Columbus. Tonight with me is Shawn Cunix, the CEO and Founder of Cunix Enterprises.

Congratulations Shawn on winning this prestigious award. You're company Wireless was selected

as one of the top 60 companies in central Ohio. Tell us how you're feeling right now.

It's a great feeling. It's been about a year and a half in the making. It's been a prime

objective of our company to get this award and it's just something that we're all very

very proud of.

Thank you. So Shawn what is the secret to success that won you this award?

Well one of the biggest things we do at Wireless is we've been doing surveys and we do them

3 times a year on average and we really try to listen to what the employees are saying.

Not just all the ones that are currently working there but we do exit interviews as well. We

try to learn what the people were unhappy with that left and did they just go look for

a new opportunity or was there something specifically that made them feel like they need to leave

the organization and another thing I'm very proud of is all the upper management knew

coming down from me, the Founder, that it was a big deal to me to not be the largest

company but be the best and one of the ways to define the best is obviously having your

employees say "hey, this is one of the greatest places to work".

Excellent. And Shawn, you were recently presented with the Champions of Life Award at the Godaddy

Bowl and tonight this special award given by the Columbus CEO and Channel 10 TV Top

Workplaces in Columbus. Can you share and give us some advice to other entrepreneurs

how you seek to achieve this personal and business success?

Well another thing through experience that I've learned is if you put the employees and

the customers first and not just look at how much money that you're going to make in the

transaction or in every day business. Granted we all have to make money and the business

has an operating expense line to cover but it's a big deal if you educate your people.

One of my core values is empowerment. And empowerment just isn't letting the employees

make the decisions. A big part of empowerment is the education piece and that's educating

your employees why it is you make certain decisions and in a sales organization why

it is their particular goals are what they are and I pride myself on even though there's

some young people in the organization, I like giving them some financial wisdom and education

on you know the operating expense line and why their goals were picked and how much money

it takes to run the business. Some people in my industry say you're wasting your time

by educating these people or giving them numbers they won't understand them but again one of

the things we pride ourselves on is really breaking it down and you know the other thing

I'm very proud of and it gets harder to do as you get larger....300 some employees now....I

still like to have a family feel in the company. One of the things that I'm proud that I still

will do is every day I wish people a Happy Birthday or a Happy Anniversary and I send

emails to the top performers and then even some of the ones in the middle or bottom I

kind of send emails saying "hey, i know you can do better" and it's something that I do

touch you know I'd say I'm touching somewhere around 5-10% of the company every week and

in some cases it's different people, some cases it's the same but again they get to

see the Founder of the company still reaching out and showing people that they care about

them enough to empower them, educate them and pat them on the back for the great things

they're doing as well as recognize their birthday or their years of service to the organization.

Well thank you for your time Shawn. And congratulations once again to you and your fabulous team.

And we're very honored here to speak with Shawn Cunix and thank you for sharing your

example with the business community of central Ohio.