Demystifying Business

Earned Success: A Case for Hard Knocks

2011-05-10T06:57:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the May 2011 Business column in Metalforming magazine.

By: Michael Bleau

While visiting last month’s crowded logistics tradeshow in Chicago, I spoke with a friend, who is an executive of a near billion-dollar manufacturing company. He shared his frustration in trying to find enough qualified engineering, project management and skilled manufacturing people. Last year his company’s business boomed and is on track for continued growth in 2011, yet they are held back by a lack of qualified prospects available to fill new jobs. What an astonishing contradiction at a time when our nation is faced with a jobless rate hovering in the 9% range. A recent CBS News broadcast echoed my friend’s challenge, reporting that while the number of available manufacturing jobs had doubled from last year, many are not being filled due to a shortage of skilled workers.

There was a time when one could graduate from high school, enter into an apprenticeship program, work hard, earn a good wage, raise a family and retire having spent an entire career with a single company. Those days seem to have died a generation ago as the division between unions and management grew from a healthy balance to a lopsided contest where participants are seemingly blind to the path they are blazing towards mutual annihilation. Enter the government to ‘fix things’ and now we really have the perfect environment to encourage shortsighted, over-managed, under-performing mediocrity. This is not who we are. I still believe that we are an accomplished nation of innovators with character, who hail from solid work ethics and sober decision-making. We get things done! So what happened, where are we going wrong?

Why at a time when so many are out of work is it hard for businesses to fill jobs to fuel growth in manufacturing? Why this high unemployment while jobs requiring skilled individuals go unfilled for months on end? In my opinion, we all collectively bowed to political correctness and simply lowered the bar. We did so with such stunning efficiency across all aspects of anywhere performance is measured that now the caliber of the average individual doesn’t meet the minimum requirements to get the job done. We let entitlement win over hard knocks, we adopted ‘good enough’ as the new ‘best in class’, and we started grading performance on a sliding scale instead of valuing lessons learned. And now we, the manufacturing community, having stood by to watch this unfold are reaping the fruits of our inaction. By allowing routine business distractions to grow into a complete lack of involvement we have empowered others not sharing our passion or experience to speak on our behalf, decide for us and by doing so nearly drive us into the ground.

We need to move fast to fix this before we all succumb to becoming conditioned to gleefully accept failure as success-enough. So how do we turn this around? Certainly not overnight, but that’s not an excuse to start making some hard choices and taking action today. Here are a few opinionated suggestions that should get the ball rolling…

· Get back to the basic of rewards based on actual performance where the scale isn’t recalibrated to accommodate each participant’s uniqueness.

· Union’s and management need to cut the gamesmanship and work out the kinks. The good-old-boy formula of late needs to die. Don’t dig-in to hold onto out-dated positions, figure out how we can work together to dig out. If we can’t get this accomplished, then we will continue to see jobs ship out and businesses restructure or fail.

· Get government out, period. Until our representatives learn to balance trade and their checkbook, and to create a stable business climate for manufacturing I submit that our legislators can respectfully remain in Washington. Once they clean up an overgrown government, then and only then, will they have earned the right to voice an opinion about how business should operate.

· Bring back private sector internships and apprenticeships. Sure, we all talk about and want to benefit from the value of these programs, but business needs to fund these through adoption and real financial commitment. For such programs to be effective we need the private sector to step up and make it happen. To this point, look to next month for an expanded discussion that highlights opportunities for business in this arena.

If we are to reinvigorate our manufacturing heritage we must adopt a more conservative definitions of ‘performance’ and ‘success’. We need to teach future generations to embrace hard knocks as opportunities to learn, grow and strive for self-improvement and to persist in a pursuit of perfection. Lowering the bar to make exceptions for something less than perfect, while seemingly kind or empathetic, only accomplishes to create a false self-actualization within the individual it touches and collective weakening of the whole of society. Overcoming obstacles brings out our best qualities and leads to some of our greatest achievements.

PowerPoint Presentations: Keeping them Simple

2011-04-10T06:56:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the April 2011 Business column in Metalforming magazine.

By: Michael Bleau

Recently I was reminded how quickly one can over think something seemingly as simple yet as important as a presentation. Since our industry is saturated with engineering-centric businesses it’s understandable that when asking an engineer to present a topic to peers they may try to cram 150 slides into a 20-minute time slot. Struggling against this urge myself, I find that many ‘detail oriented’ individuals assume everyone else is too, and if not, well they should be since details are ÜBER relevant. From this point of view we can fall into the trap of building endless slide decks that are heavy on narrative, packed with bullet points and unnecessary detail. Such overkill creates barriers to clear communication. Here are some tips that you can apply in rethinking how you approach presentations so they become direct, clear and well received.

Know your audience. Decide on the purpose of your presentation. Are you there to entertain, persuade, inform, sell, etc. Based on your topic and then make-up of your audience you can decide on your tone and approach. For example, should you be light-hearted, formal or somewhere in the middle. How technical is your audience, do they share a common frame of reference as you or are you presenting something that will be very new to them on many levels. What are their expectations and what do you think they expect to walk away with from the experience, which leads to our next point.

Provide takeaway value. Distill your complex ideas into specific, concise points that your audience can easily remember and take with them. If they don’t walk away with value, they’ll forget you, your presentation resulting in wasted time for both of you.

Show or tell. Now ask yourself, should you use a presentation deck at all? If you can engage the audience through an actual demonstrations of your subject, then do you need to distance the experience by inserting a slideshow into the mix? If you can show ‘it’ and the audience can experience ‘it’ in a sensory-rich way, then drop the slides altogether. However, if logistically such a demonstration is impractical, read on.

Understand the purpose of the tool. Presentation software is not intended to be a crutch by acting as a teleprompter for the speaker or be a substitute for a printed brochure. PowerPoint, Keynote and other slide show software is not the presentation, the speaker is, you are. You’re the ‘act’ and through your ability to convey information the audience gains value. The purpose of the slide deck is to enhance how you communicate or an anchor where multiple presenters can share and consistently deliver a common presentation deck, as in the case of a national sales team.

Resist the urge to splurge. Just because most presentation software has hundreds of typefaces, millions of colors, dozens of transitions and volumes of clip art doesn’t mean that you need to try to use all of it. Leave open space, keep backgrounds, use of color and text simple so that your slides look consistent and not distracting.

Tell your story. While getting the ‘messaging’ right is typically on the mind of many marketers, presenting a compelling story will win out over messaging every time. Apple Computer’s Steve Jobs is a master storyteller in his use of the ‘rule of three’. Check out some of his keynote presentations and you’ll see why his persuasive, easy-to-follow arguments follow carefully scripted storylines that include an antagonist and a hero. The antagonist is typically portrayed as the shortcomings of current technology and the hero being Apple’s product solution. And his talks are typically delivered in three acts…Google “the rule of three”. Not many speakers apply this principle, and those who do really stand out.

Connect with your audience. Dubbed the “great communicator” Ronald Reagan was arguably one of the best speaker public speaker since John F. Kennedy, when it comes to broadly connecting with people. Reagan’s thoughtful selection of words and use of ordinary language inspired listeners with phrases like "trust but verify”, “tear down this wall” and "evil empire.”

Choose visuals over copy. Infographics are a powerful, engaging ways to communicate information. Preparing slides that communicate with informative images or graphics instead of bullet points is the quickest way to transfer knowledge and attract the attention of you audience. While it may seem intimidating, it’s not hard to become good at preparing visual. For some help, Google “infographics”, check out TUFTE’s series on envisioning information and get a copy of Dan Roam’s books on problem solving with pictures. Together these resources provide invaluable guidance in transforming your ideas and concepts into visual information.

Technology matters. Technology can play a big role in polish and flexibility. For example, including a simple navigation bar in your presentation allows you to quickly branch to suit audience conditions and interests. Also, consider the delivery device you’re using. A tablet PC or iPad with solid-state data storage provides snappier screen loading and video playback without having to fumble with slower laptop operating systems and disk drives.

Even with all of the above in hand, you need to be well rehearsed. Nothing can substitute a personable, well-prepared speaker who has direct knowledge on the topic and the ability to adapt to the audience.

Eco Challenges: Fish-Friendly Manufacturing

2011-03-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

Reprinted from the March 2011 Business column in Metalforming magazine.

By: Michael Bleau

The environmental aspects of metalforming are becoming increasingly important to local communities and workers, and allowing many companies to strengthen their bottom line. Recently, I asked several metal stampers what they were doing to become greener, and how the activities affected their financials. One manufacturer really stood out from the crowd, going beyond anything that I had imagined. The plant’s manufacturing engineering manager walked me through his environmental planning and project materials, and described some interesting ways that his company communicates these changes throughout the plant floor.

This North American metalforming plant annually processes 225,000 tons of steel and aluminum for the automotive industry. In doing so, it annually consumes $7 million worth of energy—$3 million spent during nonproduction periods. Energy consumption consists mainly of electricity (60 percent), along with steam, water/sewer and natural gas, supporting stamping and fabrication processes and other facility uses.

