How to Empower Every Member of Your Team

I’m mostly a black and white kind of guy.  There’s good, there’s bad.  There’s right, there’s wrong.  There’s proper behavior, there’s stupid behavior.  You succeed, or you fail; and you don’t blame anyone else.

So when I heard the term “Situational Leadership” I thought, Holy cow, another feel-good, politically correct excuse for not performing. I was wrong – way wrong.

Situational Relationship Behavior is the extent to which the leader engages in 2-way communication; in other words, your interaction with people.

High relationship means you’re highly engaged.  You’re giving them additional training and support on an ongoing basis.  You’re interacting with them quite frequently.

Low relationship behavior means that you’re not as engaged in 2-way communication.

Task Behavior is the extent to which the leader is engaged in spelling out the duties and responsibilities.  High task behavior means the manager is more detailed and directive toward telling the subordinate step-by-step what to do.

Low task behavior is when the manager assigns the task, delegates the task, and is not involved with actually getting the job done.

A new employee (team member) typically starts in Q1 (see picture) and the manager does a lot of Telling (high task, low relationship).  There is a lot of instruction showing them how to do the job.  You’re not patting them on the back yet because they haven’t shown anything yet.  You’re teaching and training them, so there is not a lot of relationship behavior.

After a few months, the new employee is making some progress and it’s time to move from telling to Selling (high task, high relationship).   The manager is still directing and showing, but the communication is more 2-way.  The manager gives a lot of reinforcement while explaining, clarifying and persuading.  The manager is mining for ideas from the team member and teaching them to think on their own.  The leader still defines the roles and tasks, but seeks ideas and suggestions.  The leader pats them on the back.  The more you can guide them to thinking things out the more beneficial it is to you in the future.

As the individual grows, it’s time for the manager to move from selling to Participating (high relationship, low task).  The person understands the job and knows how to do it, but doesn’t have a lot of confidence yet.  They need reinforcement on an ongoing basis until they develop confidence.  The manager gives the individual a lot of support, pats him on the back, and stays very close.  Because the individual knows the job, there is much less directive behavior from the manager.

As the team member becomes more and more competent, he becomes a true expert at the job and the manager moves to Empowering (low relationship, low task).  The team member is doing 80% or more of the talking during the PDI.  The manager is observing, monitoring, reinforcing, and delegating.

Your goal as the manager is to get your staff to Quadrant 4, but as the arrows in the graph above show, it’s not a one-way street.  Depending on the job or task, you may move down or up a quadrant, or even two – and sometimes even three.

In one of my businesses, one of my vice presidents is fabulous at her job and my management style is almost always empowering.  But she’s not a numbers person, so when it comes to working with numbers my management style moves to Participating and sometimes to Selling or even Telling.  With her it was not uncommon for me to say, “That number doesn’t make sense, check it out.”

It’s also important to understand that you’re working with people, not machines.  We all have personal lives away from business and for all of us, our personal lives influence us at work.  Sometimes it’s critically important to move down a quadrant when a team member has personal problems.

Leaving your empathy and understanding behind, you have a lot invested in someone who’s in Q4.  Moving up on the relationship scale to Participating or even to Selling is sometimes critical to get that person back up to speed.  And, of course, if things get worse you may need to move to Telling with get this done or you’ll be fired.

For a complete discussion of Situational Leadership get my book Performance Reviews Suck for FREE. I just ask that you help with postage and handling by paying $2.97.

Click here to get the book.

Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You

Checking it Off My Bucket List Today!

The picture above shows my ride for the next two days.

This is a big one for me… Heli-skiing with my daughter Jenny, and son Travis.

Living your bucket list now, and not waiting, is one of the best reasons to implement The Make-You-Happy Management System in your business. The system is called the Make-You-Happy Management System because it makes your customers happy, your employees happy, your managers happy, your vendors happy and most importantly, you and your family happy.

Every once in a while when I’m on an interview in podcast, coaches call tele-seminar or webinar, I’m asked, “What accomplishment are you most proud of?” My response is, “My 42 year marriage to my high school sweat heart Patty.” Then I ask, “Can I share one more with you?” The answer, of course in always, “Yes.”

Here’s my second accomplishment that I’m most proud of. “Skiing has always been huge in our family. My wife Patty and I met on the ski bus in high school. The kids started really young and we skied a lot. Now both of our grand kids started skiing when they were two – actually Whitney was 22 months. We skied in the Cascades, about an hour from our house, and took another ski vacation most every year. Today we have a vacation home that’s 16 miles from our favorite ski area.

