A Little Thought On Little Things.

Repetition interests me. If I see or hear something once it may or may not hit my radar. Twice…depends…but by the third or fourth time I typically see some sort of a trend and my curiosity gets the better of me. I start watching and listening to see if the trend continues. I’ll test it if possible.

In more and more business meetings with potential partners I kept hearing things like:

• He brings chocolate by.
• I like the cookies they drop off.
• I got a nice frying pan.
• He remembers my birthday.

In a previous life one of the hats I wore was that of a buyer. That experience helps me recognize these as tricks of the trade…toss little things at buyers and they like it…so they buy. The birthday was a nice personal touch. That salesperson obviously set out to differentiate themselves. But all told, these clients were impressed by a once a month…maybe once a quarter…candy or cookie drop? The birthday card was once a year…but it kept that particular buyer loyal. The economy may be down, but little things are keeping these customers buying. What am I doing…what are you doing…to make this kind of impression on your customers and business partners?

Take this closer to home. If little things add up to a perceived relationship in a professional setting, how much more do little things effect our actual, deep relationships at home? What little things are you doing that make an impression on your spouse, kids, room mate, friends, and neighborhood? Random acts of housework. Spontaneous fun outings with your kids. Cleaning up the dishes for your room mate. Taking a friend out for coffee or lunch for no other reason than to spend some time with them. Giving a neighbor the unused portion of your weed killer so they don’t have to spend the time, energy, and money to go get their own. The “investment” of any of these activities is similar to the “investment” needed for the salespeople to spend on their clients…minimal. But the impact can be tremendous.

In professional settings the little things are helping to win, build, and keep customers and partners. In your home and community the little things can be used to build, strengthen, and solidify your relationships with those you care about the most.

Go do something…little.

The Milton Report – Eco Easy

Not sure what The Milton Report is? Check out some previous posts for details…

So everyone knows Staples is big. Sometimes big companies can make big waste which leads to a big mess. Curious about what steps Staples has taken to reduce their footprint? Below are some highlights or you can check it out for yourself by pulling down this EcoEasy Glossary Fact Sheet.

• Staples is one of the world’s largest ink and toner recyclers – 23 million cartridges and growing big!
• By promoting recycled paper Staples saved nearly 2 million trees in one year! That equates to roughly 6 of New York’s Central Park.
• Staples is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 1,700 tons through the use of 13 solar energy projects.
• Back in 2006 all our delivery trucks were set so they could not exceed 60 miles per hour. This saves more than 500,000 gallons of diesel fuel per year.
• Staples is piloting a program to put the country’s first hybrid delivery truck on the road.
• Staples was the first national retailer to offer in-store tech recycling services. In 2007 this meant responsible recycling of over 2 million pounds of tech waste!
• Staples is an EPA Green Power Partner. Huh? In 2007 Staples purchased enough renewable energy to power 11,200 homes for a year. This prevented the release of more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide. What? That’s like taking 21,000 cars off the road for a whole year!
• Staples continues to pursue earth-friendly innovations by pursuing products made from recycled denim, cornstarch, and sugarcane.

Want to learn more? Current business partner and customer, potential partner and customer, or just curious… let me know.

The Riders Are Coming! The Riders Are Coming!

 

The Ride:Well Tour rode 85 miles today stopping for the night in Waverly, TN. Don’t believe me? Follow the action via Twitter. As you may have heard the riders are pushing towards Baltimore and are on pace to arrive on Friday, August 7th! (For more details check out the post from July 16th.)

Here’s the skinny: We need stuff.

• Housing and hospitality for riders.
• Churches and organizations to “sponsor” the event. All you need to do is be willing to display some posters and talk up the event. I’ll even deliver and hang the posters! I may even be getting access to some digital posters so you can display event information on your auditorium screens, website, etc.
• Participants for the Welcome Party! Listen…there’s gonna be live music, some food, the Executive Director for Blood:Water Mission will be in the house, interviews with some of the riders…and THE RIDERS!!! These people will have biked across the motherland to help build wells in Africa! Grab your lawn chairs or blankets, raid your fridge and bring some food to add to the table, grab your friends and family…basically anything and anyone not nailed down…and come on out!

Interested in connecting with this event or group in any way? Let me know.

Ride a bike. Build a well. Save a life.

Ride:Well Tour Pedals Towards Baltimore!!!

The Ride:Well Tour is rolling through Texas right now with their eyes locked on Baltimore!

Missed this the first time? Check it out. Caught it earlier? Fresh details at the bottom.

Ride a bike. Build a well. Save a life.

** ORIGINAL POST 7.1.09 **

Blood:Water Baltimore is helping to set up a Welcome Event for the Ride:Well Tour!! On Friday August 7th the Ride:Well Tour will be landing in Baltimore on their way across the United States!!! On June 11th the ride kicked off in Santa Monica, CA and on August 8th the ride will conclude at Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware!

