No Willie Lomans Please!

Reinventing yourself

Okay, you have been at this a long time, maybe too long, heck twenty, thirty, or even forty years, and now you’re getting a bit, shall we say, long in the tooth and somewhat tired. But you still love the business, and kind of, still like what you do. You like it enough to stick around for a while, but you need to pick up your game a bit…in short, you’re an old dog looking for new tricks. All right, I get it, so much so, in fact, just to prove it, here are some new tricks, a whole bag of them in that should not only get you out of bed in the morning, but having you leap out of bed, ready to face the world.
Now, stay with me as I reach into that proverbial bag, and pull out some my best tricks.

• Forget everything you’ve thought was true. All of those age old axioms that you’ve clung to over the years. Things like, “you can’t call on Monday because the customers are in weekend hangover”, and “you can’t call you on Friday because the customers are in weekend anticipation mode” and you can’t call, well you get it. Forget all that hogwash, and just call. Nothing happens until you make a call.
• And, speaking of excuses you have learned over the years, to keep you from making your quota, throw all of those out as well. They are just holding you back and making you feel good about it. No More excuses!

Now that your psyche is purged of all of those bad habits you have accumulated, let’s start some new good habits.

• Get into the 21st century of selling. Stop bragging about not knowing what “tweetering” is; or that you don’t believe in Linkedin. Get to work right now learning what they are and how they work. There are books, and articles, guides, and yes, even mentors, to teach you about these things. Learn all about them and start using them to your advantage. Selling the way, you are doing now, leaves you holding a bow and arrow in a nuclear war.
• Learn about your product. The new sales person is a sales Consultant, with a Capital “C”. Customers are going to buy from people who understand the technology they are selling. They want vendors who can teach them about the products they sell. If you want to be successful you have to bone up on your product’s technology. You want to be a technical sales professional, not a pedlar.
• You are a sales professional, you have years of experience in your industry, now it’s time to treat yourself with that kind of self-respect. Like all true professionals you have to study your craft. You should be reading books on sales and marketing, watching videos, attending seminars, and doing whatever you need to do to hone your skills. If you are not doing these things, you are not taking your career seriously, and if you’re not, then who will.
• Learn from young people. They are the ones who are succeeding in your world now, so if you want to work with them, or even compete against them, learn from them. And please, take them seriously. Don’t insult them with the stereotypical labels like GenXer’s and Millennials. These are  inaccurate, insulting, and yes very demeaning, and it makes you as the labeller look bad. Respect all generations, and treat them as you want to be treated.
• Stay energized. Stay healthy. Get your exercise, eat right, and just plain take care of yourself. You’re not going to be able to learn any of these new tricks, if you’re out of commission. Stay healthy. And if you still drink,  do so in moderation. The image of an old drunk sales guy is pretty darn ugly. And if you still smoke…then, well what can I say?
• And finally stay curious. Learn something new every day. Learning is the very best anti ageing trick I have in my bag.

These are only a few of the tricks, you can use to re-invent yourself so that you will continue to be a good, and effective, sales person, for a long time to come. But heed my words, or you will find yourself  standing next to the patron saint of all old has-been sales people…Willie Loman. And nobody wants that. It’s only common sense.

Contract Manufacturers Are Not Exempt From Needing Sales And Marketing

For many years now, too many that I want to count, I have been a real pain in the neck advocating that all board shops need marketing, they need to advertise, send out newsletters, hire and manage, measure, and motivate sales people, create forecasts, and account plans and pay attention to their customers’ needs. Interestingly enough, up to a few short years ago there were only a few tier two contract manufacturers who were doing the same things. I know, because I managed to work with the few of these rare companies who were willing to invest time and money into their own sales and marketing efforts.

I was never sure why there were so few CMs interested in sales and marketing. There are over eighteen hundred contract manufacturers out there and the vast majority of them and I mean a real vast majority of them are under fifteen million dollars in annual revenue, in fact, most of them are under ten million. So, I wondered what was the deal here? Why did so many contract manufacturers feel little or no need to pay the slightest attention to the sales and marketing end of their business?

