November
16, 2006 - Distribution Channel Commentary (DCC) # 94
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TOPICS:
1.
THEMATIC
QUOTES FOR THIS DCC AND ’07 NEW YEAR.
2.
REPUBLICANS
LOST THE VISION; HOW’S OUR’S FOR PROFIT POWER?
3.
COLLABORATIVE
SPACE ON “PEOPLE, SERVICE, PROFITS” HOW TOs.
4.
SIX, CULTURE-OF-INNOVATION
“MEMES” (SLIDE SHOW # 18 POSTED).
5.
HOW TO
MAKE THE KEY ACCOUNT “5-5-5 REPORT” HAPPEN.
6.
“COMMON
SENSE ECONOMICS” FOR EMPLOYEES (DVD promo prices).
7.
SOFT
LANDING OR TOUGH RECESSION – REPORT WITH GOOD SLIDES.
8.
DO WE
HAVE THE SEABISCUIT SPIRIT FOR 2007?
9.
IN
CLOSING, “When the one great scorer…”
1.
THEMATIC
QUOTES FOR THIS DCC AND ’07 NEW YEAR.
“Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and
what to stand for--because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for
anything.” Peter Marshall (U.S. TV game show host)
“Vision without a plan is a dream; a plan without a vision
is a nightmare.” Unknown
“There is nothing so useless as doing something
efficiently that should not be done at all.”
Peter Drucker
(DBM
question: Why do we continue to let 1% of our accounts cost us 20% of our
profits?)
“An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger
than the brain cell it occupied.”
Arnold
Glasow
2.
REPUBLICANS
LOST THEIR VISION; WHAT’S OURS?
Since our last commentary, the biggest news might have
been the “thumpin” that the Republicans took on Election Day by losing both the
house and the senate to the Democrats. The Democrats ran more conservative-sounding
candidates who ran against, among other things, a “culture of corruption” just as
the Republicans successfully did with their “contract with America” in
1994. But, that ’94 contract also had a national vision to reform
government and return money and power back to the American people. Newt, Armey & Co. even had specific
action steps that they were going to pursue to fulfill that vision. We’ll have
to see if the Democrats can now conjure up a compelling vision beyond the same
“bringing home the bacon”, local politics, fiscal irresponsibility that the
Republicans drifted into.
Doesn’t the Republicans regression back into politics as
usual over the past 12 years beg the question of: what is our vision that
actually speaks to and makes sense to all of our stakeholders – employees,
customers, suppliers and shareholders? And, how do we distill that vision down
to a catchy bumper sticker phrase? I believe that any service company can adopt
FedEx’s motto of “People, Service,
Profits”(PSP). This presumes
that we can dive deeply into this tip-of-the-iceberg phrase to fully educate all
stakeholders who will then help us make it happen in a continuously improving
way with no regression to mediocrity.
If you would like a quick refresher course on how
motivating and effective this motto can be, here are a few references to check
out:
·
Read about how the service profit chain works and
reinforces itself in this article of ours: http://www.merrifield.com/articles/3_7.pdf.
·
To tune service metrics to the right customers in
the right niches we will need to explain the competitive strategic game of
business to all employees. Here’s a how-to article: http://www.merrifield.com/articles/5_8.asp.
·
Because neither article defines specifically what
the metrics are for “great service” or specifically who your best customers are
in your best niche to tune those metrics around, you might want to read these
two notes: “How To Define Perfect Service” http://www.merrifield.com/articles/3_1.asp;
and, “Measure Customer Profitability and Act” at http://www.merrifield.com/articles/2_3.asp.
·
How fluent are we in communicating the 4-way-win,
stakeholder symmetry theory? If that sounds like nonsensical jargon, then for a
refresher on how to use the advice above to grow the pie for a 4-way win
consider skimming this one: “Growing and Coordinating Stakeholder Commitment”
at http://www.merrifield.com/articles/2_6.asp
I could go on, but will close with these key objectives
for the bottom 80% of every service organization’s payroll:
·
Make sure that every employees’ heart, mind and
wallet are wired into the metrics and gainsharing that flows from the PSP
vision stuff above.
·
And, know that it can’t happen if every employee
doesn’t know the answers to the following quiz.
SERVICE
ALIGNMENT QUIZ: (vision quest energy check)
A) Describe
our number one niche of customers that we seek to provide distinctively better
service value to.
B) Who are
the 5 most profitable customers in that niche who we use to tune our service
metrics and extra services for best customers?
C) Who are
our top 5 target accounts in that niche for whom the answer is “Yes” regardless
of their special needs?
D) If we can
partner those target accounts, as they grow faster than their industry, won’t
they grow us too? True or False?
E) What
service metrics do we measure and post everyday to let everyone know whether we
are achieving and maintaining the best service in the marketplace?
F) What do
you do directly and indirectly to make sure that even during high-order,
under-staffed times, we keep the service faith promise with, at least, our
best, most profitable customers?
G) Why
should you care about all of these questions and answers? What’s in it for you?
(WIIM) How are you continually educated and reminded about continuously
improving and WIIM?
3.
COLLABORATIVE
SPACE ON “PEOPLE, SERVICE, PROFITS” HOW TOs.
If you would like to stay in touch with PSP vision
management, then go to my collaborative space entitled: “PSP Scorecards and
Systems” which is at a website entitled near-time that is a collaborative web
service for all. Although this space is open to the public, you have to know
about it to get there, so hit this link to express your way in:
http://psp-scorecards-and-systems.near-time.net/news
4.
