Peninsula Small Business Talk

Fawni Hill, Larick Alan Hill and her husband Larick have owned their architectural practice for 30 years.  They have designed over 500 homes in the Bay Area and more than 2 million square feet of office space.  Larick Alan Hill can do everything from initial design to project management.

Last month, Fawni shared some new trends in architecture and design with PEA.  She said the three top trends right now are height (buildings are getting taller), sustainability (use of eco-friendly materials, especially important in the US) and biologically-inspired spaces (trying to bring the outside in).

Some trends in the workplace include the use of glass. Offices are becoming more open, with best views given to employees rather than executives.  Another interesting trend is the reduction in the use of cubicles.  Instead the workplace is becoming more communal.

Residential trends include more multi-family homes and more communal living. Even in single-family homes, people are looking for more multi-use spaces with huge kitchens.  Fawni says the kitchen has become the hub of the house, where the family gathers to eat and socialize with friends.  Dining rooms are being used for other things, like as a computer area. Although people want to be energy conscience, they still want luxury on a small scale, meaning comfort rather than expense. Fawni says that as the baby boomers are aging, they want to stay in their home and are retrofitting them to make their homes wheelchair accessible.

Fawni ended by identifying current color trends.  She says neutral colors are in, like colors of anything you find in the American landscape (blue oceans, gray rocks, green grass, etc.). Benjamin Moore’s color of the year is a gray-blue called Wythe blue (HC-143, see below!)  Fawni highly recommends Benjamin Moore paints, and says you can get them from Larry Hassett at Palo Alto Hardware.

Source

Read more about the color of the year here.

Larry and Laurie Moore celebrated their 40^th year in business by doing a tag-team presentation last week.  Larry took the podium first to outline the classification for the morning.  First, they showed a short video produced for them by Diamond Certified that gave a general overview of the business.  Laurie then took the podium to talk about their environmental consciousness and customer service.  Larry’s Autoworks was in the forefront of local businesses who changed work practices for better care of the environment.  They began this work in the early 80’s and Larry became very involved in the effort.  He served on the committee that set standards for other automobile repair services.  Larry’s Autoworks has won a slew of awards, including from the city of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California EPA and national EPA as well as many others.  Their innovations included ways to clean the floor, strategies for recycling or repurposing parts, and being among the first to use safer solvents, coolants for air conditioning, and re-refined oil.  They are still one of the only shops to offer a selection of re-refined motor oils.  These have become very good in quality, so much so that Mercedes ships cars from the factory containing re-refined oil.

As for customer service, they have been innovators here as well.  Larry’s Autoworks is a woman-owned business and takes several measures to make the business friendly to their female customers.  The waiting area is child-friendly and inviting with comfortable chairs, wireless Internet connectivity, and a few fun art pieces.  Their service advisors are trained to educate rather than sell.  They recognize that the customer is the person in charge of service decisions – they will advise on when they think it is best to fix and when it is best to replace.  In recognition of their outstanding customer service and high-quality diagnosis and repairs, they have won Best Of awards from local community newspapers nine times.

Larry took the podium next to talk about their preventive maintenance program.  Larry says that when they started their business, they just fixed cars like everyone else.  Now, they stress preventive maintenance to keeps cars from breaking in the first place and to ultimately reduce maintenance costs, because a preventive fix is often much cheaper than fixing something after it has broken.  Most repairs can be delayed or completely prevented through preventive maintenance.  The key points of the program are: 1) regular visits, 2) standard inspections made and documented, and 3) comparison of metrics to known good numbers.  Larry’s Autoworks recommends that you bring your car in every six months.  Cars brought in for inspection and preventive care can be expected to run safely for the next six months.  Measuring the wear on existing parts and comparing these numbers to known standards means that the mechanics can predict the life left on the part.  As another example, Larry says that they always measure the copper and water content of brake fluid before doing a flush, as this is a procedure that can damage the antilock system if done improperly.