What impressed me the most about its green presentation is the level of professionalism and detail being brought to environmental initiatives. I’ve seen business plans with less detail, so it’s obvious that this company and its 10-member environmental-improvement team take this initiative very seriously. For example, the team is documenting its entire plan with objectives, targets and results. This documentation clearly outlines the goals and why these goals have been established, includes past performance indicators and targets, and addresses how the goals mesh with the company’s overall performance plans. The team meets weekly to review progress, consider new initiatives and discuss strategies and projects designed to eliminate waste, cut energy consumption and identify ways to better track performance.

The approach to improvement follows a basic seven-step process that starts with a thorough understanding of requirements through a series of reactive, preventive and proactive steps. For each identified area of improvement, the team has developed a series of projects associated with changing to an optimal future state. In some cases, these projects are designed to identify additional improvement opportunities. For example, the plant is installing electronic devices at strategic points within its production lines to monitor air and power consumption and identify the drivers of production and nonproduction energy costs. In one case, this monitoring provided insight into how much energy was being consumed—during nonproduction time—by large pump motors on a press line. The team then developed a solution and quickly took action, investing a mere $6000 in electronic countermeasures. As a result, energy-hungry pump motors now automatically shut down when a line is idle, saving the plant more than $70,000 in annual energy costs.

Other energy-saving activities completed:

• Replacing pushbutton light bulbs on control panels toLED lights;

• Adding a chiller regulator to aluminum-welding lines;

• Using an ultrasonic detector to find and repair air leaks; and

• Future steam elimination with forced-air replacements.

While these and other ongoing environmentally focused projects have resulted in nearly $2 million in annual energy cost savings, what really takes top honors is the success of some of the plant’s water-saving and cleanliness initiatives. Clearly, this plant’s goals are not all driven from a cost-savings perspective. For example, through a series of kaizen initiatives, the plant installed automatic faucet and flush units in bathrooms and at hand-washing stations, coupled with a relatively inexpensive bacteria-removing water-filtration system on its water-cooling systems. While these efforts minimally reduce costs, they have reduced the plant’s water consumption by 1.8 million gallons annually.

Efforts like this represent a positive impact on the environment— and here’s the tie-in to the title of this article. To demonstrate to workers (and customers and other plant visitors) just how clean the plant’s cooling-system water has become, the plant installed a 100-gal. fish-filled aquarium on the shop floor, within an informational kiosk. The cooling system’s water circulates continuously through the tank, and after nearly a year the fish remain happy and healthy.

Benchmarking this company, consider these steps: Pull employees together to organize all environmental materials under one team, so that you can see the big picture; organize environmental and energy-saving exercises as you would any part of your business; and communicate internally the goals and results, explaining how everyone plays a part.

Ways to learn more include:

• Visit www.pma.org for details about the Precision Metalforming Association’s Safety and Environment Committee.

• Visit your state’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment website.

• Visit the Environment & Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of

Justice’s website, www.justice.gov/enrd.

HR Challenges: Retaining and Gaining Talent

2011-02-03T07:30:00.000-08:00

Reprinted from the January 2011 Business column in Metalforming magazine.

By: Michael Bleau

With the continued economic recovery comes opportunity and challenges for business managers as operations scale to meet new demand. As resumes continue to pile in you may miss the potential for the loss of key human resources. Just as your business picks up and you start offering job openings, other companies are doing so too, which may tempt your employees to leave. Many people have felt stuck; waiting out the recession while they inherit their eliminated peer’s workload all the while their pay rate is either stagnant or reduced. Business leaders need to recognize that the wait is over and that they need to move fast to retain their top talent. The HR gurus at Right Management have released survey results showing that 83% of the gainfully employed will change jobs in 2011. While this could mean that potentially more than half of your workforce could take jobs elsewhere it says a lot more about the current state of morale and dissatisfaction felt by many in the workforce. Holding on to the right people and attracting talent is key to a successful rebound for many companies.

EMPLOYEE SURVEY DETAILS

In a December 2010 survey conducted by Right Management (www.right.com), a division of job-placement firm Manpower, found that 84% of workers intend to seek a new position in 2011. A majority of the 1,400 respondents say they plan to look for new jobs, while only 5% say they intend to remain in their current position. This is a sharp increase from an identical survey conducted a year ago, when just 60% of workers expressed an intention to find a new job in the coming year.

In my opinion, loyalty in today’s employment relationship is undervalued and not often enough reciprocated between business and employee. Building trust, loyalty and security takes thoughtful effort and works both ways in securing stability. But doing it right takes planning. Employment research shows that companies that provide career development opportunities are more than four times less likely to lose talent than organizations that do not. As the economy continues to improve, now is the time to work hard at holding onto your knowledgeable, solid, key performers who continuously bring value to your business. It’s also the perfect time to start securing fresh talent by luring disenfranchised star performers with the prospect of a positive career move.

Getting a plan in place…

· - Identify how your workforce needs will change as you move forward

· - Identify at-risk positions and plan contingencies to cover the loss of key employees

· - Gage employee satisfaction and be mindful of how this can affect retention

· - Identify high-value employees and keep them engaged, growing and performing

· - Tap into your key employees’ networks to capture some new star performers

A good place to start is to identify critical positions where you feel growth or expanded coverage will be required in the coming year—look at all parts of your business. Also, consider where you may be at risk by not being able to quickly bridge the loss of an incumbent in a key position. Next, work with your HR team to build your budget by determining what compensation you intend to offer candidates in order to fill new positions. Check these against industry standards to see how you measure-up against other companies and look outside of your industry to consider other growing businesses within your geographic region.

Once you have completed these exercises, you’re ready to identify and meet with your existing star employees to learn about their career aspirations and how your plans mesh with theirs. It’s possible their goals may fit areas of future demand that you recently identified within the business. This also gives you an opportunity to proactively bump-up their compensation to get competitive or to reinstate pay cuts enacted as belt-tightening survival tactics during the recession. Do so in a planned, open and methodical way with the intention of satisfying the goals of employees in ways that align with your business plans. It’s imperative to have a strategy. Simply engaging in ‘exploratory meetings’ so close to the end of a recession may spawn workplace rumors about job cuts, could lead to negative morale, heightened job stress and fuel the prospect of employee departures; all of which you are trying to avoid. Sometimes overlooked, is tapping high-value employees to leverage their social and business networks to fill open positions.

Your high-value employees have mobility options, more so now than ever, so it’s important to have strategies that keep them engaged, productive and performing. As the new year unfolds build a retention and recruitment strategy to ensure business stability and scalability. Holding onto and bringing on the right people is going to be a defining factor in your ability to take advantage of new business opportunities.

Section 179: Buying and Selling Before Time’s Up

2010-12-03T05:39:00.000-08:00

Reprinted from the December Business column in Metalforming magazine.

By: Michael Bleau

Whether you are a metal stamper or a supplier serving the industry, you both have an opportunity to leverage Uncle Sam’s pocketbook. But you’d better hurry, since the clock is winding down on 2010 and when it does, the best part of this deal ends. I’m referring to the bonus deduction of Section 179 of the tax code. This tax code was created to help small businesses deduct the full amount, within limits, for the purchase of equipment, vehicles and other tangible personal property. Enacted originally in the early 1960s, it became most notable in the 80’s when Congress upped the limits. Most recently, it received special provisions to spur economic growth by doubling the available deduction through The Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010. After a quick review, you may find it enticing as a manufacturer to quickly take possession of needed equipment or encouraging as an equipment supplier to make that big sales push as we close out the year.

Section 179 Summary (Source: www.section179.org)

· Taxpayers can write-off up to $500,000 of qualified capital expenditures—subject to a dollar-for-dollar phase-out once these expenditures exceed $2,000,000—for tax years 2010 and 2011.

· Chances are if you use it in your business then it probably qualifies under Sect 179; including machines, off-the-shelf software, computers, office furniture and office equipment, vehicles with a gross vehicle weight in excess of 6,000 lbs, and certain qualifying real estate.

· Section 179 extends a first-year 50% depreciation for qualifying purchases placed in service during the 2010 tax year. However, the 50% bonus depreciation for tax is not extended into year 2011 and can be used in combination with Section 179 assets, but not for the same assets…no double-dipping.

· The code allows a business to deduct, for the current tax year, the full purchase price of financed or leased equipment that qualifies for the deduction. And key to this, the equipment must be placed into service in the same tax year that the deduction is taken.

· By deducting the full cost, you may substantially lower the amount you pay for equipment through earned deductions. And the benefits can be further expanded if you lease or finance your equipment. Also if the equipment is financed or leased, it's possible to receive a tax reduction that exceeds the amount of financing that must be paid in the first year or two, thus resulting in a positive cash flow.

· If your company is operating in an Enterprise Zone and Renewal Community Businesses, the New York Liberty Zone, or the Gulf Opportunity Zone, then you may qualify for increased deductions.

David Duffy, managing member of David Duffy, CPA & Company, PLLC (Royal Oak, MI) affirms that Section 179 was especially designed to benefit small to medium sized companies. Mr. Duffy explains that businesses are allowed to deduct Section 179 to the extent that it doesn't create a tax loss. And if you take 179 on an item and are in a tax loss position, then the 179 portion that ‘contributes’ to the loss is suspended and carried forward to apply in the first subsequent year that you have a tax profit, and then only to the extent that you have a profit. Unused, suspended 179 deductions continue to carry forward until they have been fully applied.

