There is no doubt that the Internet is an incredible communication tool, but there are issues; such as feeling obligated to respond quickly – regardless of the time or day. And the volume of information we are exposed to can seem overwhelming at times, making it hard to achieve any type of “balance” in our lives. With that in mind, it can be helpful to heed the advise from a professor who guided his students through an exercise related to priorities and time management.

The professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of small pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes!’

The professor then produced two glasses of water from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions. If everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else—the small stuff.’

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.’

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse or partner out to dinner. Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

In an nationwide CareerBuilder survey among more than 3,000 employers, hiring and human resource managers were asked to share their most unusual interview memories.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Candidate put the interviewer on hold during a phone interview. When she came back on the line, she told the interviewer that she had a date set up for Friday.
• Candidate wore a Boy Scout uniform and never told interviewers why.
• Candidate asked, “What company is this again?”
• Candidate was arrested by federal authorities during the interview when the background check revealed the person had an outstanding warrant.
• Candidate talked about promptness as one of her strengths after showing up ten minutes late.
• On the way to the interview, the candidate passed, cut-off, and flipped his middle finger at the driver who happened to be the interviewer.
• Candidate took off his shoes during the interview.
• Candidate told the interviewer she wasn’t sure if the job offered was worth “starting the car for.”
• Candidate put God down as a reference (no phone number)
• Candidate’s email address had “lovesbeer” in it.
• Candidate started off the application with “Do you want a tiger?”
• Candidate’s condition for accepting the position was being able to bring his pet monkey to the workplace.
• Candidate sent a 24-page resume for a 5-year career.
• Candidate sent a video trying to hypnotize HR manager into hiring him.
• Candidate yawned and started to nod off during the interview.
• Candidate opened and ate a bag of chips during the interview.
• Candidate said he only applied for the job because his parents made him do it.
• Candidate brought his mother to the interview.
• Candidate arrived for the interview in sweat pants.
• Candidate answered cell phone during interview.
• Candidate began texting during the interview.

Commenting on the results, Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources for CareerBuilder said, “It may seem unlikely that candidates would ever answer a cell phone during an interview, or wear shorts, but when we talk to hiring managers, we remarkably hear these stories all of the time.”

This fellow made it a practice to approach a prospect by visiting with the shipping department before going around to the front office. On this particular occasion he found himself in the back of a meat packing plant.

While talking with the shipping and receiving manager he asked about “challenges”. His contact responded by pointing at the workers loading boxes of product on pallets and said, “You may have noticed that most of the workers loading pallets out there are women. That’s somewhat traditional in our industry because a lot of our positions are part time, and frankly, our hourly rates of pay are on the low side – so this type of work mostly appeals to women who are looking for flexible, part time hours so they can take care of their kids when they get home from school.”

But then he went on to talk about a related problem. Once each pallet was loaded with product, the shipping staff had to lift a steel rod with a heavy roll of shrink wrap on it and pull the wrap around the pallet in order to secure all the boxes. Because of the weight of the shrink wrap and the awkward way they had to pull and work their way around each pallet, the female workers often strained their lower backs and went out on worker’s compensation.

The sales rep and shipping manager discussed a number of other topics related to the meat packing business and then the sales rep moved on to his next appointment.

The following day, the rep was back at his office and mentioned the call on the meat packing company to the plant manager. The plant manager made some notes and said she might have a few ideas. The following day, the plant manager called the rep into her office. She showed the rep a roll of shrink wrap and explained that it weighed half as much as a normal roll, because they reduced the amount of shrink wrap on the roll by half when running the sample in production. The plant manager stated that this type of production run was not a problem and encouraged the rep to discuss the idea with the prospect, since it looked like a very simple but effective way to solve their problem with lower back injuries.

At this point in the interview I interjected and said, “Very interesting. I assume you got the account. So that’s your story?” The candidate said, “No, the BIG story is that the solution turned out to be perfect for the client – and I went out and sold just about every other meat packer within 500 miles! I beat my sales quota by 300% that year and it was an economic home run for the company! THAT’S the big story!”

How cool is that? Instead of just closing that one account and moving on to the next prospect in the pipeline, these folks saw the opportunity: an application for ½ size rolls and they decided to fully and quickly capitalize on it.

In this case, “winning” involved LISTENING to and understanding the prospective client. Winning also involved the plant manager listening to and valuing the information from the rep regarding issues and opportunities in the marketplace. And winning involved capitalizing on opportunities not just with one prospect – but thinking BIG and chasing opportunities inside of an entire industry vertical.

