A Partial Opinion On The Chip Shortage !

My Partial Opinion On The Supply Chain Crisis / Automotive Industry Micro-Chip Shortage

o   I’ve worked in the Transportation industry for about 10 years part-time – so this is my partial opinion – lol !

o   The computer chip shortage is mostly affecting the Automotive industry

o   After the WHO declared the COVID-19 Pandemic official on March 11, 2020 – the Computer industry’s sales increased as people started working from home (upgrading their IT)

o   The Automotive industry paused their semiconductor orders & limited their forecasts

§  They didn’t want any leftover inventory (unsold cars) – as everyday life & travel outside the home (as of Spring 2020) came with increased restrictions

o   A key thing to note that chips in the Automotive industry – when compared with chips in the Computer industry – are considered “older tech” / older style chips

o   The computer industry has far more modern chips – e.g. Apple M1 / M1 Pro / M1 Max / Intel i7

Apple is worth 2.807T vs GM @ 148.1B & Tesla @ 936.54B - it's not surprising that Apple's chip woes get less press than say GM or Ford or Tesla

o   Once the Automotive Industry catches up – or receives their back ordered chips – they will have to first start completing assembly of unfinished cars

o   Forecasts – again – will have to be slashed & newer vehicles will roll out slower – probably up until early / middle 2023

o   Tier 1 / 2 / 3 / Auto manufacturers/ suppliers of engines / transmissions / drivetrains / electric motors won’t be producing the same volume due to backlog of unfinished inventory

o   Overseas Chip manufacturing is mostly in Taiwan / TSMC - so it seems fairly obvious most people will be watching what is happening in Taiwan - and China - in early 2022 .

o    

Measuring Channel Performance

 Channel programs are big investments - with the potential for massive payoffs . A channel manager should always be watching out for the KPIs . Proper examination of your KPIs can help you determine if your channels are on the right path to generating recurring revenue.

1. Active Pipeline Value

It’s critical to track and calculate your active pipeline value: all of the revenue that’s being generated now just by your partners, but also the players leveraged to move value up the chain and into your hands .

2. Opportunities Per Partner

3. Active vs Pending vs InActive Partners

If a partner is active and working on your behalf, you can invest resources to support and incentivize their growth. For pending partners, you can see where they’re stalled in the process and how you can get them up and generating revenue for you . For inactive partners, you can decide if you need to retool or jettison the relationship .

4. Average Deal Size
5. Percent Of Content Engaged

Management 101 - The McDonald's Birthday Party

During the early 1990s - I worked at McDonald’s . Being in Grade 9 - I was invincible - and of course too cool to be working at Rotten Ronnie’s . Nonetheless it was a Part Time job - and I was earning $5.20 an hour .

My store location was labelled as a “poor performer” - and based on the amount of store managers that rotated through there - it’s wasn’t hard to see why . One week-end I was introduced to Ming - the new store manager . He was apparently a great “organizer” - and was sent there by Head Office to turn around our store . It was a challenging weekend as 3 staff members called in sick - so Ming turned to me and said: “Jason - I need you to run a birthday party.”

This sent shockwaves to my teenage brain . I was only there to earn enough money to buy Nike basketball shoes and Nintendo games . I told him I wasn’t trained - to which he replied: “What’s there to know ? It’s a birthday party - you take food orders at the beginning - deliver the food - and light candles on a birthday cake afterwards.” The 90’s were a different era - clearly - as instead of refusing - I walked over to the lobby and started to “run” the birthday party .

Long story short - what I learned that day set me up for an amazing management career .

1. Greet The Customer
1. In this case the “Customer” was the parents who were paying, the birthday kid, and the party goers .
2. Establish the Customers’ Needs
1. I asked the parents if any of the kids had special dietary concerns .
2. I spoke to the birthday kid - and asked him what type of party he wanted . (No! I didn’t actually do that ! I read the situation and saw how his friends were behaving and gave them all space . Needless to say - we didn’t play “Pin The Tail On The Fry Guy !”
3. Get Help When Needed
1. I’m not a natural born singer - so when it came time to sing “Happy Birthday” - I enlisted the help of a few team members who were hiding at the back of the grill .
4. Get Feedback
1. I took every opportunity to check in with the parents

Looking back on those times now - I’d say I learned a lot from my days at McDonald’s - lol ! And the Birthday Mom tipped me $5.00 too ! (Equivalent to almost $9.00 today)

Supporting Your Distributors - What Do You Gain ?

