Success isn't about having the right people, the right tools, or the right structure. They all help, but they don't put a company over the top. Instead, success is all about having the right partners in your supply chain with the understanding of what causes what, and why.
As I have preached from day one, your business isn't built on the differentiation that manufacturers have attempted, in vain, to build into their products but on the quality, reliable services, and fair value for your money on those products. Yet, most companies consistently fail to meet even these basic customer needs.
The importance therefore of what causes 'what', and 'why' takes on a greater importance for the understanding and prediction of what's next within our industry and our particular businesses success. Obviously, we all have choices regarding our individual businesses. These choices are as varied as the description of an architectural door hardware distributor, with everyone doing and operating to their preferences, strengths and abilities. But, regardless, of these choices, we can all better predict the future if we understand, accept, and then act on the causes of 'what' and 'why'.
We have all read and heard about the over used phraseology of rapid growth and changing end-user demands rhetoric for decades. If you have a thriving business in the material supply construction industry, you already know that times change, demands change, products change and so on. What we should focus on is that disruption creates opportunities as well as threats. I believe that recognition of events and interpretation of such allows us to see the future clearer and therefore we can make better choices today which subsequently leads to better success tomorrow.
I believe that there is a value chain attribution that states that companies who take control of any activity or combination of activities, within the value chain, that drives performance in ways that matter most to their customers, regardless of historical experiences or personal preferences, are able to look into the future and show greater profits (not necessarily growth or topline sales) than ever before. Are there signals of change that have been ignored within your company in reference your present vendors? Are there signs that someone is capitalizing on opportunities at your expense? What are the likely result of battles between industry combatants? Are you making decisions that increase or decrease your ultimate chances of success?
All important questions to be individually answered. More importantly, are there clues that something is taking place, and believe me after two decades of working under different corporate ownerships, executive advisory committees, board meetings, inside-out looks into the public giants of our industry, the merger and acquisition fallacies and private conversations regarding door hardware distribution, you can count on it that something is taking place and, just maybe, not to your benefit. So, what to look, listen and pay attention too while building value into your door hardware architectural business is key.
Are you receiving more or less attention from your vendors? Is the emphasis from your vendor's operation tending toward growth, top-line sales, raising prices, excuses for delivery and less from customer input? Is your contacts (sales and customer service) with the company informed about the company or do you have to tell them what is going on about their own company? Is your frustration growing with the rhetoric of the vendor? Limitation of product or constant upcharge for performance enhanced attention that historically had been part of the original deal? Is the disruption with change creating market innovations or is it cutting into your profits? Are you being told that your vendor has reached all of their mid-year goals, that their sales are double digit but your service levels, pricing and attention doesn't reflect those statements? Are your vendors touting the high cost of steel, health care, and rise of petroleum based materials yet their concern for your business costs are never discussed? Do they tout their great employees yet your conversations with those employees are less than enthusiastic? Do they tout their obligations to the employees and concern for their families yet their working conditions are barely tolerable, employee turnover is double digit and your sales contact changes with regularity? I'm sure you get the point about honest questions and their subsequent meanings.
One of the very overlooked pieces of analysis regarding this subject is the process of evaluating or predicting industry change involving competitive battles. This will help you understand the companies' strengths and weaknesses, and when it is better to bet on an entrant to a market versus an incumbent. Remember when AT&T assumed MCI was an insignificant blip on its radar screen. Almost all incumbent leaders similarly discounted the ability of their disruptive competitors to move into the arena and take business. It is rare to predict what specific innovations, take-overs, mergers or consolidations will occur to boost a distruptive atmosphere but you can always predict that the disruptive firms will be motivated to figure out a way to do it more profitably for the customer.
And more importantly, when evaluating this potential battle within competition of vendors consider not only what is taken for granted, in that it is visible and obvious, such as fixed assets, technology, management, and product lines, but more importantly its established processes and values which define its strengths. Winners succeed at opportunities that fit their individual resources, processes and values, and struggle with those that run counter to those strengths thus emphasing, those that know themselves and their customers best, do what they do best.