CULTURE-OF-INNOVATION
SLIDE SHOW # 18 POSTED
Regular readers and Merrifield.com site visitors know that
I have been wrestling with how to boil down all of the great new research on
“innovation management” so that “small-medium enterprises (SME)” can apply it
to their own firms in a substantially do-it-ourselves manner instead of paying
fancy firms millions to do it for you.
My latest attempt is to offer six “memes” (a unit of
intellectual knowledge that can jump from mind to mind within a close
population) that every business should be practicing in one way or another
within their firm to create an environment in which maximum change for the
better can happen. So, check it out at this link: http://www.merrifield.com/articles/SixCultureOfInnovationMemes.pdf
5.
HOW TO
MAKE THE KEY ACCOUNT “5-5-5 REPORT” HAPPEN?
Regular readers again will know how keen I am for branch
managers in service chains to focus on about five customers in each of three
categories in 2007. They are:
·
5 most profitable accounts which
should be totally team sold to not only keep from losing any business from
them, but ideally to take them to a next level relationship with further
penetration. There is nothing with higher flow-through impact to the bottom
line than selling more old items to existing customers on a larger average
order size basis.
·
5 best target accounts (based on what
weighted, selection criteria). Marry gazelles and they will grow you.
·
5 biggest losing accounts which need to
transformed into profitable accounts by re-organizing how both parties buy and
sell to reduce small transaction activity costs that are hurting both partners.
To help field and sales managers really understand why
this type of focus is the most strategically effective thing that they can do
and then figure out how to do it, because most reps assigned to such accounts
can’t, we have compiled a 30-page training kit in a PDF file. If you want to
check it out, go to this link: The 5-5-5 Kit
6.
“COMMON
SENSE ECONOMICS” FOR EMPLOYEES (DVD promo prices)
Below is a link to a book review article on a book
entitled, “Common Sense Economics”. What’s great about the article is that it
summarizes the top 10 economic concepts that every company, and especially
every one of our employees, needs to know very well. The rest of the book,
according to Amazon.com reviews, is a bit up and down.
To be honest, one of the reasons I liked the quick review
of the top 10 concepts is that just about every one is addressed in
distribution specific language in the first 12 modules of my DVD-based training
kit entitled: “High Performance Distribution Ideas for All”. Read the review
and decide if 2007 is the year that your company should educated all employees
to be part of the service-improvement, profit-growing solution or be part of
the passive resistance problem. If so, you will want our revolutionary training
tool, and between now and the end of the
year we have “New Year Special Pricing”. Contact Karen@merrifield.com for
details.
Here’s the link to the book review: http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/WalterEWilliams/2006/11/08/common_sense_economics.
7.
SOFT
LANDING OR TOUGH RECESSION – REPORT WITH GOOD SLIDES.
On 11-15-06, the Federal Reserve released their minutes
from last month meetings. The gist of it was that they think that they have the
interest rates just right and should plan on holding them for a long time. The
Fed Heads are telling us that we will have a soft landing in our economy, so we
don’t have to pay any attention to the still-looking-for-a-bottom, housing and
domestic auto industries declines.
Well, two things that I know are that:
·
It’s impossible to forecast accurately what will
happen in both turbulent weather and economic systems. Right now we have a
housing slump in the making the likes of which we have never seen, and a global
financial system awash in liquidity with unprecedented hedge fund money racing
into financial derivatives on top of derivatives that no one really
understands. Be vigilant and ready to act quickly.
·
The Fed hardly controls the global and US economy
with the ability to make and take money supply to fix short term interest
rates. The world of structured, leveraged financial products is creating
unprecedented amounts of dollar-denominated, credit units (which is money to
buy stuff) which is floating all markets, paintings, etc. higher.
So, for an interesting, succinct summation of the housing
bubble and the credit bubble behind it, here is a link to a report that has
great graphs. What amazes me about the graphs are the changes in the
acceleration rates behind the lines on the graphs. See what you think at:
http://www.safehaven.com/article-6292.htm.
8.
DO WE
HAVE THE SEABISCUIT SPIRIT FOR 2007?
Part of doing well in 2007 by investing in continuous
improvement and discontinuous innovation is having the right spirit. We have to
want to go for it knowing that as long as we limit our downside risks through
cheap experiments, there are no bad outcomes. Sometimes an athlete or a race
horse comes along that just has a terrific winning attitude. For any of you who
either read the book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Illenbrand
or the saw the movie spin-off starring Tobey Maguire, you might enjoy reading
the recap of the actual race by one of the greatest sports writers of all time,
Grantland Rice. Here is the link: http://www.secondrunning.com/seabiscuit_war%20admiral.htm.
9.
IN
CLOSING, “When the one great scorer…”
The reference to Grantland Rice’s article above reminds me
of two phrases that were chiseled into things that I saw most everyday – and
therefore into my mind – when I had the privilege of attending the 6th
and 7th grades at the Pingry School in New Jersey. In the wall that
greeted us as we came in from the playing fields was this quote:
“For when the One Great Scorer
comes
To write against your name,
He marks-not that you won or lost-
But how you played the game.”
Grantland
Rice
And, in a simple, but big, strong table that stood on the
stage in morning chapel there was another quote:
“The Fear
of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”
(Psalm
111:10)
What was going on with my learning process at that time? Some
other relevant quotes might help at this juncture:
Repetitio est mater studiorum (repetition
is the mother of learning); and,
“When the student is ready the
teacher will appear”.
I guess the repetition of seeing those quotes did bump
into a young mind that was ready to receive them back in 1961-1963.
How will we “score” in 2007 powered by what noble vision
and values for the 4-way win?
How can we change our culture to open the minds of our
employees so that they might be ready to receive some teachings that are
immutably correct concerning “People, Service and Profits”?
All the best,
Bruce Merrifield (bruce@merrifield.com; 919-933-7474)
