina Dwyer, CEO, The Dwyer Group, was on Capitol Hill speaking before Congress to help free up credit for small businesses. If they can make some headway and free up some of the credit, it will enable us to be able to hire people back.”

Indeed, underwriting standards remain tight, according to a Sept. 9 “State of the Financing Markets” Webcast from Lincoln International LLC, with offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. “Conventional wisdom would say that the broader economy is out of the recession and company performance is improving; however, credit is available for only the highest-quality companies,” officials stated in the presentation. “The recent stagnation in loan volume and mergers and acquisition activity is due to a combination of lack of visibility into many borrowers’ future performance, and underwriting standards of lenders still providing capital remaining very tight,” they said.

Glass Magazine will delve deeper into the issue in the December 2009 edition and we'd like your input. How is the credit crunch affecting your business, and what effect has it had on your customer base?

—By Jenni Chase, Editor, Glass Magazine

Time to get off the sideline

In recent years, architects have begun to see some of the many creative uses for glass, and they have incorporated more and more of it into their spaces. This was not by accident. Many companies in our industry have spent a great deal of money in getting our products in front of the architectural community. Even more money has been spent in the development of new glazing products to keep the momentum going in favor of "more glass" in buildings, even as energy codes have become increasingly stringent. In the end, we have all benefited. Even if your piece of the pie didn't grow, the pie itself did, whether you were directly involved in these efforts or not.

But now, this trend is in real danger of reversing, and fast! Several code organizations are attempting to reduce the use of glass in new buildings. For example, shortly after the GlassBuild America show left Atlanta, the ASHRAE 90.1 envelope subcommittee met there to discuss how it would meet its mandate of reducing energy consumption by 30 percent in 2011. Their solution? Reduce glass area by 25 percent while also tightening the light to solar gain ratio requirement on glass such that more than half of the existing high-performance glazing products won't qualify. Is it any surprise that our industry has no representation on that subcommittee? Thankfully, Glass Association of North America stepped in and mitigated some of the damage through their presentation to the subcommittee.

In the past, we all relied on the Glass Industry Code Committee to fight these battles for us. The GICC, however, is shutting down. GANA is picking up its torch, and the National Glass Association is fully behind its efforts. Now we need to get into this fight, as well; collectively, as an industry, our future is at stake. We need to come together with a strong voice, to support all the hard work that has been done to develop and bring to market strong products that can and should play an important role in energy-efficient buildings.

Now, I must admit that the preceding paragraphs just about fully exhaust my knowledge on this topic as of today; I just recently learned of the dangerous situation we find ourselves in. So please join me in learning about the issues, and in participating in our great industry organizations. GANA and NGA both have highly dedicated volunteers and staff that are working hard for you and me every day, so take the time to learn what is going on and how you can get involved! Read a Glass Magazine article on this issue.

--By Chris Mammen, president, M3 Glass Technologies, Irving, Texas

Have you found your solar niche yet?

Opportunity for the glass industry in the emerging solar market has been the topic of much discussion for some time now. Big companies, such as Guardian, have already climbed on the bandwagon; small companies are looking for ways to get their piece of the pie.

I attended the solar seminar at GBA: The Glass, Window & Door Expo Oct. 1. Panelists at the seminar, moderated by Russ Ebeid, made amply clear that the solar market is a plumb opportunity for the glass and glazing industry.

"This is a huge growth opportunity,” said Steve Coonen, solar design consultant, Applied Solar, San Diego. “The glass industry hasn’t taken on this photovoltaic challenge yet. Why be afraid? Why not take it up as a serious opportunity to make money?"

The rest of the panel talked about PV in China; CSP in the U.S. and Spain; BIPV in Europe and North America, and about the current state of those different technologies and applications. Read the article.

The government is doing its share to encourage energy efficiency. It has provided $32.6 billion in funding to the U.S. Department of Energy through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. More than half of these funds went to the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program office.

The Recovery Act also includes $2.3 billion to fund 30 investment tax credits for manufacturing assets used to manufacture advanced solar products. This program is run through the Department of Treasury and that department must certify the projects.

The act extends bonus depreciation as an incentive for manufacturers to invest in new equipment. Half the cost of the equipment is deducted immediately when the equipment is placed in service with the remaining amount depreciated normally.

The ASTM, for its part, has started work on a possible solar glass standard. Members of ASTM International Committee E44 on Solar, Geothermal, and Other Energy Sources, and ASTM International Committee C14 on Glass and Glass Products met with representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy Sept. 29 to develop and maintain “standards for glass and glass coatings for solar applications that include, but are not limited to, photovoltaic, solar thermal, and concentrating applications. The standards will address the characteristics that affect performance, durability and reliability.” Read the article.

Interested parties who want to participate in the ASTM standard process, should write Pat Picariello or Christine DeJong.

Seems to me like there has never been a better time to jump on the solar bandwagon. As Ebeid said at the GBA seminar: “I have talked about mega trends, especially those that illustrate how government regulations and product innovations combine to change the business climate irreversibly. Solar, if and when realized, is touted to be one of those game changers.”

What’s your take on this emerging market? Is this going to be like the dot-com bubble or is it here to stay?

—By Sahely Mukerji, news editor/managing editor, Glass Magazine

Bidding wars: Price vs. quality

Talking to attendees and exhibitors at GlassBuild America: The Glass, Window & Door Expo, I repeatedly heard stories of companies involved in bidding wars where the job ultimately went to the lowest bidder without regard to the quality of its product or service. In one incident, a developer installed more than $1 million worth of windows, only to pull them out due to poor quality, said Charlotte Broussard, owner and CEO of Universal Window and Door LLC, Marlborough, Mass. “Out of fear, people are going after price and not [paying attention to] the quality of the product,” she said. There have been projects where Universal was underbid by 40 percent, and the company ended up going back and doing the projects over because the developer had to pull the original product, she said. “It is becoming a real problem.”

“Our customers are hard bidding jobs and [developers] are going with the best price,” said Tom O’Malley, vice president of sales, Doralco, Alsip, Ill. “The building owners are almost making it a bidding war to see how desperate people will get. Companies are taking jobs at prices that they shouldn’t be at. We’re obviously looking at our costs, but we’re not going to put ourselves in a position to go out of business. There are some people out there that are [putting themselves in that position],” he said.

Education is the answer to the problem, said Paul Weisblatt, technical director, Universal Window and Door. “We’re doing our best to educate the customer with regard to why they’re going to pay what they’re going to pay,” he said. “It costs money; you can’t compare [a value-added product] against a price-only product and expect to get the same performance.”

Has your company been involved in bidding wars where the customer has turned a blind eye to quality and gone with the lowest price instead? What are you doing to convince them that there’s more to choosing a product or service than dollars and cents?


—By Jenni Chase, Editor, Glass Magazine

GlassBuild America "Live"

When a colleague forwarded me this video of what appears to be a primitive bullet-resistant glass demonstration, three thoughts came to mind:

1. Is this video real or fake?

2. This woman must really trust this gentleman's marksmanship.

3. When selecting a product or service, there's no substitute for experiencing its capabilities firsthand.



At GlassBuild America: The Glass, Window & Door Expo, attendees had the chance to do just that--try out products firsthand--as almost 400 companies took the show floor Sept. 30 through Oct. 2 in Atlanta. While the live demonstrations weren't as nerve-wracking, they were educational.

Visit GlassMagazine.com to see photos from the trade show floor and read about attendees' diversification plans, thoughts on the state of our industry and expectations for the year ahead.

—By Jenni Chase, Editor, Glass Magazine