While you may have only the balance of this month to act and earn the bonus deduction, it may be well worth the effort. If you are a buyer, discuss with your tax advisor how Section 179 can benefit you. If you are a seller, then research and explain the benefits to your customers to try to move some inventory and boost your December sales numbers. Just remember, you have to purchase/lease, take possession and place into service the items before December 31^st to qualify for the full benefits afforded by Sect 179. It’s not very often that our friends at the IRS make way for a very Merry Christmas, so let’s not disappoint scrooge—spend, spend, spend and save.

Special thanks to Jim Ward at COE Press Equipment for bringing Sect 179 to my attention.

More on Social Media: Blog Basics

2010-10-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the October Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

Frequently, I’m asked just how ‘social’ manufacturing companies should become, to which I reply, as much as the market will bear. If there is value to what you have to say, then say it or someone else will take the lead from you. Corporations are getting into blogging and leveraging social media outlets. While still only a fraction of their media spend, the growth trend on blogs continues to be positive.

When well executed, this type of website enhancement can be used to educate consumers, create excitement about products and services with customers, grow your direct email lists and used internally to communicate company news to employees. Establishing a blog for your business is another means of pushing fresh content to prospects while building search engine relevance for your company’s website. In the coming months, we’ll cover other social media options, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for business.

Types of Blogs
To borrow from Wikipedia, a weblog is a web application that contains periodic posts on a common webpage. These posts are often but not necessarily in reverse chronological order. Basically, if you publish written content on a periodic basis, a blogging software package simplifies your publishing workflow. There are a few variations to this, including podcasting, which has nothing to do with Apple Computer’s iPod products, the name means playable on demand, where the author posts audio and/or video streams. Video blogging, sometimes called vlogging or vidblogging is simply a video webcast. A great example of a promotional vidblog for the perfect ‘blend’ of b2b and b2c customer targets can be found at willitblend.com. Audio and video blogs are more advanced and require some additional software, skill and effort, but each offers subscribers options in terms of how they like to consume content. In either case, a written form of the blog is always recommended as a part of a search engine optimization strategy. To learn more about being a search engine friendly blogger, Google “how to optimize your blog for search engines.”

Blog Hosting Options
A quick way to launch a blog is to use a hosted service. There are many hosted options that offer simple to use, customizable blog sites, including; TypePad, Blogger, LiveJournal and many more. You have the option to link to these from your company’s website and they typically offer a simple interface for posting content. Many allow you to customize the layout and masthead so that the blog can seamlessly look like a part of your website. Such services are managed for you, so you don’t have to deal with IT issues and you can start posting within minutes of signing up for an account. Many of these services, like Blogger, are free, but some, including TypePad, may charge a monthly fee. A risk with using services like Blogger or Wordpress is that the they own the content you post and should they elect to have the right to remove content or take down you blog.

If you maintain your own web server and want complete control of your blog installation, you'll want to consider a self-hosted package, like some popular choices, including; Movable Type, WordPress and Textpattern. Once you’re up and running you’ll need to focus on the several important and challenging tasks…who will write content, what they’ll write about and who will monitor and respond to comments.

Blog Assignment
Writing a blog doesn’t require Shakespearian skills, but concise, well-written blog sites tend to grow more quickly and command larger audiences. Keep in mind that this is a business blog, so how your company is perceived is paramount. Coordination with a marketing resource will ensure consistency within the boundaries of your corporate identity standards.

If you plan on having a single writer, then you can take the 20 minutes-a-day approach to keep content alive and fresh. Here the writer prepares a single post each day, which should take no longer than 20 minutes to generate. Other options include assigning multiple writers to tackle a series of topics with scheduled posts by each throughout the week. This spreads the responsibility out and reduces the workload on any one individual. You also have the option to outsource the heavy lifting of writing and posting to a PR firm who can poll company insiders for topics. If you opt for outside assistance, then it’s best to have a knowledgeable insider act as your point-person to review and approve content prior to posting by the outside firm.

Finding your Voice
Decide the personality you want to convey with your blog, this should reflect the “personality” of your company, its culture, and how you want the business entity to be perceived. You also need to consider the audience that you’re addressing. Consider what tone the blog takes…serious, technical, or conversational. Decide on a narrative form: first person, second or third person view? Do you include industry jargon? Once decided, craft a short reference sheet that outlines the ‘rules’ of the blog for your contributing writers as well as a brief profile of the audience. This will ensure relevancy and consistency in your posts.

Themes and Topics…Content is King
Your blog can cover various topics that affect or interest your audience or you can claim a theme and own it. Write about what you know, what you do, or are passionate about. For example, if your company is known for a specialty or niche such as press monitoring, then you could create a persona around this topic and share daily tips on improving production environments through better press monitoring. And whenever possible, include visuals. Photos, charts, video always add value when telling a story.

Frequency
Two posts per week is a good minimum for starters, but multiple, daily posts is a better way to build an audience as they’ll have more variety to choose from each day. But don’t force it…you’re better off posting good content then simply posting to create some noise. Increased frequency may require contributions from multiple participants within your organization, which is a good way to minimize workflow distractions, while maximizing blog content. Also, it’s important to note that posts need not be long; in fact, shorter, succinct posts are easy for readers to consume. Assume that your readers are busy and have other informational resources. Keeping posts condensed is just as easy on your writers as it is for your readers. If a topic demands more detailed coverage, then break it into segments or continue to post smaller stories while building towards a larger post.

Promote your Blog
Once you start, build up a few weeks worth of posts, then promote your blog. A few quick, easy ways to do so include;
• Adding a link to your company’s website
• Issuing a press release announcing the blog…target traditional media outlets and of course other bloggers who write about blogging
• Send an email communication using your customer mailing list
• Include a written reference (not the link) in your print materials, including advertisements
• Inform callers about your blog using your on-hold messaging recording
• Have employees include a link next to a weblink in their email signature line
• Also, use your blog to promote your company though downloads of white papers, webinar schedules, event participation schedules, product information and offerings, newsletters, etc.
• Offer RSS feeds and email subscribe options
• Within or at the end of your posts offer links to trade organizations, articles or other resources that offer more information about the topic of each post

Feedback and Monitoring Third-party Blogs
Keep tabs on what’s going on with your brand. Consider monitoring the blogosphere to contribute to blogs that affect your business or industry and to comment or respond to mentions of your company on other blogs. Monitoring third-party blogs gives you the opportunity to quickly respond to negative and positive posts about your company.

When it comes to your site, allowing readers to comment on your posts keeps the conversation fluid and offers readers the opportunity to provide feedback.

Summing it all Up
As manufacturers serving the metal forming community you have the unique opportunity to leap ahead of the curve. A recent Fortune magazine study found, that of the Fortune Global 100 only 33-percent have corporate blogs. Thus, if the big, mass consumer brands are slow to adopt, then it’s a safe bet that our industry has a great deal of unclaimed territory. So when it comes to blogging and other social media outlets you have a tremendous opportunity to get out front and become a modern media pioneer.

Flint Assembly Marks 13-Millionth Vehicle

2010-10-04T20:26:00.000-07:00

Grand Blanc, where Industry Scope is based, has like it's big brother Flint seen some dramatic changes in the manufacturing landscape. Our once highly productive Cadillac Grand Blanc plant was once a massive stamping facility with acres to grow on. Now it's the home of a much smaller GM's tool works and a nice big WalMart and Sam's club. With the other plants in Flint closing or being 'downsized' the news of the 13-millionth vehicle coming off of the line at Flint Assembly is GREAT for long time residents who remember just deep those automotive roots use to go. Do you think that Michael Moore will zip down from Traverse City to run some film on this one?

So it goes that on Thursday, September 30, at 10:45 am, we honor the 13^th million vehicle rolled off the line, you can read the post on AUTOFIELDBLOG for more.

The vehicle in question was a 2011 GMC Sierra Denali 3500HD

Source: AUTOFIELDBLOG

Eye-catching Idea for Tradeshow Nametag

2010-10-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

No, I don't work for Apple Computer's sales team, but I do love their products. So when I see something that is as magical as the new iPod Nano I can't help but find ways to use it beyond simply listening to music. It's small, light, inexpensive ($149/USD for the 8GB unit) and has a fantastic touch display. So naturally, it's perfect for use as an eye-catching nametag. The video clip below shows how we're planning on using it at this fall's FABTECH show in Atlanta, GA. The video doesn't capture how crisp the image actually is. It's really very easy to read even from a few feet away. More importantly, there is enough motion and contrast changes to certainly capture the attention of passersby.

The Nano is just 1.61-inches square and around a third of an inch thick, so pretty unobtrusive on a lapel. And with 8GB and 16GB models you'll have plenty of storage space to include a nice 'slide show' or variations on our theme.

It's simple to create...here's how

1. Using Photoshop or another image editor setup a 240 x 240 pixel image at 150 px/in resolution minimum.

2. Create separate layers for each screen shot you intended to display.

3. Once you have built each screen shot, export each one separately using the 'Export for Web and Devices' setting for jpg or png.

4. In iPhoto, setup a folder set called nametag. Then import the screen shots into iPhoto and place them into the folder set you created called, nametag. Be sure to place the screen shots into the order that you wish them to display.

