Eric's Remac Ink Blog

Thanks for taking time to visit my weekly blog. Every Thursday I post what I hope is a thought provoking article that I hope will add value to your personal life as well as your business life. I hope that you will like it enough to like, comment and share with many of your friends and colleagues.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Life Lessons

I was having coffee with a friend this week.  As with many conversations with friends as it turns to business I was discussing the similarities and differences in my industry and hers.  As with most people and industries I am familiar with we were discussing the increased competition and diminishing distribution options due to the prolonged downturn in business over the last 5 years.  She told me, "hey, you should write about the lessons you've learned over the last 5 years.  I bet a lot of people in your situation would be interested to hear how you are overcoming the challenges you've been faced with over the last several years.  My response?  "Um, I kind of already do that."  Then I gave her the name of my blog.

Even though I am approaching a milestone birthday early next year I am happy to say I still try and usually manage to do quite well learning something every day.  The last few years I have been working on a PhD from the school of Hard Knocks.  Here are a couple of lessons to discuss briefly this week.  Creativity and resourcefulness. 

Creativity has always been important no matter what you do.  You need to stand out from the crowd and do more things to get noticed.  This is never more true than in 2013 when terms like IMing, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest - words that did not exist in our vocabulary just a few years ago- demand that you be different and act different if you are going to make a difference.  I call it BAM but you can call it whatever you want as long as you're doing whatever you can to make sure you remain relevant to your customers or audience or whoever you are trying to appeal to. 

There are plenty of people and companies out there that continue to operate in the arena of insanity trying to do the same thing they have done for years and expecting different results.  Good luck with that in 2013!  What are you doing to get noticed?  What other industries are you seeing breakthrough ideas that could be incorporated in to yours?  How are you changing to meet the needs of your customers?  Do you know what your customer's needs are?

Resourcefulness is also a key to success in the future.  I define resourcefulness as making more out of less.  Maybe it means something different to you but the truth is I bet you wish you had more customers to sell to and less competitors vying to earn their business.  The reality is how can you become a more valuable and trusted resource to the customers you have?  Better yet, which customers earn you the most profit?  What can you do to become a key resource for those customers?  What other customers exist that posses the same characteristics that can earn you higher margins.

We don't necessarily need more customers but we need to maximize business with our best customers.  How often are you communicating with your best customers?  Are you part of their planning process for the future or are you working backwards and hoping to sell something?  Anything?!  That's a tough way to make a living today. 

Combining the strengths of creativity and resourcefulness will lead you to ask questions in new ways, look at problems and resolutions from different angles and bring results that will deliver long-lasting results.  It's not easy but it beats doing nothing.  I guarantee you'll learn a few things along the way. 

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Turn the Page

I spoke to a customer of mine last week.  He has been a customer of ours for as long as I can remember.  And well he should have been as his family shoes store has been run by three generations of his family for 103 years.  It's a great story of blood, sweat and tears all rolled in to a business that has not only supported a hard working family but a small town in South Carolina during celebrations and special events since before World War I. 

Next month they are closing their doors for good.

It's a stark reality that the mom and pop community stores are being replaced by discount stores, big box retailers and the Internet.  As one of my colleagues reflected well, "it's the end of an era."  Now, I am not here to lament the demise of the solely owned proprietorship in America.  Time and progress marches on and business - big business - is still being done every day.  It's just being done in very different ways.  Our challenge is will we adjust to market changes or will we succumb to them? 

It's an easy question to ask and the answer presumably comes quickly, however just going with the flow and relying on past successes may delay the inevitable but eventually you will end up in the same place.  The more difficult questions really are much more difficult to ask and even harder to answer.  Where is your market going?  What changes must we make to not only keep up with the market but also to affect the market overall.  Note well, the days of mimicking competitors and hoping to win on better features and benefits (price) are over.  Don't believe me?  Consider a few examples:
  • Who would have thought 20 years ago that people would line up on nearly every street corner to pay $3.00 for the "experience" of buying a cup of coffee?
  • How did an entire industry resist the opportunity to "unbundle" album sales and put their customers in control of what music they wanted to listen to and buy?  Why did it take a technology company named after a fruit to figure that out?
  • What possessed newspaper and magazines to resist putting content online until people did it for them and put many of them out of business and/or on the brink of bankruptcy?
Get the picture?  There are dozes of other examples where all of us have benefited by the insight of a company or industry to make it easier and more fun to interact with them.  If your business or industry hasn't yet been affected by a game changing service or technology enhancement (and I challenge anyone to convince me you haven't) then I suggest you start preparing now because they're coming sooner and more devastatingly than you think. 

