Secrets from another master salesman

He received the "vendor of the year" award from the marketing and advertising department of Maytag.  My friend Roy sold printing for 25 years.  Maytag had a larger number of vendors calling on the advertising and marketing group.   There were a number of other printers, TV networks, magazines, box manufacturers, to name just as few, and a number of other specialty suppliers. Roy and the printing company he represented were selected as number one...the Best!

Roy received the same honor from another customer also.  Though smaller, this company is one of the larger "players" in its field in the Midwest.  In both cases, Roy and his wife were honored at a luncheon where he was presented with a certificate and memorabilia of the occasion.

Though I suspected Ii knew the answer, I asked him what his secret was.  His answer;  "I took care of my customer!"   

"If they wanted me there at 7 a.m., I got up and made the two hour drive to be there.  If they wanted me at 5 p.m., I was there.  If they needed something on a rush basis, I made sure we got it done.  And I made sure the price was always fair.  They could depend on me."

Pretty simple isn't it?  

                    "I took care of my customer"  

That's what customer service is all about.

A necessary first ingredient was getting the first order.  That requires being a good salesman (or salesperson), and Roy is one of the two best "pure salesmen" I know.

I will profile the other one soon.


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I Yam What I Yam

I have received several emails questioning why I would put the photo of my office in my post of last week.  After all, it DID show a really messy office.  But, it is what it is!  Or as Popeye the Sailor Man said "I yam what I yam"  in a cartoon by the same name from 1933.

I have long felt that if you cannot poke fun at yourself you should not be in a leadership position.  Far better poking fun at yourself than slinging arrows at others.

Click here for the original cartoon!        

Click here to have wikipedia explain it to you!

Scroll down to the next post if you have not read it already.


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It is an anniversary

I started writing this blog one year ago, with my first post on March 16, 2012.  It has been both constraining and liberating.  If you looked at the mess I call my office, you would not know, or even suspect, but I am a pretty disciplined person.  That is perhaps first key to success if you set out to do a periodic blog.  (Self discipline is a key to success in many other areas too.)

Then you need something to write about, but that has not been a problem.  My children may tell you that "dad was always lecturing"  about something.  Many of my posts have been sort of lecturing, I suppose.  In my mind, I subtitle this "Forty years of management." 

It serves as a substitute for the management book I set out to write a couple of years ago.  The problem with a book is that you have to have it all done before you can publish it.  Blog posts are nice short little bites.  "Any day now" I might collect them and do a book.  I will have six copies printed and keep one copy for our home and give one to each of our children. 

It has mostly been fun to ramble weekly and I plan to keep on.  Fridays will remain as my normal publishing day.

My friend Robert advises that Wednesday morning is the optimum time for email to hit, but his weekly blog arrives as email on Fridays.  Now what kind of advice is that, when he doesn't even follow it himself?   I always read it because "It wouldn't be Friday without the Follies."   Thanks Bob!


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How old would you be

If you didn't know how old you are?

I learned something interesting about my friend Dave earlier this week.  His wife and daughter told me that he loves to have squirt gun "fights" with his grandchildren.  They reported that he gets just as excited and animated as they do.   Family friend Spencer (also an adult) joins in with just as much enthusiasm as Dave, I was told.

I knew Dave really enjoyed his grandchildren, but I had not heard much about his participation in the squirt gun fights.

So, how old would he be?  In that context at least, Dave would be less than ten years old.  Having fun with your grandchildren  ----- ageless  ----- for both of you.

Leroy "Satchel" Paige was credited with the "If you didn't know . . . " quote a number of years ago by a lady named Sally Eggleston when she did some customer service training for our company.  You will find it below, in the whole list of quotes from "The official Satchel Paige Quote Page" Click Here for the Website   Paige was the oldest major league rookie at age 42 (1948) and played in the majors until he was 59, later entering the Hall of Fame.  Learn more by following the link above.

Anyway, age is at least partly a state of mind and you can make yourself as old, broken down, and resistant to change and new ideas as you want.  Or you can embrace new ideas, different ways of doing things, and new technologies.  I sat next to a young man on a plane a couple of weeks ago who observed "You must not be too old.  You have a smart phone." 

The wisdom of Satchel Paige:

"Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter."  (first attributed to Mark Twain)

"I ain't ever had a job, I just always played baseball."

"I don't generally like running. I believe in training by rising gently up and down from the bench."

"I never rush myself. See, they can't start the game without me."

"I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer and my bat dodger. Man's got to do what he's got to do."

"If a man can beat you, walk him."

"It's funny what a few no-hitters do for a body."

"My feet ain't got nothing to do with my nickname, but when folks get it in their heads that a feller's got big feet, soon the feet start looking big."

"One time I snuck a ball on with me and when I went to winding up, I threw one of them balls to first and one to second. I was so smooth I picked off both runners and fanned the batter without that ump or the other team even knowing it."

"The only change is that baseball has turned Paige from a second class citizen to a second class immortal."

"There never was a man on earth who pitched as much as me. But the more I pitched, the stronger my arm would get."

"When a batter swings and I see his knees move, I can tell just what his weaknesses are then I just put the ball where I know he can't hit it."

"Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common."

"I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I would toss one that ain’t never been seen by this generation."

"Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move."

"They said I was the greatest pitcher they ever saw…I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t give me no justice."

"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."

"Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines."

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?"

"Money and women. They're two of the strongest things in the world. The things you do for a woman you wouldn't do for anything else. Same with money."

"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching."

"You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them."

"My pitching philosophy is simple; you gotta keep the ball off the fat part of the bat."

"Mother always told me, if you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don't sound good to you, it won't sound good to no one else."

"Don't eat fried food, it angries up the blood."




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Not Guessing Equals Winning

For the first four days of this week I was working a trade show in Denver.   In the booth across the aisle was a genuine management consultant, who specialized in process analysis, improvement, and implementation.  A lot of what she does is teaching and training, but Debra stated that without implementation and buy-in by those involved, training does no good at all.  Therefore her firm works hard training people to think, implement, and continue to use what they have learned.

Sound Advice!   It reminded me of an old saying I once read:  "Excellent ideas without implementation are mere hallucinations."

I asked Debra for a quote I could use as the basis for a blog post.  Here 'tis:   
"Not guessing equals winning."

She said that too often decision makers guess rather than doing a rational analysis and then wonder why they don't have success or a win.  The first time her use of "not guessing...." came up was where several plants of a multi-plant company were informally competing to win a "contest" to have the highest profit margin.    Oh Oh.  It is that "numbers guy" mentality coming back to life again.  See my post of last week.  

Just this morning our Purchasing/Business Manager and I were talking about product costing.  She made the statement that there was "too much guessing" as to some of the cost data in the  _________ department.  Since she is ultimately responsible for all our product costing, she had decided to compute the cost data for that department herself, rather than have "guessed at" information.  Not guessing equals winning. 

Even an "educated guess" can be wrong and lead to not winning. It might even lead to more trouble, depending on the "quality of education" of the guesser.

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