Whether you are in the business of board fabrication or board assembly, the fact is that you are not building your own products. You are building your customers’ products which means that you are in the business of helping your customers be successful. The better your services are, the better their products will be, and […]
Contract Manufacturers: Where Do You Get Your Boards?
Choosing the right PCB vendor is critical to your success Choosing the right PCB vendor is not as easy as you want to think it is. There are still many contract manufacturers out there who believe the myth that all PCB shops are the same and that in the end it’s only a matter of basing their […]
Training The Youngsters: Show Them The Possibilities
There is no doubt there is a shortage of young people in our business. As we all get older, the challenge of finding young people to replace us is getting more severe. Last week in this column, we talked about finding young people in our own organizations and then nurturing them to become an integral […]
That Annual Sales Meeting
Last week, we talked about preparing for 2018 by developing account plans and forecasts. We mentioned that this would be presented, viewed, and discussed by the entire management team at the annual sales meeting that would be held in January of 2018. This week, we’ll discuss that annual sales meeting. This is truly, the most […]
Salespeople Are The Voice Of The Customer
So as that voice, make sure you get it right! One of the greatest responsibilities we have as sales people is being the voice of the customer. This means that we must strive to always relay the customer’s message truthfully and most importantly accurately, because, very often the future of the relationship between your company […]
That Won’t Work Here (And Other Excuses)
I don’t know about you but this drives me absolutely nuts. You’re in a meeting, you come up with a good idea but before you finish getting your idea out there, this guy across from you. You know the one, he graduated from the Dilbert School of discouraging new ideas jumps in with that smart […]
Be Curious. Hire Curious People
Albert Einstein once said that being curious is much more important than being smart. If you’re curious about something you are going to spend a lot of time and effort finding out everything you can about it. You are going to focus as much as you can on that subject. You are going to read […]
Don’t Be Afraid, Have Courage!
They say that courage is the number one quality of all successful companies. You have to have courage to get anything done. Because it is a big scary world out there and if you don’t have the guts, think courage, to face it you will not survive. The more I work with companies the more […]
Putting Together Your Team
What do the Boston Red Sox, The New England Patriots, and the Chicago Cubs all have in common? Besides all being winners (and my three favorite teams) they have won by building teams synergistically. By that I mean they build teams by putting the team in front of individual players that way making the team […]
Elevating The Conversation With Your Customers
So we all think we are doing a pretty good getting to know our customers right? We think because we know what market they are in and what they build and have some sort of idea of what they need we are in pretty good shape right? Well I hate to break it to you […]