Laurie and Larry ended the presentation with a virtual tour of their shop via a PowerPoint slideshow spanning the years from their beginning as Larry’s Bug Shop to the present.

John Sylvester, SST Insurance Brokers used his spotlight talk to tell PEA about the value of having employment practices insurance coverage.  John gave two cautionary scenarios to illustrate the potential need for this type of insurance.

He began by having PEA members imagine this situation: You get to your office and are presented with a summons that says you are being sued by a former employee you let go recently.  Now, the employee is suing you for wrongful termination.  You call your insurance broker, assuming it would be covered through your comprehensive general liability or workers compensation since it is an employee-related lawsuit.  He says, however, that this kind of lawsuit is excluded under those policies, so you will need to hire your own attorney.  If any judgment is made against you, you will need to reach into the company assets or your personal assets to pay it.

John presented a second situation; this time an actual case experienced by a client who did have employment practices insurance coverage.  This client had an employee who worked for them for three years and then decided to resign and move to across the bay with her boyfriend.  Two months later, John’s client received a letter from the California State Employment Bureau saying that a complaint had been filed.  The complaint stated that the employee left due to a hostile work environment.  They called John and SST Insurance Brokers, who turned the case over to the employment practices liability carrier.  They provided an attorney and defended the case.  The business did pay a deductible of $2,500, but that was much less than the lawyer fees.  John’s client did not have to worry about the business being closed down and the suit was successfully defended.

Employment practices insurance covers situations like wrongful termination, failure to promote, hostile work environment, and sexual harassment (including employees suing the company or clients claiming employees have harassed them).

Maureen Clark, Clark Associates commented that what John says is true and that the insurance is very reasonable in price.  In answer to a question, John said the cost of insurance is based on the number of employees.  These types of lawsuits have been on the rise the last ten years and John says are likely to continue to increase.  He highly recommends this coverage to PEA businesses and says he can handle it for you if needed.

PEA businesses are starting 2012 off well!  Congratulations on everyone’s successes this month.