The resources of a company can be assessed somewhat easily but the company's 'processes' are much more difficult to understand; yet, are telling in the final analysis toward their customer. Processes are the patterns of interaction, coordination, communication, and decision making employees work resources into products, services and other resources of greater worth to the customer. In other words, the best way to determine a company's processes from the outside is to imagine the kinds of problems it must have repeatedly solved in order to somewhat succeed. Yet, if companies must solve the same problem repeatedly, they develop a business double speak that simply changes the color of lipstick on the same old pig.
The company's values are the criteria employees use when making prioritization decisions. Every employee at every level of the company makes these sorts of decisions every day. These values drive a company's resource process that directly impacts the customer in both negative and positive ways depending upon the philosophy of the company toward its employees and customers. The historical data of individuals (record of philosophy toward customer) will always run true to present dealings. It is your obligation to recognize these keys for what they are and prepare accordingly. Even though companies should always seek to disrupt their competitors, they should never seek to disrupt their customers.
Until the next issue, stay healthy, be happy, and keep your friends close.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Volume 7 - Congratulations Formula One
I’ve been a racecar fan from my earliest memories of my father tearing engines apart, rebuilding them, and repeating the process innumerable times. Pictures of him, hang in my office, winning the midget championships in 1937 driving a Chrysler special number 7, and running stock, modifieds, and even, in 1956, owning a Chrysler 300, which ran in the then category of ‘new cars’. He was one of the very first to experiment with power steering, something taken for granted today in NASCAR. Speaking of that organization, NASCAR, it has grown exponetially because, ‘the powers to be’ still recognize its fan as the most important ingredient, and may they always keep us (the fan) as their core value. Other major sports, from the NFL to the NBA and Major League Baseball, who can’t deal with their drug problems, strikes, and other business miss-managements, have all long forgotten the fan.
Thank goodness for auto racing in all of its forms, whether it be a sanctioned NASCAR event, a Friday night at your local dirt track, the 24 Hours of Daytona with the DP prototypes, a Grand AM or a SCCA event, the BAJA 1000 or the IRL with the presence of a contending female in Danica Patrick to Formula One. Excuse me, did I say Formula One? The same people that this past Father’s Day Weekend ran a total of six cars at Indianapolis, because they couldn’t settle a dispute among themselves about tire safety (and control of organizational power)?
Congratulations Formula One. You have now joined the ‘big’ leagues of major sports. You aren’t any better than Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA or even the NHL (arguably a question of whether this is a major sport), as they all forgot about the fan years ago. For stadiums, team owners, city and state administrations that don’t have the courage to say “no” and all collapse under the pressure to give tax payer money away to multi-millionaires, rather than change some rules and get the monies to local schools or State health care for their needy residents. Now, FIA, you show up at the only event you run in within the United States and with the largest tire manufacturer in the world, that can’t resolve a problem, that I’m sure, didn’t raise its ugly head until right before the race. So much for the American Market, take your internal struggles and go back to Europe, Asia or South America and insult other major racing markets with your insolence, ego and attitude, but spare us your rhetoric.
It’s simple. It’s all about the fan. The fan didn’t cause your problems, but, they always pay the price. You should understand Business 101, it’s all about the focus on the customer. It’s about on-time, complete shipments at a fair price. Those that listen and execute this core value have successful enterprises; those that don’t, think of a million excuses for their failure. They call in experts from afar, they blame the economy or even the workforce, but they never look in the mirror. It’s too bad that I’ve already given out the June 2005 ‘Stupid award’ (check earlier blog) for the FIA, from Mosley to Ecclestone to Michelin to the individual teams should all be able to share it!
Thank goodness for auto racing in all of its forms, whether it be a sanctioned NASCAR event, a Friday night at your local dirt track, the 24 Hours of Daytona with the DP prototypes, a Grand AM or a SCCA event, the BAJA 1000 or the IRL with the presence of a contending female in Danica Patrick to Formula One. Excuse me, did I say Formula One? The same people that this past Father’s Day Weekend ran a total of six cars at Indianapolis, because they couldn’t settle a dispute among themselves about tire safety (and control of organizational power)?
