The Real Story
I learned my first lessons about how to care for clients on the lap of my paternal grandfather, Elias Simon. I have dozens of memories of traveling with Elias as he visited his clients, delivering gift merchandise to retail stores throughout Southern California. He maintained great relationships throughout. As Kipling might say, he walked with kings and never lost the common touch.
One particularly vivid memory I have is from an event that occurred during the holiday season. As many others in his line of work, he would bring holiday gifts during December. He always seemed to find just the thing. Rather than deliver pens or some other trinket to each of his clients, he would find gifts that were more personal. He would not only bring gifts to the decision-makers, but also to all of the people that he interacted with.
One time, he walked up to the quiet elderly man at one store who was pushing the mop. Within a few feet of a collection of other employees who were enjoying their gifts, he put one arm around the man’s shoulders and handed him a bottle of brandy. He said to the man, “Keep this between the two of us.” I still recall the quiet look of gratitude on the man’s face for being acknowledged. Elias later told me, “You always treat the man pushing the mop as well as the president.”
I must have been five or six years old at the time. As we know from research in early childhood development, lessons learned in the first years are the most influential. Elias left an indelible lesson for me.
Lesson learned: Care for your clients as you would a trusted friend.
My maternal grandfather, Henry Klipstein, was a jeweler. Before then, he worked for Shoe Corporation of America and in food packing. He came to recognize two important aspects of the jewelry business. First, customers rely on the expertise, honesty, and knowledge of their jewelers. Second, customers are usually thrilled with the results of honest and knowledgeable service.
In recognizing the value that his expertise had on his customers, he continually sought educational opportunities with the Gemological Institute of America. He continued his training until a few years before his retirement in 1981.
Lesson learned: You are never too old to learn something new.
Lesson learned: Expertise and honesty are not luxuries if you wish to care for your clients as trusted friends.
My father, Bill, passed the California Bar Exam in 1976 (on his first try—as rare today as it was then) and went to work for a local lawyer practicing bankruptcy, family law, and civil litigation. After a few years, he struck out on his own and opened a bankruptcy law practice. My stepmom also practiced law and worked with him for 10 years.
I started working for them off and on from the age of 10. At that age, my most frequent task was making copies on a Xerox that used thermal paper. I remember frequently lugging rolls of paper the size of my chest to reload the copier. As many young ones, I had a comfort with the more technical aspects of the technology. I could easily negotiate paper jams and knew just where on the glass to put the paper to center the image on the copy. In those days, this was merely a way of keeping me busy and out of my dad’s and his assistant’s hair.
Over the years, I was assigned increasingly responsible and more creative tasks. Working for my father had a number of advantages. For one, his idea of nepotism was that I did not have to fill out an employment application to work in his office. My last name merely got me in the door. He always made sure that I was answerable to someone else. This was a good way of keeping the father-son dynamic out of the employee-owner dynamic. It also made me highly accountable for my performance. I learned the value of accountability and excellence in my teenage years. As a comparison, one Simon family relative was also hired by my father’s company on more than one occasion and fired because of performance.
Lesson learned: Within the company, familial loyalty is important, but not at the expense of the business or its clients.
Another advantage of working with my father is the dizzying array of tasks I performed and businesses I worked in. In addition to being a bankruptcy attorney he was also an Interim Trustee. Interim Trustees are charged by the U.S. Trustee’s Office with administering the assets of bankrupt estates for liquidation or reorganization. The work I performed under the Trusteeship greatly expanded the universe of companies and industries I encountered. I conservatively estimate that from my mid-teens though my mid-twenties, I was exposed to the operations of over 200 businesses.
Over those years, I worked with a great number of successful companies. I have also seen more than my share of once successful companies fail. Witnessing first hand the business cycles of breakdown and renewal left me with many valuable lessons. From that experience, I have identified five principles that influence success or failure in all of its forms and varieties: people, money, product/service, time, and action.
Lessons learned:
People: Having the right people in the right places can make a substantial difference.
People: Relationships are key.
Money: Vision and mission provide a company with purpose. Cash flow, like blood delivering oxygen and nutrients throughout the human body, sustains a company's constituent parts. To suggest that “making money” is the purpose of a business, is like you and I suggesting our purpose on earth is to breathe.
Product/Service: What a company provides must meet a human need or convenience.
Time: Being at the right place at the right time can make a substantial difference. Urgency is strongly correlated with success.
