We had called a meeting and told the managers that Dale Carnegie would be “required reading” but asked if they preferred audio tapes or books. We just handed them out. Interestingly enough, one of the managers with whom I expected the least buy in from, listened to half the CD’s within a day!
The interesting part of it all is that I am now able to step back and watch the plant manager coach his managers. It’s only been a few days but the progress has been nothing short of amazing.
The greatest impact this has had is on the demeanor and the way people are interrelating with one another. It’s a much calmer environment now and it’s significantly easier to get things accomplished; we’re developing a great team environment.
This is the first step towards building the organization which is the first step of the 5 step process required to take a company to the next level. It looks like we’re well on our way.
]]>However, the “theoretical” discussion of the topic does not compare to “making it happen” in a real world environment. That’s what excites me about working with companies in the day to day – having the opportunity to put the theory into practice.
I must admit that I thought I had met my match with my latest experience – until last week. This has been a most puzzling experience since as we have all heard leadership “starts at the top” and creating a cohesive team can only be accomplished with the buy in from the leaders.
I had successfully created that scenario with top management but I had encountered a significant challenge with middle management. There were conflicts between sales and manufacturing, squabbling between departments and finger pointing among employees. I had tried everything I knew – which started out with “leading by example” and creating a “positive breeds positive environment” but after 4 months with no real results, I was running out of steam and frustration was quickly setting in.
The methodology was clear – continue the trickle down effect focusing on the plant and sales manager but I was encountering significant resistance. I had attempted to engage my most successful tool which is Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and influence People” but could not get them to read it.
Three weeks ago, I sat down with the sales manager and asked for his help. I really felt that if we could engage the managers into employing the concepts discussed in the book, things would start to improve but I wanted his input into how to get the buy in. (Note for those of you not familiar with Dale Carnegie; these are two of the principles – ask for someone’s help and get someone to want to do something. I started with the sales manager because I felt that was where I would encounter the least resistance.)
He explained to me that the challenge was that he didn’t read much and he thought that could be the problem with others. When I asked him if it would make a difference if we got the audio tape, he said that he would be more than willing to listen to them except the challenge was that his CD player wasn’t working in his car. (No kidding – true story.)
I offered to loan him a CD player to plug into his car to listen to the tapes (I went to WalMart and actually bought two which I thought I would put out as “loaners”) and he readily agreed to do so and finished the entire 8 CD set within a week.
A few days after that, he excitedly came into my office and shared an experience he had just had. He had requested a quote from a vendor that came back at $4500 which was simply too high for what he needed done. He told me that before he said anything about the quote, he spent about 20 minutes with the woman asking where she was from, and learning more about her (another Dale Carnegie principle) and after that, when he brought up the quote and told her he needed her help, she immediately lowered in to $1800. (Yes, true story – this stuff works.)
The milestone however was how excited he was about this and more importantly how he told me he was going to approach his 10 salespeople to try and get them to listen to the CDs. He knew he would have a challenge because most of them have been there for a long time and “know all the tricks in the book”. During the sales meeting later that day, he told me he was going to “apply another Dale Carengie principle” and share his experience and see if any of them would like to listen to the CDs as well. He did a great job because he came to me after the meeting and said all of them wanted to listen as well. (Neither of us expected a 100% response.)
With this success, I was now feeling encouraged taking the CDs to the plant manager, sharing the story with him and attempting to get his buy in which I did a week and a half ago. (I’m still a little discouraged at this point as I’m not achieving the kind of results I’d like to see in the timeframe I’d expect.)
A week later, I received an e-mail from one of our senior CSRs labeled “Production Flow”. Fearing the worst, I open the e-mail only to find her commenting about how she felt that the communication and collaboration had significantly improved within the company, saw significant growth opportunities on the horizon and hoped we would consider her for any future opportunities. I assured her that we would and when I asked her to elaborate, she stated that the bickering, finger pointing and fighting had virtually gone away.
I immediately called the plant manager into my office told him what she had said and let him know in no uncertain terms that it was because of his efforts that this change had begun to take place. (Another principle from the book.) He thanked me and told me how much he appreciated that I had stuck by him and not “written him off” which in his words I had plenty of reason to do. He also stated that he had spent a significant time with the sales manager and that they had been working together and discussing this which had been extremely helpful to him.
At this point, I must admit, I’m looking forward to “Mondays” and building upon this. This is the most critical step in leveraging teamwork and taking a company to the next level.
]]>Let me preface this by stating that this IS NOT an easy process. I am in the midst of experiencing this first hand myself right now. Bear in mind a couple of premises before we get started –
The first thing I would ask you to do is to step away from your business and ask yourself – “If I were purchasing product or services, would I use my company as opposed to a competitor? In many cases (mine included), you will find that the primary reason companies use you over your competitor is a function of the relationship that has been developed over the years.
While this is and will continue to be a compelling reason for your business’ sustainability, it will not be sufficient to create long term value for your company. Why? Simply because without the relationship (you) in place, there is a substantial risk of losing this business should you not be around to sustain it.
Furthermore, this is a very difficult way to add new customers and grow your business. While I’ve seen many instances where growing the business is not of the highest priority to the owner, unfortunately, it needs to be done.
With attrition, (companies doing less work or consolidating with other companies) there simply will not be as much business with your existing accounts. If you don’t grow your business, it’s just a matter of time before you’re out of business.
So, how do you create a USP for your business? Here are some basic principles –
Most importantly, remember this is not an easy process and you’re not alone.