Congratulations Formula One. You have now joined the ‘big’ leagues of major sports. You aren’t any better than Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA or even the NHL (arguably a question of whether this is a major sport), as they all forgot about the fan years ago. For stadiums, team owners, city and state administrations that don’t have the courage to say “no” and all collapse under the pressure to give tax payer money away to multi-millionaires, rather than change some rules and get the monies to local schools or State health care for their needy residents. Now, FIA, you show up at the only event you run in within the United States and with the largest tire manufacturer in the world, that can’t resolve a problem, that I’m sure, didn’t raise its ugly head until right before the race. So much for the American Market, take your internal struggles and go back to Europe, Asia or South America and insult other major racing markets with your insolence, ego and attitude, but spare us your rhetoric.
It’s simple. It’s all about the fan. The fan didn’t cause your problems, but, they always pay the price. You should understand Business 101, it’s all about the focus on the customer. It’s about on-time, complete shipments at a fair price. Those that listen and execute this core value have successful enterprises; those that don’t, think of a million excuses for their failure. They call in experts from afar, they blame the economy or even the workforce, but they never look in the mirror. It’s too bad that I’ve already given out the June 2005 ‘Stupid award’ (check earlier blog) for the FIA, from Mosley to Ecclestone to Michelin to the individual teams should all be able to share it!
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Volume 6 - Independence2 update with the Operations & Marketing Member's remarks
As you know, if you've been reading my blog or getting our newsletter, we've been working on the building blocks of putting together a new start-up international architectural door hardware company. Along with the effort of finding great people, (who presently are working with other companies, but have dedicated precious time and energy for this plan to be part of their future lives as they will all be percentage owners in this venture), quality products, internal systems, equity and debt financing, etc., it just takes time to do it right. Hence, we have not just thrown together a fly-by-night company, instead, we are taking the time to build a long lasting organization.
Our Operations and Marketing Member, Ms. Bonnie Buchanan, has spent exhaustive hours with software experts implementing an internal business structure integrated to ensure real-time deliverable results on our door hardware products and to establish a superior "ease of doing business" with us customer experience, that supports and enhances our first core company value, which is, our customers are the focal point of our business. In our recent newsletter, I have asked Ms. Buchanan to include a few words, to our perspective customers, on the topic of our Organization and its technology, so I'm including those remarks in this addition of my blog. Ms. Buchanan has also recently been published in the June 2005, edition of CRMGuru.com and a copy of her article, "Have CRM Vendors Ever Heard of Customer-Centricity?". You can view her article by clicking HERE.
Our Operations and Marketing Member, Ms. Bonnie Buchanan, has spent exhaustive hours with software experts implementing an internal business structure integrated to ensure real-time deliverable results on our door hardware products and to establish a superior "ease of doing business" with us customer experience, that supports and enhances our first core company value, which is, our customers are the focal point of our business. In our recent newsletter, I have asked Ms. Buchanan to include a few words, to our perspective customers, on the topic of our Organization and its technology, so I'm including those remarks in this addition of my blog. Ms. Buchanan has also recently been published in the June 2005, edition of CRMGuru.com and a copy of her article, "Have CRM Vendors Ever Heard of Customer-Centricity?". You can view her article by clicking HERE.
"First, let me say, "Hello", to you all and I hope to one day meet each and every one of you in person. My experiences within your industry have shown me that it contains many, what us Southerners would term "good people", along with a wonderful network of long-term business relationships that make up the nexus of your industry. It is because of the character of the individuals, I have met so far, that I truly look forward to developing long-term business relationships with each of you, as time allows us to get to know each other better. In addition, I want to thank you for the warm reception I have received from those of you within the industry that I have thus far had the pleasure of meeting. Ron asked me to include a few words to you in this volume of our Newsletter about our technological structure and our current system implementations, so pardon any 'geek speak' and here goes:
On the Operations side, we are implementing an Enterprise wide solution that ties together all business processes and every aspect of how we "touch" our Customers. This is being accomplished through the integration of Voice over IP - VolP (a telecommunications protocol), back-end office applications (financial applications, etc.) tied into our Customer Management Relations (CRM) system, which handles our Customer records and integrates them with our Warehouse Management System (WMS) and Inventory Tracking solution to provide up-to-date, Real-Time, critical information to you, our Customers. Through this up-to-date technology and our on-going Customer Satisfaction focus, we are determined to accomplish our goal of providing to you, our Customers, the best and most superior Customer experience, possible. We hope that through the coming months you will be intrigued and hopefully, pleasantly surprised at the scope of just how serious we are about how valuable you are to us, not just from a one time product sale perspective, but as our business partner, with whom, we are determined to share success and enhance each of our organizations.