5. Sync your iPod using iTunes and include the nametag folder set under the photo sync options.

6. Now you're ready. Go into 'settings' on the iPod and choose the brightness you'd like and setup the slide show preferences for your photo set. Then hit play and be amazed.

If you'd like some assistance putting something like this together, we're happy to help. So give me a call at (810) 397-1429 drop an email to mbleau@industry-scope.com.

Why We're Free to Conduct Business

2010-09-28T05:26:00.000-07:00

Bethany, my wife, and I just returned from spending a week at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas to watch our oldest son, Patrick (21), graduate from basic training before starting security forces training this week. This was a moving week for us as we watched our young man graduate one day and the next seeing the entire class stand in formation and march on the parade grounds in 90 degree heat and 89% humidity without so much as a blink. How do they do that? Really!

And while this post is more about pride in my son than it is about business, I can't help but think that the reason that we can engage in a free enterprise and enjoy the fruits of our labor is due in no small part to the men and women who serve to keep our nation strong. My congratulations, admiration and unwavering support to Patrick, and those who have gone before him and who will certainly follow in pursuit of keeping our United States strong and free.

REJOICE...It's Official...the Recession is Over

2010-09-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

Apparently, while no one was looking the recession just up and went and it did so quite some time ago. Not to say I told you so, but read back to my August '09 column. Hmmm, so I can only wonder if today's story is really news or simply well timed 'propaganda' aimed at taking some steam away from some conservative candidates who seem to be hogging all of the spotlight? Read on and you decide...

According to the AP, "The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a panel of academic economists based in Cambridge, Mass., says the recession lasted 18 months. It started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. Previously, the longest postwar downturns were those in 1973-1975 and in 1981-1982. Both of those lasted 16 months." Interestingly enough, the same news release just happens to mention that, "In President George W. Bush's eight years in office, the United States fell into two recessions. The first started in March 2001 and ended that November. The second one started in December 2007."

Odd that so close to November elections that this news should suddenly break and take time to point out that a republican president may have something to do with the cause. Since we all know that the President of the United States has complete control of the economy. For instance, look at what our current administration has managed to do to straighten things out...while you pause to think about it, I'll lead with a well placed "Exactly!"

Could be that I'm just a bit too conservative or that the hairs on the back of my neck are simply over-reacting to the change in our late summer weather. It's ridiculous to think that someone is trying to move the masses? It's not like fear and loathing have anything to do with getting people to the polls.

So if you've been waiting to spend that capital to expand your business or launch your latest venture; then wait no more. You officially have permission to move ahead.

Digitize Your Portfolio

2010-09-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

Industry Scope portfolio's main navigation view on the iPad

With the addition of iPads I've noticed just how little I need to carry a laptop. This weekend, having some free time, I was able to pull together a digital version of our portfolio. Much of our business opportunities come via word of mouth, but there are still times when I need to demonstrate what our team is capable of producing, ergo having a portfolio on hand is essential. I've always carried a set of hard and soft examples in my briefcase but the iPad version trumps a hard portfolio.

A few weeks ago we had started mocking up an App to develop internally to handle our portfolio, but after reading a review of an existing app, a quick search on iTunes brought me to something that does the trick nicely. You can read about PORTFOLIO here on the iTunes Store site, where you can purchase it for a mere $14.99. A bargain for what you get. It's very easy to use and, according to the developer, will soon include the ability of handling video files. We produce a good deal of video, so I'm looking forward to this addition.

Navigation is simplified using a visual picker along the bottom of the display

Many of our clients produce automation components and/or capital equipment. For them, having the ability to pack a complete series of machine photographs and CAD drawings for quick presentation could be a real boon to their sales efforts. Adding Apple's VGA out cable allows connection to a television, monitor or projector. Then with a 'click' of the slideshow view you have an instant, customized presentation. Several of our clients have already started using the iPad as a sales tool. After reading this post, I'm certain that they will jump on this App and add a little more sizzle to their presentations.

George Keremedjlev's take on Selling High Tech

2010-09-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was fortunate in being invited to hear Dr. George Keremedjlev, president of Tecknow Education Services (Bozeman, MT) speak to a small group of sales and engineering specialists serving the metal forming industry. What struck me, aside from George's keen grasp of the technical issues, which of course he's well known for, is his insight into how best to approach the selling of highly sophisticated forming equipment. It's rare that you find individuals who so clearly and completely can articulate both the technical aspects and grasp the commercial aspects of the more complex metalforming equipment and processes from, and let me pause to emphasis this point: FROM the perspective of the CUSTOMER. For sales engineers its always comfortable and easy to default to the technical conversion with the focus on the attributes of the machine (features, functions, input and outcomes), but George goes that extra step. He recognizes that with complex technologies what may seem important to the seller has little intellectual value to the buyer. The buyers in the NAFTA markets want to know how the technology can make them more profitable, faster. We in the US want a quick ROI and the ability to take a complex machine and make it do hand stands with little or no effort on our part. George realizes that demonstrating to the buyer how they can use the technology to gain more business or generate opportunities with the buyer's customer is where the deal comes closer to a PO. I've experienced this first hand having sold robotics and automation systems for decades. Having seen George's column for years, this was my first chance to meet the man and I must say he made a good impression. You can learn more about George by visiting his website at mfgadvice.com by writing him at GK@mfgadvice.com or by following his monthly column in Metalforming magazine at metalformingmagazine.com.

Thoughts on Labor Day

2010-09-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Labor Day

Barbecue, the end of summer, start of the school year and the season kickoff for the NFL and NCAA football season are plenty of reasons to celebrate this weekend. But I think that misses the point of the Labor Day holiday. We sometimes tend to play too hard and forget why we're celebrating. Labor Day isn't about hot dogs and tailgating, but remembering those who fought to make us a strong, fair manufacturing superpower in the world. So while you're enjoying the weekend, take a moment to write a letter to your state or federal representatives and voice your opinion on US labor relations and our world trade policy. It only takes a few minutes to make a big impact. You can 'click' on this link to quickly find your rep and how to reach out to them...WriteRep.House.Gov. While we still have a ways to go in terms of finding a balance in relations between Unions and Employers. I'm sure that we can all agree that together we are stronger when we work as one. So with this in mind, enjoy the weekend, remember those who drove the hard bargains to get us here and let's not forget that we need to keep America strong by working together to build the best in the World!

WIKI on the Topic of Labor Day

The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City. In the aftermath of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with Labor as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. Cleveland was also concerned that aligning an American labor holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair. By the 20th century, all 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday. The form for the celebration of Labor Day was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday: A street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations," followed by a festival for the workers and their families. This became the pattern for Labor Day celebrations. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civil significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

Labor Day Parade, Union Square, New York,1882

Be Bolder, Pulse Faster

2010-08-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

Time and again, we find that when faced with obstacles some organizations do not move quickly or boldly enough to overcome the issue in a timely fashion. In these cases, we suggest that management take on the sense of urgency and boldness of a startup. By doing so, you can quickly kill the risk-avoidance attitudes that may hamper progress and hold accountable the implementation team. A way to drive progress and place key importance on a given topic is to initiate twice-daily leadership meetings. These need not be more than a few minutes to catch up on situation status and drive team collaboration towards the end goal. In all cases, use a common document or system to record open items and progress made in closing out tasks.

Trends Presentation Slide Deck

2010-08-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in the keynote talk that Industry Scope's, Mike Bleau gave at yesterday's PMA Sales and Marketing Conference in Chicago, then download a copy of the slide deck using the link below, or by downloading it from the Industry Scope homepage.

DOWNLOAD Presentation

Presentation Abstract
Michael, will discuss how you can take advantage of consumer and industry trends and then blend new media approaches into your marketing mix. As outlets and electronic media advances become more consumer-centric, manufacturers are in an excellent position to take cues from business-to-consumer (b2c) trends and marketing methods to generate unique approaches that resonate within business-to-business (b2b) commerce. Whether mainstream or fringe, spotting trends involves observing and understanding those trends that are already taking place in the market and not attempting to predict the future. Then, once understood, leveraging this learning in engaging ways that resonate with prospects within your target markets.

Live from Chicago with PMA

2010-08-26T15:43:00.001-07:00

Live from the PMA Sales and Marketing Conference in Chicago. Excellent first day, great speakers and topics...well worth it! Great showing, looks like about 100 sales and marketing execs made it for the event. I especially appreciated a talk given by Rob Stohlman, VP Sales, Service Stampings. In outlining how Service Stampings dramatically changed its culture to become more customer-centric. Rob made some excellent points on elevating a sales force and taking on the perspective of the customer. I especially appreciated his "It's all about the customer, stupid" and the revitalized company's 'Let's make it easy for the customer to do business with us!' mantra.