One of the reasons was I came up with was that they didn’t really need to go out and find new business because it always came to them one way or another, they always had all the business they needed. So, I dug a little deeper, why did they have all the business they needed to stay busy and keep making a profit? It did not take long to discover that many of them started their business to service a larger company that needed them to produce a special unique assembly for them. Often the people who started their own contract manufacturing company had done so at the requests of a large company, often one they worked for. Often, the person who started the CM company had run the assembly department of that larger company, or they had been responsible for specific product line that the larger company was producing and that finally powers that be decided that it would be more economical for them to have those products built outside of their company by another smaller company they would help launch. It was amazing, how often this was the case.

And then, from that guaranteed base of business the new contract manufacturer grew by adding just one or two other customers a year to the level where they always had enough business. In fact the company that had originally helped launch them, did not want them to have too many other customers.

But now all of that has changed. These companies have grown where now they have to maintain a certain level of business just to handle their overhead costs. Often the original projects that had started them in business in the first place have disappeared. So now they find themselves in the position of having to get out there and find more business.

Unfortunately, this is proving to be a daunting task for a couple of reasons. The first one being that they do not have the sales and marketing infrastructure to grow their business. They need to hire sales people and develop and implement sales and marketing plans; and the second reason being that the sales cycle, the time it takes to acquire a new customer, is a long one in their business. It can take from eight months to a year to find and win a new customer, and then in many cases it takes at least six months to scale that customer up to production levels. It is also much more difficult for contract manufacturer to handle a lot of customers. By the very nature of their business, they are structured to handle only a few good customers at one time. At least most of them.

Because of these factors it is apparent that contract manufacturing companies need as much help with sales and marketing as the board shops always have. It’s only common sense.

Getting The Kids Into Manufacturing

Let me tell you about my son Damon. From the time he was thirteen years old he has been fascinated with everything Japanese. I’m not sure how that started, maybe the video games? Anyway, when we moved to Maine in 2012 and he was about to enter his Freshmen year in high school, he asked his mother to find him someone who could teach him Japanese. After making a few calls, she found Damon and excellent tutor, a Japanese lady who had married had local American and moved to Maine. She was his tutor for years before he went off to college. For college, he chose Earlham in Indiana because of its’ very strong Japanese program. After college he moved to Japan on the ALS program and taught school there, eventually getting a job in a private English as a second language school. After a year of living in Japan he became  proficient enough to be a DJ on a crazy radio show where he talked Japanese, laughed in Japanese, and played terribly loud and awful music.

After five years in Japan, he decided it was time to come home. Of course, we thought that was  a great idea. He came home one July, parked himself at our dining room table and started his job search. His idea was to work as an independent contractor translating documents from Japanese to English and vice versa. He quickly discovered  that this was a terrible job that paid next to nothing. So, we talked and came up with an idea of looking at Japanese-owned companies in America.

He posted his CV, and his availability on sites like Monster. Com, and lo and behold the phone was soon ringing off the hook (or whatever happens these days) I guess his email blew up. Yes, there were many Japanese-American companies looking for people just like Damon, and soon he was flying around the country interviewing with these companies. In just a few weeks, he was hired by a company called THK with a division in Columbus, Ohio.  At THK, he does interpretations for not only the executives but the engineers and everybody else who needs it. The pay is great, there is a great future, and guess what, he just married his Japanese sweetheart last week. He’s all in.

But the point here is that he loves it. The bigger point here, is that THK is a huge manufacturing company with locations all over the world. They manufacture anything to do with linear motion as well as automotive parts. Yes, my kid works in a manufacturing company and he loves it! He loves the excitement of building something, he loves the engineering, and of course he loves the whole idea of working, and speaking, Japanese every day. And the interesting thing is that if you had told Damon that he was going to work in a huge manufacturing company when he graduated from college, he would have made a face and said, “no way!” in both English and Japanese.

But now that he has been part of the company for almost three years. He loves it, He has been completely taken in by the fun and excitement of the everyday life, highs and lows, of working in a real business. A business, he would have never in a million years ever expected to work in, never mind be excited about it.