On the Marketing side, our goal is to provide you with an on-going customer focus, so particularly during this time of development and new implementation, you may be asked to provide feedback in the form of a quick couple of answers on a rather painless survey. We ask that you bare with us and keep in mind, that we ask this time of you, only because we highly value your opinions and experience. We want to make sure that you are happy and to accomplish that goal, we want to know in advance, not only what makes you unhappy, but also, how we can enhance our services to you, so that in turn you can better serve your own Customers. Who better is there to ask vital questions about how to make you happy and how our organization can help you increase your sales and service, than you? Maybe we can build into our structure and services, items or areas of interest to you or your customers that we have yet to consider, obviously, we would not know if we did not bother to ask. We are here for you, and because of you and for that reason, we at Independence2, LLC vow never to forget that fact. I invite you to contact me directly at my e-mail address by clicking HERE with any questions, comments or suggestions you may have. Thank you for your time, your interest, and hopefully, your individual support as we move forward in this endeavor.” - Sincerely Bonnie L. Buchanan
Until the next edition of my 2 am talk radio show with further updates on our start up company and opinions on various subjects, hug a friend and stand up for what you believe in.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Volume 5 - The respected Zell Miller...the disgraceful remarks of Senator Dick Durbin...and, Where is the Democratic Party that I grew up with?
As in the words of the distinguished former Democratic Governor and Senator, from the great State of Georgia, Zell Miller, in his book, "A Deficit of Decency", "I can remember when the Democrat believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny. It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it...one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers..." And, he continues, "Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier...It is the soldier who salutes the flag, services beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom he abused to burn the flag." But not even this great Legislator could image a fellow Democrat denigrating without remorse, with the height of hyperbole, the comments of Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois who compared American interrogators (US military) at Guantanamo Bay "to Nazis, Soviet Gulags and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.'' Congressional double speak and their far left liberalism has now surpassed the height of all time stupidity with such a remark, which offends not only the military, which defends this great county, but all Americans.
I concur with Governor Miller and I ask the question of what ever happened to the Democratic Party that I grew up with? What did FDR and Harry Truman do during their wars and cold war place in history? Research what the U.S. did during the time of FDR in relation to 'unlawful combatants'. They weren't fed restaurant style fish almandine, as they do at Guantanamo, while our U.S. military are left to eat MRE's. These thugs, who have killed Americans, are not rendered safe under any Geneva Convention rules. They are unlawful combatants who along with their leaders ought to be hunted (and treated) like animals.
It is reprehensible that we have conflict over whether the U.S. Military are wearing white gloves while handling the Koran. The Koran is a book. There have been over 1,700 U.S. Soldiers killed in Iraq with, sadly, more to die. What are we doing to solve that problem? The absolute crap about the treatment of these less than human thugs is nothing but the old cries of the sixties from the same generation of people who didn't appreciate our soldiers at that time of history and now to compare them to Hitler's Nazis is a disgrace.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Volume 4 - Let's Get A Book Deal, Building block business update on the new start-up venture
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Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Volume 3 - First Communion, Secure The Borders & International Transportation
The thunder roared, the lightening cracked, the wind howled and the earth moved as I walked under the porticos and into the side entrance of St. Patrick’s Church for my granddaughter’s first communion.
Well, ok, the cement didn’t crack, the beams didn’t break, the sky didn’t part (although my golfing buddies tell me that on the golf course at precisely 1:30 p.m. the temperature dropped, the wind blew and sleet appeared), but what can one expect when out of the many hundreds of people, the pastor, and presiding priest of this ceremony, singles you out and carries on a conversation before he starts the procession from the rear of the church, one does get a few raised eyes. Of course, I was sitting in almost the last row, which added in this identification process, some reminder of old school habits.
In any case, my granddaughter is the most beautiful angel on the face of the earth. My wish for her is that she understands the world as it is, and grows with wisdom beyond her years. May she understand and grasp the knowledge that there are good people and there are bad people and people with wrong intentions and that some of these people have titles, have actually participated in written laws of all sorts, some good and some bad, but all will effect her in some way. May she acquire through life experiences and an educational process the ability to stand up for what she believes. May she acquire an independence that will allow free thought without the bindings of some man-made law that defies substance.