Bottom line? Almost every business has the potential for significant growth if the people in sales and management are prepared to listen hard, leverage the collective brainpower in the business and recognize and fully leverage new applications for their products and services.

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“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.”

— M. Scott Peck

“Certain” people also tend to surround themselves with others that understand and support their goals and desires. Those of us who have ever chased a dream, have surely come across people who on the other extreme, were totally certain that we would actually fail! Detoxify your life of these non-supportive and negative people right now! Don’t waste another day trying to convince someone else of the worthiness of your personal goals. Your time is much better spent focusing on your objectives and doing anything it takes to make them happen. Be extremely selective of who you associate yourself to and share your time with. As the age-old expression goes…it is better to be alone than to be in bad company!

Getting more customers was a priority for her because she was getting a large percentage of total sales from just a few clients. She called it a “revenue concentration” problem and had decided that more mid-size clients would be a better way to populate the customer list.

I asked her to embellish on the situation. She said, “My largest customer demands a huge percentage of my time, making it almost impossible for me to think about or pursue other revenue opportunities.” I asked her to be specific about the amount of time the account consumed. Her response? About 30% of her time or almost 3 hours per day when you added up the time spent reading reports related to the client, meetings with her staff regarding the account, scheduled and un-scheduled conference calls and meetings with the client and responding to frequent demands for changes to the service requirements and so on. She added that most of her key managers also spent a lot of their time on matters related to this same account.

Next, I asked what the revenues from this client represented as a percentage of total sales. She got out her calculator and in a few moments pronounced that the revenue from the account represented 15% of total sales for her Branch.

Then we discussed the profitability of the account. We had good reports for each major account that outlined revenues and all associated direct costs, and she quickly determined that the account produced about 5% of the total operating income for the Branch.

Lastly, we reviewed the account in terms of accounts receivable and cash flow. Bottom line? We were paying the drivers and warehouse workers who serviced the account every week. The client was taking 40+ days to pay. Not pretty.

My advice to her? If you can’t change the situation with the account by improving the profitability and making the relationship less demanding on your time, you should consider getting out of the relationship. It makes no sense to devote 30% of your attention to something that produces 5% of your income. Plus, the customer that is consuming too much of management’s time is preventing management from serving and spending enough time with your other accounts that are more profitable; accounts that may have more business to give you. If you kiss the poor quality revenue goodbye you will immediately start to give the rest of your clients better service and you will have the time, motivation and resources to find and secure good business.

She said, “What about the revenue I’d be giving up if I cut that client loose? We’re talking about 15% of my total sales!” I told her when you focus on revenue – it’s often about your ego. Building a quality business is not just about the top line. It’s not about how big the business is. It involves sensible pricing that allows you to pay the drivers and the rest of your people well. It’s about quality margins and a solid return on sales so that you have funds to invest in the business. And it’s about the Return On Time Invested. There is only so much of YOU. And your best people only have so much time every day. Your time and their time are limited resources.

She needed to get her team together and address four important questions:

1. Which clients are our best clients, and why?
2. How can we get more of this type of work?
3. Which clients are our worst clients, and why?
4. What should we be doing about this? Can we “fix” these accounts or do we need to transition them out so we have room for better business?

At the end of the day, it’s best not to let large, marginal accounts dominate your time and attention – unless they are prepared to pay for it. There is more freight to move than there are drivers to move it. If you and your key lieutenants have the time to invest, you will find new quality customers and quality revenue.

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“The great danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low, and we reach it.”

-          Michelangelo 

So, what’s the worst case scenario? Someone will find your map and begin to mock you, trying to hold you down from living your dreams. When it happens, you can then use their energy, be it negative or positive, to motivate and drive you even more! And what if your goals and dreams change along the way? So what! Let them change and write them out again! You’re the boss and you have the right to change your mind. Just be sure to write them down somewhere to be crystal clear on where you’re new destination is and how you want to get there!

• You may be running the same miles and hours but getting fewer shipments.
• “Traffic mix” may have changed (smaller packages or larger packages or fewer pieces per stop). That can reduce your revenue per day – but your routes and costs may have stayed the same.
• A client demands lower transportation costs in order to offset a cost problem in another area of their business.
• A competitor submits a lower price that you have to match in order to retain the business.
• You have 4 clients utilizing the same route network and one gets off which will significantly reduce your revenue.

Issues like these can come up and fixing the problem with a rate increase is seldom an option. This means you can go status quo and live with lower margins and income, or you can fight back by putting your cost structure and operating methods under a microscope. I recommend the microscope option!