Introducing SpinKlean

2010-08-25T13:11:00.001-07:00

We noticed that stamping operations are focused heavily on ‘dirt’ elimination, but that a key part of material movement wasn’t being successfully kept clean—namely conveyor lanes. At critical junctions, conveyors transfer blanks into the first forming operation. Typically, this takes place right after the blank is washed and oiled. Problem is, oil from the freshly cleaned part is transferred to the conveyor belt, which then becomes a ‘dirt magnet’—ultimately becoming a source for quality defects in the stamped parts. We developed a product to make dirt a non-issue. Visit our homepage to learn more at www.industry-scope.com

Elegant, Green Approach
Intermittently operating for a few minutes at a time over the course of a production shift, the patent-pending design of SpinKlean works by counter-rotating at nearly 1,000rpm, effectively wiping the returning belt at 130 times per second. We use a tough, proven FKM non-woven fabric that removes 99% of dirt and oil, leaving a clean, dry surface. After wiping the belt clean, a rinse and wring cycle using only potable, ambient water or your plant approved blankwash solution cleans the interior of the SpinKlean and it’s fabric fins. Ready to wash again.

Availability
SpinKlean is an Industry Scope innovation that we are proud to have manufactured and distributed by Norgren Automation Solutions (Clinton Township, MI). For details call Norgren at 1-800-272-4511.

B2B Websites in 10-Steps

2010-08-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the August/September Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

As with most communications projects, planning and preparation should consume 80 percent of your time. The job you do up front before starting to code your website will have a considerable impact on how well your site meets your audience’s expectations and on the overall cost to produce your website. Summarized here are 10-steps that will ensure that your site attracts and retains the right kind of prospects for your business.

1. Securing a Domain
While securing the domain is a simple task that can be tackled with a visit to a registrar such as NetworkSolutions.com or GoDaddy.com, deciding on the name can be a challenge. Try keeping it simple, easy to spell, short and tied to your brand. Using your company’s name or a part of the name is the best approach, while avoiding cryptic acronyms. If needed, secure additional domains that may include common misspellings of your company’s name. And steer clear of buying competitors names as additional domains for redirects since, well it’s illegal.

2. Check out your Competition
Visit your competitors’ sites to see how they stack up. You can right-click on their homepage and select ‘View Source’ to see if they have positioned keywords for search engines. These usually show up within the first 10 lines of code and look like, “META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="apples, oranges…”. You can also see what competitors are spending on pay-per-click Adwords campaigns using sites like www.keywordspy.com. Knowing what your competition is doing can help you make better strategic decision about how to position your site.

3. Identify your Target Audience
One of the most important steps in the process is to know your prospect. Check out last month’s column, “Precision: Pick your Targets” for more details. You need to quantify who your target customer is and understand what drives their strategy and business decisions. Identify your audience and define what is important to them, and what they would expect to gain from visiting your website. What is your value proposition…are you building the site to serve prospects, existing customers, current employees, prospective employees or all of the above? Defining the value your bring for the audience and honing in on their interest will help you create a more relevant experience for visitors.

4. Outline what you Intend to Communicate
Outline with bullet points what you want visitors to know about your company, culture, quality, processes, products, services and the impression you hope to make. Keep the statements short, and to the point without any fluff. Next, prioritize these points based on what will be of most importance to visitors. This listing will be a good reference for your copywriter.

5. Compile a Keyword Bank
Compile a listing of keywords based on what you learned from your competitive review in step 2, as well as from the outline you created in step 4. You can use this listing in several ways, first as a reference for writing copy. Try to include as many keywords as possible throughout the sites copy. Next, include as many of your top keywords within a maximum limit of 255 characters and list these on your index page (see META reference in step 2). Use the remaining keywords in Google Adwords campaigns to drive traffic to your site. In such a program you can never have too many keywords.

6. Prepare a Rough Site Layout
Focusing initially on content delivery, work with your site developer and marketing resources to sketch a site layout. This is where your web developer’s experience in ‘best practices’ will come to bear in determining navigation and the logical construction of the site. Once navigation is established, you can focus on visual presentation. It’s important that your site include any formal or informal creative guidelines that makes your brand distinctive. If you’re incorporating an ecommerce aspect to your site, then you’ll need to back up and select a shopping cart platform such as www.volution.com as these services greatly ease content management, but also come with some design restrictions. Make it easy for visitors to take the next step to contact your company by including phone, links for email or live chat links prominently displayed on al pages.

7. Copywriting
Relying on the references prepared earlier and the layout defined in the last step, start preparing copy. This step includes any written component of the site from the name of links to headlines and body copy. In all cases, be concise, making your points without burying the visitor in content. People tend to scan web pages and only read when they find what they’re looking for and when found, they want to get to the core content quickly. In most B2B settings, you’ll want to include enough information to convey your competence, while giving the prospect a reason to contact you if they would like specific details. Be mindful to avoid the use of internal company terms, acronyms and initialisms. Ensure the navigation labeling and other terms you use will be immediately understandable to visitors. And remember to embed those keywords within the copy where appropriate to further boost your relevance to any SEM or SEO activities.

8. Prepare Site Treatment and Assembly Visual Content
During copywriting you can start preparing a site treatment, which is basically a document that describes how the visual content is associated with the copy for each page. In effect, this is a blueprint that your web developer uses during the build out of the site. Skipping this step is common, and leaves you and your web developer to spending time reviewing and changing iterations of the site and its content, which translates into more billable hours. Since each photo or piece of art needs to be specifically selected to accompany the copy for a given page, it doesn’t take much to prepare the site treatment document to ensure that the art lands in the correct spot and your web developer will appreciate the guidance.

9. Proofread, then proofread again
While proofreading is one aspect of testing, it’s important enough to stand alone as a separate step. When proofing a site consider all of the visual elements as well as the copy. Having a skilled editor proofread your site will pay off in the end. Also, having someone unfamiliar with your company review critical content is as important as having and industry insider review the content to be sure that your message is clear.

10. Test, Submit, SEM and be Social
Test your site for usability, functionality and using various browsers on different platforms, then submit your site to the top search engines and start a search engine marketing effort (SEM) and consider leveraging social sites.

Usability refers to how easily people can make use of your site. Usability is generally defined as the study of human interaction with tools or man-made objects, in this case your website. Following best practices in site design for basic sites should negate the need to contract an outside usability study. However, if you are building a comprehensive site, then such a study is warranted to ensure that visitors are clearly able to interact with the site in an efficient manner.

Hitwise.com figures from May 2010 rank the US, the top search engines, in ranked order, are Google (72%), Yahoo (15%), Bing (9%), Ask (2%) and AOL (1%) with others making up the remaining 1%. Submission is easy, and doesn’t require you to hire a submission service. For example, visit www.google.com/addurl to see how easy it is to submit to Google. While submission puts you on a search engine’s radar, you’ll have more success ranking up by linking pages to relevant sites, such as where you may have a press release posted on a news site.

SEM not to be confused with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEM is a paid approach to ranking higher in search results through pay-per-click or other online advertising and PR efforts. SEO is a strategy of continuously adjusting a website’s content in a way to take advantage of how search engines classify information. You can source out such activities or internalize the process and start your own Google Adwords campaigns.

Social media, while still dominated by B2C, can be appropriately applied in B2B settings. Social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter provide opportunities to build an audience or following. Establishing a blog for your business is another means of pushing fresh content to prospects while building search engine relevance.

Summing it all Up
While these are some key steps to get you started, finding a good web developer who can translate your vision into an engaging, easy to navigate site is where it all comes together. So take your time, check references and my advice is to find a local provider for those important face-to-face, during the development process. And remember, while it’s critical that your site looks clean and professional, content is king. So focus on having relevant, easy to navigate and easy to consume content to boost your site capability in bringing you more business opportunities.

Precision: Pick your Targets

2010-07-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the July Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

Over the next few months we will cover some recently asked about activities that involve various ways of reaching out to employees, existing customers and prospective customers in current and new markets. With this in mind, this column will lay a foundation common to all of these activities; really THE essential, first step in any sales and communications endeavor; targeting.

For the moment, imagine a sharpshooter pointing his weapon in the general direction of a ‘target’ and then simply pulling the trigger—hipshot. After the moment passes it’s impossible to change the course of the bullet so the probability of hitting the target is extremely low. Missing with a bullet is unmistakable, as the paper target remains intact. But with communications (internal or external) or other sales activities it’s not always so cut and dry or offers such immediate feedback. Given the right circumstances, a marksman may recover quickly by collecting themselves, identifying the target, taking proper aim and sending another round down range. In this case the event cycle is compressed—feedback is near instantaneous— thus corrective actions can follow quickly. Even so, that first round is wasted and attempting to salvage it by redirecting its course in midair isn’t going to be productive, if at all possible, so if you account for lost opportunity in terms of multiple targets being available then more than double the effort is consumed by firing again at the same target. I’m not suggesting that if you take your time you’ll always hit the bulls eye as environmental influences play a factor, but your probability for success increases as you make the upfront effort to appropriately take aim.

Scale up the scenario, extend the feedback loop and apply a reckless ‘hip shot’ style to any communication effort and you’ll likely agree that it proves to be expensive. Yet we don’t always take the time to identify our targets or take carful aim—why not? Maybe we think we know intuitively who or what we’re targeting, so we don’t take the time for a gut check? Or we’re impatient. Maybe we’re unsure of how to go about it? Considering the recent business climate, you may want to enter new markets, but are not sure which. Attempting a machine gun or shotgun marcom approach to hit a lot of areas through shear volume doesn’t make sense or compensate for diminished accuracy. It’s simply costly. The better we define our target, what drives them, and what words (see sidebar) and approaches resonates with them, the more effective we become.

