1. We set an example for the Middle Tennessee businesses around us, and we encourage them to take up the responsibility of realizing and reacting to these four principles as well.
2. We assume that serving our Nashville customers with excellence begins at washing their boat, waxing their car, or tinting their windows.  From there, we think Albert Einstein was on to something when he said, “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”  Therefore, we strive to provide as many Nashville volunteer opportunities as possible with our Serving Those Who Serve campaign.
3. Picking up where number 2 left off—We host, participate in, and encourage our customers to get involved in events that serve our local community.  We also give a portion of our profits back in the form of local donations on a monthly basis.
4. We challenge one another to grow in the areas we’re strong in, we continue our education in the detailing/tinting world, and we expand our servant-leadership skills by constantly feeding our minds.

Why does Classic Reflections even exist—if we’re being honest—when there are already too many people waxing cars and tinting windows in the Nashville area to begin with?

To me, the answer to this question hits so close to home and creates so much anticipation for the future, that I often worry I don’t communicate it well.  It’s like when you see an amazing movie, or when you have a really great moment with a close friend… It’s just really hard to put that stuff in to words, isn’t it?  But here’s my best shot…

What Nashville needs are many, many more small business that make it a point to realize and react to four things:

1. The only reason we are successful is because we have been blessed through the consistent support of the community around us.
2. Serving our clients to the best of our abilities should include striving to ensure that each of them feels just as impacted through their relationship with us.
3. If our business were to fail, then our employee’s and client’s should not be the only lives that are negatively affected.
4. The highest level of excellence we are able to achieve today should be the point which we start and grow from tomorrow.

As Dave Ramsey says, “If you help enough people, then you don’t have to worry about money.”

I’m not even going to tell you how many car wash business there are; because the number is so high, you probably wouldn’t believe me anyways.

But it’s true.  Franklin, Brentwood, and Cool Springs don’t need another “Middle Tennessee’s Number One Auto Detailer.”  And neither does Murfreesboro, Spring Hill, Thompson’s Station, Green Hills, Belle Meade, Bellvue, Forest Hills, or Leipers Fork, either.

So, then.  Why are we here?  Why have we gone to the trouble of getting the website, the business cards, the equipment, and the products?  Why does Classic Reflections even exist—if we’re being honest—when there are already too many people waxing cars and tinting windows in the Nashville area to begin with?

Click here to find out what we think Nashville does need.

• Peck: You have described the vase—no you haven’t. What sort of blue is it, how tall is it and what is, approximately, it’s greatest diameter? Does it set on a base or does it not? Is it a solid blue, or is it figured?
• Along his way, Peck remembered the stack of papers waiting on his desk.  He had promised Mr. Skinner a few short hours earlier that he would file them before he left, despite the cold man’s insistence that they might wait.  “I wonder if there’s anyone down at Ricks Logging & Lumbering that could take on one or the other,” the young man mused, but then recalled that he’d given both Cappy Ricks and Mr. Skinner his personal word.  he was the man to get both jobs done.
• Peck: I may have misunderstood.  I’ll telephone his house and ask him to repeat.”  Nobody was at home except a butler, and all he knew was that Mr. Ricks was out.  So Mr. Peck went back and scoured once more every window in the block.  Then he scouted two blocks above Powell and two blocks below Stockton.
• He tried the door but it was locked, as he had anticipated it would be.  So he kicked the door and raised a racket, hoping against hope that the noise might bring a watchman from the rear.

Citation Information: Kyne, P. (2003). The Go-Getter: A story that tells you how to be one. New York, NY. Times Books.

• In “The Go-Getter,” Bill Peck, a war veteran, persuades Cappy Ricks, the crusty founder of the Ricks Logging & Lumbering Company, to let him prove himself with a sales assignment that everyone knows can only lead to failure.
• Cappy: If Matt makes a mistakes, it’s your job to remind him of it before the results manifest themselves.
• Cappy: When did you become a killjoy, throttling the neck of industry with absurd theories that a man’s back must be bent like an ox-box and his locks snowy-white before he can be entrusted with responsibility and a living wage?  This is a smart man’s world, a persistent man’s world, not an old man’s world.  And the go-getters of this world are as often as not under thirty years of age.
• Cappy: Courage is more important than experience.
• Peck: The surest way to give your competitors a run is to know them better than they know themselves.
• Cappy: Good gracious, how empty life would be if I couldn’t butt in and raise a little riot every once in so often.
• Cappy: Bill, I have been informed by my daughter that this crazy little blue vase just fills the order.  Understand?
  Peck: Yes, sir. You feel that it would be most graceful on your part if you could bring this little blue vase down to Santa Barbara with you tonight. You have to have it tonight, because if you wait until the store opens on Monday the vase will reach your hostess twenty-four hours after her anniversary party.”
  Cappy: Exactly, Bill.