All of this is not meant to scare or intimidate you.  It is an encouragement to do something rather than sit idly by while your business gets changed by something beyond your control.  I have two words for you.  Market.  Intelligence. 

Definition:  If you don't know what is going on in your market and what is going on with your customers you better find out.  You better know and observe their business and find ways to help them before someone else does.  The days of just turning on the lights in the morning and giving your customers good service while providing a good product are over.  You better turn the page and see your business in a whole new light.  Before your competitors turn yours out for you. 

Thursday, April 11, 2013

What would you give?

This past weekend I was thinking and teaching a little bit about sacrifice.  When I asked some young men I was speaking to to define sacrifice for me I got a very interesting answer that I was ready to brush aside but in an instant I realized the genius his answer contained.  The old saying, from the mouths of babes comes to mind.  He would be offended if I called him a child as he is in fact a young teen aged man, however the point is he more clearly than I was able gave an outstanding definition of what making a personal sacrifice means.

In a nutshell, here was his definition.  "It's like when you make like a sacrifice bunt in baseball so that the other guy can like move up and your team has like a chance to score more runs."  I love that he used a baseball analogy.  And I also think he like likes me but I'm not here to dissect teen speak.  Read that definition again.  Do you see what I see?  Genius.  Here is my take on what my young friend taught me.

A person who is willing to give himself up in order to help out the team is making a sacrifice.  Wow!  So many applications, so little time.  In a culture focused on self and all the rewards and accolades we can accumulate for ourselves in the shortest amount of time, rare and few are those who are willing to give up their own personal gain for the betterment of the larger "team."  Which teams do you play on?  Your family?  Your business or your department at work?  Your neighborhood, your city, your country?  Whether we want to admit and realize it or not we all are important members of many teams.  Take a few minutes and jot down the names of your teams.  I have at least a dozen I can think of right away, how about you?

The obvious next step then is to identify your role on each team.  Easy enough.  Once you have done that, here is where few are eager to progress beyond.  What are you willing to give of yourself for the greater good of the team?  Are you willing to give up your own personal gain so that the whole team wins?  Most of us would probably say "yes" because it's the "right" answer, however when the rubber meets the road I wonder.  It takes a long-term view and an attitude of putting off immediate gratification so that in the future the sacrifice gets turned in to a much bigger win. 

Think of this simple example.  I could go to the grocery store and buy a pint of my favorite ice cream and sit on the couch tonight watching TV while finishing off the pint.  It feels good, it tastes good and I'm sure if I think about it long enough I can come up with a reason why I deserve to reward myself.  If, however I don't go to the store and go to the gym instead of watching TV in the long run I am going to look better, feel better and do a better job in all of my roles on all of my teams.

The analogies are endless.  I'm sure you can easily think of many others that apply to you and your situations.  The only question remaining is what would you give?  You may never see the rewards, you may never hear the accolades but you will know that by your sacrifice you enabled the team to go farther than they could have gone otherwise.  May you bunt your way to victory! 

Friday, April 5, 2013

April Fools

Wow!  Here we are already.  I hate to alarm you but 2013 is already 1/3 of the way over.  I hope you're still not getting over you Holiday hangover or thinking about pulling out your New Year's resolutions to take a look at them for the first time since, oh about January 5th.  Welcome to April and welcome to the fast paced world of business that moves even quicker than the weeks and months on a calendar. 

It's a recurring theme but I continue to be amazed at how quickly and drastically my business is changing each and every year and honestly every month.  I had a planning session with the key leaders of our company at the beginning of January and several of the objectives we outlined to work on this year have already been changed due to a change in our market or our customers.  I cannot imagine the same is not true for all of you. 