Now back to the creation of our new company, Independence2, LLC. I have to admit that it’s been a long time since I’ve been so relaxed and happy with a project. It’s just a pleasure to work with people who have enthusiasm for a goal and dedication to bring perfection to a business plan. It is also very complimentary that former well-respected individuals within the Door and Hardware Industry call to see how they could help and possibly even join this team. Since our web-site is still under development and construction, we have sent out what could be described as an informational letter, volume I, to our customer base in early March and now are about to send, via e-mail and hard-copy, volume II.
Within that volume, I talk about our importation and transportation department and the work that it takes to be thoroughly knowledgeable with the international world of transportation. On that note of international business, which I will return to after this ‘plug’, which I deem to be extremely important; and that is an endorsement for everyone to go to http://www.reformus.org/ and sign the petition to ask President Bush to secure the borders immediately from illegal immigration. And before, some of you 'go nuts' about that endorsement, lets be clear that we aren’t talking about the global economy, which people still actually debate as if we are going to build walls around this country and not participate with the rest of the world, nor are we against legal immigration. This is to solely stop illegal immigration and give the necessary support to a branch of the government to halt such activity.
Back to the subject at hand, International transportation and our diligent time spent with numerous conferences, both in-person and electronic, energetically creating the structure involved for clarification of export formalities. These subjects range in scope from insurance, custom clearance, compliance rules, points of origin, consolidators, freight forwarders, brokers, carriers (LTL, LTC, containers, ground and air) inline with our goal of assuring ‘door to door’ delivery without interference of ‘stock outs’ as might exist with other suppliers. At the same time, where others deal with these consolidators, brokers, multi-governmental agencies, customs, carriers, middle men and a variety of other untraceable nuisances of an international organization, as separate entities, we are developing a technologically structured system that will provide the real-time tracking and door to door service as yet non-existent within our industry. The specifics of which will become very apparent as we unveil more of this company and our main focus. More to come, have a great week, and be sure to give your friends a hug; they’re more important than you know. I just lost another one, and I miss him.
Well, ok, the cement didn’t crack, the beams didn’t break, the sky didn’t part (although my golfing buddies tell me that on the golf course at precisely 1:30 p.m. the temperature dropped, the wind blew and sleet appeared), but what can one expect when out of the many hundreds of people, the pastor, and presiding priest of this ceremony, singles you out and carries on a conversation before he starts the procession from the rear of the church, one does get a few raised eyes. Of course, I was sitting in almost the last row, which added in this identification process, some reminder of old school habits.
In any case, my granddaughter is the most beautiful angel on the face of the earth. My wish for her is that she understands the world as it is, and grows with wisdom beyond her years. May she understand and grasp the knowledge that there are good people and there are bad people and people with wrong intentions and that some of these people have titles, have actually participated in written laws of all sorts, some good and some bad, but all will effect her in some way. May she acquire through life experiences and an educational process the ability to stand up for what she believes. May she acquire an independence that will allow free thought without the bindings of some man-made law that defies substance.
Now back to the creation of our new company, Independence2, LLC. I have to admit that it’s been a long time since I’ve been so relaxed and happy with a project. It’s just a pleasure to work with people who have enthusiasm for a goal and dedication to bring perfection to a business plan. It is also very complimentary that former well-respected individuals within the Door and Hardware Industry call to see how they could help and possibly even join this team. Since our web-site is still under development and construction, we have sent out what could be described as an informational letter, volume I, to our customer base in early March and now are about to send, via e-mail and hard-copy, volume II.
Within that volume, I talk about our importation and transportation department and the work that it takes to be thoroughly knowledgeable with the international world of transportation. On that note of international business, which I will return to after this ‘plug’, which I deem to be extremely important; and that is an endorsement for everyone to go to http://www.reformus.org/ and sign the petition to ask President Bush to secure the borders immediately from illegal immigration. And before, some of you 'go nuts' about that endorsement, lets be clear that we aren’t talking about the global economy, which people still actually debate as if we are going to build walls around this country and not participate with the rest of the world, nor are we against legal immigration. This is to solely stop illegal immigration and give the necessary support to a branch of the government to halt such activity.
