Laurene Powell Jobs was once quoted as saying that her husband Steve and legendary Apple designer Jony Ive would spend hours discussing corners, yes that’s right corners. I also read that Apple had an entire Quality department dedicated to boxes including a device that would check how those boxes would open and close. How many […]
Sometimes Playing It Safe Is The Wrong Decision
I view business like this: If you are not growing, you are dying. If you are not constantly trying to find ways to make your company more attractive to your customers, you will die. I personally know of some companies who have shrunk themselves out of business. They have literally cut costs to the point […]
Keeping Up With The New World Order
During a normal commercial flight, a pilot actually touches the controls of her plane for less than three minutes. The rest of the time, the computer called “autopilot” is actually flying that plane, yes, including landing the plane. Pilots have to undergo periodic training so that they will not forget how to fly. How many […]
Finding & Hiring The Right Sales Rep
Just think how much time and money you can save by choosing the right sales person for your sales force. If you take the time to do it right, if you develop and implement a hiring process that fully vets the candidate before you hire her, it will pay off exponentially. Hiring too fast is […]
Facing Those Staffing Challenges
Of all the challenges we face in the PCB industry today, the most challenging by far, is staffing. It is getting near impossible to find good people. This is especially true for engineers and Quality people as well as management. Most of the good ones have either retired, changed careers, or gone to work for […]
The Future of The North American PCB Industry Is Up To You
No matter what happens in the world, success is up to you There are about 230 boards shops left in North America and out of those about 175 of them are at $10 Million or less and out of those about a 100 are at $5 Million or less and out of those 25 are […]
How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You? Stop Talking And Start Listening
I’ve been concentrating on listening lately. I mean really listening, not doing what I usually do, which is to wait for the person I’m talking with to finish talking so that I can tell him all the great thoughts I was formulating, while he was talking. It’s not easy to listen, we are all so […]
Marketing: They Can’t Buy From You If They Don’t Know Who You Are
One Ad is not Marketing Marketing is important. If you want people to know who you are and what you do you have to market your company. Think about it, if people don’t know your name, if they don’t know what you do, if they don’t know how to reach you, how are you going […]
Check Out The Restroom!
There is a huge grocery store in Ohio called Jungle Jim’s International Market. From what I hear this is the best and most interesting grocery store in the world! Yes, you got that right… grocery store. And that store has the best restrooms in the world. They pride themselves on their restrooms and how well […]
Questions To Ask Potential Sales Reps
The problem with finding and hiring the right sales person is that, well they are sales people, they know how to sell, they know how to talk a good game, in fact so good a game that it’s hard to figure out if they are in fact really good or just great talkers! So you […]