 Everything you do for your distributors benefits you as well — your relationships deepen, and you gain more of their business, as turning to you continues to become more convenient and cost-effective. 

Greater efficiency in working with distributors translates into lower costs of doing business and higher margins for you. Automated information helps drive add-ons, opportunities for cross-selling, and potentially broader product sets (because they’re more visible to distributors), as you and your distributors expand the market and revenue.

Another key benefit is the usage data you’ll be able to gather. You’ll learn more about how your distributors work — where their interests (and those of their customers) lie — and be able to use that information to continually optimize distribution and sales. Best of all, it’s a win-win arrangement. Both you and your distributors are more successful — and with happier customers to boot!

Gaining A Distributor

 When pitching to a distributor - it’s important to always ask yourself : “How is my brand / product / service going to improve their portfolio ?”

A Handy Checklist To Consider (Prior To The Sales Pitch) :

• Am I willing to let a distributor autonomously represent my brand for me ?
• Do I have enough resources to support the distributor with time, money, and product / inventory to help generate sales ?
• Am I able to identify my brand and have I listed its key competitive advantage assets ?
• Do I have an actionable / actioned strategic marketing strategy ?
• Do I have a complete range of products / services ready for commercial sale ?
• Do I have the volumes of products/ services available for consistent, uninterrupted supply ?
• Does my company have the capacity to product products / services of consistent /improving quality - production run after production run ?
• Are my product’s / service’s priced appropriately for their target market - factoring in the distributor’s margin ?
• Have I already planned / costed the logistics of getting my products / services to the distributor ?
• Is all my packaging up to commercial standards - including UPCs / bar codes ?
• What are the short & long term sales goals that I want to achieve with the distributor ?
• Have I acknowledged (to myself) that simply signing the distributor isn’t a guarantee that sales will be consistent - or even grow over time ?
• MOST IMPORTANTLY - Have I acknowledged that the distributor relationship is a partnership - wherein we work together to generate sales ?

A Handy Checklist Of Things To Include In Your Distributor’s Sales Pitch :

• Your company’s history / milestones / success stories / testimonials
• Price List - should provide conditions / terms of the sale, discounts, credit, shipping an  trade allowances
• Samples of the product, packaging, UPC barcode and pricing
• Marketing materials - product brochures, or sell sheets that provide product information
• Capacity of your plant to prove the potential of large volume potential
• Manufacturing information
• A Copy of the presentation - leave behind samples, and your business card

Managing Distribution

 Common Problems:

In some cases distributors didn’t know how to grow their market, and they didn’t invest in business growth.

Ideal Distributor Market:

A market with many small customers and where the level of sales service required is high.

Some Key Points In Managing Distributors:

1.    Make sure to ask your distributors for detailed market & financial performance data.

2.    Always treat your distributors as long-tern – not short-term partners.

3.    Support your distributors by committing proven marketing plans to help them sell more.

a.    Educate your distributors about your products.

4.    Try and find distributors who are capable of developing new markets.

a.    Distributors who specialize in a narrow field sometimes tend to be the most successful.

"Scratch Sheet" - a simple way to track daily sales tasks

One thing that has always helped me gain killer sales at all my sales jobs was the creation of a “scratch sheet”. Essentially it’s just a huge Word document (or a plain document using your word processor of choice) where you type ALL your daily notes as you work.

Seems simple - but it’s something few people remember to do. Imagine a day where you answer incoming sales calls, make outbound sales calls, and process customer service calls - but track all your discussions down as you type. One key benefit of this is that you gain the ability to “search” anything from your past discussions. You also gain the ability to “copy” and “paste” anything from a past discussion into a current discussion.