• Bette Asbra, Pro-Staff Painting thanked Tom Brown, All Reasons Moving and Terry Pebbles, Optimum Floors.  Terry put in a beautiful hardwood floor for a client and All Reasons not only moved the furniture out for the installation, when they moved it back in they put on anti-scratch pads.
• Dan Ingerman, Wemorph said that they just worked on designing a set for a TV show.  The TV show is based in Palo Alto and Dan will be talking about sustainability.
• Larry Hassett, Hardware Stores took a car that needed body work to Scott Yeaman, Yeaman Autobody. He wrote a positive review for Scott’s web site, which entered him into a drawing.  Larry won a Flip Video camera, which he likes a lot.
• Jon Maystrik, Arborwell Professional Tree Management had a great year last year.  Arborwell had great growth last year especially in Southern California.  Jon had a great year personally and thanked PEA for contributing to that.
• Georgie Gleim, Gleim the Jeweler was in New York last week and wanted to report that the Christmas holiday season was good for them.  She thanked everyone at PEA who helped make that possible.
• Richard Phillips, Advantage Career Solutions, says that this has been a good year so far for his clients.  One just signed off on a job as an IT Director with a pay raise.  Another was hired with a sign-on bonus at PayPal.
• Albert Ong, Ambassador Services signed a big contract with Stanford.  He immediately had to go in with one day’s notice to clean carpets before a Saturday event.
• Avi Safar, Footwear, Etc., said that December was a record month for them, especially in the Palo Alto and Los Altos stores.
• Judy Johnson, Unexpected Treasures thanked Robin Azevedo, McRoskey Mattress Company for sending the most interesting new client in several years.  She also thanked Darnel Rogan, Saber Roofing for a lead on a job in Atherton.
• Shawn McMillan, Connoisseur Coffee thanked everyone for the orders over the last week.  It has been 13 months since the fire and he is now hoping to re-open in a few more months.
• Julie Fukuhara, Stern Mortgage says that in doing her business tracking at the end of the year, she saw that 25% of her business came through Yelp.  Anyone who doesn’t have a Yelp profile or who has no reviews on Yelp should be working to correct that.
• Darnel Rogan, Saber Roofing thanked Bob Rosenberg, GR8WORK Builders, Inc. for a lead on job in Portola Valley.
• Bobbie Fakkema, Events, Etc… thanked Jeff Badzik, Perfection Auto Detail for the beautiful detailing on her car.  She also thanked Laurie and Larry Moore, Larry’s Autoworks for going over her car (one of the things she bought at the Holiday Auction).
• Carol Garsten, Nature Gallery said there is a good reason why you haven’t seen her at the meetings lately – she is moving the Nature Gallery to a new location in Los Altos.  The new address is 296 State Street, Los Altos.  She plans a Grand Opening on February 10.  She also reported that January was her best January in 25 years of business.  She thanked Georgie Gleim, Gleim the Jeweler for sponsoring her in PEA and suggesting the Los Altos location.  She thanked Dave Dove, Cassidy Turley BT Commercial, for helping her negotiate the lease in her new location. Finally, she thanked Susan Hamilton, VTF Services for the help with the plants.
• Larry Moore, Larry’s Autoworks thanked Jon Maystrik, Arborwell Professional Tree Management for the beautiful job they did on their trees.   The neighbors came over and complimented the job.  Laurie Moore, Larry’s AutoWorks thanked Susan Hamilton, VTF Services, for coming over and taking piles of redwood chips from their tree trimming project.
• Kaye Sharbrough, Senior Seasons thanked Dan Ingerman, Wemorph for the new Seniors Seasons sign-on-a-stand.  This solves an upcoming problem of needing to be in two places at once, thus needing a second banner.
• Dr. Leta Zwiebel, Psychologist announced that last Wednesday was her last in San Mateo.  She is now only going to her San Mateo office on Mondays.  While she feared that her patients would be unhappy about this change, she got positive responses from them.
• Gary Rudolph, Rudolph’s Interiors thanked Angelo Izzo, California Business Opportunities for his help investigating a business opportunity.

Welcome to our newest feature, PEA’s Facebook Page of the Month!  We will be featuring one PEA business and their Facebook page each month, so make sure to check back to see what our members are up to on the Internet.

PEA Member Name: Bobbie Fakkema of Events, Etc…

Business Classification: Catering

Member Since: August 2005

An award-winning and full service catering and event production company, Events, Etc… was founded in 1983 by Barbara (Bobbie) Fakkema. Since their first day in business, Events, Etc… has used their professional design and catering services to create beautiful, successful events and serve delicious, creative fine cuisine to the greater Bay Area.

Over the past 25 years, Bobbie and Events, Etc… have received multiple awards, most recently Bobbie was named in the “Top 50 Women in Business” in Silicon Valley in 2001 and 2003 and Events, Etc… earned the distinguished award from NACE San Francisco, “Catered Event of the Year.”  Bobbie caters weddings, corporate events, parties, and whatever else you need.  No matter how big or small, Events, etc… is will help make your event unique and memorable.

Bobbie’s Facebook page features lots of new pictures from her most recent events and some fun behind the scenes pictures from Events, Etc…‘s kitchen!

All pictures in this post are from Bobbie’s Facebook page.  Click images to enlarge.

Check out Events Etc… on Facebook HERE

Don’t forget to ‘Like’ PEA on Facebook HERE

Carol Garsten, Nature Gallery is moving to Los Altos after being located in Palo Alto for the last 17 years.

Picture by Elliott Burr- Source

Carol is featured in an article in the Los Altos Town Crier, introducing her and her shop to her new community.  Carol’s new store is more than twice as big as her old one in Palo Alto, and Carol is looking forward to getting involved in the Los Altos community.  Here is a small piece of the article, written by Diego Abeloos:

Garsten told the Town Crier a key factor in her decision to move to the corner of State and Second streets was the positive energy she felt in the downtown area. Calling downtown Los Altos “a place that’s on the upswing,” Garsten said it was a case of going to the right place at the right time.

