ENTREPRENEUR WATCH

Tina Gleisner, the owner of the My Handyman franchise in Greenland. Photo:  Michael McCord

While working as a computer development executive for nearly three decades for IBM, one of the most well known and tightly wound corporations in the world, Tina Gleisner always felt the urge to break out. She said she had been a closet, or “intra,” entrepreneur at IBM, and after 28 years of “living on airplanes” and being stationed in places as varied as California (north and south), New York, Tokyo, Atlanta and Hong Kong, Gleisner decided to slow down and set free her inner entrepreneurial spirit. The eventual result was the purchase of the Greenland-based My Handyman franchise, which specializes in home repair and rehabilitation. It was an interesting career shift for a self-professed “go-getter and rule breaker” whose intriguing resume pretty much mirrors the birth and growth of the PC revolution. “I wanted to have a different business,” Gleisner told me. “I’m very aggressive. When I want to do something, I go charging.” She has charged like a bull into a traditionally male ring, and discovered she enjoys the challenge of fostering and growing the three-year-old business, which services more than 75 towns in southern Maine and New Hampshire. Befitting her background, Gleisner also has ambitions to create a 1,000 person (or more) women’s network in the state and use the network as a personal business development avenue for all the members.

SV:  What’s been your biggest challenge?

TINA GLEISNER:  Finding technicians with the right mix of skills. In the construction business, you might have three-quarters of the guys who have great technical skills to do the work, but may not be the best communicators. One of the most important aspects of this business is to make customers comfortable, to articulate in English what needs to be done and let them know it will be done efficiently and with great quality. I now have enough experience to be able to see if someone will be able to fit in with these requirements.

SV:  What else have you learned?

TINA GLEISNER:  How to better manage the quality of work. I’ve spent a lot more time recruiting, training and juggling the calendar. There’s a lot I’d rather do on my own, which I guess is what every entrepreneur feels like, but I’ve got to bite the bullet and delegate and not try to do everything. I’ve tried to get into more of a management than operational mode.

SV:  What’s the best part of owning your own business?

TINA GLEISNER:  The best part is really being able to create a vision and follow it and then adjust it as I need to. I have done that a lot here. There’s no bureaucracy I have to deal with now. When I was at IBM, I saw that it was easier for people to go through with a wrong plan than to admit it was bad and change it. If my grand plan in January or March is not viable, it may not be easy to let go of it. I found that I was the only one in the way.

SV:  How have you marketed your business?

TINA GLEISNER:  I’ve had to revamp my marketing to have more flexibility. So far, the most efficient methods have been the yellow pages and the (painted) vans. They have been the best sources of new customers. Our business is more cyclical; it’s more about people thinking about doing things around the homes. One thing I didn’t learn (at IBM) was how the media industry is organized and how people get information from different sources.

SV:  What has been the response to your call for a women’s network – and does it have a name yet?

TINA GLEISNER:  We’re still working on the name. The response was incredible. When I sent the announcement out (in February), I had a 30 percent response rate and they were very enthusiastic. I needed help with this to create a really good newsletter, and I’ve decided to delegate that as well and hire someone to work with me.