Record Profits By Evil Companies!!!

 Gotta get something off my chest about a type of news story that jacks my nads, the RECORD PROFITS proclamation.  This is usually tied to an industry that the news outlet wishes to vilify, either subtly or more overtly. Big oil is a typical target, and they've been attacked recently.  But a recent news story made a massive deal about how gun manufacturers have enjoyed record profits, while children were being slaughtered in schools.  How evil of them for getting fat off their products killing kids.  Before I go any further, it might be helpful to understand earnings and profits.  

Here's a simplified example:

If I sell something for $100 and make 40% gross margin on it, my profits / earnings are $40.

If customers buy 10,000 of this item, I make $400,000 profit (earnings) with $1million in revenue.

However, if my demand dramatically increases, and I sell 75,000 units, my revenue is $7.5million and I earn $3million.  In reality, my earnings would be greater, because I'm buying raw materials at better rates, due to the higher volume and more fully utilizing my factory, but let's not worry about that.

In case you missed it, Covid, civil unrest, and a Democrat being elected President drove gun sales through the roof last year.  Guns sold as quickly as they hit the shelves.  So, it should be of no surprise that Smith and Wesson shipped roughly 70% more firearms in 2021 than they did in 2020 with resulting revenue going from $530million to $1.1billion.  It doubled in one year!!!  So, of course their profits hit record highs because of math.  But not not one of these stories mention revenue increasing.  

So, the next time you hear a story about how some industry, who the outlet wants you to find nasty, has made record profits (with no mention of sales or revenue), you'll know it's likely a hit piece.  Not as though demand for petroleum has gone sky high with the pandemic over and costs have remained low...

I Was a Threat and Had to Go

We've all heard someone make such a claim to legitimize getting whacked from a job.  It's typically those you know to be incompetent who make it, so no one takes it seriously.  However, in my case, it's true.  Below is my story.  

It started out as the best thing that happened in my career.  I was an actual executive with a VP title and everything.  All of North American sales and marketing reported to me.  The company was privately held, based in Switzerland, but mostly run by Germans.  I was the first American to run the business in over a decade as was my boss, the president of North America.  

Unfortunately, I quickly realized my boss was in way over his head.  He'd never actually managed anyone before and his previous role was as an application engineer.  The controller and I agreed we'd mentor the president; we were confident he'd rise to the occasion.  Except, not only did he not rise, he withdrew and became more resentful toward me as time went by.  

When I started, he told me he would be in the office from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. as he was responsible for the logistics for his offspring at school.  He'd be working from home and available on his mobile outside that window.  Except not only did he keep that same schedule year round, he was completely dark, when not in the office.  And that's when he decided to come in at all.  On the full days he worked from home, he was not only unreachable, but occasionally posted golf scores on his FB page (according to those who were friends with him).  There were periods of time where no one knew where he was or could get in touch with him.  One of those was when a board member from Switzerland popped by.  'We were in the same meetings, how could he just disappear?'

The man refused to make a decision on anything.  The most jaw dropping example was at a baseball game.  We'd booked sky boxes for the entire staff, complete with catering.  Sometime around the 6th inning, a hostess popped by to ask Jason if we were about done eating or would we like a final food restock.  My girlfriend and I were sitting behind Jason and were both stunned when he literally began to stammer, finally spitting out 'uh...go ask our controller'.  That's how paralyzed he was.  

Another perfect example of his complete lack of ownership was the day our office was in the path of a complete nightmare of a storm.  Hail, wind, torrential rain.  It was so bad, I grabbed my team and hustled them to the safest place in the building I could think of.  No surprise that we lost power.  That shouldn't have been a problem because our building had a generator.  But it wouldn't start because Jason hadn't signed the maintenance agreement.  So there we were; about 20 people dead in the water without power.  After it was clear that situation wouldn't be remedied any time soon, I headed over to Jason's office to huddle up on next steps.  I planned to let my own people go home, but he owned the operations side.  I wanted us to be aligned on our actions.  When I reached his door, he was in front of it, his cute little backpack on his shoulders, locking it up.  When I asked what he was doing, he said 'I'm goin' home.'   I stood there dumbfounded as he walked away, his people stuck in the dead building because he hadn't given them permission to leave.  I turned on my heel and went around, sending everyone home.  The most telling aspect of the story came the next morning, when the warehouse manager called my cell to inform me the power was still off and that they needed direction.  Despite being completely useless, I always deferred to Jason on operations issues and responded to the warehouse manager that Jason would have to make that call.  She interupted me mid sentence to say she'd already tried him and it went right to voicemail.  Then, she said something to the effect of 'you and I both know Jason's MIA and couldn't make a decision even if she could reach him.  Wow.