And that’s my point. If we can just find a way to get these kids exposed to what we do whether it be PCB design, assembly or fabrication, they would get caught up in it, they would get hooked. Just like we did so many years ago. And, if you think about it, could be argued that what we do is as interesting if not more, than making linear motion devices, no offense to Damon or to THK.  Heck, we make products that touch the stars, that go to the moon, that go to Mars, and Saturn. Products that go into electric cars. Products that keep us safe from the bad guys, and help save the world for democracy, that are an integral part of every single new innovative product that comes out. And if we could get young people to get a taste of that, just like Damon did, maybe just maybe we could solve our labor shortage problem.

Let’s not forget, that the young people today are more tech savvy, more focused, more educated and yes possibly more passionate about things that they find interesting and important than we ever were. So, let’s invite them in. Let’s show them what we are doing. Give them a taste of what its like to work on products that matter, products that are changing the world both today, and in the future, and I’m pretty sure that just like Damon, they’ll get hooked too. It’s only common sense.

 

Stop Procrastinating And Start Prospecting

I know you hate to prospect and you hate to make cold calls, so this is what we have to talk about today. Whether you like it or not. To help us, there is a great book by Mark Hunter called High-Profit Prospecting a trade paperback published by Amacom. This book is a first rate guide to making sure that you squeeze everything you can out of your prospecting. If you are in sales I am not going to ask you to read this book; I am not going to urge you to read this book. No I am going to order you to read this book. This is the best book on prospecting since well since I read Hunter’s buddy Jeb Blount’s book called Fanatical Prospecting. Yeah sorry but I order you to read that one as well.

Look, there are no two ways about it, prospecting is one of the key elements if not the keyelement of doing a great sales job. You have to find new customers and to do that you have to prospect. Now don’t bother to start listing the excuses and myths about prospecting and why you cannot do it and why it doesn’t work in today’s market, because I have heard them all as has Mark Hunter. Actually to save time he has listed them for us to kick off from his book and here they are, with a few of my own for good measure.

Myth 1: One and Done: A cold call is not leaving a voice mail. You have to keep at it until you actually talk to someone. And by the way a ton of e-mails won’t do it either, they are useful to warm up an upcoming cold call but they are not a real cold call. You have to actually talk to someone to start the sales process.

Myth 2: I’ll prospect when I’m done taking care of my customers: I you believe this you will never call on new customers. No, let the shop take care of your customers and you go find some new ones.

Myth 3: It’s impossible to have dedicated time to prospect: Yeah right. Make the time to prospect, it is after all the most important thing you’ll do all day.

Myth 4: We’ve made it this long without prospecting: As Mark Hunter says in his book, “This myth will sink your company.” This myth has already sunk many other companies in the past. Look you need new customers even if your company is doing a great job and you have many long term customers…stuff happens, companies are bought, companies go out of business or decide to go in a different direction. If you are not always out there getting new customers, you will run out of business and it will be sooner than you think.

Myth 5: If we provide great customer service to our existing customers, we won’t have to prospect: Of course customer service especially great customer service is essential to be successful but you still need to always be prospecting for new customers. Check myth 4 for the reason.

Myth 6: Only “born salespeople” can prospect: No, with a set of skills and a lot of heart, courage and hard work, not to mention patience anyone can be a successful prospector and that’s a fact.

Now I am going to add a few myths of my own.

Myth 7: Ah, my personal favorite, if we build a great product they will come: No, they will not, unless your product is a baseball field in an Iowa cornfield they will not come. You have to tell someone about your products and services for them to know enough to want to talk to you and as a sales person this is your number one responsibility.

Myth 8: No one wants to see me anymore: They are all too busy to see me so it’s much too hard to make appointments. Actually, this is more of an excuse than a myth. Yes, it is true that it is much harder to see people than it has ever been but that’s just too bad. Your job as a sales person is to find a way to make it happen. Look if it’s hard for you to see a buyer it is as hard for your competitor as well so you’re on a level playing field. You have to figure out how to see people and how to get your point across on a phone call or even through the voice mail you leave to intrigue the potential customer enough to make her want to see you.

