Tom has been working in retail facilities industry for 18 years. He worked for a company called USM Services Inc which is now EMCOR Facilities Services. He was a senior account manager on many of the big box accounts such as Harbor Freight and managed some of the other accounts like Bed, Bath and Beyond, Starbucks and more. Tom is currently working for a family owned company in Delaware, in the corporate side of the spectrum. He now manages the facilities for numerous self-storage locations.

One of the things that Tom keeps in mind for his daily work is that if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. You have to set your schedule and set realistic expectations. His biggest focus is on communication because sometimes the client is not expecting to have everything done right away, but they want to be in the loop and plan accordingly to the project progress. It’s all about managing expectations.

Tom shares with us some of the things he enjoys the most - Bringing in new fresh ideas to the table and helping the team consider things they may have not heard of before. He also shared his take on the future of the retail industry and how he sees some of the traditional stores evolving and transitioning and even closing down.

The facility maintenance industry has gone through a lot of change since the early years of it being explored as a discipline. Real estate, retail, and operations have also evolved continuously making an impact on the way we manage and maintain the facilities and provide services.

If we look back to 10 years ago and compare the industry to where we are at today, we can certainly spot some of those changes - We have more software now, processes are more streamlined, we have a broader reach and there are more ways to contract and subcontract various services.

The truth is, all the professionals in the industry are always looking to improve, to solve problems, to adapt, and to deliver higher and higher quality services every time. The change doesn't stop.

In this episode me and the guests that we've had in the podcast answer to the question - Where do you see the facility maintenance industry in the next 5 or 10 years?

Bennett Van Wert is the National Sales Manager at DWM, Comprehensive Facility Solutions and he joined us in the podcast to share about his background, how he used to work at other companies with a pretty different sales role than his current one and how he’s inspired and motivated now by how rewarding it is to impact the company long-term.

Bennett shared how the whole experience has been a learning curve and how he's been understanding new processes and gaining so much knowledge since joining the company over a year ago. "The sales cycle in this industry is pretty long so I have to be patient." says Bennett.

Bennett really cares for their customers and making sure that the company's strategy is always in place to provide them with what they need. "You want to be ahead of that curve as they're making those changes and offering solutions that are more aligned with the direction they're trying to go and the value that they're trying to provide to their customers.

Elizabeth Barnes is the Chief Operating Officer at NAI Plotkin. They are a third generation family that does full-service real estate such as brokerage services, construction management services and all sorts of facility property management services for all asset types. Her background in retail is in the construction and real estate departments working for the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company.

Elizabeth shared about her experience managing dark stores and finding national and local vendors that will deliver high-quality services and maintain a steady working relationship. Currently, they are using a software that allows inspectors to take photos (eventually 360 degrees photos) and upload them into a database for their staff to do quality assurance and make those inspections immediately available to their clients.

Tom Kay is the Vice President of sales and marketing at EnTouch inTouch, Internet of Things & Cloud App Experts.

When I asked Tom what advice he would give to himself years ago, after all this time in the industry, he gracefully said "Run!". We both laughed because that's the reality of many FMs in the industry. Tom's real advice is:

"Make an effort to align yourself with your folks. Sometimes we are so focused on something that we might forget that there are other intelligent people around us. Do Make a daily effort to learn from one another and stretch yourself to be better."

Tom has a really interesting perspective of how important it is to learn from everyone and translate that to customers, employees, employer and family. He also has really clear and actionable advice to keep yourself organized and accountable.

"If I can pull out 1 message from one of your previous podcasts and apply it I have created value for myself and someone else." - Tom Kay

Chris Fairchild is the president of National Filter Service, he started 27 years ago and still manages it today along with the great staff and team in the headquarters right outside of Virginia.

One of the biggest lesson he’s learned and shared with us is that you're the one who created the vision. You're the one who led it to the point where you had all these other employees and be it for selfish reasons or concern that others can do better. You need to remain involved at just as much level as you always did because you're the one that's leading it.

Chris also talked about their biggest challenges in the business, “horror” stories, how he foresees the industry over the next 10 years, and his best practices to keep himself organized and running the business even while traveling.

Don’t miss out in the opportunity to learn from his experience.

The Customer Experience Podcast is all about individual things that impact the in-store/in-restaurant customer experience as well as best practices on subjects like building and developing relationships, productivity, efficiency in the field, managing multi unit locations and a large field staff and many more topics. In this episode, we talk with Blake Kelly, Director of National Accounts at US Pavement Services Inc and he tells us how he got into this industry and how his process has been in the past few years. But there’s more! Blake shared really valuable advice for all the folks out there who are also in similar positions such as project managers and partners that work in the job sites.

Don’t miss out in the opportunity to learn from his experience. Watch or listen now at https://www.goeview.com/goeview-podcast

Ron is the Vice President of National Accounts at XtraLight Manufacturing and has been in lighting business for more than 50 years. When he started his first job and was changing light bulbs at the Shell station, never would have thought that 50 years later he will end up as a president of the largest lighting service company in US.

Ron shared some incredible stories with Troy including the one about hilarious sales bonanza that he did in the early stage of his career. “We sold 50 clients in 52 weeks… we called it our bucket of chicken tour. We came with doughnuts, bring lunch and some of them actually liked this, and some of them actually started to give us business”.