The purpose of targeting is to reduce waste by eliminating those ‘ears and eyes’ that fall into the category of being unintended targets. Typically, we set out attempting to segment a large population into smaller, specific chunks that best define with whom you want your communication to resonate. In consumer marketing, the audience is segmented through definitive combination of demographics, geodemographics, psychographics or behaviorgraphics. The later of which, physiological and behavior-based, are better predictors for future action, but prove more costly to collect, quantify, analyze and understand than basics descriptive traits and location based quantifiers. While you may start with industry or company type, to be effective you need to break it down to the account and functional levels. Your sales people should then attune themselves within accounts to the individual decision-makers who reside in the functional levels. Understanding and tuning-in on what makes the targets ‘individual’ and what drives their decisions will get you closer and allow you to craft more relevant messages that take the form of your sales approaches, presentations, website, whitepapers, brochures, print ads and so on.

In b2b targeting, there are two basic steps, identify who or what your target is—this can consist of industry segments, broken further into regions, by product classes and down to individual key accounts. Next, recognize what is important or critical for business success at each level; what are each segments expressed and latent needs. Now you can determine how to meet these needs in innovative, cost-effective ways that are positioned better than your competition. Quantifying who your target customer is and understanding what drives their strategy and business decisions gives you a foundation to build upon. From here you can effectively formulate your marketing mix, sales strategies, approaches and selling models. In the end, the better your job at targeting the more your sales and promotional efforts will resonate with customers, increasing your potential for consistently hitting that bulls-eye.

SIDEBAR ON ‘WORDS’
While it’s important to carefully choose you words for a given audience (say engineers versus accountants), you also need to consider industry-specific jargon. For example, a client of ours produces industrial rollers, but if we talk about a specific application of a roll it can have many different names. For example, the same roll product in an identical application with the only real variation being the industry where it’s used and the material passing over it is called a wringer roll in one industry, a padder roll in another and a squeegee roll in a third. All the same product, but if we’re talking to machine builders in one industry versus another, then we’d better use their terminology or jargon otherwise our words are gibberish and our effectiveness diminished.

Pulse Faster: Pick up your Pace

2010-06-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the June Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

While reading a brief commentary by Verne Harish, a contributing editor to FORTUNE magazine and dubbed the ‘growth guy’, Verne pointed out several reasons why, even in a lagging economy, there are some foolproof ways to make sure that your company thrives. The point that jumped out at me is ‘pulsing faster’. We all have practiced this at some point in our business cycle, especially if you’ve been a part of a startup. In many cases, companies pick-up the pace during a crisis situation where frequent, brief daily meetings are held to keep priorities in place, check performance indicators, make swift changes in strategy and knock down to-do items.

Chances are, at one time or another you have already implemented a rapid pace when dealing with an immediate crisis affecting your business. Maybe it was a quality issue that placed you into a containment situation with your customer. Or perhaps you wanted to ‘full court press’ a sales opportunity to win new business. In either case, you pulled together the right team members, defined the issues, set objectives, and determined how you would measure results. Then roles and responsibilities are assigned to each task and everyone moves. During the exercise tight communication within the team after the huddle ensures successful outcomes. Then, when the crisis passes or the project is awarded everyone exhales a deep sigh of relief and back we go to our normal pace, which tends to be significantly slower. While as an infrequent exercise this may be exhausting, done as a normal part of the business day you and your team will adjust…like a change in your body’s metabolism. At first, waking at 5:00am for a jog seems like the end of the world, but after awhile you look forward to it and feel out of sorts when you miss it. Think about the last time you prepared to go on vacation. How you were able to cram all of your to-do items into a few days before taking off. You quickened your pace…pulsed faster…achieved more in a single day than possibly in the week prior. If you can do it then, why not every day? Are you afraid that you might run out of things to do? I’m certain that you can create more ways to innovate better products, improve your productivity, reduce costs, please your customers and so on.

So when it comes to your business, why wait until the next crisis to quicken the pace? Applying your ‘crisis mode’ thinking to your daily operations can be a big boost to your productivity! By pulling together your executive team for micro meetings and by having departments do the same you can quicken the pace of the business, drive accountability and ensure that each day is met with measured progress. While I like in-person meetings best, it’s not always practical so these don’t need to be face-to-face; they do need to be brief and can be handled as conferences calls or web gatherings. As long as the material covered is concise and adds value, then you keep moving ahead. When uniformly focused, getting your team to ‘pulse faster’ is a way to ensure that even in a downturn you’re leading the industry.

Innovative tech: Riding coattails

2010-05-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the May Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

With the April release of Apple’s new tablet one should expect to see these popping up in a variety of settings as people leverage the real estate on this large, relatively inexpensive touch-screen computer. Positioned nicely between smart phones, smaller laptops and netbooks, this latest Apple gadget has already managed to create pandemonium with analysts and consumers. Adapting such innovative technology in creative ways can have a positive impact on your business, even if for just riding the coattails of Apple’s coolness factor.

Few would blame your company for wanting to take advantage of Apple’s allure. Consider a creative approach employed by Hyundai as they recently announced that they will present a ‘free’ iPad to buyers of their new, flagship luxury Sedan, the $50K+ 2011 Equus Sedan. While you may question whether the iPad included is actually free, the fact remains that the vehicle comes with an interactive, iPad-based owner’s manual. Hyundai’s App on this tablet will also serve as an interactive showcase, highlighting the features of their 378-horsepower V-8 powered sedan. But it doesn’t end here, as the inventive marketers at Hyundai tuned their App to also be used by owners to manage and schedule service appointments. While new consumers of the Equus will certainly show off their new car to friends, I’d venture that they just as often show off the vehicle’s very green, very hip manual and in doing so capture the attention of other prospective vehicle buyers in a truly engaging way. While the fact remains it’s just a manual, it’s one that will see daylight and certainly add to the ‘gotta have’ dynamic of the car.

Any edge that you create within your product category, which adds real value or causes decision-makers to gravitate to your offering can improve your position over competitors. So, while I’m not suggesting that including an iPad is an appropriate component of your deliverable, you can leverage this and other technology to creatively elevate your customer’s perception of your brand. If for not for the mere cool factor rubbing off, pulling out Apple’s 3G/WiFi enabled tablet computer is a far more natural and engaging means of sharing information as compared to booting a laptop. Simply put, used as a presentation tool, this is little machine adds sizzle to anything it touches. While readers who maintain information technology IT for our businesses may certainly cringed at my statements there are some advantages in adopting this latest Mac introduction for some field sales and service groups over defaulting to Windows based laptops. While I believe that other computer makers produce more business-accepted products over Apple, the iPad hardware and the coming wave of Apps creates a new, intriguing way to share information.

Sizzle aside, the advent of smart phones and devices like the iPad afford industrial manufacturers the means to collaborate and communicate like never before. These devices, the prevalence of Apps and the relatively low expense in creating your own custom Apps make it very easy to pool information, analyze data and collaborate. Early adoption of such devices provides a distinct advantage over those who choose to wait and see. Case in point, last month we visited a client’s videoconference room for a meeting with a European division. The room featured a wall of high definition monitors, multi perspective cameras and a sweeping conference table adorned with laptop docks and microphones—very high tech, very expensive, very impressive and very out of order. When the call was initiated something wasn’t working. We could see and hear them but not see their connected laptops, while they could only hear us. The moderating technicians hustled, phoned outside tech support but couldn’t resolve the issue. In our impatience, we launched a WebEx meeting from our laptops, invited our European friends to join in and held the videoconference, shared desktops and moved forward using a far less glamorous system. While it’s unfortunate that such a superior system failed, if not for our having a portable system in our briefcases we would have walked away with wasted time instead of completed action items. My point, as costs and learning-curve hurdles for acquiring and taking advantage of communications technology lessen, we as manufacturers need to move to adopt and adapt quickly to gain every edge possible over competitors especially those in overseas, low-cost countries. It’s ironic that many these same technologies are primarily being manufactured overseas.

If you have plans to step up the way that you present to prospects while streamlining communications within your organization, then consider adopting technologies that do so while sparking intrigue and ‘wow’ factors with your customers. As we move into better economic times, any little advantage can add up, even if that advantage come on the coattails of other innovative device makers.

Communication: Revisiting the United Pitch

2010-04-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the April Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

Following last month’s column on appropriate use of directed email as a means of reaching out, you may want to call me a hypocrite after reading this one. And yes, I do use text messaging and email, but not everyone knows where to draw the line. Understanding the distinction between appropriately texting to briefly confirm a lunch date with a colleague versus participating in long, drawn out, inefficient ‘conversations’ via text or email seems to be out of grasp for some individuals. My opinion is that some of this comes simply as a part of the different environments between generations. For instance, I’ve lived long enough to witness the onset of the personal computer, cell phones and the Internet. People of my generation grew up having a social experience based heavily on direct contact devoid of these devices. And we had time to adjust and adopt communications tools as they became more prolific. And while some of my peers and those older sometimes struggle to leverage these tools, younger generations have grown up immersed in electronics as a part of daily lives. Naturally they default to these as primary means of communicating. Where I see the need for guidance within organizations is in how people approach using these tools. Individually, their level of social skills and ability to make an appropriate distinction for use based on situational awareness may not be in step with what is in the best interest of the enterprise. This topic is a little thing, but one that can present big problems.

