Table of Contents

• COMMITTEE REPORTS
  • MEMBERSHIP REPORT
  • SOCIAL REPORT
  • SPEAKER COORDINATOR REPORT
  • TREASURER REPORT
• LEADS
• MIGHTY MINUTE
• NOTABLE MENTIONS
• QUESTION OF THE DAY
• MAIN SPEAKER

Committee Reports

Membership Report
(Click here to go to the Membership page)

Don Ellis proposed Barbara Coleman as a possible new member.  He will complete part 1 of the membership application.

Social Report
(Click here to go to the Social Event page)

David Lathrop passed around the information sheet on the Salt River Rafting event.  If there is enough interest, he will put this social together.

Althea Bussert passed around the signup sheet one last time for the Flagstaff Weekend  at Arizona Mountain Inn event.  She needs at least 7 couples in order to keep the cost down.

Speaker Coordinator Report
(Click here to go to the Speaker Schedule)

• 02/04/05     Outside Meeting*
• 02/11/05     Jim Crosman
• 02/18/05     Mark Howard
• 02/25/05     Mike Tanner
• 03/04/05     Lisa Wolfe
• 03/11/05     Lisa Schnaidt

*Next week we are having an outside meeting held at the Viking Showroom located at 8370 S Kyrene Rd, Tempe AZ  85284.  The phone number is 480-784-6611.  Remember, if you signed up for the early shift, you should arrive at 6:15am.

Treasurer Report

We are doing fine.

Leads Report

37-43, 23-28, 23-47, 36-19, 32-17, 41-13, 18-17, 28-30, 49-34, 45-26, 21-28, 11-15, 38-26, 04-32, 31-21, 14-34, 09-33, 09-32.

This week's leads focus...

• Andrew Jensen

• Denver Johnson

• Paul Kavanaugh

Might Minute

Stuart Schindler kicked off the official return of the Mighty Minute today.  He will soon celebrate 16 years in the business.  He is frequently asked by customers "Do you print this or that?"  His response is always the same, "If it is done on paper I can do it in any way, shape or form."  And even that is too narrow of a response.  He is not limited to printing on paper.  He has also noticed that printers shy away from tractor feed company forms.  It requires specialized equipment but it is a piece of cake to do.  You just have to be careful with the artwork.  But it is second nature to Stu.

Notable Mentions

Robert Busch has relocated his store.  He is now at Southern and McClintock.

Greg Stewart brought back business advise from his franchise convention...Become a pillar of your community.  It is easier to bring back old customers than to bring in new ones.

Question of the Day

Jana wants to know...How do you deal with all of the business cards your get?

• Greg Stewart - You can keep them in a business card folder.  Keep the ones you use and toss the rest.
• Patricia Cox - I divide them up and keep them in different areas depending on my anticipated need for them.
• Denver Johnson - I use Outlook and send everything to this (Palm Pilot?) and throw away the cards.
• David Lathrop - I have a program that scans in the cards.
• Jim Crossman - I keep them in the glove compartment of my truck.

Mark Dreher wants to know...Where do you get a passport picture?

• Kinkos
• Stuart Schindler - The main post office.

Dave Spiess wants to know...What do you do about employees taking personal phone calls and engaging in chit chat on your time?

• Greg Stewart - I had to put a memo out.  I am not always around so I don't know how often employees do this.
• Dave Spiess - We give them a cell phone and they are allotted so many minutes.  If they exceed the limit, it is an automatic payroll deduction.
• Joe Zingale - We got these new Sanyo phones that allow us to program in phone numbers.  Only callers from those numbers are allowed, the others are blocked.  It saved us $12,000 in the  first year.
• Jean Batt - We have a policy in place but it still happens.  You have to keep reminding them.
• Brian Verbraken - Fire someone on the spot for doing it.  It will wake the others up.
• Don Ellis - I agree.  Get rid of them and the others will pay attention.  Or make them put their phones in a box when they clock in.  If there is an emergency, their family can call the business number.
• Mark Dreher - This is a big concern for us because our staff is usually working at the clients location and it costs our clients money.  We tell them that they have to keep their phones on silent or vibrate and they can only answer them on a break.
• Bill LaLonde - We had a lady answering the phones for us that also ran a cleaning business on the side.  She would put our customers on hold to talk to her customers.  When we confronted her about it and told her she couldn't take those calls anymore, her attitude completely changed.  We eventually had to fire her.
• Patricia Cox - We had a problem with personal emails.
• Lisa Wolfe - At a business I worked at, they read the personal emails over the intercom.  People were horrified but it was company property.

Sandro Menasci
Broadway & Gilbert Exxon 

Sandro and Arlene got married in their early 20's.  They have two boys that are now 30 and 31 and working in the marketing department at Intel.  They also have 3 beautiful grandchildren.  All of Sandro's family lives here except for his dad who still lives in Canada.

Sandro was born in Rome, Italy.  He has fond memories of riding the bus to school and passing the Coliseum and other landmarks.  At age 11 his family moved to Montreal Canada.  He didn't speak English or French but after 6 months he was doing fine.

Sandro began working at 13.  He had a paper route.  At 17 he started pumping gas for his father.    He went to school and graduated with a degree in physics.  After graduating he began selling auto parts.  He came across a business deal that he couldn't pass up.  He was able to lease the equipment and building of a service station for a very low monthly fee on a trial basis.  After 6 months it was so successful that he was able to purchase everything.  He was now the owner of his first station. 

Sandro followed the rest of his family to Arizona.  He bought a station at the corner of Broadway & Gilbert.  He has 2 good mechanics.  One is older and one is younger.  They compliment each other.  Between the two of them they know most all there is to know about car repairs including the mechanics, A/C, electrical, security systems and more.  Sandro encourages them to get regular training to stay current on new technologies.

Sandro has had many hobbies over his lifetime including:

• Stamp collecting

• Skiing

• Fish tanks

• Chess

• Photography

• Building computers

• and more...

Sandro's next project is to decide whether or not to open a second location.  His brother retired and sent all of his customers over to Sandro.  This made it Sandro's best year ever.  Sandro also extended a thank you to the many members in this group who have used his services over the years even when it was inconvenient.

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