While it may not be an accomplishment, this represents what is most important to me. When Travis was a senior in college he asked if he and I could go on a ski vacation for his last spring break. While his friends were partying in Hawaii or Florida he wanted to go skiing with me. Then two years later when Jenny was graduating from college she also asked to go skiing with me. I knew when they both asked me to go skiing with them on their last spring break that I did it right by making sure my businesses ran properly so that I could live my bucket list while they were growing up and not miss out at being a dad.”

If you want to discover how to create a business that gets better whether you’re there or not, so you can live your bucket list now go to https://keithlee.com/freedom-for-business-owners and watch the video.

P.S. Today I own three businesses. Travis runs the biggest of the three and all of the businesses run so well that were going skiing together for three days this week; and then our entire family Travis his wife Jen, their kids Carson and Whitney, Patty my wife, and Jenny our daughter, are going to Mexico for the first week in April, and all three businesses will continue to improve while were gone.

Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You

Keith Lee
Keith@KeithLee.com

Keep Failing

The sign off on my email for years was, “Keep thinking, keep trying, keep failing, keep succeeding, keep growing”. I want to emphasize Keep Failing today.

I believe fear of failure is one of the biggest detriments for business people.

But let’s look at just a few historical failures.

• JFK failed the bar exam twice.

• Mark Twain, Henry Ford, P.T. Barnum, Milton Hershey, and Henry Heinz all went bankrupt.

• Walt Disney was fired because of a lack of new ideas.

• Winston Churchill flunked 8th grade.

Perhaps, one of the most famous failures that directly relates to business is Thomas Edison’s statement while attempting to create the light bulb, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

One of the most important concepts in the Make-You-Happy Management System is getting lots of input and ideas on how to improve from your team. It’s really important that in coming up with ideas and input that they not be afraid to fail. That they not be afraid to suggest lots of things – things that may not be implemented. If people are afraid to fail in your business the ideas will dry up.

The following is excerpted from Fail Fast, Fail Often: How Losing Can Help You Win by Ryan Babineaux, PhD., and John Krumboltz, PhD.

“There’s something to notice about successful people: they act quickly, even if they may fail.”

In the book Art and Fear, the artists Ted Orland and David Waylon share a story about a ceramics teacher who tried an experiment with his class.

“The teacher divided the students into two groups. Those sitting on the left side of the studio were to be graded solely on the quantity of their work, while those on the right, solely on the quality. The instructor informed the students in the quantity group that a simple rule would be applied to evaluate their grades: those who produced fifty pounds of pots would get an A, those who produced forty pounds a B, and so on.

For the quality group, the instructor told the students that he would assign a course grade based on the single best piece produced over the duration of the course. So if a student created a first-rate pot on day one of the course and did nothing else for the term, he would still get an A.

When the end of the quarter arrived and it came to grading time, the instructor made an interesting discovery: the students who created the best work, as judged by technical and artistic sophistication, were the quantity group. While they were busy producing pot after pot, they were experimenting, becoming more adept at working with the clay, and learning from the mistakes on each progressive piece.

In contrast, the students in the quality group carefully planned out each pot and tried to produce refined, flawless work, and so they only worked on a few pieces over the length of the course. Because of their limited practice, they showed little improvement.”

I like this story because it points out an important principle: successful people take action as quickly as possible, even though they may perform badly.

Instead of trying to avoid making mistakes and failing, they actively seek opportunities where they can face the limits of their skills and knowledge so that they can learn quickly. They understand that feeling afraid or underprepared is a sign of being in the space for optimal growth and is all the more reason to press ahead. In contrast, when unsuccessful people feel unprepared or afraid, they interpret it as a sign that it is time to stop, readdress their plans, question their motives, or spend more time preparing and planning.”

It is also critical that you not be afraid of failure in marketing and sales. In fact, one of the characteristics of good marketing businesses is that they fail fast! The faster you fail and get on to the next idea, the faster you’ll find something that works. Even the best marketers have more failures than successes. If you are interested in this kind of marketing, you can get a FREE Gift at: kennedy.3dmailresults.com. No www before it.

Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You

Keith Lee
Keith@KeithLee.com

Create Customer Service Legends

“Create Customer Service Legends” 

The goal of Make-You-Happy Customer Service is to create a culture in which exceptional customer service is the norm. A culture in which indifferent customer service is simply not an option. Creating Customer Service Legends is a great way to do that and here’s a great way to create customer service legends.

We encourage every team member to send an ‘Atta Boy’ or an ‘Atta Girl’ whenever they notice another team member who has gone ‘Above and Beyond’ in providing Make-You-Happy Customer Service to another team member, or client.

When someone sees that a team member has gone above and beyond they simply send an email to the entire company with the subject line ‘Atta Boy’ or ‘Atta Girl.’ This simple idea is one of the best things we’ve ever done to create a culture of providing exceptional customer service. With no effort from management our “Atta Girls” and “Atta Boys” keep our Make-You-Happy Customer Service philosophy in the forefront continually.

Here’s an ‘Atta Boy’ from Mark Turner about our POS tech crew. Remember, this gets sent to the entire company.

“I asked the tech guys if they could answer a question (no charge) for a prospect who has RMS from another vendor in one store and is adding a second store. Her current vendor could, or would not answer and she tried the online help at Microsoft to no avail. Our guys agreed to help her, Brian called and left a message, the prospect called back and Peter took care of her.

I talked to her today and she said, ‘He was wonderful! Your quote was a few hundred more than the other guys and money is tight, but you guys are getting the business for sure.'”

Here’s another ‘Atta Girl’ from Ariane in sales about Dorothy in purchasing. See the article below for a discussion about internal customer service.

“Thank you Dorothy for helping me enter a Lozier order. This is my first one and Dorothy took the time to come sit with me to make sure I understood how to enter the order so it made sense for sales, purchasing, and the client! Way to go, Dorothy for an “..and then some attitude”

Atta Boys and Atta Girls have been a great addition for our company and I bet they will be for yours also.

Implement ‘Atta Boys’ and ‘Atta Girls’ in your business.

You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You at www.TheHappyCustomerHandbook.com. Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.

Live Your Bucket List Now

One of the things that I’ve added to my “Live Your Bucket List Now” presentation is to make sure you have items on your bucket list that require you to stay in shape as you get older.  That way, instead of working out and eat right just to stay in shape you’ve eating right and working out to LIVE YOUR BUCKET LIST

Follow this link to discover how you can Live Your Bucket List Now

If you have items on your Bucket List that require you to stay in shape you won’t be working out and watching what you eat to just stay in shape, you’ll be doing those things to Live Your Bucket List.

My bucket list included back country skiing with my daughter Jenny. That’s where you hike up the mountain and ski down.  I’ve skied to 49 years and I’ll continue to ride the chair lift and ski in bounds, but AT skiing looked pretty darned awesome.

So, about a year ago I checked, “Become an AT skier” off my Bucket List by taking a 3-day avalanche class with Jenny.

They say a picture say a thousand words, so I’ll share some with you as I go

The Make-You-Happy Management System is about YOU
Living Your Bucket List Now… are you!

I took a 3-day avalanche training class with my daughter Jenny.  In the class we learned how to be safe in the back country and how to find someone should they become buried in an avalanche.  After the class I’m confident that I can travel in the back-country safely and have a great time skiing.

Jenny’s friend Christy joined Jenny and me in the class.

Day 1

We drove up a windy private dirt road to about the 4,000 foot level of Downing Mountain outside of Hamilton Montana.  From there we skinned up the road to Downing Mountain Lodge at 5,500 feet.  (Skinning – You attach a synthetic ‘skin’ to the bottom of your skies so you can walk up the mountain without sliding back).

We didn’t know what to expect for accommodations but it turned out great.

We got our gear settled in and started our first classroom session.  We learned how to use our rescue beacons to find someone buried in the snow.  About 2pm we went outside, skinned up about 1,000 feet and practiced finding buried beacons.  As the sun was setting we skied back to the lodge, had dinner (great lasagna) and another class room session.  We started learning how to read the terrain, weather, and other things so we could have fun and STAY OUT OF AN AVALANCHE.

Day 2

Got up, had a great breakfast and another classroom session.  Then it was time to head up the mountain, learn how to read the terrain, snow pack weather, dig our avalanche pit, test the snow and ski!

We skinned from 5,500 feet to the summit of Downing Mountain at 8,000 feet.  Oh my GOD!  I don’t know if Jenny keeps me young or not, but I was sucking air and feeling every bit of my 61 years.