I think by now you’re getting the point. We as sales people have to prospect, we have to get out there and get in front of new customers. We have to get more involved in lead generation, prospecting, cold calling, first sales calls and getting that first quote and winning that first order. This is want we do. For the next couple of week, I am going to dedicate this column working with you on successful prospecting techniques and I am going to use Mark Hunter’s excellent book as a guide so I’d recommend that you’d do something to help yourself and get out there and get a copy of your own and follow along because there is no way that in 900 words a week I am going to cover everything that is in this important book. Next time we’ll talk about successful factors in lead generation you are not going to want to miss it. Meanwhile stop coming up with your own set of myths of why prospecting doesn’t work and get to work on some prospecting…try it you’ll like it. It’s only common sense.

Getting The Most From Walking IPC Apex 2019!

With IPC Apex Expo 2019 coming up next week, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about some of my ideas for helping visitors who are not exhibiting, but are attending the show. Obviously, we have talked a great deal about how to get the most of your dollars when you exhibit at a trade show; and yes, we have talked about walking a show a show as well.  But it’s been a while and I thought this would be a good time for a review. With this in mind here are some of the best things you can do to get the most from your time at IPC Apex Expo

1. Check out the equipment. A trade show is great place to get your first look at some of the new equipment that is being introduced to the market. Take a walk around, and see what’s new. Take the time to stop, and really look the equipment over, talk to the people selling it, take notes and get a good understanding of what the equipment is, what it can do. Then compare and contrast that equipment with similar equipment being shown by different competing companies. A trade show is a great time to scout out equipment you are thinking of buying either this week or later in the year. By the way, a trade show is a great time to make a deal on a piece if equipment you want to buy. The last thing the manufacturers want is to ship their demos back to the company. They would rather ship them to your company instead. And as a bonus for buying equipment at the show, there is nothing better than to have the name of your company on a newly purchased piece of equipment for people to see for the remainder of the exhibition.
2. Meet up with your customers. The IPC Apex Expo  is our industry’s biggest event of the year, so it’s a great time to meet up with your customers who will also be in San Diego. There is no better time of the year to have meetings with as many of your customers as possible. Just think of the travel expenses you’re saving by meeting up with four or five of your good customers from all over the country. All for the same expenses of just one trip! Make sure you plan these meetings in advance. Don’t try to wing it, this will not work. Set the times and meeting places in advance for the ultimate meeting time efficiencies.
3. Learn what’s new in technology. IPC offers many classes that you can attend where companies are anxious to tell you about their new technology and other developments in the industry. There are press conferences, and presentations going on all day, every day, and all you have to do is register. Check out the show guide, and choose the subjects you want to learn about. Once again, there is no better time of the year when you can learn so much in so little time.
4. Find the right people. Whether, you want to hire and engineer, or a Quality manager or direct sales people, or reps, this week in San Diego is the perfect time to meet and interview people you would like to bring into your company. Once again, set the meetings up in advance, and schedule them very carefully to get the biggest bang for your precious time.
5. Do some sales. There is nothing wrong with stopping by the booth of a company you would like to do business with, and talking about your products. Visit potential customers at their booths’, introduce yourself, and take a moment or two to tell them about your products and services. Who knows, you might walk away with a new customer. Wouldn’t that be time and money well-spent?
6. And do a little marketing. Stop by the Iconnect 007 booth and talk to them about doing an  interview either audio, video, or print. This a great opportunity to tell your story, talk about your products and services. I’d advise you to get to know the great team at Iconnect, they have helped literally hundreds of companies tell their stories and increase their sales. Stop by and see what they can do for you.
7. And finally, set your goals in advance. Figure out what it is you want to get out of the show, and then plan on how you will accomplish that. I’ll say it again, don’t wing it! Plan in advance so that you will use every minute of your time in at IPC Apex Expo 2019 to the fullest. It’s only common sense.

Nurturing Your PCB Talent

There is no doubt there is a shortage of young people in our business. As we all get older, the challenge of finding young people to replace us is getting more severe. So, I thought it only appropriate that this week we would talk about that nurturing process, training them to become not only viable, but outstanding members of our organizations.

The PCB is not a commodity and it has been a vital and important participant in the global innovation of electronics.

