We recently connected with Wayne Brantley and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Wayne, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I am a retired high school history teacher and football coach. I was in education for 30 years! Today, I own and operate Wise Guys Historical Tours in Savannah, Georgia. Owning and operating a business is a lot like coaching a team. I think the number one area of being successful is building relationships and holding your people accountable. It is a lot of hard work but if you want to have a great team it is necessary to be elite in this area. Your people need to know that you sincerely love and care about them and their success. This means you have to invest in them. Investing means spending a lot of time listening to your people and knowing their needs, desires, goals, and dreams. You have to train, teach, mentor, motivate, and help them achieve a high standard. When they see that you are on their side and what you are doing for them makes a big difference in their life they will follow you!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was a teacher and coach for 30 years. I was a high school history teacher. Most of the years I taught 11th grade US History. I also coached football for 30 years, baseball for 18, and track for 5. When I retired I wanted to keep teaching history and I wanted to use the leadership abilities that I had developed over the years. It just seemed natural to give history tours and run a business. With that Wise Guys Historical Tours was born! We do tours of downtown Savannah, Bonaventure Cemetery, Laurel Grove Cemetery, and we also do ghost tours!

I am very proud of the fact that our history tours are researched and accurate. We pride ourselves on being historically correct. We also pride ourselves on customer satisfaction. We offer specialized tours to meet any need. We also offer discounts for seniors, military, fire and police, and teachers.

I have been married for 30 years, my wife is Lisa, and we have two children. My wife teaches 5th grade at Calvary Day School.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

There are several things that you can do to maintain high morale. One is you have to pay your employees what they are worth. One thing that will kill morale is for the employee that goes the extra mile and works really hard to achieve a high level to paid the same as workers who just strive for the bare minimum.

Everyone loves recognition. Point out the employees that are achieving higher levels or putting in extra effort. A little word of encouragement can go a long way.

Reward employees on their birthdays or anniversaries with a bonus or paid day off.

But most of all build a strong relationship with the way to help them be better at what they do.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

The book Good the Great by Jim Collins had a tremendous impact on me and my leadership philosophy. One really important lesson from the book is to get the right people on your team and then get them in the right position.

Contact Info:

• Website: wiseguystours.com