The following is an interview with Eric Hilferding, CEO of ClassB, a custom t-shirt manufacturer and printer, for my graduate coursework in entrepreneurship. Eric and I first met in 2005 when I was with the Boy Scouts of America. His company was one of the BSA’s first licensees in the revamped licensing program. We became fast friends and I have long admired his attention to detail, creativity, and commitment to service.
Q. Tell me a little about ClassB and your role with the company.
A. ClassB provides custom-decorated goods including t-shirts, embroidery and promotional products to primarily nonprofit organizations. The company started in 1982. We currently have 38 full-time employees. We focus on having a great customer experience. The internal motto is we sell service not t-shirts. I am the CEO of ClassB and one of the two company founders back in 1982. I have been formally running the company since the mid 1990’s.
Q. Did you have any entrepreneurial experience or education before launching the company?
A. I have zero business or entrepreneurial education – I have a BA in History. Luckily, learning about running a business was always a part of my life. I started working at around age 8 at my grandfather’s lumber yard. My parents often discussed business at the dinner table.
When my mother and I started ClassB, all immediate family members eventually were employed. I read profusely to fill gaps in my knowledge. I was very lucky to have my father with his extensive business knowledge available at all times. Without his experience, I would have failed many times over. Now I realize how right he was on everything.
Another key area is my Boy Scout experience. I learned so much by making lots of leadership mistakes in my Troop and working at Summer Camp. Having that sandbox to learn is one of the most valuable things I can imagine. If not for my parents and the Boy Scouts, my only business reference point would be work based sitcoms.
Q. What are you most passionate about, and how does it tie to your daily work?
A. My main passion is that we treat customers right. It’s probably some of the Boy Scout indoctrination. However, most of it is driven by a sense of perfection and trying to avoid the guilt of an unhappy customer. I obsess over a bad customer experience and have to process thru it to be able to move on. I get lots of satisfaction by improving things. I lose interest if things stagnate or a task becomes repetitive and no longer optimizable. The idea of constant iterative change and the occasional disruption suits me. I also enjoy the new things I have to figure out. On some days I’m a scientist, engineer, investigator, lawyer, judge or a plumber, etc. It’s never the same every day.
Q. Business owners have many responsibilities during the day. Some of those responsibilities are more challenging than others. What are a few of the things you find to be the hardest to do? What are some of the easiest? Moreover, why are these things easy or hard for you?
A. The hardest thing for me is finding uninterrupted time. Every day being different is great – having so much to do is a problem. I have lost weeks just trying to finish something in 30 min increments. Kind of related: the most challenging thing for me is finding good people – they make all the difference. I have learned to hire people that fill my weaknesses not people who are like me.
I can’t tell if someone is a good fit in an interview. I have to hire them and then decide in 2 weeks at most so I can circle back to my 2nd option. The destruction to customers, profitability, and other employees that a single person who is “not a good fit for the job” can bring is incredible. As long as I remember that, firing people is easy. If I forget, firing is a drawn out, expensive, painful to all parties process – especially me. The easy stuff is fixing systems and things – why because I’m a systems guy, not a people person.
Q. As an entrepreneur, all kinds of things can affect the business. We could spend all day, every day, worrying about those things. What are some of the things that “keep you up at night?” And what do you do each day to mitigate those worries?
A. I worry a lot – to the point of being unhealthy. I have a terrible fear of not doing things correctly – still a Boy Scout in some ways. I always strive to go above and beyond. I always play things straight – I assume that everything will always be discovered at some point – so it should be done in a way that would be correct from the get-go.
My biggest fears are someone taking advantage of us. This comes in two forms – frivolous lawsuits and unfairly instituted/ enforced regulations. I have seen a few ridiculous claims – I have a good family lawyer to pass them off. I also worry that someday an employee here makes a small mistake that destroys the company, puts all my employees out of work, and puts me in bankruptcy.
Many regulations often require academic-like responses, seem punitive, or meant for an unspecified situation—they are a time and soul killer. My fear comes in because they often seem to be unfairly applied. Unfortunately, you never know for sure how to comply or if the rule is real. You have to wait time to have an idea. It’s the uncertainty that gets me. The personal interpretation of a regulation by a single inspector has been devastating in time and money.
I mitigate these two things by trying not to think of them. I do all I can to do the right thing anyway and just hope.
Q. How do you motivate yourself each day? What do you do to let off steam?
A. Motivating is easy for me – I’ve worked all my life, so has everyone in my family. I’m a workaholic for sure. When things become overwhelming as they often do, I just have to remember to ignore the 100 things going on and move one thing forward at a time. Eventually, I can work out of the mess. I wish I could say being a business owner is glamorous – clearly, I’m doing it wrong, but my ‘letting off steam’ is maybe two days a year where I get to go hiking in the desert with not a soul in sight for miles.
Q. What’s your favorite customer story from your business?
A. For owners and managers, you really only hear the problems. It’s great you ask this question because it’s important not to lose sight of the daily things that go right. Ninety-eight percent of the time, things go good or perfect. The customer service people at ClassB get to hear all the good stories. I encourage them to share with everyone. We have the entire wall of the customer service area with photos and experiences that customers have shared with us.
I think my favorite situations are when we go out of our way big time to get the customer their shirts in time for an event that has special meaning for them. We have turned out shirts in a day and overnighted them because the customer made a mistake and we wanted to make it right for them. The best customer experiences come from looking for the customers best interests and ignoring the effect on any single transaction. Bake in some money to your price to be able to treat them the way you wish things worked.
Q. In your experience, what have you found works best to motivate employees?
A. Wow, have I worked the gamut on that! The one thing I have learned the hard way is don’t listen to what they say will motivate them. Money, benefits, and perks only work in certain market conditions or individual situations and are secondary or even a counter to the true motivator. The number one motivator is good managers. Those managers have to have people skills. They have to make the work environment-friendly, positive, professional, productive, fun and fair. They have to respect all the
employees by having their fellow employees have a purpose and contribute to the team.
All managers have to pull their weight and show appreciation for everyone’s efforts. They also have to hold a high standard. If all that is in place – employees will be close to self-motivated and not look to leave. They are more productive, and guess what: Now those managers worth more, and they get more money. Try to work it backward, and it does not work at all. I personally am a horrible motivator – I am lucky that I have managers that are really good at that.
Q. Entrepreneurs are risk-takers. We know there’s a probably a more significant chance for failure than for success. Still, we move forward. As you think about your entrepreneurial plans, what is your worst-case scenario? What makes that the “worst” for you?
A. I always view the current situation as transitory. What is working today will not at some point. All I can do is keep moving and try my best to adjust.
I think my worst case scenario is that I get so caught up in the day to day issues of running my business that I lose the big view of where the market is going, and we fall behind. Know this always happening to an extent. I don’t want to fail my family or employees because of something I missed. I don’t want to look back after the failure and realize I spent too much time on ABC instead of XYZ.
There is a burden in having so many people and their families relying on you for their lively hood. I have maybe 60-100 people indirectly or directly relying on me. I do not want to fail them. If it was just me, failure is easy and guilt-free – plus the Boy Scouts taught me how to survive in the woods if need be.