Because of his paralysis, I became the de facto leader of North America.  And I worked my ass off for my team; 60 hour weeks were the norm.  I quickly garnered their respect by being decisive and having a vision for the future (and communicating it).  There were literally occasions where a customer service person would stop at my door and say 'I'm so excited for the direction you're taking us'.  I shit you not.  

It was quite the downward spiral.  Jason could see he'd lost the team's respect, whereas I'd gained it.  His resentment toward me grew stronger by the day, as he saw me being who the team looked to.  He'd occasionally try to force me to kiss the ring, by berating me for doing something he didn't like, but would come up empty when I'd ask how I should have handled it.  We were spending too much money on promotion, but I caught hell for planning to skip some expensive trade shows, where we didn't have anything new to promote anyway.  There are those who would suggest he was afraid of me.  Those episodes became more and more common, until they reached a breaking point.  I remember telling him 'you want to be a leader, then you have to lead!!!'

Shortly after, there was some sort of upcoming celebration planned, with both the Swiss owner and the CEO coming in to participate.  I had solid relationships with both.  Things with Jason had gotten to the point where it was time for all of his laundry to come out.  It was time for a coup.  Obviously, I kept that to myself, but Jason would have had to be brain dead to not realize I had reached my limit and would serve up a mound of dirt on him.  I suspect there were also things he caved on to the Germans that he was afraid to tell me, so he was afraid of what I'd say about that to the Swiss.  

That's when Jason actually grew a pair of balls and made a decision (to save himself).  He lobbed a note to the aforementioned owner and CEO stating I had to be dismissed with utmost urgency.  This note also outlined my various, and completely fictitious transgressions, to support his decision.  Because the Swiss are scum bags (I've got a dozen data points on that one), they let him do it.  I know these things because the owner and his wife invited me to dinner with them, the next time they were in town and shared the whole thing.  Hans said it came out of the blue.  I remember looking him in the eye and asking, 'didn't you think the timing was a bit odd, Hans?  He absolutely had to get rid of me right before you and Walter came over.'  Blank stare.  With Hans being Swiss, it was dropped there.  

Returning to when I was shown the door, Jason waited until a day I was working from home to inform me.  Some might say he was too afraid to do it face to face.  I was told I was done, that someone would be by to collect company property, and that I would be arrested if found on the company property.  Then came the crown jewel.  Jason went around to the members of my team I was closest to and informed them they were to have no communication with me and doing so would be grounds for termination.  What would lead the president of a company to put illegal conditions on employment for select individuals? 

In the years since, the owner recognized he was in over his head (we was a young guy and his grandfather was the founder) and hired a professional management team.  I'm sure the new CEO took a all of two minutes to see Jason for what he was, although it took a year before Jason was demoted back to engineering manager, having led the North American operation to double digit losses in the interim.  

Info about the company and Jason here.

Some Marketing Advice for Online Merchants

Dear Online Merchants,

As a marketing professional and consultant, I'm regularly baffled by what many of you consider as acceptable engagement and retention practices toward your current and prospective customers.  Most are abysmal, which is putting it nicely.

I suggest each of you visit your website and discover for yourself how potentially aggravating most of your sites are.

Lately, I've seen a disturbing trend on suppliers' websites and it pisses me off both as a consumer and marketing professional.  Upon entering their websites, merchants will immediately accost you. Popups that scream 'Sign up for our email newsletter!'  'Chat with an expert now!'  If this is my first visit to your site, in what world would I want to sign up for your newsletter?  I want to know if you have what I want and the garbage you're throwing on my screen makes that act longer than it need be.  If I'm searching for an automatic iguana washer and you only have manual versions, I certainly don't want your newsletter.  What I want is to view a clear, comprehensive site, complete with all of the information for me to consider making a purchase decision.  

If I do need to chat with an expert and you've badgered me to do so, have a damned expert on the other end.  The few times I've actually engaged an 'expert', I've known more about the product than they did, mostly because I've already read the less than complete user manual on your site, which is his only source material.  I've had an expert tell me the product was compatible with an accessory I wanted to use with it, when in fact, it wasn't.  Fortunately, I didn't believe what I was being told, and it ended well.  No thanks to the 'expert'.

Email Engagement

Once someone has consented to receive emails from you, don't make them regret it.  How do you accomplish that goal?  First, let's talk about frequency of engagement.  Start by performing an honest self-assessment of how frequently your customers want or need your product / service.  Is your product a luxury or a necessity?  Do customers frequently make impulse buys of what you offer?  How many other options exist for customers in your product space?  Okay, you got it?  Keep that in the back of your mind; we'll return to it later. 