Every business has its own unique sets of attributes and it’s up to you to identify what represents this for your business. If you would like some further input or clarification feel free to respond to this post or e-mail me direct at email hidden; JavaScript is required .
Good luck!
]]>For those of you that may not know, Red Box is an automated vending machine that dispenses videos for $1 per day. There are currently about 22,000 machines nationwide located in retail stores such as groceries and WalMarts. Originally they located them in McDonalds but found out that wasn’t a strong market for them.
When they started out, it was very difficult to get funding as no one believed that they would be able to compete against Blockbuster. Their premise however was that they could make it easier for the customer to purchase the product, create a model with significantly lower overhead (think about it – no rent, employees, electric) and all that was needed was to plug in to a store’s electric grid and offer them a revenue share.
We’ve seen success stories similar to this in our industry as well. The Vista Print, 4 Over and mimeo.com models are just a few of the more visible examples that we have all heard of. Companies that have changed the distribution model as we have known it from order entry to final distribution with significantly increased efficiencies which in turn has allowed them to reduce their manufacturing costs and thus their prices.
The important note is that price alone is not a differentiator. While price can become part of a differentiation strategy and USP, it can only be effective if you have in fact reduced your supply chain costs – order entry, manufacturing and / or distribution. Otherwise, this will only lead to business failure. (Remember the dotcom’s? “We know we’re not making any money on each order – but we’ll make it up in volume!)
That being said, how do we create a USP in our business? See my next post –
Defining or Refining Your USP – Do You Have One or Do You Need to Create It?
]]>Cross media marketing is the utilization of common marketing messages across a variety of mediums such as conventional literature, direct mail, telemarketing, e-mail marketing, radio, TV, Facebook and Twitter.
The purpose of employing these strategies should not be to specifically generate business but should also be viewed as an opportunity to strengthen and grow your organization’s database of prospects.
For example, the messaging should not be designed specifically as a “call to action” to elicit a purchase but as an opportunity to drive the reader / prospect to your organization to learn more about you and your company. This can be accomplished by developing meaningful content that provides value to the reader with the ultimate goal being to capture information (the beginning of a database profile) on the prospect.
Messaging should be developed with a WIIFM (what’s in it for me) approach as opposed to talking about / showcasing yourself. Ultimate success will be achieved when you get others to talk about you and begin recommending you to others – known as advocate or viral marketing.
Meaningful content creation poses the greatest challenge as this requires time, resources and specific skill sets to consistently generate new, fresh information. The saying is “content is king and consistency is queen”.
That being said, the underlying question is does this really have a value in a BtoB (business to business) environment or is it more suited for a BtoC (business to consumer) business?
]]>Today, we realize that these are not differentiators -
It was these statements that led to the belief that printing was a commodity. Can printing be considered a commodity? According to Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of a commodity is:
“A good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (as brand name) other than price”
In other words, if you are providing a product or service that is virtually the same (and expected) as your competitors and your only differentiator is price, then you are in essence a commodity.
To ensure that your product does not become commoditized, you must identify differentiatiators. There is no “magic formula” for this but the essence is to identify opportunities to increase your client’s return on investment that are not provided by your competitors.
]]>Companies make an effort to “decommoditize” themselves by applying this label to their businesses and while I respectfully disagree with Dr. Webb that print is not a commodity, I completely agree that it simply is not enough to label yourself as a MSP as a differentiation strategy. Where the article really hit home though was the point of needing to establish credibility.
Bob Lieber followed with an article titled “So you say you want to be a marketing services provider? Tips on closing the “credibility gap” – which was an extremely insightful article discussing specific steps to begin the road to successfully execute this strategy.
That being said, the term (as Dr. Webb states) is really nothing more than a buzz word and it’s about “walking the walk”. As an example, in the late 1990’s we re-engineered the company I founded from a “Printer to a Marketing Communications Solutions Provider”. We delivered an end to end solution from creative and copy writing to final distribution allowing us to manage our client’s projects from inception to final delivery. Within a four year period, we tripled our revenues but more importantly, within the same time-line, print went from 95% of our business to 52% of revenues. In the process we went through a re-branding of the company from “Printing and Graphics” to “Group” and were able to successfully establish the necessary credibility to differentiate ourselves and being viewed as a commodity.
Unfortunately, it is necessary to consistently reinvent yourself every three to five years to maintain a competitive advantage in any industry. Whatever was accomplished in the past means little going forward as the focus needs to be on innovation and staying ahead of the curve.
For that reason, the term Marketing Service Provider, Marketing Communications Solutions Provider or whatever you want to call yourself or what you do is meaningless without having the necessary core competency to deliver value.
A response to my prior post from Chuck probably summarized it up best –
I, for one, am a printer who works for a company that understands (and is always working to expand) its role in our customers greater communication strategy.
Quite succinct. Isn’t that really what we’re all trying to accomplish?
]]>There is a silver lining to all of this as I have personally just experienced –
If you can demonstrate sufficient cash flow to support the debt and clearly communicate a realistic business strategy to support this going forward, your odds of success are very high. Of course, you will still need to guarantee the note and back it with business assets but it is possible to obtain financing.
The one key to remember is this – if you wouldn’t personally lend your company money, the odds are the bank won’t either. That being said, availing yourself of an existing relationship coupled by a compelling story backed up with substantiated proof of historical cash flow makes obtaining financing possible today.
]]>Some people think this challenge is impossible to correct and while I’m struggling with this myself right now, I firmly believe it can be overcome if you take the following steps –
We’re investing in the table next week and the trash talking has already begun. I’ll let you know how we make out.
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