EXAMPLE 1:

RFQ / IN GUTTER INSTALL / MR BOB SMITH / SMITH CONSTRUCTION / SITE: 1234 CHERRYTREE LANE / WVAN / 604-123-4567 / bob@smithconstruction.ca

OK - given the example above - you installed gutters for Bob Smith - at one of his sites - a year ago. Fast forward to 2021 - and one of the homeowners calls in - and asks your customer service staff about putting in a warranty claim. No worries - if your “scratch sheet” was in place - all you’d have to do is ask the caller what is their home address - do a “search” and you’d see that it was a Smith Construction job. Then a simple search in your accounting software - and you could find the original invoice - and all the relevant installation paperwork. All of a sudden you are handling customer service queries at the speed of light.

EXAMPLE 2:

A potential new client calls in asking for a quote on power washing their house, doing inside & outside gutter clean, and window cleaning at their house.

RFQ / IN & GUT CL / POWER WASHING SIDING / IN & OUT WIN CL / MR SAM RUTHERFORD / 1234 CAULFEILD PL / WVAN / 604-926-1234 / sam@rutherford.ca

Wow - great! That’s potentially a $750 - $1000 job! Not yet - what if you did a search and noticed that particular client had called in before - in fact - what if that client had called in 4 times in the past 2 years - but never booked? This happened to me at a job. However, in that case I was able to search my “scratch sheet” and then I asked the caller why he hadn’t booked with us for 2 years - yet always called us for a quote. Turns out he had a regular company do the work for him - but was calling us to keep the other company “honest”. I was able to convert him easily by offering him a one time 15% discount - and a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

CONCLUSION:

I had to cut this article short . Eventually my examples would have chartered into NDA territory - but you probably get the message. Sales reps might consider tracking their daily notes onto one large searchable document that is available on their laptop, desktop computer, phone, and tablet .

In my case I used a Word document .

 Inside Sales Reps Sending Out RFQs (REQUEST FOR QUOTE) To Outside Sales Reps:

THE RFQ is sent to the sales rep via EMAIL . The text is added directly to the subject line - and inside the body of the email .

EXAMPLE 1:

RFQ / IN GUTTER CLEAN / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

In the above example - the customer called in looking for a gutter clean . Fairly straight forward - it was a single homeowner looking for some work done on their house . A small job like this could be closed by the inside sales rep . If the inside sales rep emailed it to the outside sales rep - it should look like :

From: Inside Sales Rep <insidesalesrep@guttersareus.ca>

To: outsidesales rep <outsidesalesrep@guttersareus.ca>

Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2021, 08:39:00 PM PDT

Subject: RFQ / IN GUTTER CLEAN / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

RFQ / IN GUTTER CLEAN / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

Notice what is added to the subject line - and to the body of the above email . When the outside sales rep gets that email - it’s very clear what is required - and more often than not the outside sales rep can get the jist of the RFQ without even reading the email .

EXAMPLE 2:

RFQ / NEW GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

The customer wants a quote on new gutters for their house .

RFQ / PARTIAL GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

The customer wants a quote for partial gutter install on their house . e.g. A 30 foot section of gutter on the front of their house .

EXAMPLE 3:

RFQ / NEW GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / SMITH CONTRACTING / SITE: 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

John Smith works for Smith Contracting - and he wants a quote on new gutters for a house that he is working on .

RFQ / NEW GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / SMITH CONTRACTING / SITE: 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / 604-234-5678 (Call Display) / johnsmith@google.ca

In this case - the Inside Sales Rep recorded the number that was on the call display . Some customers are slow payers . It’s always valuable to have a few extra numbers on hand when doing collection calls !

Another Easter egg for the Inside Sales Rep is to always run a “Google Search” on elements of the RFQ before sending it to the Outside Sales Rep .

MR JOHN SMITH - did you misspell the name ?

SMITH CONTRACTING - what are the reviews on this company ?

SITE: 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE NVAN - is this an easy place to drive to ?

604-123-4567 - is this a cell number - or a physical land line ?

604-234-5678 (Call Display)

johnsmith@google.ca

EXAMPLE 4:

RFQ / NEW GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / SMITH CONTRACTING / SITE: STRATA NW 3268 - 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / 604-234-5678 (Call Display) / STRATA PRESIDENT: BILL BAILEY / BILL (604)-234-5678 / johnsmith@google.ca / SEND QUOTE TO JOHN - BUT ARRANGE SITE ACCESS WITH BILL

Hooray ! In this case you received a call from your regular client - John @ Smith Contracting - but this time he has a site that is a Strata Property . In this case John wants the Outside Sales Rep to arrange a site visit with the Strata President - Bill - who will provide site access .