But… I felt absolutely incredible as I ate lunch with Jenny at the summit.  Here I am with Jenny eating lunch at 8,000 feet.  I’m the black blob leaning on the tree to the left of Jenny.

Here is most of the group getting ready to ski down and dig our avalanche pits to test the snow.

Jenny – Taking a measurement in our pit.

After a great run down to the lodge, it was time for a little relaxation, and a shot-ski.  Get it, doing shots with holes drilled into the ski to hold the shot glasses.  Daddy-daughter bonding at its best.

Day 3

This was our (the students) day to plan the ascent and the path to ski down.  The previous day got us to the summit quickly and safely so we decided to take the same route up.  On day two we skied down the same way we went up.  Today, we wanted to see if we could safely ski the huge bowl to the south of our ascent line.

Our plan was to test the snow at the top near the bowl and if it was as stable as day 2, or better, we would go to bowl, measure the inclination of the slope, and if it was 35 degrees or less, we would ski down that way.

We found that the snow was actually more stable than the previous day and the slope was about 30 degrees.  So  YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

Remember, one of the main reasons to implement the Make-You-Happy Management System is so you can Live Your Bucket List NOW!

Follow this link to discover how you can Live Your Bucket List Now

You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), How to Control Your Business and your Life, Proven Secrets to Creating Highly Productive Teams at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.

“Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You” 

Keith Lee
www.keithlee.com

How Would You Like an Unpaid Employee?

“You have reached the highest level in sales when your Client views you as an unpaid employee.”                                                                                           ~ Zig Ziglar

That statement has had a profound impact on my life and now that I teach customer service I change it to, “You have reached the highest level in sales when your Client views you as an unpaid employee.” 

I’m not bragging, but when I was a sales rep I did very well, and it was because I believed and practice the statement above from Zig Ziglar.

When I started at American Retail Supply (Thompson Marking Service) in 1978 the only products we sold were hand-held price marking equipment and labels.  My job was to drive, or walk, from one retail store to the next, sell price marking guns, service the guns for existing Clients, and sell them labels for their price markers.  I was paid on straight commission.

Zig’s statement of, “You have reached the highest level of sales when your Client views you as an unpaid employee” was right in line with what I learned from Dick Thompson, the founder of American Retail Supply.  Dick said, “You can only get in direct proportion to what you give.”

With Dick and Zig’s advice, along with parents who taught me the same principles, I headed out to sell price marking equipment and labels.  The Client’s in my territory hadn’t had anyone calling on them for almost three years and I found that most of them had started buying from another company who had a sales rep coming around periodically.

As I entered the Client’s store I looked at the labels on their product to determine the type of pricing equipment they used.  While I did this I looked for labels that weren’t printing properly.  In those days the price marking equipment needed periodic adjustments and the tracks needed to be cleaned for the price marker to work properly.

As I introduced myself, many of the Clients told me they didn’t buy from us any longer because we had not been around to service them and another company came in once in a while.

I had learned from my parents that what you say isn’t nearly as important as what you do, so I simply told them that’s fine, and let them know I would still love to clean and service their labelers.  If they hesitated, I would point out the labels that weren’t printing properly and almost always was able to clean and service their labelers.  Then I showed them what I did to fix the problem and often gave them a hint or two on maintaining the labelers.  Sometimes I walked out with an order.

Most of the time I thanked the Client and told them I would be back in a few months.  Most of the time when I told them I would be back in a few months they reminded me that they didn’t buy from us any longer.  I simply replied, “That’s fine.”

When I showed up a few months later I was often reminded that they no longer buy from us.  I again serviced the labelers and left with more orders.  Over the three years I was an outside sales rep almost every Client who originally told me they no longer bought from us became my Client and many are Clients today.

Zig’s lesson that, “You have reached the highest level of sales when your Client views you as an unpaid employee” served me well as a sales person, and is still our goal today at American Retail Supply.

I originally published my newsletter for my American Retail Supply in 1993 with the thought that I would research an issue and bring what I found to my customers with the hope that it would be of value and help their business thrive… which of course, meant they would need more supplies and fixtures.

“You have reached the highest level in sales when your Client views you as an unpaid employee.”                                                                                           ~ Zig Ziglar

You can learn more about Zig Ziglar at www.ZigZiglar.com

You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You for free.  We just ask that you pay $2.97 to help cover shipping and handling.  Go to www.TheHappyCustomerHandbook.com.