Back to the subject at hand, International transportation and our diligent time spent with numerous conferences, both in-person and electronic, energetically creating the structure involved for clarification of export formalities. These subjects range in scope from insurance, custom clearance, compliance rules, points of origin, consolidators, freight forwarders, brokers, carriers (LTL, LTC, containers, ground and air) inline with our goal of assuring ‘door to door’ delivery without interference of ‘stock outs’ as might exist with other suppliers. At the same time, where others deal with these consolidators, brokers, multi-governmental agencies, customs, carriers, middle men and a variety of other untraceable nuisances of an international organization, as separate entities, we are developing a technologically structured system that will provide the real-time tracking and door to door service as yet non-existent within our industry. The specifics of which will become very apparent as we unveil more of this company and our main focus. More to come, have a great week, and be sure to give your friends a hug; they’re more important than you know. I just lost another one, and I miss him.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Volume 2 – Nationalism, Customer Satisfaction & Accountability
Let’s strip the pedal from the rose on this subject for I’ve had about all the ‘red, white and blue’ flag waving in the business community I can tolerate. Yes, folks we are talking about hiding behind the skirt of the American flag raving about “customer loyalty, fierce independence, made in America” and all the other PR words that money can buy.
I have nothing against programs that espouse ‘buying American’ nor those legitimate politicians, if any really exist, who jump infront of the bus to protect jobs in the United States. Nor is there one iota of anti-unionism within these thoughts (if your able to look up who started one of the first police unions in the State of Ohio, it was me).
So enough of political correctness, we are speaking here about stating the truth. Making statements, which have, at least, a semblance of matter that resembles the truth. We are talking about not being ‘two faced’ when addressing customers and employees but speaking what you know, as an official of a company, to be factual and not part of a systematic public relations program that simply substitutes words to hide fact from fiction.
Let’s get back to the topic of waving the flag. I’m talking about Presidents and CEO’s of companies waving the “buy American flag” who damn well know that in their private meeting sessions they are advocating purchases of parts from Asia, India and Mexico with their other divisions already having products going to the same customers that have no “made in America” connection whatsoever. If you gain a competitive advantage by purchasing a product or part overseas then by all means do it but don’t lie about it. Be ‘up front’, tell the truth and by all means keep ‘old glory’ out of the story. She deserves much better then to become a prop in your sad play.
Hide behind the flag if you must. In fact, add the Church, Temple and Mosque to your list of props, to attempt your cover-ups of the truth, but if you do, at least, be honest enough to live your practices. Don’t hand me your crap about how serious a responsibility it is to take care of your 700 employees and their families within your company, while you give out turkeys at Thanksgiving or at your semi-annual employee meetings when the fact is you don’t give a damn about them, hourly or salary, and would do everything within your power to get rid of your unions, cut staff and benefits, etc. to save a penny off the final production cost of your widget without a ‘blink’ toward that ‘family of employees’ and our ‘greatest asset are our employees’ speech. If they are, and they should be, your greatest asset, then manage your business like it should be done and cut other frivolous costs within your structure to save that penny on the end result but make no mistake in believing that lowest price is lowest cost.
Don’t preach to me about being fiercely loyal to your customers when you can’t produce ‘on-time’ and complete’ 100% of the time and yet your marketing department comes out with further programs such as ‘quick ship’ program when you can’t keep normal stock product regulated through an on-time inventory management system that is real time. Don’t talk loyalty with me when you have plans to hurt distributors rather than help with unjustified price increases. Those being defined as ones in which your cost structure, capitalization, is so high that you have to raise prices. Not the customer’s problem that your cost structure got out of control. And, don’t dare blame everything on raising steel or petroleum product costs. It’s a ‘global problem’. Understand that concept and the ramifications. Its costs have risen for all manufacturers. It’s just as expensive for the Mexicans and the Chinese as it is for you.