Citation Information: Kyne, P. (2003). The Go-Getter: A story that tells you how to be one. New York, NY. Times Books.

• A leadership team is more effective than just one leader. For teams to develop at every level, they need leaders at every level.  Keep in mind that visionary leaders are willing to hire people better than themselves.
• Leaders are needed at every level of the organization.  If a team starts out with a leader but without a vision, it will do fine because it will eventually have a vision.  Leaders are always headed somewhere.
• Leading successfully at one level is a qualifier for leading at the next.  To find out if a person is qualified to make the jump, they look at that person’s track record in his or her current position.  Leadership is a journey that starts where you are, not where you want to be.
• Good leaders in the middle make better leaders at the top.  Today’s workers are tomorrow’s leaders in the middle of the organization.  And today’s leaders in the middle will be tomorrow’s leaders at the top.
• 360-degree leaders possess qualities every organization needs including: adaptability, discernment, perspective, communication, security, servanthood, resourcefulness, maturity, endurance, and countability.

Citation Information: Maxwell, J. (2006). The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence From Anywhere in the Organization. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books.

• What makes 360-degree leaders unique—and so effective—is that they take the time and effort to earn influence with their followers just as they do with those over whom they have no authority.  As a 360-degree leader, when you lead down, you are doing more than just getting people to do what you want.  You are finding out who they are, helping them to discover and reach their potential, showing the way by becoming a model they can follow, helping them become a part of something bigger than they could create on their own, and rewarding them for being contributors on the team.
• 360-degree leaders get more out of their people because they think more of their people.  Always see people as they can become.  Let them borrow your belief in them.  Catch them doing something right.  Give them the benefit of the doubt.  And understand that people usually rise to the leader’s expectations.
• Developing people while helping them get the job done at the highest level makes you an exceptional leader  As a leader, your first responsibility is to help others define the reality of who they are.  Sometimes that means having difficult conversations.  They thing you need to remember is that people will work through difficult things if they believe you want to work with them.
• Successful leaders find the strength zones of the people they lead.  When you place individuals in their strength zones, you change people’s lives for the better, their jobs becomes rewarding and fulfilling, and you help both the organization and yourself.
• Followers become like their leaders.  That’s why we must always be aware of our own conduct before criticizing the people who work for us.  If you don’t like what your people are doing, first take a look at yourself.
• As a leader in the middle of an organization, you will be transferring what is primarily the vision of others.  If there is no passion in the picture, then your vision isn’t transferable.
• Whatever actions leaders reward will be repeated.

Citation Information: Maxwell, J. (2006). The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence From Anywhere in the Organization. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books.

• You have to give your colleagues a reason to respect and follow you.  If you will help them win, you will not only help the organization, but also yourself.
• Make an effort to get to know them as individuals.  You should also strive to see others’ unique experiences and skills as resources and try to learn from them.  When you go out of your way to add value to your peers, they understand that you really want them to win with no hidden agenda of your own.  Affirm them by praising their strengths and acknowledging their accomplishments.
• Winning at all costs will cost you when it comes to your peers.  When it comes to your teammates, you want to complete in such a way that instead of completing with them, you are completing them.
• Playing politics is changing who you are or what you normally do to gain an advantage with whomever currently has power.  In the long run, integrity, consistency and productivity always pay off — in better teamwork and a clear conscience.
• Gossip is a poison and you should avoid it at all times.  The definition of gossip is: Complaining to anyone about something which they can’t help fix.
• Don’t let the personality of someone with whom you work cause you to lose sign of the great purpose, which is to add value to the team and advance the organization.  Listen to the ideas of people with whom you have no chemistry, or worse, a difficult history.
• Since nobody is perfect, we need to quit pretending.  People who are genuine concerning their weaknesses as well as their strengths, draw others to them.  They are a breath of fresh air in an environment where others are scrambling to reach the top by trying to look good.

Citation Information: Maxwell, J. (2006). The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence From Anywhere in the Organization. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books.