“I really want to be a part of something that’s positively changing, where it feels like there’s a positive energy,” said Garsten, who is planning a grand opening. “There are good things happening (in Los Altos).”

Read the whole article here!

Nature Gallery‘s grand opening will be held on February 10th, 2012 at her new location, 296 State Street, Los Altos, CA.  Congratulations and good luck in your new location Carol!

Look out for our newest monthly feature!  Beginning in February, we will be highlighting different PEA businesses and their Facebook pages.

PEA members, listen carefully at the meeting to learn how you can win a prize just for ‘Liking’ the PEA business page on Facebook.

Click HERE to check out our Facebook page today!

Click Image to Enlarge

Public Relations committee chair Erik Jacobsen, Threestory Studio reported on the results of the Small Business survey.  The profit index is down while the outlook index has jumped up, especially in comparison with December when it was at a low.  Web traffic was fairly quiet over the past 30 days, which Erik attributes partly to the holidays.  He noted that Facebook sent 42 visits to the site. People came to the site searching for: gleim the jeweler, larick alan hill, jill bibo, karatin blowout menlo park, and how to really clean your tongue.

For new members, Georgie Gleim introduced her business Gleim the Jeweler as a third-generation, family-owned business.  She can’t quite beat Robin Azevedo, McRoskey Mattress Company at 150 years, but Gleim the Jeweler was started by her grandfather on April 1, 1931.  While she at one time had three store locations, they have consolidated and now have one store at Stanford Mall and a business office in downtown Palo Alto.  They are one of the original tenants of Stanford Mall and she says that this has proven to be a great location for them.

Georgie is proud to be a member of the American Gemological Society (AGS).  She says that this group sets the standards for the industry.  You must re-earn your membership at the AGS each year by passing a test that requires updated training in gems and business ethics.  Only the upper echelon of jewelers are members of the AGS.  Both her father and Georgie have been President of the AGS.  Georgie is currently the chair of another industry society, Jewelers of America.

She commented that having a long history and a great reputation is important in the jewelry business, which is still run on trust and a handshake in many cases.  It is not unusual for a vendor to send her items worth $10,000 and up based on trust.

In addition to retail sales, Gleim the Jeweler offers a number of services.  They can repair jewelry and have a goldsmith on the premises (an increasingly rare phenomenon).  They will repair jewelry that was not purchased from them and get many referrals from their Stanford neighbor, Tiffany.  They also do custom work – Georgie noted that their website shows examples of some of the custom pieces their goldsmith has created.  They have a watchmaker who can change batteries although they do send out watches for more involved repair work.  They do all kinds of appraisals.

A big part of their business is in estate and antique jewelry.  Estate jewelry is basically pre-owned jewelry and may be only a few years old.  There are a lot of good values in estate jewelry and it is a fun part of the business because of the many unusual pieces that they get in.  For the most part, estate jewelry is sold on consignment, resulting in a better profit for the client and less risk for the store.  Recently they sold a piece of estate jewelry that had over 20 karats in diamonds.

They also have a large focus on colored gemstones.  They just had a trunk show focusing on The Gleim Collection, featuring diamonds, pearls, and colored gemstones set in gold and platinum.  In addition to colored gemstones, they are also an authorized Rolex dealer.

Sam Harding, Retirement Administration recently won a community service award at the 29th annual Los Altos-Los Altos Hills Joint Community Service Awards luncheon.  The award ceremony was written up (with accompanying picture) in the Los Altos Town Crier.

“Nominated by non-profit groups and selected by a 12-member committee, honorees represent involvement in a variety of areas, from schools to libraries and youth sports. The nine honorees selected this year include:”

…

“Sam Harding, a longtime Los Altos Rotary Club member who has been involved in a wide range of activities, from coaching baseball to involvement in the YMCA, the Community Health Awareness Council and the Palo Alto veterans’ hospital.”

Congrats Sam!

To read the full article and see his picture click here.