Learning to Ski (Part 1)

Learning to Ski (Part 1)

During my dating days I met a woman who was an experienced skier. I had never even tried skiing. One day she suggested that we spend some time in the Mammoth Lakes area and do some skiing. When I confessed that I had never been on skis, she promised to show me the ropes. I have always been willing to try new things so I agreed.

She took me to a local ski shop and they fitted me with skis and poles and gloves and a mask and all the other paraphernalia I would need. The following day we drove to Mammoth arriving late in the afternoon.

The next morning we got out early and we went through all the rigmarole of renting a ski locker, buying lift tickets, buying ski school tickets for me, changing into ski clothes – it was a lot more complicated than I realized and she was a big help. (It was also a lot more expensive.)

Now we clump our way out the lodge (it’s sure hard to walk in those clumsy ski boots) and onto the bottom of the ski slopes. She helped me put my skis on. Then she pointed off to the left and said, "The ski school is over that way. I’ll meet you here around lunchtime." And suddenly she was gone. I stood there a little dazed, abandoned and feeling, "If she loved me, she wouldn’t leave me here like this all alone."

I struggled my way over to the ski school – falling 9 times in 120 feet - where there was a bunch of equally clueless skiing novices. As we went through the basics, I noticed that just beyond us was the bottom of a slope where skiers were ending their runs. I watched them with envy thinking, "Boy, I wish I could do that."

The school lasted all morning and most of us soon got the hang of it. And guess what?
Later that day I was skiing down that very slope and it was clear that she knew what she was doing when she sent me to ski school by myself. Trying to teach skiing to someone you care for can be a serious mistake. It will only result in "bloodshed" and the end of a beautiful friendship. I learned that a few years later when I tried to teach a new friend how to ski instead of sending her to ski school.

But that’s a whole other story.

© 2008 by Paul Burri
#103 for the week of May 26, 2008

Go After Sales When You’re Busy; Not When You’re Slow

From 1959 to 1975 I worked as the General Manager of a printed circuit manufacturing company. As in most small companies, I wore several hats, including that of Sales Manager. Those were very busy years undoubtedly caused by the Vietnam War. My Gal Friday was a very nice woman whose husband used to stop by occasionally to pick her up after work. Frequently he and I would chat for a few minutes until it was quitting time. He was the Sales Manager for a well-known chain saw manufacturer and so frequently we talked about sales techniques and procedures.

One afternoon at a time when we were extremely busy, he stopped in and he asked me, "How are sales?" I replied, "We are so busy I can hardly believe it."

Then he asked me, "What are you doing about sales?" I answered, "Doing about sales? We are so busy I can’t imagine how we are going to deliver all the work that we have. The last thing I need right now is more sales."

He answered with some wisdom that I have never forgotten. He said, "Wrong! This is when you need to go out and call on all your customers and their purchasing agents. They need you now and every door will be open to you. When things are slow, they will be inundated with salespeople and they won’t need you then. If you call on them now when they need you, they will remember you when things are slow and they will give you what little work they have then."

That piece of wisdom has worked for me ever since. But how do you handle more business when you already have more than you can handle? There are several ways to look at this "problem." (By the way, having too much business is what I call "good problems.")

First of all, always remember that you are selling the capacity to do work or to produce goods. Another way to say this is to say that you are selling your time, your expertise and your manufacturing capability. By the law of supply and demand, when supply becomes scarce, prices go up. To put it bluntly, this is the time to raise your prices because the supply of capacity is scarcer.

OK, you raise your prices and business still continues to come in. Now is the time to consider working your people overtime even if you need to pay premium wages. Or start a second or even a third shift so that you are using your facilities and equipment on a round-the-clock basis. Depending on your supervisory situation, this will probably mean that you will be putting in a lot more hours. (I didn’t say it would be easy.)

Another approach could be to "farm out" some work to some of your competitors. Of course sending work to competitors will risk having them try to steal some of your customers. But if you are careful about disguising who your customers are, you can make it difficult for that to happen. The other concern is that your competitors might charge you so much for doing the work that you make little or no profit on the job. But even if you make no profit on these "busy times" jobs, it will pay off in the future when things get slow. To repeat myself, your purchasing contacts will remember who it was that helped them during those busy times.

The moral of the story? Go after new business when you’re busy and then do whatever it takes to "deliver the goods." It will pay off when the slow times come.

© 2008 by Paul Burri
#102 for the week of May 19, 2008