Let’s revisit a novel concept…talking, face to face. You may be too young to remember a United Airlines television commercial that aired 1989 or maybe Twitter distracted you and you simply misplaced the memory. So let’s reminisce. The spot, conceived by the Leo Burnett ad agency, takes place in a conference room; a business manager announces to his staff that a major customer has just fired them after 20-years of working together. Their customer had said “he didn’t know us anymore.” The manager goes on to say he knows why, “We use to do business with a handshake, face-to-face. Now it’s with a phone call and a fax and I’ll get back to you later, with another fax.” The manager then starts handing out airline tickets and assignments to go out and visit each of their customers.

Great ad. Struck a cord and made a good point way back in the 80’s and it still holds up today. Business is a combination of relationships built on trust and open communication. As professionals, we all know this, but the tools, the automation that promised us more productivity, collaboration and better communication has created some barriers to the finer nuances of communication. I’m not just talking about sales connections; consider your interoffice communications, how your people interact with their peers, suppliers and so on. Email, text messaging and social media websites have in many respects replaced the meeting, the phone call and fax. We have automated phone systems and call centers that divert people through a maze of “select number sign to continue” just to queue up behind other callers to reach a real, living person. We Tweet about things to keep people informed and following us. We strive to make more LinkedIn connections or leverage the convenience of text chatting instead of taking the time to simply show up and converse. Abuse of these tools reduces the ‘human’ factors of communication; body language, facial expression, tone, inflection of words, down to a poor electronic facsimile. Where is the relationship? Social media, which promises connectivity, can make us less social. And how efficient is it really considering the barriers created due to misunderstanding of a few words in an email? If this sounds like a rant, well I apologize, but there comes a time when we need to pause and take the ‘batteries’ out long enough for our people to reconnect.

This topic recently came to light while working with a client to evaluate their organizational planning and organizational processes. While the company is relatively small—under 100 employees—their ability to communicate within the organization seemed strained and fraught with frustration. There was a real feeling of ‘them’ and ‘us’ even between internal groups who should be relying on one another, where synergy should be organically realized. After some one-on-one sessions and process flow evaluation it became evident that their primary vehicle for communication was email. So even innocent statements of fact or requests for information were perceived as if there was ‘more to it’…”why did she copy in her boss on this?” So often these emails created opportunities for misunderstanding, driving resentment and division. Not to mention a side effect of gradually changing the culture from collaborative to individualism seasoned with paranoia. All suffer from very full ‘inboxes’. The simple fact is that devoid of email, this organization would take on a very different dynamic—potentially, a more positive and productive one.

Now I’m not suggesting that we all stop using email or that we deny our businesses the benefits that communications technology affords us. In fact, people who know me classify me as an early adopter—some go so far as nerdy Apple zealot. What I am suggesting is that we need to ensure that our internal processes; how we reach and engage customer touch points and supply partners and so on is done efficiently and appropriately. Technology should supplement our ability to communicate, not dominate it. In the end, business is all about the people that make it happen, so how they interact and communicate is simply too crucial to leave to chance. This said, take the opportunity for reflection and evaluate how you and your people are doing on these points. Now don’t martyr me on this subject by blasting out an internal email written in ALL CAPS! Maybe meet a few associates over coffee and simply talk about it.

To watch the United Airlines ad mentioned, go to www.youtube.com and enter the search terms: united airlines speech 1989

Email Marketing: New Media Primer

2010-03-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

Reprinted from the August/September Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

Keeping in touch with your customers can take many forms, the best being face-to-face. Depending on where your customers’ parts plants are situated can represent a high cost of engagement. When customers are geographically spread out, it can also be a challenge for your account managers to balance a frequency of visits that maintain strong ties to current customers while having time to build new relationships. Therefore, maintaining contact in-between personal engagements is important. One way to do so is though micro-bursts or larger newsletters issued via directed email. Personally, I favor the micro-burst as it’s much easier for the recipient to consume and being concise it is more likely to be shared. Outside of the obvious use to reach customers, targeted email can be an excellent communication tool for reaching out to employees, supply partners, investors and so on.

When starting out research your delivery options. There are dozens of email contact solutions; some web-enabled subscriptions, others server-based solutions and stand-alone software packages. For the most part, all offer a simple graphical interface for creating html-based email, list management, launch scheduling, opt-in and opt-out list management and reporting capabilities. With smaller lists (numbering less than 10,000 addresses) a web-based solutions is a good candidate. Webware offerings tend to be very easy to use, inexpensive and platform independent (Mac or PC friendly) — an especially good choice if you’re an email novice with limited IT staff. The proliferation of online service providers, the competitiveness of their subscription models and depth of features offers a quick and simple starting point. For example, web-based solutions such as ConstantContact.com offers extensive tool sets that enable you to reach thousands of contacts for under $50 per month.

The immediacy and feedback of email marketing is two of its key strengths as you can disseminate time-sensitive information in minutes and you can measure some of the results of your efforts almost instantly.
Factors that influence success or failure can be summarized into a few key points;

• First and foremost, have permission
• Keep your messaging relevant
• Be concise and use visuals whenever possible and practical
• Temper the frequency of your messages

First and foremost, have permission
Sound email marketing is based on recipient permission. List rental through a legitimate provider such as your trade association say, as a part of a trade event is fine, but always avoid the use of bulk, purchased email addresses. Companies offering the opportunity to purchase bulk lists may tempt you, and while bulk is cheap, consider why would you want to send email to untargeted, unsuspecting, and most likely uninterested parties? Moreover, by taking a shotgun approach you risk legal repercussions, as well as jeopardize your organizations reputation. Your most reliable means of building an email list is from existing customer contacts, where you have active relationships. If you’re not using a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, then pooling your sales, service, executive and other internal assembled contacts may be tedious but it is a good start.

Keep your messaging relevant
With micro-bursts your primary objective is to make the recipient aware, interested, and offered a convenient means to link to your website, download details or contact you to learn more. So consider how valuable the information is to your audience and what is motivating the push. Does the content generate meaningful engagements, foster significant dialogue, or bring together individuals and ideas. Also, segment accordingly; judge if a message is relevant to your entire list or only a select group of recipients.

Be concise and use visuals whenever possible and practical
In preparing micro-burst emails strive to keep the copy down to fewer than 100 words, (about the length of the previous paragraph). Include your logotype and present photographs, diagrams, charts or other visual means to communicate ideas or to illustrate a concept.

Temper the frequency of your messages
Once you’re started be mindful that not everything going on in your business is news worthy, and just because you have the ability to blast emails out at any moment certainly doesn’t mean that you should. Respect your customer’s inbox and pace the frequency of your messages. Use the software’s built-in reporting tools to gauge your relevancy and frequency and as you start out ask a handful of customers how valuable they find the material that you’re sending and if it’s coming too frequently or not frequent enough. But, generally speaking, two to three times per month is plenty. Conversely, communicating too infrequently can be just as bad as communicating too often. If you wait too long to reach out to your audience, then your list can become stale so reach out at a minimum of once per quarter.

When done right, email marketing can be a powerful tool, enabling you to quickly reach out and communicate in a way that can enhance relationships and spark new ones. Adding email to your marketing mix requires fewer resources than traditional marketing vehicles (e.g. direct mail, PR or print advertising), it’s ecological, immediate and convenient. And the return on investment (ROI) delivered through email marketing is compelling. In 2009, the Direct Marketing Association reported that email marketing delivers an ROI of over $35 on each dollar spent. While reaping this return isn’t guaranteed, it is certainly attainable with a little homework. Excellent resources can be found online at the Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org) and at Constant Contact’s ‘Learning Center’ (www.constantcontact.com).

Multi-company Project Management: A Case for Collaboration

2010-02-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

Reprinted from the February Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

With the recent publishing of “Multi-Company Project Management: Maximizing Business Results through Strategic Collaboration” came the opportunity to talk again with an old acquaintance, author Dean Baker. Dean enjoyed a long, successful, 40-year run at General Motors and retired in 2005 largely to spend his free time teaching and consulting. Even in retirement, Dean is still very involved within the stamping community, and chances are you may know him. If not directly, then you may recall a series of projects during his tenure when General Motors invested over $2-Billion in stamping plant modernization. The program was implemented over 14 years, involved 16 major capital equipment suppliers spanning four continents, and impacted over 60% of all the GM’s stamping equipment in North America.

This started 1994 when Dean moved from his post at GM’s Parma, Ohio stamping plant to GM’s headquarters in Warren at a time when GM management was beginning the formation of a new stamping operation. This was another in a series of major reorganization moves including plant closures and consolidations that started in the early 1980’s with an aim to improve GM competitiveness. The objective of the new division was to create and implement corporate manufacturing standards and operating procedures for stamping that would allow GM to better leverage its size and resources. Until then, each mostly autonomous plant maintained individual facility-specific requirements for equipment. Each had specifications for pneumatic components, controls, hydraulics, motors, drives, paint color codes, pipe-and-wire standards, automation, press die clamps, the works. At that time, the receiving plants’ demands eliminated many of the advantages of shared standards, which jeopardized GM’s ability to implement improvements and maintain flexibility among the plants. Compounding these challenges, GM was a behemoth, operating some 14 stamping plants in North America alone, selling nearly 5-million vehicles annually in the US and reliant upon a large equipment supply base, each with their own set of unique standards. Deciding what would be the new order and the implementation of new corporate-wide standards along with integrating these with existing equipment had to be tight or vehicle launches were at risk, meaning people’s livelihoods, least of which, Dean and his team’s.

