Things have started happening fast at our little Brighton plant. We wrote more orders in August than we did all of last year. We have hired more help and increased our orders for material. Our deliveries are out 8 to 10 weeks and at the present rate we will soon be booked through this Christmas season. It is exciting. It is what we hoped for. It is a ton of work and it is scary as hell.

There is a misconception that people who are self-employed and own their own companies are their own bosses. The truth is all of your customers become your "boss" and your level of commitment to satisfied customers dictates how hard you work for them. With a customer base that grows daily and a product whose popularity seems to grow exponentially as more and more people see it, the number of people who we need to keep happy is getting larger fast.

The scary part is realizing that deliveries must be met and the product must be top quality. Our lack of diversity and small financial cushion means that any glitch in the flow can be catastrophic. Our material must make it here as promised. Our product must come out of the box looking great and working perfectly. We have to please a lot of "bosses".

At Technacraft we try to keep people aware of who the real boss is -- the customer. The quality of the work they do will be judged in the marketplace and the company's ongoing success is directly related to the work they do. Just as everyone is aware of the backlog and the calls from excited customers, they are also aware of the occasional call from someone who received a faulty product. Thankfully those calls are rare and are not used to berate anyone. They are used as a teaching tool and a reminder as to who really pays the payroll.

As the operation grows, so does the need to depend on your people to do their job with less supervision and more efficiency. If you have trained them right and given them the tools they need, then the efficiency will come with experience. If your treat them as the most vital part of the manufacturing process, which they are, they will respond with the enthusiasm and dedication you need to grow your company and produce quality products.

Our growing cast of chime makers includes high schoolers and retirees. I've found that people want to work and enjoy seeing the process of taking raw material and turning it into a thing of beauty that brings happiness to people. It is a neat feeling to see something you built appear in a national catalog and to realize people all over the country are enjoying your product. Because of our small size, the operation is still close and personal. Everyone still can do all of the jobs and typically get to do several jobs in any given day. This keeps them fresh and provides a new set of eyes to inspect the product as it makes its way to the shipping dock.

One challenge will be to maintain the level of involvement and camaraderie that exists today when the company has many more employees. We think it can be done. There has been a lot written about empowering employees and using a team approach to manufacturing. We believe it works and will strive to grow the company in a way that nurtures the team spirit and allows the employees to be decision makers. We have the advantage in that we are establishing a new culture, not reengineering an old one.

Human resources is the subject of countless books, courses, articles and debate. There are few absolutes when dealing with human nature and not everyone will fit into the organization. However, I believe people want to do a good job, want to be treated fairly and really appreciate recognition for good work, even if it's a simple "attagirl"