We must show them future. By that I mean show them the viability of our product; the past, the present and most importantly the future. Show them the value of the printed circuit board in the grand scheme of things. Point out that PCBs have taken us to the moon, they have made the computer age possible, they have made medical advancement possible, and yes, they have provided the very defense and safety of our country and the world. Show them some of the products that your specific customers are building. I still think back with great pride in knowing that I touched the PCBs the guided the Space shuttle and the PCBs that went to Mars on the Motorola Viking program. We have all been in a doctor’s or dentist’s office or in a hospital and seen our customers’ names all over the equipment that surrounds us, only to realize that our board are in the equipment. Even though so many of our customers try to commoditize our products, we all know better.

Teach them the entire process

For these young people to completely and understand our, it is important they know how they are built. This means more than just taking them on a plant tour to see the entire process. It also means having them spend some time in the shop. If they have been working in the shop already, chances are they only know their job, their part of the process. So, it’s important thy learn the entire process. The best way to do this is to have them spend time building a board themselves. Following it through the process and performing each step of that process. This will go a long way towards giving them an understanding of what it takes to build a printed circuit board. This gets even more important if the young person you’ve hired has never worked in our industry before, it will be time well spent.

Train them completely for their new position.

Whether they are going into sales or starting out in the drill room or being promoted from the drill room to a supervisory position, prepare and implement a complete and comprehensive training program. This program should not end too after a few weeks. A complete training program will have evolutionary stages of development along the way. Lay out an entire year’s development program. This will not only serve as a checkpoint to see how the person is doing but will also give you the opportunity to mentor the person along the way. Training is one area that has always been lacking in our industry and I believe it is the number one reason we are in the state are in today when it comes to the aging of our industry.

Show them the places they’ll go

Show them their future. Lay out a career path setting expectations for where they will be in one year, in three years, in five years. A young person has his entire future ahead of him, they only way you are going to keep him engaged is to show them that future, explaining to him in real detail the growth and earning possibilities he faces by investing his time and effort in our industry. Tell her about the earning power of a good mature engineer, or a passionate sales person. We should keep in mind, that our schools are not exactly lauding the advantages of working in manufacturing and the exciting possibilities that entails. Our kids are taught to be lawyers and doctors and accountants and teachers, they are never taught the possibilities of being involved in manufacturing, which is why when they do come to us it us, most of the time it’s just to have a job and a paycheck to put food on the table. They have no concept of the career that is possible and the earning potential that a career in manufacturing offers them. I can safely state that no young lady in high school ever said “when I grow up. I’m going to sell circuit boards!”

But to many of us, being in this business has provided opportunities far beyond our expectations. We have made a good and rewarding lives from this industry. But I can safely say that none of us at the age of sixteen ever said “When I grow up, I’m going to sell circuit boards” and heck, we turned out okay. Its only common sense.

A Word From The Future: Some Notable Highlights From CES 2019

No, I didn’t go, sorry, I still have to spend my time earning a living and working with my favorite people, my customers. Many of my friends though, did get a chance to attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week and here are some of the more impressive peeks into our future that they sent back to me.

Probably the most talked about advancement at the show was about moving into 5G bringing us even more speed and that ever popular better definition on everything from our phones, I-Pads and most importantly televisions. The 5G wars have begun, be prepared to be inundated with ads from Verizon and AT&T next year, as 5G services become available. Oh, for the days of doing things like going into space and landing on the moon rather than finding better ways to sit on are butts and watch inferior actors in crappy movies…but I digress.

Speaking of even higher definition television sets, the new thing now is going to be foldable TV screens. Now in your living room, instead of that puny 40 inch TV screen (how yesterday!), you will be able to buy foldable TV’s that opens up to 65 to 85 inches. A kind of a movie screen for your living room.  And of course, these new sets will come in 8K instead of 4K, so that those same inferior actors in those same crappy movies will look even better, not to mention bigger and I’m sure louder, Oh, I can’t wait!

Voice commands are coming into their own next year. Which mean we’ll all be talking more to devices named Alexa and Siri and whatever stupid names they come up with, than we will to our spouses. Giving us more opportunities to sit on our ever-widening butts, doing  nothing more productive than yelling commands to an electronic box, so that something will happen that we could make happen ourselves, if we had the energy to get off the couch and if we weren’t too busy stuffing our faces with Cheetos to the point of permanently planned inertia.