Email Sucks

In many cases, email is an absolutely terrible way to communicate effectively.  In the The Happy Customer Handbook I discuss “Putting You into Every Client Contact”. 

I discuss the fact that communication experts say that body language and intonation account for 90% of effective communication.  How does email fit into body language and intonation?  It doesn’t.  Often, email communication should be called email miscommunication.

I’ve actually had people tell me they didn’t like the tone of an email they received from someone.  I asked them to send me that email.  As someone not involved in the issue I saw no tone what-so-ever.

Sure, a great writer can put tone into their writings, but to expect that a particular email, that may or may not have been hugely important to the sender, that may have been composed in a matter of seconds was sent with a particular tone is, at best, a guess. 

I often remind our team at that “Email Sucks”.  If you have something important to say and it could be taken incorrectly, “Email Sucks!”

Also, unless you’re willing to upset the recipient much more than you can imagine, you should never send an email that is negative or critical.

Another, rule of thumb that we’ve found that works is, “If you go back and forth about something with email quit typing and get on the phone, or go see the person.”

 You can get my hard copy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You for free at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  I just ask that you pay $2.97 to help cover shipping and handling.

 “Do What You Do So Well
That People Can’t Help Telling Others About You” 

 Keith Lee
www.keithlee.com

Keep Failing and Start Succeeding

The sign off on my email for years was, “Keep thinking, keep trying, keep failing, keep succeeding, keep growing.”  I want to emphasize Keep Failing today.

Fear of failure is one of the biggest detriments to the growth of both people and businesses.

  • Let’s look at just a few historical failures.
    JFK failed the bar exam twice.
  • Mark Twain, Henry Ford, P.T. Barnum, Milton Hershey, and Henry Heinz all went bankrupt.
  • Walt Disney was fired because of a lack of new ideas.
  • Winston Churchill flunked 8th grade.

Perhaps, one of the most famous failures that directly relates to business is Thomas Edison’s statement while attempting to create the light bulb, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

One of the most important concepts in the Make-You-Happy Management System is getting lots of input and ideas on how to improve from your team.  It’s really important that in coming up with ideas and input that they not be afraid to fail. That they not be afraid to suggest lots of things – things that may not be implemented. If people are afraid to fail in your business the ideas will dry up.

The following is excerpted from Fail Fast, Fail Often: How Losing Can Help You Win by Ryan Babineaux, PhD., and John Krumboltz, PhD.

“There’s something to notice about successful people: they act quickly, even if they may fail.

In the book Art and Fear, the artists Ted Orland and David Waylon share a story about a ceramics teacher who tried an experiment with his class.

The teacher divided the students into two groups.  Those sitting on the left side of the studio were to be graded solely on the quantity of their work, while those on the right, solely on the quality.  The instructor informed the students in the quantity group that a simple rule would be applied to evaluate their grades: those who produced fifty pounds of pots would get an A, those who produced forty pounds a B, and so on.

For the quality group, the instructor told the students that he would assign a course grade based on the single best piece produced over the duration of the course.  So if a student created a first-rate pot on day one of the course and did nothing else for the term, he would still get an A.

When the end of the quarter arrived and it came to grading time, the instructor made an interesting discovery: the students who created the best work, as judged by technical and artistic sophistication, were the quantity group.  While they were busy producing pot after pot, they were experimenting, becoming more adept at working with the clay, and learning from the mistakes on each progressive piece.

In contrast, the students in the quality group carefully planned out each pot and tried to produce refined, flawless work, and so they only worked on a few pieces over the length of the course.  Because of their limited practice, they showed little improvement.

I like this story because it points out an important principle: successful people take action as quickly as possible, even though they may perform badly.

Instead of trying to avoid making mistakes and failing, they actively seek opportunities where they can face the limits of their skills and knowledge so that they can learn quickly.  They understand that feeling afraid or under prepared is a sign of being in the space for optimal growth and is all the more reason to press ahead.  In contrast, when unsuccessful people feel unprepared or afraid, they interpret it as a sign that it is time to stop, readdress their plans, question their motives, or spend more time preparing and planning.”