If you're not sure then I suggest you do as I am attempting to do and break away from the daily grind of your desk or your office and get out in to the market and see what's going on with your customers and with their customers.  I bet you will be surprised by at least a few things you didn't realize.  I also bet you'll come away with some insights in to how to make your products or services better.  Personally I'd rather spend all day in the field doing market research than I had running from meeting to meeting within my office making plans for things that may change before I get them implemented.  Don't think things are changing that fast?  Then I suggest you need a new pair of shoes (feel free to order them from me) so you can run faster. 

Ahead of the curve is the new normal if you want to be successful in this fast changing world.  Last year's can't miss is this year's can't figure it out.  What's next?  I don't know but I am guessing you're not going to figure it out by working longer hours and scheduling more meetings.  You can't feel a heartbeat if you don't have your finger on the pulse.  I don't know what that means for you specifically but I certainly would recommend you find out - soon. 

I love spring - my favorite time of the year.  Lots of new beginnings, new opportunities and fresh approaches.  Now is a great time to take advantage of the ones you have.  Maybe April showers will bring May flowers but I really hope this month won't turn you in to an April fool. 

Friday, March 8, 2013

Movie Magic

Like many of you I suspect, I watched with at least a fair amount of interest the Academy Awards a couple of weeks ago.  It seems to me that next to the Super Bowl the Academy Awards Show has become the most popular television event in our country.  Heck, my wife even decided to throw an Academy Awards watching party at our house that evening.  The only thing difference between it and our Super Bowl watching party is I didn't need to spend an hour on the treadmill the morning after working off all of the "tailgate" food from the football game.

It got me thinking, why has this event become so popular?  It wasn't always this way, at least not that I remember.  Sure, I think media hype has vaulted all kinds of things in to our consciousness that weren't there before but this is different.  Like the Super Bowl, every television, radio, newspaper and Internet site was abuzz the morning after discussing the results of the Awards.  How did the movies become so popular?  From what I have read, box office receipts are not increasing by any great stretch.  There must be something(s) else in place that has made it a must watch event. 

Not only has the show itself become an enigma but now the stars arriving on the red carpet was televised for an hour and a half before the awards ever started.  Just like we watch the Super Bowl to see who has the best commercials, we're now watching to see which star has the most awesome dress, the most beautiful shoes and whose hair looked amazing.  While it would be easy to be critical and write this off as a nonsensical event, it's getting hard to ignore.  Are there some lessons we can learn from the movie industry?  At least a few I can think of....

First, some of the attraction must be the ability to see Hollywood stars out of their normal element.  To see them as real people with families, hopes, dreams.  Just like us.  In today's world of IM, email, texting and reduced spending for marketing our customers and constituents need to see us and need to see us be real.  Meet with them, talk with them and find out what's happening with them.  In short, be approachable and be helpful.

Also, be unpredictable and spontaneous.  Oh, if only we could get all of our prospects and customers to pay attention to us.  How many times have you lamented your inability to reach a customer or prospect.  Be different, get noticed.  Like Seth McFarlane you may fall on your face every now and then but you won't be boring. 

Finally, be passionate.  There is no substitute for hard work.  it's easy to look at successful people and think they have it made but when you listen to their stories you realize how hard they had to work and how much they had to risk to get where they are.  They outworked and out husteld the other person to become a household name.  Are you thinking about leaving a mark or just admiring others who have?

I don't go to the movies often and I certainly don't always agree with the messages and causes that some in Hollywood portray.  But like everything else in life there is diamonds to be mined from observing Hollywood.  They give us the stars and it's up to us to make the magic. 






Friday, March 1, 2013

Never Say Never

I just returned from yet another trade show.  Last week I was in Las Vegas.  My show season is about finished and I am reflecting on all the good things that have happened over the past few weeks.  I am extremely grateful to work in an industry that is very close nit and supportive, even amongst competitors.  There is no substitute for going to industry trade shows and renewing old friendships and acquaintances.  It makes all the hard work in between pay off.

Like many other industries, our industry has consolidated tremendously over the last several years.  Meaning that there are too many suppliers trying to sell to too few customers.  Translation: competition is fierce and without a clear point of difference and competitive advantage over any number of similar companies I am toast.  It's enough to keep me up at night and focusing on continuously improving my products and services!