As if this wasn’t enough it came in the wake of the 1992 departure of GM’s infamous and highly adversarial purchasing czar Ignacio Lopez. Lopez left many suppliers gun-shy of ‘GM’s cooperation efforts’ to say the least. For Dean’s team to succeed he needed supplier collaboration on a whole new scale.

The result over several years of fine-tuning is what Dean today refers to as Multi-Company Project Management (MPM). MPM is a hybrid and integration of two methodologies: multi-company management and project management. The result is a collection of activities or best practices organized into six process groups; cooperate, communicate, coordinate, control, complete and close. In order to accomplish the desired results, the project manager exercises freedom in selecting the appropriate activity from each process group to provide the maximum flexibility in applying the MPM process to each project. Essentially, MPM creates the optimum environment for project management involving multiple companies to operate with maximum efficiency while not limiting innovation and creativity. Unique to this approach is shared decision-making that involves a board of senior executives representing each partner company. This leadership team works together to establish long-term, mutually beneficial outcomes and a means to encourage collaboration and accountability between the stamper and the suppliers. For MPM to work, decision-makers need to be involved. Having all of the decision makers available during meetings keeps the project moving. At the front end of any project, common goals and mission critical objectives are set and agreed to ahead of time. The focus on these shared objectives leverages individual company skills; builds synergy and results in the overall success of the team and individual partner companies.

Taking into account how large and complex GM was during the 90’s and the competitive pressure exerted by Asian car companies, the following clarifies the scope of this achievement. While launching $2-Billion in equipment, with MPM, GM overcame bureaucratic, cultural, and language barriers between distant, sometimes unfamiliar suppliers at a time when ‘not invented here syndrome’ prevailed and many management teams undervalued project management, classifying it as an administrative function for the production of Gantt charts. To quantify GM’s success, consider that following implementing of the MPM approach coupled with plant productivity efforts resulted in GM’s stamping equipment productivity (both strokes per hour and pieces per hour) moving from last place in 1994 to first place in the 2003 Harbour reports. If you’re unfamiliar with Harbour, they are the J.D. Power and Associates ‘Car of the Year’ award equivalent for automotive manufacturing efficiency rankings.

Regardless of the size of the organization, the products being stamped or the specific metal forming processes being employed, there is value to be gained by considering the business approaches of the MPM process. Not the least of which include reducing project costs and increasing overall effectiveness of capital through closer collaboration and alignment of objectives between key equipment suppliers. This said the MPM approach does not fit every project simply given the essential involvement of key executives. To succeed MPM demands a true commitment of time by senior management—at a minimum quarterly involvement—so it isn’t reasonable or appropriate to involve senior management on all projects. MPM is appropriate when a project holds key strategic value to your stamping organization; typically large capital-intensive programs. Also, it’s important that you don’t let the process dictate to the team. Apply the process to the organization to make it work for the team.

Dean points out that it was very challenging when GM started developing MPM as suppliers were notable suspicious and accustom to little or no transparency with GM and other suppliers working on common projects. Furthermore, breaking down adversarial barriers that had grown between GM corporate and suppliers was difficult, as suppliers had historically looked to the individual plants as their immediate customer. And since Lopez’s regime focused on winning at all cost It took some convincing to assure suppliers that the MPM approach would be as beneficial for their business as it was for GM. After considerable groundwork, trust began to build and Dean noted that when problems arose, the relationships within the team led to quick resolution. Team members having formed solid relationships were comfortable to simply pick-up the phone and talk through issues. From 1997 to 2007 Dean polled MPM run project participants to gauge their level of satisfaction with overall outcomes and how their company benefited from the approach: 82% of the results across all categories were positive with only 2% negative and the balance neutral.

Reading today’s headlines many lose sight of the fact that GM has for over a century fueled our economy and been a point of pride for many hard working American’s who contributed greatly to our manufacturing knowledge and skill base; MPM is one such example. Collaborative project management in metal stamping is particularly useful since major capital investments may take years to implement and the equipment is expected to run for decades. Such projects play a large part in a company’s long-term strategy. And it’s just as important for the equipment supplier to see the system flourishes in that stamper’s environment. A poorly executed system or one that simply doesn’t meet requirements that may have not been clearly defined can result in a loss for the machine maker on the initial project as well as future opportunities. We all have teams, our suppliers have teams, their sub suppliers have teams and sometimes these teams work in semi-enclosed bubbles focused on their own goals. Without substantial, shared goals and a means of cross communication each team wins only a little. Working as a unified team, with shared vision and goals using decision-making tempered with multiple perspectives maximizes the satisfaction and business results of all participants.

To learn more about MPM, visit teamimplementers.com

Entrepreneurial Economy: Change the rules

2010-01-02T16:57:00.000-08:00

Reprinted from the January Business column in Metalforming magazine.
By: Michael Bleau

Having made it through the fray, now may be the best time to redefine your stamping offerings or overhaul your entire approach to the business. Historically, post recessionary economies represent some of the best times to start new business ventures. Encouraging entrepreneurial thinking within your workforce can be a catalyst to new opportunity. Taking in a fresh perspective by questioning everything you do, why you do it and how it came to be may create some uncomfortable conversations with individuals who tend to be averse to change, but the payoff exceeds a few bruised egos. To really dig deep takes an unwavering commitment by management. It also may benefit from an outside perspective that isn’t restricted by political or emotional equity—someone who isn’t concerned with tipping the sacred cows. Recognizing and embracing alternative strategies can be a challenge that may simply escape longtime executives and employees who may have had little opportunity for exposure to other approaches—you don’t know what you don’t know.

A recent conversation with a retired stamping executive highlighted the importance of making the hard choices, challenging the status quo and reaping the rewards of changing the rules governing the way we do business.

Frank Maday has a long history in stamping having served his tool and die apprenticeship at Chrysler, then moving onto becoming a tool and die manager at VW, tooling and QC manager at Budd, tooling manager for Ford Walton Hills and then, where our story begins, as VP of engineering at Mayflower’s US operation. The few years leading up to 2000 were taxing on Mayflower’s European operations specifically their vast operation in Gaggenau, Germany. In early 2000, Frank was named managing director for the division where he immediately began dissecting the multiple-plant campus’ $65-million business to better understand how they were losing nearly $8-million annually. As a tier-one automotive supplier, Mayflower produced stampings and finished assemblies for European automakers, including catalytic converters and exhaust systems. To understand the cost structure, Frank implemented detailed value mapping exercises to break down material, labor and general overhead costs on a per job basis. This quickly uncovered a number of jobs that were generating losses with each part shipped. After assembling the details, Frank led efforts to approach customers in an attempt to justify piece price increases. In those cases where the customer refused, Mayflower tactfully as possible, gave back the non-profitable work. This helped, but it did not solve the basic problem of having too little opportunity and too many competitors driving prices down.

In a game-changing move, Frank shifted Mayflower’s basic focus of being a tier-one supplier to becoming a tier-two supplier. This had the immediate effect of growing their customer base from around six to over thirty—effectively converting competitors into prospective customers. Furthermore, it placed Mayflower at the top of the tier-two competitive food chain. Their experience as a tier-one supplier simply better prepared them in terms of equipment, capabilities and processes. Their overall capability simply surpassed that of the other tier-two suppliers they were now competing against. It also changed the nature of how they conducted business. The company was able to shutter now unnecessary and consistently unprofitable engineering centers, and to thin bloated middle management by creating self-directed teams—all told, a reduction in headcount by 20%. By concentrating on the elimination of all non-value-added elements, improving work flow and methods and refocusing their business into a tier-two operation, the company quickly flipped their losing streak. Within 18-months they recognized profits of $4-million on sales of $60-million.

Encouraging entrepreneurial thinking and sparking some bureaucratic controversy can be productive. Consider the following;

• In business there are no sacred cows; challenge everything. Assume nothing and ask “Why?” “Why not?” “What if?” etc., then
listen. Questioning enables you to break the status quo and consider new possibilities.
• Look outside, benchmark, learn from others and find fresh perspectives.
• Keep your people on their toes, drive out complacency and reward innovation.
• Understand the origins of your business processes and challenge their current validity. What worked in the past may hold
no value today; again, challenge everything.
• Kindly pass along to unwitting competitors your customer’s who cost more than the value they bring. Let your competitors
become the charitable organizations of your industry.
• It’s easy to grasp expressed needs, try to recognize the market’s latent needs.
• Take a page from Frank’s playbook and flip the playing field.

As you embark on the post recessionary economy of 2010 recognize that you’re in the position, possibly the best of your career, to recast your business into something stellar. Don’t let this moment pass. Identify and take advantage of this opportunity, invent, redefine and break free from the things that constrain you.