Mention the word change and a collective groan is often heard in conference rooms and offices regardless of your location. Change is painful, we too often believe. Change will be uncomfortable and may create a scenario wherein you lose control. You may not like the end product; then you have to change it back. Change just might break your business, or a relationship, or you personally. Change is a six letter four letter word. Why?
Many sunsets ago when I was in the Army National Guard we were in the field doing training with our sergeant and Squad leader, who was an older gentleman. Of course, I was 20 something so he just seemed old 😊 . Anyway, we were working on map training and navigation by compass for the day.
I was in the Dojo the other day and our Sensei was calling up the children for awards, and upon calling up the White belts he stated: “The white belts are the most important people in the Dojo.” He went on to say, “ We all remember being a white belt, and how the feeling of being lost and uncoordinated and the thought of “I will never be a black belt,” felt, but without white belts there would no one to hand the lineage down, no one to carry on the tradition. So you, white belt, are the most important to me”
First let me state that I am not an expert at Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Jujitsu or any other martial art, so I don’t need the Kobra Kai dojo at my door threatening to beat me up.
Trucking is one of the hardest battles we are fighting in the industry. Who, will go where for what amount? We have all heard the discussion, 20,000 drivers short, Electronic logs, new regulations, large companies consuming small ones etc. On top of all of that, only a small percentage of those trucks are flatbeds.
How many sales people do I need? Well, that’s easy, take your total sales for the last five years, no…the last 10 years…well maybe we can use the last 7 years… anyway, take that number, ( NO not what you paid taxes on, the REAL number) get the average of that time period. ( if you can’t do that, then go back to sales). Anyway take the average sales for the time period, figure out your gross sales, take that number multiply it by 20%. Divide that number by half the days in 6 years. Multiply that number by Pi and then carry the X… hell I have no idea how many you NEED. I don’t think they taught me that in school.
Well, first you can’t spell it.. secondly I have been up all night thinking about it… Lastly, I am an 80’s kid farm boy from Idaho who never finished college and got to the top the hard way, so I really struggled with them, so what the hell, here we go…
Through the years Reject pipe has been called everything from Reject, commercial grade, Prime secondary and the like. The truth is “Reject is just that, Reject.” At some point in the inspection process, the pipe did not meet the requirements. Not to be confused with Downgraded (different topic) .
Good question… We all know we can afford to buy small quantity inventories on A, B, and C items at higher prices and not get caught with overpriced inventory if the market recoils.