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I have an excuse box!

I try to write down all the sales, work and in many cases life excuses for not moving forward. The box is fun to have to have. I keep it on a shelf near my desk. As soon as the excuses start flying I get it out. Most excuses are now neatly written and in the box. But — Every now and then some new form of excuse making pops up and in the box it goes.

We are all going through the first half ot the first quarter of 2017. Aare sales on track? Are shipments On-Time? Is it easier to do business this year with your company than it was last year? Are continuous improvement habits a part of work and life?

I believe PMF – Polytronix Machining and Fabrication will have a great year 2017. I feel good about our prospects. I know we are doing many, maybe not all, behaviors to create a successful year.

Stay on your game and make this first quarter a great quarter for 2017.

Make 2017 your best year yet!

Momentum! (A powerful word)

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Momentum – What a powerful word when thinking and working on your goals for 2017.

I have many goals that I really want to accomplish.  Some of my goals can’t be completed in a day or month or a year.  These longer harder goals are important and may take several years to accomplish.

Well — After writing and thinking about this early last year, I reaffirmed my longer term goals as being very important to me when accomplished.  I have reaffirmed and dedicated daily time 15 – 20 minutes to stay on task. I didn’t miss a day during last year 2016, I kept the momentum going.

My reaffirmation was easy.  The hard part was not making a very easy to use measurement tool to follow progress.  For longer term goals I was halfheartedly tracking progress with nothing really jumping out to me saying — “You are not on track here, keep up the momentum!”  Now I have a tracking system that shows Green when on track and Red when off track.

Do you have a measurement system for your important Goals?

Make 2017 your best year yet!

5 tips to keep your “GOALS” moving for 2017!

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Some people already have stopped working on their Goals for year 2017.
Hopefully you have made it easy to see your goals and review them for progress frequently.

Here are 5 tips to keep your goals moving for 2017:

1. Make sure you have goals written down and easy to find.
2. Look at your goals daily.
3. Make time to work on your goals daily, even if you spend a few minutes.
4. If a goal seems too hard, revise it. Look at smaller parts of each goal to work on.
5. Never give up — Make 2017 your best year yet!

Goals 2017 — Personal Lifestyle, Business Selling Goals!

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Here we are going into week 4 of the New Year 2017!

First week I was astonished and interested to see the parking lots full at every exercise / workout facility I passed. Now already the parking lots are beginning to not fill. I really hope that the people starting new exercise programs are falling into different time periods and/or finding a cadence that will work and keep them on track.

How many of us have goals, written down and are executing?

I have talked with people starting strong. I have talked with people already running hard toward their written goals. I have talked with people already slowing down on goals. Sadly, I have talked with people making excuses and stopping. Saddest of all, I have talked with people who never even started goals for this year. Soon we will be completing month 1, that’s 1/12th of the time alloted for the year.

I believe no matter where you are in the process, now is the time to start, run hard and never stop!

_____________________

Excuses are abundant. Success will not listen to excuses — Success will ignore them and end-of-year will come again. What will you accomplish?

If you have started keep going — Never Stop!

It’s not too late to begin now — Just start and never Stop!

Make this year 2017 your best year yet!

Mad Customers! — We didn’t even know it!

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Great potential!

Have you ever made customers mad and didn’t even know it.

What is one of the worst things you can do to a customer — Cause opportunity for an RMA – Returned Material Authorization — something is wrong and the customer is not happy!

I started my career of customer service in the world of RMA and Warranty.

It is possible this can be the most frustrating thing you can do to a customer.  The product was bought to use, not send back.  On-time, instant gratification, great product — Gone.

Your company needs a system, procedures, and people to handle returns.  Both Sides are Mad and upset – Customer returning product and the Supplier trying to handle the non-routine work.

From experience of owning my own company, I have witnessed the process of people in the organization knowingly ship product, that was bad.  As I stopped and reflected on what happened, I decided I was part or all of the cause, we needed to make shipment numbers.