This is a time to REALLY put your probing, listening, and analytical skills to work. It’s a time to dig deep and listen and learn. Track what happens with a shipment from the time you are in possession until it is delivered and look for inefficiency and “avoidable lost time”. You will, without a doubt, discover ways to increase the productivity of certain routes, which means you should get more done with fewer routes – or more done with fewer hours. That means you should be able to pay less to get the work done, which should drive your margins back up.

Stack ranking 

Comparing the productivity of each route by ranking or comparing them to one another is a good place to start. The purpose of the exercise is to determine which routes are most productive and why. And which routes are least productive and why.

Gather and compare daily averages for thinks like:

• Stops per route.
• Pieces per route.
• Miles per route
• Hours per route
• Revenue per route.
• Cost per route.
• Margin per route.

If you can’t get all of this information, use what is available. If you can’t get precise information, use estimates. Once you have collected and organized the information you want to start talking to the managers, supervisors and drivers who are involved with the work. Your focus? What is the difference between the best and the rest?

Is it the way certain drivers load and sort, or their delivery procedures? Or the way certain stops are sequenced? The type of vehicles being used? The type of shelving in certain vehicles? The start time of certain routes? The delivery areas involved? You may find that the procedures at certain delivery stops are far more time consuming than others. Your client may be able to address that issue and help your drivers get the deliveries off more quickly.

Vehicle configuration and utilization

By observing the loading process for the routes, you may determine that certain vehicles are under-utilized. Some of the vehicles may be going out in the morning loaded to the back doors, while others are only a third or half full. It may be possible to combine routes (load balancing) or to put smaller vehicles on certain routes. If that is the case, you should be able to pay less for the smaller vehicles (lower lease cost and better fuel economy) and you should see productivity increase since a smaller vehicle should be more nimble and able to make more stops per day.

Other costs areas 

Carefully look at all administrative activities and costs. Can you reduce costs by discontinuing or changing or automating certain processes? And look closely at sortation and line haul or shuttle costs. Certain things may have made sense when you started serving the account, but your people may have some suggestions based on their experience with the work. Huddle with the people who are closest to the work. Fully leverage the talent and knowledge on your team.

 A time for learning, innovation and collaboration

Some people on your team may not see a lot of value in an exercise like this. They may feel like they went through a detailed process when the work originally came on and that putting things under a magnifying glass again is just a waste of time. The problem with that line of thinking is: Nothing stays the same. You can put a route network together in January – and the demands on the routes will have changed in less than 90 days. Things are always changing. Your client is adding products, dropping products, changing procedures, adding clients, loosing clients, serving new areas and so on and so on.

Bottom line? If you use good information and engage the people on your team and your clients, you will find new ways of getting the work done with lower costs. You need to set your sights on that end result and start the march. If your client is happy with your service and sees that you are striving for maximum efficiency, they will likely agree to procedural changes that will help you achieve your margin goals – especially if it means they don’t have to talk about higher rates.

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“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”    -Maria Robinson

Fleet Operation Managers have a right to be concerned; fuel is the second largest expense to the company’s operations, the first being staff payroll. Fuel volatility makes private and government fleet operations’ financial planning unpredictable. Without a crystal ball the fleet operators cannot possibly accurately forecast their operational spend on fleet fuel.

Managers of fleets realize the only way to control the financial outcome of the fuel expense is to monitor & control the vehicle usage. Driver behaviour such as speeding, idling, route optimization can significantly impact the efficiencies of the fleet and reduce the overall usage of fuel.

1. If drivers stay within the speed limit, fleet operators will save on fuel

Experts report that driving just 10 kilometers faster than the speed limit increases fuel consumption by 20%. Increase speed to 20 kilometers faster than necessary and the extra gas wastage climbs to 25%.

Every vehicle reaches optimal fuel economy at a different speed, however economical fuel usage begins to decline rapidly at speeds greater than 50 kilometers per hour.

2. Did you know the average driver will idle a company vehicle 10 – 50 minutes a day?!

Idling for more than 10 seconds uses more fuel than it takes to restart your vehicle. Unnecessary idling for just 10 minutes a day uses about 5 percent more fuel over the year for a private or government fleet of vehicles. This has a huge impact on the cost of fuel.

Will turning off the vehicle to avoid idling result in higher maintenance costs and extra wear and tear for the starter and battery? Actually, the break-even point to offset any incremental maintenance costs is under 60 seconds. The fleet operational fuel savings will more than offset any potential increase in maintenance cost.