And then, the biggest lie of them all, starts with “trust me” or ”you have my word on it”. Well, everyone should feel really comfortable with that! I’m satisfied that some President of a company said we have his word on it (whatever the subject is). What exactly does that mean? Both the “trust” part and the “you have my word on it” part? It means absolutely nothing. He’s a paid employee that could be gone tomorrow. Just another example of attempting changing the color of lipstick on the pig from red to blue attempting to hide the fact that it’s still a pig. And the shame of it all is that the customer knows, understands and you think he’s simply stupid.
Now, the very complex business answer. Treat your employees like they are your most prized assets, for they are. Give the customer what he wants. Stop the frustration in the process of purchasing and using products that one manufactures or supplies. The established relationships with any positive anticipation dissolve when the customer endures the torture of simply attempting to read a simple packing list, which is unreadable. A phone call to the home office to find out if an item is in stock or completed often takes longer to yield an answer than it would take to have the customer service person walk to the warehouse part of the building and roam the aisles of racking looking for an item, which happens only if you’re lucky as having no answer at all or “we’ll get back to you”. With few exceptions, the customer experience can only be described as worthless.
The rate of customer dissatisfaction is on the increase. If you own a company or run a company ask yourself “why” and fix it with a good product, at a fair price, on-time and complete every time for the benefit of the customer. Find the problem areas and correct them at any cost. You don’t need HR involved or studies or consensus of opinion or experts from afar. Ask the people who do the work; perform the tasks and who talk with the customers. Then call the customer and listen. Then implement a program that shows true results toward solving problems without accepting excuses.
I have nothing against programs that espouse ‘buying American’ nor those legitimate politicians, if any really exist, who jump infront of the bus to protect jobs in the United States. Nor is there one iota of anti-unionism within these thoughts (if your able to look up who started one of the first police unions in the State of Ohio, it was me).
So enough of political correctness, we are speaking here about stating the truth. Making statements, which have, at least, a semblance of matter that resembles the truth. We are talking about not being ‘two faced’ when addressing customers and employees but speaking what you know, as an official of a company, to be factual and not part of a systematic public relations program that simply substitutes words to hide fact from fiction.
Let’s get back to the topic of waving the flag. I’m talking about Presidents and CEO’s of companies waving the “buy American flag” who damn well know that in their private meeting sessions they are advocating purchases of parts from Asia, India and Mexico with their other divisions already having products going to the same customers that have no “made in America” connection whatsoever. If you gain a competitive advantage by purchasing a product or part overseas then by all means do it but don’t lie about it. Be ‘up front’, tell the truth and by all means keep ‘old glory’ out of the story. She deserves much better then to become a prop in your sad play.
Hide behind the flag if you must. In fact, add the Church, Temple and Mosque to your list of props, to attempt your cover-ups of the truth, but if you do, at least, be honest enough to live your practices. Don’t hand me your crap about how serious a responsibility it is to take care of your 700 employees and their families within your company, while you give out turkeys at Thanksgiving or at your semi-annual employee meetings when the fact is you don’t give a damn about them, hourly or salary, and would do everything within your power to get rid of your unions, cut staff and benefits, etc. to save a penny off the final production cost of your widget without a ‘blink’ toward that ‘family of employees’ and our ‘greatest asset are our employees’ speech. If they are, and they should be, your greatest asset, then manage your business like it should be done and cut other frivolous costs within your structure to save that penny on the end result but make no mistake in believing that lowest price is lowest cost.
Don’t preach to me about being fiercely loyal to your customers when you can’t produce ‘on-time’ and complete’ 100% of the time and yet your marketing department comes out with further programs such as ‘quick ship’ program when you can’t keep normal stock product regulated through an on-time inventory management system that is real time. Don’t talk loyalty with me when you have plans to hurt distributors rather than help with unjustified price increases. Those being defined as ones in which your cost structure, capitalization, is so high that you have to raise prices. Not the customer’s problem that your cost structure got out of control. And, don’t dare blame everything on raising steel or petroleum product costs. It’s a ‘global problem’. Understand that concept and the ramifications. Its costs have risen for all manufacturers. It’s just as expensive for the Mexicans and the Chinese as it is for you.
