A Special Family Touch

YOUTH AWARD RECIPIENTS RECOGNIZED - Suffolk County Legislator Manuel Esteban Sr, Esq. (R-16th LD) recently recognized his recipients of the Distinguished Youth Award Program at a Suffolk County Legislature General Meeting. Pictured: Legislator Esteban with Award Recipients Dimitra Pavlatos and Caroline Stanzione.

Do You Have A GPS Plan For 2023?

Last month I wrote about starting the year on a strong note. My advice included reviewing your goals from last year, organizing your business and home, and moving all your correspondence to the digital world. Today, I want to share something I learned a few months ago; how to write a GPS plan to help you achieve your goals in 2023. To be successful in business, you must continue to learn and grow. The month-long workshop I took helped me create a roadmap for success and identified potential obstacles that I might run into along the way. Here are a few of the key takeaways:

1) Have a Strategic Goal for December 31st: Where do you want to be with your business at the end of the year? Write down specific, measurable goals (e.g., revenue, profit, number of items sold). This exercise helped me visualize what success will look like on 12/31/23.

2) Write Your GPS Plan: It’s the same idea as using your phone when you need to drive somewhere that you haven’t been to before. When you get into the car, you don’t put your phone away, you put it on the dashboard and follow every direction. Write your strategic goal at the top of a page, then include everything you will need to do during the year to hit that goal. This includes sales, expenses, finding new customers, opening a new location, buying equipment, using social media, etc. Once you have everything written down and broken out by month, you have a GPS plan for your business. The key is to follow it! Don’t put it in a filing cabinet.

3) Identify Obstacles. In my workshop, we played something called the “What If” game. We had to write down 10 things that kept us up at night. For example, what if…my building burned down? What if…my computers were hacked? What if…the housing market crashed? For every question, we had to write a response on how we would handle it. After I was done, I wrote “Emergency Response Plan” on the front of my paper. Now, if something bad happens, I won’t panic. I’ll know what to do.

It helps to have fewer surprises in business, and to know where I want to be at the end of the year. It means a lot less stress and a lot more focus on what I love to do.

Stanley Barany Sr. was born in Hungary in 1943. At the age of thirteen he, along with his brother and parents, escaped the revolution and came to America. Stanley later began working at a bakery, which was close to a monument company where he eventually landed a new job. As he quickly picked up the trade and excelled in all his work there, to his surprise he started to realize he was an artist (at the time all monument creation was done by hand). In the 1960s, Stanley proudly opened Heart 2 Heart in Lindenhurst, where he offered inscriptions and monuments. This changed to R. Barany Monuments, Inc. when Randy took over. His company wasn’t the only success in his life, as Stanley became the father of five children over the years. At one point or another four sons worked at the business. Randy, his youngest son, first started working with his dad at the age of eight. However, as a young child he didn’t understand the significance of their work, until a single moment forever changed and guided his life. While at a cemetery as a young child he had been running around the stones and just being a kid. His father called him over and said to him, “Listen son, all these people are someone’s family, you cannot play like this. You need to treat every stone you ever touch or work on as if it was my stone.” This stuck with Randy throughout his entire career and the company’s mottos later became, “Let our family help your family” and “Walk in as a customer but leave as family”.

Randy worked for his dad for about twenty years. Since he was the youngest, he never imagined that one day he would own and take over the business. However, as things became more digital, in reference to design work for their products, Randy became more involved in the progression of the company’s direction. He and his brother Scott stayed at the company with their father. When Randy took over, their mother Margaret and Scotts son, Scott Jr., joined the team as well.

In 2012, Randy took over the company and kept Scott on as one of the best layout and blasters in the business. Scott had started working for his dad at the age of eighteen and now has been in this industry well over thirty years, having called out sick only twice in his career. Scott’s son has also joined the family business.

Currently, they are one of the best monument design and etching companies in the business and have been in business for over 50 years. They are also one of the toprated Yahoo! And Google companies. They thoroughly work with cemeteries on the behalf of others and allow customers to help them design the monument they imagine. Barany Monuments feels that they offer some of the most competitive pricing in the business. Plus, they offer discounts to Police Officers, Firefighters and First Responders. They really try to ensure everyone gets a stone no matter their financial situation by offering other discounts as well as payment plans.

For more information, please call them at 631412-3268, visit www. baranymonumentlettering. com or visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/r. baranymonuments.