And then there are the self-driving cars, and if that is not bad enough, a new self-driving motorcycle was introduced at the show. Really? I’m not a motorcycle driver myself, but I’ve always secretly wanted to be, and I always thought the reason to drive a motorcycle was for the fun of it. There have been times when I have been the passenger on the back of a motorcycle, but that never seemed anywhere near as fun as being the driver, that’s what seems like fun to me. I can’t imagine who would want a self-driving motorcycle, but that’s just me. Now that I’ve said that, I’m sure I’ll hear from some clever self-driving motorcycle company’s marketing guy who will give me a call informing me of why I can’t live without one.

And, all of this leads me to the ever popular phone, that ever-present quintessential symbol of our times. With everything we discussed earlier especially of course the onset of 5G phones are going to get bigger then ever. Yes, that’s right, they are coming out with new foldable phones (didn’t we used to call those flip phones?). Samsung will introduce a 6.2 inch phone that unfolds into a 12.4 device when you want to really see what you are wasting your time on while riding on the back of that self-driving motorcycle.

Okay, I’m just having some fun with you…sort of, I love all of this new stuff and I’m certain that a year from now I’ll be marvelling about how great my personal drive in theater sized office TV is, especially when I’m watching some of my favorite movies like Hangover 28 and Oceans 21.

But for now, I’ll just keep wishing that these geniuses would invent things that I could really use like great looking personal 3D glasses of my own that I could buy and  wear when watching 3D movies. Or, maybe, being able to buy more than one phone on the same number so that I could have a sporty model for hiking, and more formal model for when I wear my tux (not!) and a smaller model for when I’m travelling, and I could switch them depending on my mood or what I’m doing . I would think the people who make and sell phones would love this idea…being able to sell multiple phones to the same person?

Now, if we could only invent something that would stop hunger and poverty, and give us world peace, or maybe just something that would stop us from being so angry with each other all the time, something we really need and could use right now. That would be something wouldn’t it? That would be something we could really use. It’s only common sense

When Will PCB Shops Understand Rep Firms?

I spend a lot of my time helping board shops with their rep issues. I spend a lot of time trying to convince these shops that they are going to have to change the way they handle their rep relationships and start treating them as partners rather than second hand citizens if they want this whole thing to work.

I am constantly amazed when the board fabricators I talk to tell me without batting an eye that they have the “best shop in the industry; that they have the best service in the industry and reps should be beating a path to their door for the ‘privilege’ of selling for them.”

I really get a kick out of the shop owners who tell me that “they are no worse than anyone else” and “that any rep should be delighted to sell for them.”

And then they go on to tell me that the reps they have not are all a bunch of “lazy bums” and if I could only find them the “right” reps to sell their terrific products everything would be okay.

When I ask them if they have a marketing plan or are doing any advertising? All I get is a loud snort and an impatient, “who needs that stuff? We don’t need any of that we just need the right reps.”

When I ask them if they have a program for managing the reps; pointing out that one of my partners offers a very successfully proven plan that will guarantee that their rep program will succeed they scoff and say, “we talk to our reps all the time and don’t need any of that.”

When I ask them if they are willing to give reps house accounts they refuse even before the words have time to pass my lips. “No way will we ever do that, they have to earn their accounts, they have to bring in new business and not even go near our current accounts.”

When I point out that it is better to serve an account locally than from three thousand miles away so they should give the reps these accounts, I still can’t budge them.

When I ask them if they would be willing to pay a small retainer or even a draw to get the reps started since it is a very expensive and long process to find new accounts, get the surveyed and qualified and get that first order and then wait another 60 days to get paid, they just about come through the phone roaring, “No way will we ever do that! We did that once and the reps screwed us!”

And here is the clincher…when I tell them I might have a pretty good rep in an area let’s say New England that I might be able to introduce to them if they want, they tell me, “Well we can’t really put in a rep in that territory because we already have a rep there but he isn’t doing anything for us right now.”

And when I ask why he isn’t doing anything and why don’t they try talking to him to get him going again, they tell me and get this, listen to this one; “well, we owe him a bunch of money and have not been able to pay it for a six months…. but he should still be trying to sell for us right?”

Okay, if you are a board shop owner and any of this scenarios sound familiar to you then good! Maybe you’ll get it one of these days. So I am going to make it easy and plain to understand:

If you see yourself in any of the above examples you need to know that reps are tired of working with your company and companies like yours.

