Chamber honors small businesses at luncheon
The Greater Shelby County Chamber of Commerce presented its 2015 Small Business Awards at its luncheon on May 20.
Each year, the chamber recognizes small businesses throughout the area in four categories based on number of employees and length of time in business. This year’s winners were chosen from 33 nominations and included the following:
- Category I: 1-10 Employees, Open One Year or More: Encore Resales
- Category II: 11-20 Employees, Open One Year or More: Mikey’s Grill
- Category III: 21+ Employees: Vulcan Termite & Pest Control
- Category IV: Less than 25 Employees, Open Less Than One Year: Frios Gourmet Pops
The luncheon also featured entrepreneur and author Dick Cross as its speaker. Cross, the Executive Director of Summer Classics in Pelham, is the founder of The Cross Partnership III, a Boston-based business consulting firm. He is also the author of "60-Minute CEO" and "Just Run It! Running Your Business Is Easier Than You Think."
In his presentation, Cross outlined several tips to help small business owners manage employees in an evolving job market. In order to run a successful business, owners should focus on thinking and character, he said.
Cross recommended that business owners devote at least 60 minutes three times per week to sitting down and thinking about goals and ideas for their businesses, focusing on what the business should be, why it should be that way and how to make the goal a reality.
“Half the job is simply to just sit and think,” Cross said.
The other half, Cross said, is having the right character to run a business. Cross said that since younger generations have started entering the workforce, different managerial styles have become more effective.
“The work force today, the millennials and so forth, are not like the [previous] work force and our current model of being in charge, which was ‘I’m in charge. I’m going to tell you to do something or you’re going to lose your job.’ People don’t operate like that anymore,” Cross said.
Instead, Cross said, employees now respond to character of an employer and do their job well based on respect. Cross listed nine attributes for each employer to strive to embody when managing employees: patience, kindness, generosity, courtesy, humility, unselfishness, good humor, guilelessness and sincerity. Each attribute will elicit positive attitudes and work ethic from employees, Cross said.
For more information, visit shelbychamber.org.