Upfront: Are you ready?
By Steve Noe
At this time of year, the three words in the preceding headline are almost always followed by three more words — for some football.
In this case, however, I’m talking about something much tougher, much more serious, and much closer to home — your business.
Don’t get depressed and stop reading! Using the football analogy one last time, my hope is that by the time you finish reading this column, you will feel like strapping on a football helmet and dropping into a three-point stance. That’s precisely how I felt after I recently phoned and talked to Tim Cromley, sales and marketing manager, Walker Manufacturing Company, whom I have known for several years.
With Walker experiencing a very trying 2009 — having to shut down for 10 weeks (four in the spring and six in the summer) instead of just its traditional three-week summer break and having to lay off some of its factory workers — I expected Tim to be somewhat down in the dumps. Much to my surprise, however, he answered the phone immediately at 7 a.m. and sounded as upbeat as I’ve ever heard him. It didn’t take long for me to realize that Tim and the rest of the fine folks at Walker did not spend those 10 idle weeks sitting around, feeling sorry for themselves.
“It’s easy to get depressed in these times, but companies have to ask themselves, ‘Are we ready for business?’” said Tim.
Initially, I wasn’t quite sure of what to make of Tim’s statement. He then explained that everyone in our industry should be making the most of this economic downturn and any subsequent downtime by reflecting and refining every aspect of their business, so they are fully prepared when the economy begins to turn around and customers start walking through the door. “People say they don’t have money, but it doesn’t cost much to clean up your showroom,” he said. “You might have a counterperson who knows everything about the store, but is not nice to the customers and is turning them away. It could be a person who is your cousin or someone you went to high school with, but they’re not doing your business any good and need to be replaced.”
That heavy-handed approach led to Walker making “Refining Walker” the theme of its 25th annual distributor meeting Sept. 16-18 in Breckenridge, Colo. The company defines “Refining Walker” as follows: “The dedicated process of improving the performance, reliability and strength of the overall Walker Mower Sales and Service program through honest introspection by all areas of the business (manufacturer, distributor, dealer).”
“Refining is not an easy process,” said Tim. “If it was an easy process, we probably would’ve called it, ‘Polishing up Walker.’ Polishing up is the equivalent of talking about it, and just gives you something to do. Refining is something you don’t want to do, but it gives you a better result. It melts down to the core and gets to what really matters. You’re not just polishing the outside.”
Tim added, “We know that refining is going to be hard work, and that’s why it’s refinement. We know the process of refinement is not pretty. It’s not fun. It stinks. It doesn’t look good, and you can get too close and get burned. But, if you stick around long enough and you’re dedicated enough, you know the results will be beautiful.”
So, when the economy does turn around and your customers return, will you be ready for business?
OPE Editor Steve Noe
snoe@m2media360.com