They are sick and tired of being screwed by you. Your product is not always great and frankly neither is your service. It is not a great privilege to sell your products. And as the market gets tougher and tougher it is that much more difficult to represent you and near impossible to make any real money representing you.

Besides all of these pitfalls of representing a board shop there is always this other dilemma, the danger of being too successful and bringing in so much business that when your accounting department sees how much you owe them and are going to owe them when the next orders come in you think nothing of terminating them. Never mind the fact that reps are always at the bottom of the stack of things you have to pay and if you go out of business they are always at the top of the list of creditors who will never get paid!

Now do you get it! Those of you who continue to disrespect your reps and not want cooperate with them are not going to be able to sign them for much longer so you are going to have to find another way to sell your products.

For those of you who are willing to enter the 21st century of rep/principal relationship listen up”

You are going to have to treat your reps with the trust and courtesy that a true partner deserves. You are going to make sure that the relationship will be win/win and yes you are going to have to pay the piper and pay retainers or at least give them some accounts if you want to have them work for you.

That’s all there is to it…it’s not that hard. Its only common sense.

Turning Over A New Page

The excitement of a new year!

Turning over a new page. One year ends, and another begins. Isn’t that refreshing? Isn’t that a great feeling of renewal? Throwing out all of those old calendars, and hanging those new ones up on the way. Or, opening up that brand new date book for a symbolic, as well as, literal fresh start, that feels wonderful. There is a whole new year ahead of us, filled with hope and anticipation, that always comes with a new beginning. Man, I love that! I think this is a wonderful time to review what happened in the previous year, and set goals for the new year. As we face 2019, here are some things to think about to make sure that 2019 will be a good, productive, and profitable year.

So, sit back and ponder, think for a few minutes about what you want for yourself and your company during he next twelve months. The future is yours and as a wise man once said, “if you don’t control your future, someone else will do it for you.”

Here are few ideas for making 2019 the best year yet!

• Build on what you have already accomplished. Build on the previous year’s accomplishments. Sure, it’s a new year, but don’t be tempted to throw everything out and start over, as many people do. Some people just like new plans so much that they start over every year with a brand new plan. It is better to be in a productive third year of a plan, than to be perpetually in the first year, every year. A plan is only as good as its’ implementation. Those people who like to have a brand new, start at ground-zero plan, every January, never get anywhere. A good plan is one that is in constant implementation with minor adjustments year to year. Don’t be an attention deficit syndrome manager or you will never get anywhere.
• Use the new year to energize yourself and your team. Get your people excited about what they can accomplish with the passionate rejuvenation that comes with the new year. Use that energy to psyche up your troops. Get them excited about that clean slate of accomplishment numbers, and drive them to face the new year with productive optimism.
• Set goals for the new year. Where do you want to be in six months? How about nine months? How about one year from now? Fix these goals firmly in your mind. Write them down and then develop your tactics, defining the steps you will take to make those goals. Set timed-milestones along the way. Check points where you can stop and evaluate your progress and make adjustments, always remembering that goals are just goals until you take the right steps to achieve them.
• Always be flexible. Things are never going to go the way you want them to. There will always be obstacles along the way, so you have to be prepared to overcome those obstacles whatever they are. Be flexible, be ready to make changes, be prepared to adapt to whatever situation comes your way, and you will succeed in the end. Remember that perseverance is the key to all success and stubborn determination is its’ advocate. And as the saying goes, “expect the best and prepare for the worst”
• Encourage creativity. Welcome new ideas from your team. Not only encourage, but provoke your team to be more creative. The more freedom your team is given to try new things the more effective they will be. Don’t make your proverbial box so rigid that no one is allowed to think out of it. Encourage a questioning atmosphere, as long as the questioning is productive. You are not dealing with robots when it comes to sales, you are dealing with creative, and passionate people, use that to make your people, and your sales team, the best it can be.
• Always be looking for new ways, better ways, to do things. Don’t settle for “the way we have always done it”. Even if that old way has been successful, there is always room for improvement. Because of our fast-changing world what was a good way of doing things twenty- four, or even twelve months ago, might not be the best way to do them today. Always be looking for a better way.
• Be courageous. This is a hard one for many of us who love the warmth and coziness of our comfort zones. Those of us, who would like the world to stop spinning for just a minute, so that we can catch our breath. Remember, that the world has to spin to stay on its axis, and if it stops, we all die, It’s the same with your company. If you stop moving, stop learning, stop creating, and most importantly stop growing, you will die. It might be a slow, and inconspicuous death, but it will be death just the same.