It is also critical that you not be afraid of failure in marketing and sales. In fact, one of the characteristics of good marketing businesses is that they fail fast!  The faster you fail and get on to the next idea, the faster you’ll find something that works. Even the best marketers have more failures than successes.  If you are interested in this kind of marketing, you can get a FREE Gift at: www.3dMailResults.com.

Do what you do so well
that people can’t help telling others about you

Keith Lee
www.keithlee.com

Lessons From a Wise Friend

I was a volunteer ski patroller for a number of years.  We usually patrolled in a team of two.

One morning, Grandpa Willis and I teamed up for the day. Grandpa Willis wasn’t my grandpa or my kid’s grandpa, but he was a wonderfully, kind, and wise man who my kids called Grandpa Willis.

It had snowed about 12 inches of Cascade Crude overnight.  That thick wet snow that makes skiing a real chore.  I was, and am, a darned good skier, but I was having a heck of a time that morning.  As we stopped on the hill, I told Willis, “I’m having a heck of a time in this crude.”  Willis replied, “Ya, I just can’t get forward in this stuff.”

I thought, “Ya, I need to stay forward too,” and off I went, staying forward and skiing better.  A minute or two later I thought, “Look at him.  He’s not having any trouble skiing in this crude at all.  That was just his, very nice, way of telling me to get forward.”

If I had seen someone skiing like me, I’m sure I would have said, “You need to stay forward in the crap or it will eat you up.”

I’ve used Willis’ wonderful teaching technique many times over the years and think of him often.

Another similar technique is giving people the time, and maybe a nudge, to come up with great ideas for themselves rather than forcing implementation.  This is really effective in your Personal Development Interviews.

Here’s an example.  Johnny The Bagger is a story from the book, The Simple Truths of Service written by Ken Blanchard & Barbara Glanz.  Johnny is an autistic bagger at a grocery store who changes the entire culture of the store.

I introduced Johnny to our entire team here at American Retail Supply by giving each person their own copy of the book and asking them to read it on company time.

Now, I could have then had a company meeting after they read the book and asked each team member to come up with ideas to be Johnny.  I’m sure it would have been valuable.

But I thought it would be more valuable if I just gave them the book and let them do what they wanted.  Shortly, I had a number of people tell me about what they were going to do to be Johnny.

I’m guessing that by them coming up with what they were going to do, it had far more impact on them than me telling them to come up with something.

Now it’s time to combine this teaching idea with “Atta Boys”.  See Secret #32 in The Happy Customer Handbook.  When someone shares what they are doing to become “Johnny” share it with your entire team and watch other “Johnnys” appear.

You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You at www.TheHappyCustomerHandbook.com.  Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.

What Goes Around Comes Around Especially When Disaster Strikes

“How the Make-You-Happy Management System Will Help You and Your Business When Disaster Strikes”

What Goes Around Comes Around is one of my wife – Patty’s – favorite sayings, and since we’ve been together since 1970 I’ve heard her say it thousands and thousands of times.

The Make-You-Happy Management System (MYHMS) puts a huge emphasis on respect for clients and customers.  Remember, in the MYHMS clients are the people that most businesses call customers, and customers are your internal customers; team members, vendors, the FedEX guy, the mail man, etc.  This leads to treating all of these internal customers like… CUSTOMERS, and you know, what goes around comes around.

On July 20, 2003 we had a fire at our distribution center in Denver that destroyed everything.  Twenty thousand square feet of inventory, office supplies and fixtures, computer, everything gone, overnight.  I remember the date, because it happened on my 29th wedding anniversary.  Little did I know how much one of Patty’s favorite sayings would affect us over the next few months.

Let’s look at just a few aspects of the MYHMS and how they helped us during this disaster in Denver:

  • The MYHMS with its Z-theory management and emphasis on not only listening to your team members but empowering them creates team members who know they are incredibly valuable, feel appreciated. This, along with the philosophy that all of us who work in a MYHMS business are customers to each other leads to people who truly enjoy their jobs. The way the team in Denver, and our other locations pulled together to get the job done through this was amazing.
  • At the very heart of the MYHMS is a fanatical devotion to Make-You-Happy Client Service. This created loyal clients who rallied around us.
  • The idea that your vendors are your customers creates vendors who help you when you need it.

When you have all of this going for you and have a disaster you’ll truly find out that, “What Goes Around Comes Around.”

Team Members Come To The Rescue

On the sales end, we were fortunate in that we had a show room at the Denver Merchandise Mart.  We added another phone line and were up and going there right away.