Action: Inaction is strongly correlated with failure. Results are key. Results cannot be obtained by analysis. Homework is good, but at a certain point, you have to test with your market.
As I mentioned earlier, I had a great many tasks over the years. At the age of 15, I inventoried an upscale grocery store. At 16, I pulled weeds on the “back 40” of a nursery to prepare the product for auction. Then worked to administer the auction through delivery of product to auction purchasers.
At 17, I called debtors on behalf of a major department store client to convince them to reaffirm their credit accounts with the client. At 18, I began to perform legal and case research for the senior paralegal. In one instance, I was able to identify the address and location of real property by comparing a partially obliterated legal description with a street map.
At 19, when the company was in a pinch, I fulfilled the receptionist role for two months. I covered six phone lines, answering over 250 calls per day. 90% of those calls asked for the boss, my father. My primary responsibility was to quickly decipher which one of the over 30 employees they should be speaking with instead.
I was also responsible for tracking the comings and goings of the over 30 employees. This was before voicemail! If they were not there, I was going to have to take a message anyway.
I remember being dragged into this task “kicking and screaming.” I did not relish the idea. I remember thinking that receptionist in my father’s office was like being at the center of a fierce storm. This was during his tenure as an Interim Trustee, which meant many angry calls.
In those days, creditors did not understand that administering a bankrupt estate was time consuming. They did not understand why they could not have their money now. Debtors did not understand that filing for protection from their creditors meant relinquishing “ownership” of their assets. Those assets were to be administered and liquidated for the benefit of creditors.
I did not relish the idea of negotiating with so much anger and negative energy. I especially did not relish the idea of negotiating that anger as directed at my own father. If you want to learn humility and patience, answer over 100 calls a day from people who want to eviscerate your father.
I finally reconciled my task as supportive, necessary, and vital; not only to my father but also to the staff whom I liked and respected very much. As such, I did quite well and derived a great deal of self-confidence by rising to the challenge.
Lesson learned: Commitment to excel for your clients can overcome the highest of obstacles.
Earlier I mentioned the problems the trusteeship had with debtors who failed to relinquish ownership of their estates. I can remember one instance in particular. Our staff had learned that a debtor was moving assets off his property. My father instructed his primary adjuster to take possession of the property and change all of the locks.
In other words, close the doors and evict the debtor and his staff. The debtor engineered high performance cars and car parts. Many members of the staff were quite large. To dispel any violence, the decision was made to send every large male who worked for the trusteeship.
At six feet tall and 180 lbs, I was one of the smaller members of the eviction crew. All I had to do was stand around and relax, as the primary adjuster and some of the other senior adjusters chaperoned the debtor and his staff through the closure.
The debtor, his daughter, and his son-in-law were very angry. Luckily, the rest of the staff was very well behaved and nothing happened. I did not realize how lucky I was until we were about to leave.
A very quiet man a half a head taller than me in a cowboy hat and sunglasses was sitting on a stool during the eviction. As we were leaving, he singled me out, walked right up to me and extended his hand to shake mine. He said in a slow deliberate Southern drawl, “I’m sorry we couldn’t have met under more pleasant circumstances.” His behavior caught the attention of the primary adjuster.
When I shook his hand, I was taken by the strength of his handshake. At the time, I had never experienced a more powerful grip. I vividly recall looking down at his hand and forearm. His hand was no bigger than mine, but his forearm looked bigger than my head. I remember how grateful I was that he was not trouble. I really have no idea how I could have ever handled him, even with help.
Lesson learned: My temperaments, talents, and strengths were not well suited for bar bouncing, security, law enforcement, or other high-violence-potential pursuits.
A few years later, my father left the trustee panel and focused exclusively on his practice. I worked my way through college there during semester and summer breaks. Eventually, I worked my way up to the senior litigation paralegal.
During the last four years I worked for the family business, I became much more closely and strategically involved in client engagements. I learned interviewing skills and the finer points of legal research. I greatly enhanced my writing and communication skills. I learned to deal with all manner of difficult and distraught people.
Most importantly, however, was the opportunity to hone my strategic skills. Frequently, I was able to identify opportunities and help steer engagements toward settlement rather than trial.
Lesson learned: The payoff of a client who experiences the lifting of a burden far exceeds the payoff of extending a conflict to trial.
The last advantage I will share with you about working for the family business is the benefits of confidence and trust.
—— To be continued ——