Before we discuss optimal frequency of email engagement, let's go over the different types of email you'll consider sending.  First are the emails that do nothing other than remind customers you exist and sell things they said they were interested in.  There's no need to share anything particularly earth shattering in  the 'hey, we're here' emails.  It's a free pass to lack exciting content.  But don't do that.  If a contact has consented to receive email marketing from you, they should feel as though opening your email was time well spent.  

The second type of email is the announcement.  This can be a new product, a sale, a new service, free donuts, etc.  Information on how to get the most out of your product is a great way to engage, too.  

Let's return to the earlier exercise and using what conclusions you made about your own product or service, let's start with determining how frequently you should remind your contacts that you exist.  Say, how many times per year.  Now, take that number and divide by four.  There is absolutely no reason to remind contacts you exist more than once or twice (at the maximum) per month, unless you've got an effective Covid vaccine.  

Announcements can be as frequently as you have something new to share.  These are the emails where you'd damned well bring some value to the recipient.  That means don't announce you 'Now have iguanas in stock!' if you've never run out of them.   And don't make the mistake of fabricating savings, by portraying something as being on sale, when you're just highlighting your everyday price.

All of this may seem to be common sense, but the number of times I've had to opt out of receiving emails says otherwise.  One of my favorite brands of men's shoes put me on their list, after my making a purchase from them.  They proceeded to send me an email every damned day, reminding me they had shoes, nothing more.  Same with an online seller of liquor.  I received three fucking emails per day, but they couldn't tell me when my order was going to ship.

There's one final type of marketing email to cover.  That's the one that encourages you to give another look at something you'd viewed on their site.  DON'T EVER SEND THIS TYPE OF EMAIL.  Speaking as a consumer, if I had any interest in purchasing that item, I'd already be aware you have it.  Receiving an email of this type serves only to peg my spam meter and often results in my making my purchase from another vendor, who doesn't send me these sorts of communication.  If you're some sort of twisted sociopath and feel you must send this email, offer the recipient some sort of motivation to come back and buy it.  Something like 10% off if you buy this item in the next hour.  The companies I receive these emails from don't offer any inducement for me to return to their site and their emails smell of desperation.  'Please come back and give us money!'

Ultimately, you need to ask yourself one question before sending another email and that is "what value am I bringing to the recipient, when I send them this email?"

I would suggest some of you take the time and effort you expend on spamming inboxes and channel it into creating a world class customer experience.

Sincerely,

SR

When The Balance Of Power Turns

No, this isn't about D/s or even about sex.  Consider it more of a life lesson on how you treat the candidates you interview for a job.

To keep it brief, back in September, I interviewed for a job North Carolina.  It was a good fit, for a number of reasons I won't go into and I was excited about moving back to the East Coast.  Shocker, I know.  I even had an inside track in the form of a friend whose agency does all the marketing communications for this company.  He fed me all the info he got on the other candidates and how their interviews went, from another friend who worked for the company.  Total lock, right?

Well, the hiring manager didn't think so.  This job was sales management and he thought I was 'too much of a marketing guy.'  Except despite my follow up just outside the time he committed to have a decision to me, the guy was dark.  I actually found out I didn't get the position from my friend.

Fast forward two months and I'm sitting in a global marketing meeting, where one of my colleagues speaks about developing an electric ass scratcher (make believe product the company I interviewed manufactures).  I see an excellent opportunity to partner with an expert on electric ass scratchers, instead of trying to develop our own, because our value proposition is high tech anti itch solutions, of which we have significant market share.  I intended to connect my team with the company in NC, but then I thought, fuck them; they didn't have the decency to provide me with some form of feedback. The vindictive part of me wanted to reach out to rub it in the ass scratcher's face, that being an asshole lost them a fuck ton of revenue and market visibility.  But I'm too professional, burning bridges and all. 

Things changed the next evening, because I finally did receive a rejection email from ass scratcher.

I responded and concluded with this:
Furthermore, during our global marketing meeting, last week, one of the other market managers mentioned development on a ass scratcher unit and the potential need for a higher capacity ass scratching system.  I informed him that there were companies whose sole business was ass scratching management and that he should consider partnering with one, rather than reinventing the wheel internally, particularly because the market position our company enjoys in this application would drive significant revenue for both parties.

Best Regards,

So, back to the moral which is essentially the golden rule, because being an asshole can get you fucked out of millions in revenue.