Our warehouse staff was concerned that they may not be able to work while the Denver distribution center was out of commission.  I assured them that we would keep paying them.  They could have easily just sat back and collected the money over what ended up being about a month, but each of them offered to take their vacation at that time.

In addition, as soon as anything came up that they could do they went at it full speed.  They shopped for warehouse racking, found storage units, and shopped for new office furniture.

When the time came to start putting things back together the entire staff in Denver came through like gang busters to get us up and going, working weekends and extended hours.

In addition, our staff in Kent came to the rescue also.  We shipped most of the orders that would have come from our Denver distribution center out of Kent.  Like Denver, when needed, our staff in Kent worked long hours, with a great attitude to get the job done.

In addition, our entire staff, in all of our divisions, did an incredible job keeping up with all of the different shipping arrangements that needed to be arranged to take care of clients and get product to them.

I will forever be grateful to our team members… What goes around comes around.

Vendors Come To The Rescue

Our vendors were absolutely incredible!

As a distributor, we buy product in huge quantities, often truckloads.  We store these and ship them in smaller quantities when our clients need them.  Some of our vendors will allow us to drop ship smaller quantities, but they have extra charges to do this.

While we shipped a lot of orders for the mountain states and east out of Kent and charged our clients what the freight would have been from Denver, with the loss of the entire Denver inventory we didn’t have enough inventory in Kent to do this all of the time.

Our vendors came to the rescue and, every one of them, agreed to waive their minimum order quantities and extra charges and ship to our clients directly when needed.  This was a huge commitment from them and their teams as they are simply not set up to do this in the quantities that they did for us.

I will forever be grateful to our vendors… What goes around comes around.

Clients Come To The Rescue

What a time to find out how loyal our clients were!  Things took longer.  For the most part things ran well, but some things simply took longer.  It took longer for us to let them know when the order would ship because we had to be sure whether we were shipping it from Kent or the vendor, whether it was something that could drop ship from the vendor or not, and lots of other new questions.

And then it still took longer, to get the product from Kent rather than Denver.  Most often the vendor simply couldn’t get it shipped the same day like we do.

We were amazed and thankful that our clients (Continued P5 – Disaster Strikes)

stood by us.  In fact, we got letter after letter thanking us for taking such good care of them under the circumstances.

I will forever be grateful to our clients… What goes around comes around.

What Goes Around Comes Around Negatively Also

Over the years I had been approached numerous times by a business associate to buy his business.  He gave me an idea of the price he was looking for and I always told I didn’t think it would fit at the time.

One day he called me and said he wanted to sell the business.  I again told him I again that I really didn’t think it would fit.  He replied, “I’m going to make you a deal you can’t refuse.”  So, I listened.  It was a deal I couldn’t refuse.

The other owner and I had the same supplier for one of our product lines.  In our case they were a significant and good supplier.  For the other company this supplier represented the huge majority of his business.

Over the years the other owner talked to me about all of the problems he had with the supplier and in fact showed me some of their correspondence.  I couldn’t believe the derogatory tone of the letters from the owner of the business who wanted to sell to the supplier.

He certainly had no idea that he and the supplier were in fact on the same team.  He had no comprehension that he should treat a supplier like an internal customer

I found out during the negotiations to buy the business that after years of this derogatory treatment the supplier decided he simply wasn’t going to sell to the other business anymore.

And, in this case the guy who wanted to sell the business did not have an alternative supplier and it was going to take a good deal of time to find one.  The seller knew I had a good relationship with the supplier and that the supplier would sell to me if I bought the business.  The seller also knew that his list of potential buyers was very small, because the seller would not have had a relationship with the new buyer and would see it as still dealing with the old owner.  What goes around comes around.

So yes,

I got the company in a deal I couldn’t refuse

It didn’t surprise me as we trained our new team in this newly acquired business that our Make-You-Happy Management with its emphasis in respect for everyone was a foreign concept.  And it didn’t surprise me at all to learn that the old owner was very much an X-theory manager with the attitude of I’m the boss, I’m the manager, I’m the owner.  I built this business with my blood sweat and tears do what I tell you to do and that’s that!

The new team was thrilled to hear about the new management system.  What goes around comes around.

You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), How to Control Your Business and your Life, Proven Secrets to Creating Highly Productive Teams at www.HowToControlYourBusiness.com.  Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.