We Gonna Party:  Friday August 7th at the Hunt Valley Church you are invited to come out to cheer on the arrival of national and local cyclists, enjoy some music, food, and generally have some fun. Bring the family, stop in with your friends. The more the merrier! More details as the event gets closer. Stay tuned…

Want To Help A Biker?:  We need about 14 homes willing to provide some good old fashioned hospitality to the bikers. They will need lodging, food, and possibly some local transportation from Friday August 7th through Sunday August 9th.

Oh, and we’re talking biker:    

NOT biker:  

Just sayin’.

Interested? Want or need more information? Let me know.

Build a well. Save a life.

** UPDATE 7.5.09 **

1) The actual number of riders in need of lodging is 19!! To those of you already extending some Baltimore love, THANK YOU! If you’re still considering it…there are definitely riders who would appreciate some good old fashioned hospitality!! Please contact me to get connected…

2) We are also looking for some event partners to assist in the Welcome Party at Hunt Valley Church mentioned above. Is your church, organization, company,co-workers, small group, neighborhood friends…you personally…your family…hey, I don’t care if it’s your chess club… are you interested in being some helping hands and feet? Like to cook and think you may be able to provide some food? Have some dead presidents to help with financial sponsorship? If you have any interest in helping with this event in any way, please contact me.

** UPDATE 7.15.09 **

1) There are still about 10 riders that need some Charm City…um…charm. Good news = that means about half of them are already in good hands. Opportunity = half need a place to crash after pedaling across the good ol’  U.S. of A.

2) We are still in need of partnerships of all kinds for the Welcome Party.

If you are interested in more information about any of these opportunities please contact me.

Stay tuned… and as always…

Build a well. Save a life.

The Milton Report

If you’ve seen “Office Space” then you are familiar with Milton. His unnatural affection for his prized stapler was the inspiration for this recurring post here at Connectivity. The Milton Report will come out periodically and is specifically designed to communicate useful product and industry information. If you are a current Staples Advantage customer, these posts are designed as a service to you! Not familiar with Staples Advantage? Not yet a customer? I’d appreciate the opportunity to meet you and learn more about your business and company.

In this post I sat down with Milton and did a little Q and A about how Staples Advantage measures quality and performance standards. Here is just some of what he had to say. (And by “sitting down with Milton” I mean pulling the information out of the database. Just so we’re clear.)

Here we go:

C:  So Milton…how does Staples Advantage measure quality and performance standards?

M:  Staples North American Delivery has a documented quality system consistent with applicable ISO 9000 standards. To ensure the highest levels of performance, service and quality across our organization, Staples has invested in creating a Continuous Improvement culture that strives for process excellence. We are continually auditing and improving our operating standards and service programs to bring you the best.

C:  Fair enough. Tell me about “The Perfect Order”.

M:  When it comes to getting what you asked for, we’re dedicated to just one outcome: delivering your order complete, correct, undamaged and on time. We call this “The Perfect Order” and it forms the basis of how we measure quality and service throughout our fulfillment and delivery operations. 

By combining sophisticated tracking with relentless attention to detail, we’ve made it our mission to achieve a perfect order 100% of the time. Our highly automated fulfillment centers help ensure order accuracy, and we receive automated business and customer notification when quality process exceptions occur. As a result of process efficiencies and new technology, we’ve steadily increased our Perfect Order rate year after year, which means our customers are experiencing the highest service levels ever

C:  Explain “fill rate” and how Staples Advantage differs from the industry on this measurement.

M:  This measures the percent of complete orders we ship from our fulfillment centers (orders that can be fulfilled entirely from stock we have on hand, without the need to backorder). Some companies measure fill rate by percent of units fulfilled per order, but we hold ourselves to stricter standards counting any order as 0% filled if it’s missing even one item. By maintaining a high fill rate, we ensure that you’ll get the products you order, when you want them, without having to substitute or wait for them to arrive at our warehouses first. Our current year-to-date fill rate is 97.7% (versus 97.2% last year).

C:   Thanks for having us out to the beach house. Last question. Explain the “One and Done” approach to customer service quality.

M:  You want your customer service questions resolved on the spot, the first time, without having to call back or be transferred to someone else. To deliver that experience, Staples has built a “One and Done” customer service culture. Our goal is to create an experience where customers receive satisfaction with a single contact at least 95% of the time.

 “One and Done” is how we measure our customer service performance and the standard by which we train our Customer Service Representatives (CSR). We conduct regular audits to assess our customer service teams’ performance and identify process improvements to make the experience even easier.

C:  Wow. Thanks. That was easy.

M:  Nobody ever makes THAT joke.

Back to your regularly scheduled day…already in progress. Thanks for playing along…

Perspective

This past weekend I was driving from upstate NY back to Baltimore on I-81. At multiple points traffic was taken from two lanes down to one. On the Sunday following July 4th this did not make for a quick trip. At one point I looked up and saw a hot air balloon approaching. With nothing else to do I took this picture on my phone:

I kept going back to this picture and couldn’t figure out why. Then it hit me: perspective. Mine. That of the riders.