And then, the biggest lie of them all, starts with “trust me” or ”you have my word on it”. Well, everyone should feel really comfortable with that! I’m satisfied that some President of a company said we have his word on it (whatever the subject is). What exactly does that mean? Both the “trust” part and the “you have my word on it” part? It means absolutely nothing. He’s a paid employee that could be gone tomorrow. Just another example of attempting changing the color of lipstick on the pig from red to blue attempting to hide the fact that it’s still a pig. And the shame of it all is that the customer knows, understands and you think he’s simply stupid.
Now, the very complex business answer. Treat your employees like they are your most prized assets, for they are. Give the customer what he wants. Stop the frustration in the process of purchasing and using products that one manufactures or supplies. The established relationships with any positive anticipation dissolve when the customer endures the torture of simply attempting to read a simple packing list, which is unreadable. A phone call to the home office to find out if an item is in stock or completed often takes longer to yield an answer than it would take to have the customer service person walk to the warehouse part of the building and roam the aisles of racking looking for an item, which happens only if you’re lucky as having no answer at all or “we’ll get back to you”. With few exceptions, the customer experience can only be described as worthless.
The rate of customer dissatisfaction is on the increase. If you own a company or run a company ask yourself “why” and fix it with a good product, at a fair price, on-time and complete every time for the benefit of the customer. Find the problem areas and correct them at any cost. You don’t need HR involved or studies or consensus of opinion or experts from afar. Ask the people who do the work; perform the tasks and who talk with the customers. Then call the customer and listen. Then implement a program that shows true results toward solving problems without accepting excuses.
Volume 1 – Nothing sacred
I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in talk radio. In fact, I’m amazed that such a thing exists during the daylight hours. Who the hell is the audience? On the other hand, if there was a late night (early morning) talk radio show one could visualize the audience with some credibility. The hard working people who work an afternoon shift with constant overtime or those that work a graveyard shift with the benefit of a radio or those in the service industry who have just got done kissing your ass, general public, for the past eight or ten hours for lousy tips and poverty wages to struggle to become managers where they could work ninety hour weeks and/or put their lives on the line if not today, at some time in the future. They are on their way home just wanting to unwind before they have to go back to their Hotel, restaurant, tavern, police house, street department, fire station or diner job to put up with the likes of the so called professional person who’s indignation, arrogance and sheer stupidly are usually beyond imagination or maybe worse, the general public who is mindless at best and doesn’t have a clue. Thus, the name of my blog (for someday, I just might have that type radio show. Of course, I’ll have to own the radio station, and it will be located in the one of the gardens of the Cantinell di Capri on the Island of Capri encircled by the Mediterranean, but that’s another subject.)
Why the ‘blog’ site at all is even a more interesting question but one that I have accepted due to the start of my new company and advice of a person I do respect. Of course, in my blog, as you should already be able to discern, there are no boundaries. I’ll attempt to keep the subject on ‘business’ and related subject matter but I’m opinionated. And, if I decide to write about school shootings, lack of dress codes and apathy of parents and teachers, or the sexual predators in the Catholic Church, so be it. You have the right not to read it.
I have also been advised to tell you a little something about myself. I’m never really sure why something like this is important especially over the ‘net’ considering that I could be anybody with a tale to tell and an imagination equal. However, to appease those wiser than I, I’ve had four major categories of employment throughout my lifetime, to this point. They have occupied the fields of education, transportation, law enforcement and business management, including five years as President and CEO of a 45 million dollar company. I have degrees from Kent State University and Case Western Reserve University with even a one-year stint in the seminary.
Why the ‘blog’ site at all is even a more interesting question but one that I have accepted due to the start of my new company and advice of a person I do respect. Of course, in my blog, as you should already be able to discern, there are no boundaries. I’ll attempt to keep the subject on ‘business’ and related subject matter but I’m opinionated. And, if I decide to write about school shootings, lack of dress codes and apathy of parents and teachers, or the sexual predators in the Catholic Church, so be it. You have the right not to read it.
I have also been advised to tell you a little something about myself. I’m never really sure why something like this is important especially over the ‘net’ considering that I could be anybody with a tale to tell and an imagination equal. However, to appease those wiser than I, I’ve had four major categories of employment throughout my lifetime, to this point. They have occupied the fields of education, transportation, law enforcement and business management, including five years as President and CEO of a 45 million dollar company. I have degrees from Kent State University and Case Western Reserve University with even a one-year stint in the seminary.
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