To Be the best, hire the best and then get better!
I spent fifty years in the wholesale distribution industry. Distribution is a function. The critical link in the supply chain connecting manufacturers and customers. Our goal was to be the most efficient and cost-effective provider of this function for the manufacturers and to be the very best customer service company by acutely listening to our customers and raising the performance bar on ourselves. We derived a sense of pride in doing this and our competition felt the pressure. Being the best demands exceptional commitment and continually setting the bar uncomfortably high. Constant and honest self-analysis. Are you better because you say so or because you really are? To be better and to get better you must identify the key performance indicators, measure them and introduce a continuous improvement process that involves everyone in your organization. Otherwise, if you always do what you always did you always get what you always got.
When your employees tell existing and prospective customers that your company is the best…how do they know and how do they prove it. When something happens that didn’t go as planned what and who are the corrective actions and do they have the authority to fix it without having a meeting. Is your proactive process to get new customers and business constantly interrupted by fixing the same problems. Don’t correct your own papers. Be brutally honest with yourself. Rework is costly. The effectiveness of your sales and customers service function is the true measure of your value proposition to the manufacturers that you represent, especially if it’s an exclusive arrangement. The most important component of a company is its people and the attitudes that they bring with them. When you need the best people where do you get them. When you are building a high-performance team, don’t go it alone. Align with a professional search firm.
One that knows your company’s culture and goals and objectives. It’s not enough that the candidates are good and experienced, they must be hired for their position, desiring to excel and love to compete not only as individuals but as a team. A professional sports team needs the best players by position. A great symphony orchestra can’t have all violin players. If you want music and not noise hire by skills by position. And once that is done, remember that great sports teams practice and great orchestras rehearse constantly. Yes, it’s a piece of classical music and yes, they all have played it before but to be great they must practice, striving for perfection, rehearsing not just their piece but melding the sounds of all the musicians together, their eyes on the conductor.
Great companies push themselves. Their marketing creates a message of expectation. The promise. The team needs to deliver on this and do even one better. It’s not easy being the best because you have competition also making mission statements and scrimmaging to beat you. You need to be so good that if a customer tried a competitor there would be a meaningful difference. Just as if they lost their air conditioner on a hot steamy August summer day! To be exceptional you absolutely need exceptional people that want to be the best every time! Don’t settle, hire the best! Winning is a euphoric feeling. The applause is earned. One of my favorite quotes is from Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers
“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while…. you don’t do things right once in a while…. you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit.”
Ernie Coutermarsh
Distribution Expert, Advisor and Mentor
978-764-6990 l ernestcoutermarsh@gmail.com
115 Thoreau Way #432 l Lawrence, MA 01843