The underlying cause was bad operating systems.  We did not have good repeatable processes to ship good product.

So began the journey. (Probably another moment of getting the Lean Journey started and not really being aware of it.)  We did get better and improve.

We then began the real “Lean Journey”.  We were amazed at the rate we lowered RMA’s at our company!

“Lean thinking” started to take over.  We really saw total company improvement.

Make 2017 your best year yet!

Sales, Selling — Follow-up?

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Ask a sales person –

“When is the best time to follow-up with XYZ customer?”

“When is the best time to follow-up on a recent quote?

“When is the best time to follow-up on “Blah, Blah, Blah?”

 All too often we hear, It’s too early, or I am not sure now is the right time, or I don’t want to bug the Buyer/Customer/Etc.

 Have you ever taken the time to think about “Follow-Up” in selling?

Some sales people follow-up too often and disturb/disrupt the potential customer.  It is estimated that you need 7 contacts with potential clients/customers before a transaction happens.

I am self-taught in selling and when I found a really good system I latched on to it.  I have been using the Sandler Selling system for over ten years. (I would be happy to provide my contacts to anyone interested.)

A great technique that I learned and use is the Sandler Technique of using an Up-Front Contract with potential customers.

 Simply ask the prospect/Client for the next time contact would be appropriate.  Set an exact date and time if possible or get at least a time frame for contact — Then do what was agreed upon!

Too many times I have had sales people working for me or trying to sell to me stop — after the very first call.

 Never get caught in this trap —

It’s too soon to call — Now it’s too late the order was let to someone else.

Make 2017 your best year yet!

2017 is here! Goals set? Are you measuring your goals?

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I have started working on 2017 goals and measuring them.
Day 1 we should all be aware and moving forward —- 2016 is gone!

Here are 5 tips to keep your goals moving for 2017:
1. Make sure you have goals written down and easy to find.
2. Look at your goals daily.
3. Make time to work on your goals daily, even if you spend a few minutes.
4. If a goal seems too hard, revise it. Or, look at smaller parts to work on.
5. Never give up — Make 2017 your best year yet!

Price, Quality, Delivery!

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RF

I was fortunate to purchase a company in 1997. I am a Mechanical Engineer and completed an MBA in business, ran corporate divisions, etc.

When I first purchased the company I felt qualified to run and operate the enterprise. After all I have been educated, had a lot of experience and should know or be able to figure out the right thing to do and be successful. I soon found my element — I was not even close to fully understanding and growing the business.

My first few visits by major customers brought the reality of being in charge. I tried very hard to discuss the three keys to running a business, Price, Quality and Delivery! I believed you could have two of the three but not all three. In other words people were told they could have quality and delivery but not most favored pricing. Or, best pricing and quality but delivery may suffer. I did this in meetings and pretty much ran the company to this standard.

Years later I learned about Lean Manufacturing and the possibilities of eliminating waste in the organization. Without even thinking about it or acknowledging it I began to understand that if you want to be in and stay in the market you need really good pricing, quality and delivery. Almost like magic I found all three were achievable.

It wasn’t until years later that I was called out in front of several hundred people at a major supplier conference, in a Q&A session. One of the attendees was in my plant and knew me back in the beginning when I purchased the company. He raised the question “Mr. Fry — years ago you said we could only have two of the three Price, Quality or Delivery.”. What do you say now?

Needles to say I had not thought of that question in many years. however, my answer changed — “Sir, — after getting really into Lean Manufacturing I can say and I fully believe that we now can and do and provide best in class on all three points. Our costs are lower and we are more competitive. Quality, especially to stay in the aerospace industry, has and will continue to improve. Deliveries are very much improved on-time and our lead times are becoming lowest in the industry. My story has changed and I can back it up.”

Get into “Lean Manufacturing” — And see what can happen!

Remember “Lean” works only if all involved “believe” from top of the organization down.

Make 2016 your best year yet!