In order to do this I've had to break a lot of old models that frankly were the backbone of my business for many (profitable) years.  What worked three years ago, heck last year, well, actually, last month doesn't necessarily work today.  Sound familiar?

If so, I have a couple of thoughts and suggestions.  If you're still trying to operate under the tried and true model of years gone by you are getting passed by quickly.  What worked before has been forever changed by technology, market efficiencies and consumer behavior.  I would almost guarantee you the way customers evaluate and buy your products has changed drastically.  The question is have you changed how you produce, market and sell to keep up with customer's desires?

If your web site doesn't rock your customer's and prospect's socks off then I suggest you do what I've done and get an all hands on deck meeting together to make it so.  Quickly.  I am convinced that a correctly designed and executed website is the most important sales and marketing tool that any of us have.  It IS the way customers shop today. 

The other thing that might make you a little uneasy is you may have to look to some of your competitors or customers as potential business partners.  As I mentioned, my industry is pretty close nit and there aren't a lot of secrets so the other way to mix things up is to collaborate and contribute alongside people that you have always considered unable or incapable of helping you.  It is truly important who you know but I believe it is becoming increasingly important to focus on what you know and who can help you learn and make things happen.

This makes for some uncomfortable decisions and ideas.  The only thing that makes less sense is status quo.  If you're not in the habit of challenging it then I suggest you find a way to stop living in the past and be willing to take necessary calculated risks to impact your future.  If you're my competitor, never mind.  I'm sure you're doing just fine. 

Friday, February 15, 2013

Eye of the Storm

Last week I along with most members of my industry were in New York for an industry Trade Show.  By divine intervention, dumb luck or a little of both I managed to get out before Snowmaggedon hit the Northeast the end of last week.  Next week I do the same thing again in Las Vegas.  Yes, February and August for me is my bi-annual Super Bowl.  We launch new product lines and meet with most all of our customers to hopefully secure business for the future and ensure our long-term company profit and operation goals.

February and August are exhausting months.  Lots of travel - which is a lot more work than it used to be - lots of early mornings, late nights and even sleepless nights in anticipation of making sure all of mine and my colleague's work is paid off by generating great results with and for my customers.  It's enough to make a middle aged guy feel old!

This past weekend I also celebrated another birthday.  As I have said to many friends and family "it is the last official birthday that I can claim to still be young."  I'll leave that for you to figure out my age.  As I enjoy my last year of youth I have to admit that I am finally gaining some wisdom and getting to the age where I can share wisdom instead of only seeking it.

My observation to share this week is that there is no substitute for preparation.  If we all know when the storms of life were coming and could prepare ourselves I am convinced that we would be much better off.  Of course, there are many twists and turns where we get blindsided by things and all we can do is to pick up the pieces.  In those cases, I think it's not what happens to you but how you respond that defines who you are.  Let me address the idea of preparation.

No matter what you do, in what occupation you find yourself, there are times we know in advance that a busy time is coming.  For me, it's February and August.  For my wife it's the end of the school year or the weeks leading up to Christmas.  For accountants April 15 is looming large.  You get the idea.  For many years my tendency was to just "weather the storm" and then take the weeks after the storm to pick up the pieces and/or to just take a few weeks to slowly "recuperate" which really meant just sleepwalking through March and September.

I find that by planning ahead not only am I ready and prepared to perform at my peak during the storms but I also have plenty of energy left to devote to the "March and Septembers" of life.  In other words, it helps me stay on an even keel.  Now, I must admit that there was a lot more down time in my schedule before I started along this path, however my productivity and energy level is at an all time high. 

it takes discipline.  It takes commitment.  Sometimes I still screw up and wish I would have prepared even better.  Sometimes I just have to take a nap.  Most importantly, I have time to focus on more important things and I am not always controlled by the urgent.  I have put away my fire fighting gear and am working smarter and having more time for important things.  Like enjoying my weekends.  My focus is not surviving the looming storm but rather it's a hopeful mindset to prosper even during them.  I would much rather be a storm trooper than a fire fighter!