Role Model: Michael Kiolbassa, President of Kiolbassa Smoked Meats
by Miki Saxon
Even if your sights are set on a goal far beyond $85 million in revenue (not valuation), you would be wise to take a lesson from Michael Kiolbassa, whose product you’ve probably eaten more than once.
Grandson of the founder, Kiolbassa wasn’t prone to delegating. He did listen to advice from a wide range of pundits and was prone to “management by bestseller.”
Until, that is, the company was blindsided with a giant cost increase that should have been forecasted, but wasn’t.
For years, he saw his role as the solver of all problems. That’s what he’d learned from his dad, who would even fix the machinery. “I’m the production guy,” Michael explained to a consultant in 2010. “I’m the sales guy. I’m the culture guy. I’m the guy.”
“Is it working for you?” the consultant asked.
“No, it’s not.”
That’s when things changed and he started delegating.
Sales soared as did production, but not in concert, so the losses almost killed the company.
That’s when Kiolbassa was introduced to open-book management, which he embraced, with a quarterly bonus incentive for everybody, and everything changed.
“I got everybody together, shared the financials in detail and showed them just how much money had been lost,” says Michael. “They had no idea.” (…) Posted in Spanish as well as English, the financial displays let everyone track whether the company is likely to pay a quarterly profit-sharing bonus
And that’s the key that most CEOs don’t get.
There is a wealth of information at every level within every organization, not just from those with fancy titles, if you are willing to listen.
“Suddenly,” says Michael Johnson, a Kiolbassa vice president, “you had guys on the shipping dock looking at invoices and saying, I know we can get jalapenos cheaper.”
Proof, as is said, is in the pudding, or, in this case, the financials.
In fact, they turned the first quarter of 2018 into the company’s most profitable ever, with revenue growth of 30% and a profit margin of 6%.
Think what open-book management could do for your company — if you have the guts to implement it.
Image credit: Kiolbassa Smoked Meats
