Part One: Is your Business Completely Interconnected? And what does it have to do with eating Zucchini Flowers?

Who eats Zucchini Flowers and WHY?

And what do these freshly picked, colorful flowers have to do with the question: Are your business departments interconnected?

 

Part One: The Introduction

Who are these people, what are they eating, and why are they eating flowers? 

And what does it have to do with what makes it so difficult for a Sales Department to communicate with the Service / Production Department?

 

"Communication - the human connection - is the key to personal and career success." 

                                                       Paul J. Meyer

 

 All good times start with great friends, family, and a mission to enjoy life.  I, too, agree with Paul Meyer; it is the human connection.  Let me and my friend Tom Porzio show you how to make these simple yet delicious delicacies. 

 

Before you may be thinking, WTF, why would anyone want to eat these bright yellow flowers? 

And WTF does this have to do with how and if your business is connecting everyone and every department? 

Let me bring you back to another generation—a place called Sessa Arunca, Italy.

 

All of my grandparents came from southern Italy.  My mom's parents came from Naples and a small town in the province of Caserta.  They brought so much to America.  They didn't come with much money, but they brought with them their skills, passion, hard work, family values, and, most importantly, to me, of course, the Italian dishes. 

I always wondered what makes Italian food and dishes so delicious?   

I believe one reason may be that they are so delicious can be that they have such simple ingredients.  They would call them peasant food.  Today this peasant food is served proudly, front and centered in the restaurants: Pasta Fagioli, Eggplant Rollatini, Panna Cotta.

 I thought about a bit more, and another reason could be that so many Italians lived on farms and were financially poor in Italy.  They came to America with two nickels to rub.  So maybe, they only had few ingredients to start making their food. They had their gardens and eggs from their chickens.

 I think it is both.

An example of simplicity is how they prepare a pasta dinner. Italians and pasta seem to go together. They start by making the pasta with a few ingredients: flour, eggs, and water. Then the sauce with tomatoes, garlic, oil, some spices. And, in Italy, if they could afford or barter for it, meatballs were made with ground meat, cheese, parsley, and bread crumbs)—a few ingredients to make such a fantastic simple meal.  Oh, and one more component that they ALWAYS add? Love.

 

If you need any advice on how to jar tomatoes, don't hesitate to go back to my last series and read The Tomato Paste Leadership Series.  Annuciatina will show you some of her skills to jar. And I will share with you how I became the leader and visionary to lead a top 3% company.

 

 

 

Zucchini Flowers Connection

 

All this talk of love and simple ingredients brings us to the question, who would eat zucchini flowers and why?  A simple yet delicious Italian dish my mom use to make for us every summer.  It is the simplicity of making fried squash flowers.  We call them in Italian "Fiori Di Zucca Friti."

We make this delicious dish with simple ingredients: flowers, flour, egg, and grated parmesan cheese—simple foods, few ingredients, cost-efficient, and lots of love.  

Simple foods bring me close to my family and friends.  And my willingness to be with family and with friends: always making an effort.

This particular occasion occurred with one of my oldest friends Tom Porzio and our zucchini flower gardener and growing extraordinaire Meg Fifield.

 

It all happened the morning after a Rolling Stones concert in Boston. 

 But let's diverge a bit.  Before Tom, Meg, and I show you how to prepare, cook, and eat the delicious Fiori Di Zucca Fritti, I want to ask you about something that caused me to lose time and money in my company.

What does this delicious dish have to do with connecting the departments in your business?

Friends that create Fiori di Zucca Fritti is a giant leap to solving a business issue whether or not all employees and departments are connected.

 My friends and I are connected, no matter how far we are location-wise, no matter what are work responsibilities are, no matter what are family obligations are.  We have a bond, and we know what the other person is doing.    

Let me take you when my company was in its infancy, and my partner and I just about controlled everything. 

When I ran my business, and it was small enough, I could control everything:

I knew what each crew was doing and where they were going.  I knew what the client wanted with a project; I sold it.

I could work with my crews and complete the job; I had my team and visited the other crews throughout the day. 

My partner invoiced the client, he knew what price to put on, and I knew if there were extras, we would never miss adding the extra dollars.

We were good at what we did, and being good at what we did, we started to grow and grow and grow.  Now connection was not that easy anymore.

You cannot imagine how many times, as the owner, I had sleepless nights? 

I would never know whether or not the production crews were doing the project that I sold?

And so many times, I wondered if accounting was invoicing the right dollars and if there was extra work done on the project, and did they bill for the extra work?

 I can tell you I had many sleepless nights.

 

When the company was at $1M sales, we could control every aspect.

But, we were about to hit the next milestone, the next stage of $3M sales. 

And let's face it, we didn't control every aspect anymore.

 

Some of the questions that plagued me over the many years as my business grew:

• What happens to the client's sign contract information?    

• How does the information get stored? 

• Where should the information go?    

• What information goes to Accounting?    

• What information goes to Production? 

• What information goes to Accounting but not Production?

 

I needed to do one of two things:

I could go back to the $1M sales and have enough time and energy to control everything, or

Start working faster in the company and with building systems and processes.

In addition to all of the work and business development, I was unsure how I would mentor and teach the processes and flows!

I did not have control of so many parts of the company: client requests, employee setup, and management, scheduling, invoicing, payroll, nor enough time in the day to be everywhere and do everything.

 

But what I do know, I know how to create the best Italian delicacy Fiori di Zucca Fritti.  So let me put aside for a moment, my sleepless nights, and show you a thing or two! 

 

 Do you want to learn how to create these zucchini flowers?

Do you want to know did we go back to our controllable small company or the next level company?

Maybe, you want to know how we connected everyone and every department?

Stay tuned for Part Two of Zucchini Flower Connection.

If you ever need to discuss or have a question, don't hesitate to contact me. 

For now, as always,

Be Great, Domenic