With the demand of crude oil increasing year over year, the resulting oil prices will only continue to rise. Gasoline is costly, its use has significant environmental impacts, and there’s not an endless supply – good reasons not to waste fuel through unnecessary vehicle idling.

3. Harsh breaking, do your drivers do it?

“Jack-rabbit” starts and harsh braking can increase fuel consumption by as much as 40%. Any braking wastes momentum, therefore anticipating the next stop light or traffic holdup and reducing power early so you don’t have to brake as hard means you’ve used less fuel to get there.

Many drivers don’t realize that heavy braking uses more fuel. This has nothing to do with the brakes – more that the driver was burning more fuel then necessary (driving too fast) resulting in harsh breaking. Acceleration then hard braking uses a lot more fuel than anticipating the traffic and lifting off the throttle early. So hard braking increases energy of the vehicle resulting in increased fuel to regain momentum. Simply put, harsh breaking is the result of driver behaviour and can be controlled with better handling of the vehicle speeds.

4. Regular vehicle maintenance – the impact on fuel

Regular vehicle maintenance certifies that fleet vehicles are more fuel-efficient.

Performing regular power-train maintenance including changing the air filter, changing lubricants with the recommended grade of oil, and keeping tires properly inflated can improve fuel efficiency by as much as 19%.

Fleet operators should monitor a fleet’s fuel economy by vehicle and class to determine when a vehicle is not running properly. 

As simple as proper inflation of operational fleet tires

A recent Tire Smart program headed by the Government of Canada concluded that more than two thirds of vehicles in Canada have at least one tire that is either under- or over-inflated, and one third of those vehicles had three or even all four tires improperly inflated. This represents a safety risk to Canadian motorists as well as needless fuel consumption and tire-replacement expenses. This resulting increase in fuel consumption also means that more greenhouse gas emissions are being released into the environment.

5. Add GPS Fleet Tracking Technology to your operations

Utilizing Fleet Tracking Technologies to monitor, track and control driver behaviour will provide fleet operations the true visibility they require to react to fleet exceptions. Utilizing key Fleet Tracking features such as reporting, alerts, and maintenance tracking will allow Fleet Managers to begin taking control this otherwise unavoidable expense.

Take a minute and read how Fero Waste & Recycling decreased fuel costs and increased efficiencies with Fleet Complete GPS fleet management solution. http://www.completeinnovations.com/industries/waste-management/

He went on to explain his view of the differences between the two and caught me in my tracks! Agreeing with him on the fact that I, too, felt that Positive Thinking was like trying to convince myself of something I really didn’t believe. He recounted how, through a particularly tough portion of his treatment, he continued to truly believe that he would make it through! Regardless of how his doctors would plead with him to be realistic about his possible outcome, he remained Optimistic! He refused to be another statistic on the wrong side of the equation. He was going to be part of the 5% that made it and not the “realistic” 95% that everyone expected else of him! Months went by and after countless sessions, everyone was amazed at his progress. That is, everyone with the exception of himself. He recalls the meeting in his doctor’s office going over one of his final evaluations and how he sat there calmly. “My doctor turned to me and said how happy I should be with the turn of events. He looked at me wondering why I wasn’t filled with the same emotions of his staff and even my own family. I turned to him and said peacefully, I knew I’d make it all along.” The thought of failure never crossed his mind.  No need for convincing and Positive Thinking here, just Pure Optimism and clear action!

The second obstacle to creative thinking and getting out of the BOX is the fear of failure, of being wrong, of making a mistake.  It’s been reported that more than 80% of adults are so worried about being wrong that they’d rather shy away from any risky situation or decisions. This fear of failure usually shows itself through procrastination, indecision, and tactics to buy time by seeking out the opinions of more and more people before moving to action. Almost as if looking for the popular vote in a democratic decision making process! In many instances an obsession with gathering facts and research often hides a deep down fear of making a mistake.

Here are two simple ways for you to break through any blocks you may have to your creativity and getting out of the BOX… First, recognize that striving for constancy is absolutely normal and natural but always remember that all great success comes from trying something new and different. Don’t be shy and be willing to take a chance! You never know what solutions are just around the corner of the unknown! Second, don’t worry about making a mistake! It happens to the best of us every day. Success is not always about being always right. You’ll probably get it wrong about 70% of the time anyway…If you were playing baseball and getting a hit at every third at bat, (.333 average) you’d be making millions every season and be lined up for a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame! I have always said to people that if you’re not making mistakes in your life and at work…It’s because you’re not trying hard enough or anything that hasn’t been done before! So go ahead and get out of the BOX.  Get out of that comfort zone and go for it at every chance you get!