I recently talked to a board shop owner who had a customer visit from a large military OEM. There were four younger engineers in the group and they had never been in a PCB shop before. When they were invited to tour the facility, they were actually stunned at the amount of equipment, people, […]
Listening Again and Again
Every now and then I feel the urge to write about listening. Yes, that great art, of not only listening but going the extra mile and hearing. I know that I have done a column on this subject before, actually maybe about once a year. But it still needs to be brought up, maybe for […]
It’s Just Not Common Sense
I’ve been reading a slew of customer service books lately which is always something I enjoy. Since starting in this business eons ago I have spent a lot of time thinking how we could do things better. Actually, I spend a lot of time thinking about how everything could be better, not just service but […]
The Way Life Will Be
Or rather the way life is becoming. I recently read a book titled “2029: Guide to the Future” by futurist Oleg Tumarkin. In the book the author talks about what he predicts life will be like in the year 2029. But what is interesting is that he wrote the book in 2018 – pre Covid […]
It’s Time To Fail
The kindergarten teacher is looking over the shoulder of a little girl drawing a picture. When she asks the little girl what she is drawing, the little girl answers, “I am drawing a picture of God.” The teacher, surprised, says, “But no one knows what God looks like.” The little girl replies, “They will […]
Allow Me To Be Generous
I just reread a book titled The Go Giver: A little story about a powerful business idea. Full disclosure this was the third time I read this book and I plan to read it annually going forward. It’s not a big book, only about one hundred and fifty pages (my kind of book!), but it […]
Things Are Looking Up!
Looking forward to the future Have you thought about that much? Most of the companies I know have led “led lives of desperation,” to quote my fellow New Englander Henry David Thoreau. Most of the time more concerned about making payroll than buying that new piece of equipment, more worried about pesky Quality issues than […]
The Best Customer Service
For the past week I have put my business books on the shelf in favor of books about kindness. Books with titles like; Random Acts of Kindness: How to Make it a Better World, Deep Kindness: A Revolutionary Guide for the Way We Think and Act in Kindness and Hope Kind Love: Channel Kindness, […]
Write Your Company’s Eulogy
Really, write your own company’s eulogy. I got the idea from Ron Lovett, the author of the book Brand Scaling Culture. I read the book last week and this suggestion has stayed with me ever since. Think about this. If your company died or disappeared one day, what would your customers say? Would they be […]
Embrace The Millennials
First of all, the disclosure. I do not pretend to know more about millennials than you do. In fact, I am not a fan of those self-nominated millennial whisperers. You know the ones. They like to show you how hip and young thinking they are by telling you that they and only they know how […]