Remember the Robin Williams movie Dead Poet’s Society? He had his students stand on their desks to what? To gain a different perspective. “Oh captain, my captain!” C’mon…you know you loved it!

A slightly more recent film to make the point: Vantage Point. The same event is viewed through multiple points of view. It looks different from each angle. Different details are seen with each…dare I say it…perspective.

My wife and boys are visiting relatives this week. I’m taking the opportunity to view my home life through a new perspective. I am realizing things I can do to have a more positive impact in my home as a husband, father, and leader.

In my work with Staples Advantage I get to meet with companies and hopefully help them see their supply line and organizational structure and process through a new perspective. Hopefully they see the value in this perspective and agree to create a partnership…to make a connection. But when I think about it, it’s that opportunity to provide a new perspective that is energizing to me.

Greg Rittler from Kanon Clarity gives me new perspectives all the time. His organization exists, in part, to help companies and leaders gain new perspectives for their overall business. That is an energizing concept to me!

Brody Bond at Wordswell helps companies communicate their message, again in part, by providing them with fresh perspectives on how to get their message out in the right way to the right people. Again with the energizing concepts!!

Here’s the challenge: experiment a little bit with different, fresh, new, perspectives. Talk to people. Friends, family, co-workers…spend some time evaluating. Stand on a desk if you need to. Hang upside down on a jungle gym for all I care. Just stir the pot a little bit. Flip the script.

Interested in a new prespective regarding your supply line? Let me know.

Interested in a new perspective regarding your entire organization or how to get your message across? You can reach Greg and Brody through the links on the right.

Could a new perspective benefit your home life? Why not sit down and talk about it? Bounce it around within your family. See what happens. I have a feeling that a new perspective just might give you some energy too…

Ride:Well Tour Rolls Into Charm City! *update*

** Update at bottom. **

Blood:Water Baltimore is helping to set up a Welcome Event for the Ride:Well Tour!! On Friday August 7th the Ride:Well Tour will be landing in Baltimore on their way across the United States!!! On June 11th the ride kicked off in Santa Monica, CA and on August 8th the ride will conclude at Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware!

We Gonna Party:  Friday August 7th at the Hunt Valley Church you are invited to come out to cheer on the arrival of national and local cyclists, enjoy some music, food, and generally have some fun. Bring the family, stop in with your friends. The more the merrier! More details as the event gets closer. Stay tuned…

Want To Help A Biker?:  We need about 14 homes willing to provide some good old fashioned hospitality to the bikers. They will need lodging, food, and possibly some local transportation from Friday August 7th through Sunday August 9th.

Oh, and we’re talking biker:    

NOT biker:  

Just sayin’.

Interested? Want or need more information? Let me know.

Build a well. Save a life.

** UPDATE 7.5.09 **

1) The actual number of riders in need of lodging is 19!! To those of you already extending some Baltimore love, THANK YOU! If you’re still considering it…there are definitely riders who would appreciate some good old fashioned hospitality!! Please contact me to get connected…

2) We are also looking for some event partners to assist in the Welcome Party at Hunt Valley Church mentioned above. Is your church, organization, company,co-workers, small group, neighborhood friends…you personally…your family…hey, I don’t care if it’s your chess club… are you interested in being some helping hands and feet? Like to cook and think you may be able to provide some food? Have some dead presidents to help with financial sponsorship? If you have any interest in helping with this event in any way, please contact me.

More to follow as the event approaches.

Build a well. Save a life.

The Milton Report

If you’ve seen “Office Space” then you are familiar with Milton. His unnatural affection for his prized stapler is the inspiration for a new type of post here at Connectivity. The Milton Report will come out periodically and is specifically designed to communicate useful product and industry information. If you are a current Staples Advantage customer, these posts are designed as a service to you! Not familiar with Staples Advantage? Not yet a customer? I’d appreciate the opportunity to meet you and learn more about your business and company.

HP PurchasEdge: Staples Advantage customers who purchase HP products of any kind are able to register for the PurchasEdge program with HP. As you purchase HP products via your partnership with Staples Advantage you not only benefit from fantastic pricing, but you also earn free products directly from HP.  Curious? More info: HP PurchasEdge PDF

“Adopt a Pack” Facebook Application: Staples recently launched the “Adopt a Pack” Facebook application, which gives users the chance to tag friends, virtually “fill” a backpack with school supplies, visit a Staples store to buy the supplies, and have them donated to local disadvantaged youth. The program is part of Staples’ DoSomething 101 campaign, and the target audience is socially active high school students and teens who are looking to make a positive impact on their communities.

Customer Appreciation: Does your company already partner with Staples Advantage? From June 28 through July 4 you can take personal advantage of our professional relationship. Take this flier in to your local Staples location for a 10% discount:  Customer Appreciation Postcard – June 28, 2009 to July 4th, 2009