This is the best time of the year. The time to re-invent, and re-create yourself, your team, and your company, so face the new year with all of that cockeyed optimism you can render, and it will be a great one. I promise you. It’s only common sense.

Where Will We Be in Five Years? Or Maybe Three?

Recently, a good friend of mine, an owner of a PCB shop in the U.S. ,asked for my thoughts on what the North American Market would look like in five years. Good question isn’t it? With everything going on in the world , it is a good time so stop, and take stock. So, after some considerable pondering, this is what I came up with. And, never one to pass up a chance to share, I thought I would share it with you.

Consolidation: Big shops eating little shops: The Pacman syndrome

• Some of our more prominent companies are on buying sprees right now. At least three American companies are buying everything they can get their hands on, with an end game of a big payout in the next few years. These companies have three things in common. One, they have an aging management team looking for that last payout. Two, they have venture capital money behind them, and three, they are more interested in the top line than the bottom-line, don’t get me wrong the bottom-line is still important since a company’s selling price is determined by a multiple of their EBITA. But that all important top line is what attracts buyers, and their investors. So, watch these companies keep buying and growing. They are the ones I am talking about. This means that there will be fewer and fewer shops as the small ones get “vacuumed” up or as I prefer to call it, “TTM’ed”

The buyers: Who will be these companies

• So, who is going to buy these companies? Who is going to spend those big bucks on these American-based companies. Well, think for a minute…what country in the world has big bucks? Ummm, let me think. Yes, that’s right China. The Chinese are coming, and they are coming with their millions and billions of Yuans, and their global ambition. Some of the big Chinese companies have already bought companies in Europe, and they are now setting their sights on North America. This is a not a prediction, this is a fact. In the next twelve months you are going to see a Chinese company swoop in and buy an American PCB company. It will not be a large acquisition at first, more what I would call a “store-front acquisition”, this will only be the first step, but it will be the beginning of a trend.

Losing more shops

• Sadly, we will continue to lose North American shops. Those who refuse to change will choke on their own immobility. They will go down, and the last thing we will hear from them will be the dying words. “but I never had to do any sales or marketing in the 70’s and had all the business I needed” It will be too bad for sure, but it is inevitable as these companies hold on to the past  and refuse to adapt to the times.

North American market will grow

• The North American market will continue to grow. Right now, the North American market is rising to over eleven billion dollars and growing every day. At this time barely three billion dollars-worth of PCBs are being built in this country while over eleven billion are purchased, obviously that means that eight billion dollars are built offshore. That will change with global acquisitions on the horizon, a larger percentage will come back to be built here in North American…but by foreign owned (fully or partially) companies.

Mexico is more of a factor

• Mexico will start to be a factor as the Mexican demand for PCBs increases at a steady rate. This will also contribute to the growth of North American PCB fabrication.

Finally combining these trends, this is what the North American PCB industry will look like in five years. First, we will be part of the global PCB market place as the world gets flatter. Our companies will be larger and multinational. The number of shops will diminish but the capabilities and capacities of the American shops will grow. The North American fabricators will be part of multinational companies with locations all over the world.

Take the automotive market for example, the prototypes and pre-production phases of a part number will be fabricated in the U.S. and then the production will go to Asia. But the difference being that the part number will remain in the hands of the same company for the life of that part number. The same will apply to other markets as well.

We will become more global

That the North American market will go in this direction is inevitable. As the great economist Thomas Friedman continues to advise us, commerce dictates the flow of the world economy and there is really nothing that governments and particularly politicians can do about it. Commerce like water always rises to its own level. And yes, as will be demonstrated by what happens here to our own PCB industry, the world is indeed getting flatter.

In short, the US market will grow but it will have fewer shops and many will be multi-national companies, it’s only common sense.