Ideally in this example - the Inside Sales Rep should “Google Search” the Strata Corporation - STRATA NW 3268 . Strata Corporations can be tricky to verify . As well as most Strata Corporations use a 3rd party property management company - so it’s best to track the extra names / phone numbers . Ultimately - you want to get awarded the job - and you want to get paid on time as well .

Conclusion :

Inside Sales Reps have a hard position sometimes . Thus it’s best to get them trained so they are farming out all the data so it’s readily available to the Outside Sales Reps .

Walkmen

 The first time I ever saw a Sony Walkman was at my Cousin’s house. He had won a Sports model - specifically the F5 model - at some contest. I remember it being Yellow and it had these really cool looking matching headphones. It was a Sports model so it was Water Resistant and had a hard rugged plastic body. The buttons were on the front face and the side has a plastic snap that secured the clamshell lid. Of course after that day I had to have one! Fortunately I had a paper route back then, so I spent about a month and a half of my income and bought a Sony Sports Walkman. Specifically it was a WM-F63. It had AM/FM radio, auto reverse, and Dolby B noise reduction. The coolest part about that Walkman was that I could carry whatever music I wanted anywhere. It sounds like nothing now but back then when we didn’t have the Internet it was fun creating a “soundtrack” for my walk to school. The packed in Dolby noise reduction was very effective in reducing a lot of the hiss associated with cassette tapes. I eventually got another Walkman - it was a black Sports Model known as the “Outback” edition. Essentially Sony took their rugged Sports line and make an even more rugged series know as the Outback line. The Outback had a plain radio version, a cassette boom box model, and of course a Sports Walkman. I remember it came packaged in a beige box with an Armadillo (or some other small rodent) picture on the front.

Of course Cassette tapes were being eclipsed by Compact Discs. Naturally my next purchase was a Sony Discman. The first few models produced amazing sound - albeit they burned through batteries fast. My first model was a basic one (model D-20A) that took 4 AA batteries. I used to carry it in the inside pocket of my Starter Bull’s Jacket - where it would skip every so often. Ironically most CDs back then were recorded from analogue sources, usually from reel to reel tape. Consequently when you played a CD there were artifacts left over from the recording process. On some CDs you could clearly hear some hissing sounds - so eventually the Music labels released CDs produced directly from Digital Tapes. Of course those CDs sounded even better. And yes I did buy a Sony Sports Discman. It was clunky - but it had 5 seconds (I think) of backup buffer memory - and it was Yellow.

Then of course Sony started releasing Mini Disc players - so naturally I bought a Sports Mini Disc Model. It was white, not yellow, and it was labelled as “S2” and had a white clasp on the clamshell. Now instead of making mix tapes of my CD collection - I could make Mini Disc mix tapes. Mini Discs were handier than cassette tapes as they allowed indexing, and track marking. You could actually use a Mini Disc like a Compact Disc, and the sound reproduction was digitally superior to a cassette tape.

Writing

 Full disclosure - I’m a writing addict. Albeit I never knew I was - until I took a moment one day and starting counting all the Moleskine journals that I’ve filled in over the years. I own a lot of them. You know the ones I’m talking about. They are mostly black - and have a string bookmark - with a paper pocket in the back. When you buy a new Moleskine you get a small booklet in the back. Essentially Hemingway, Chatwin, and Picasso all used similar journals. All of the “cache” and marketing might of Moleskine is contained in the packed in card. When I write with one - I’m conjuring the likes of some of the greatest writers, artists, and thinkers of the 20th Century. Seriously - I use other notebooks - not just Moleskine - but sometimes the brand name - and the inflated cost of dead tree skin - makes me want to write more. Lots of people write in journals - and I believe we are allowed to have our heroes. My fave artist that wrote in journals was Jean Michel Basquiat. He used Mead Composition Books - and a good chunk of what he wrote and drew borders on the Genius level. There was a published compendium recently of some of Basquiat’s journals. His journals are amazing. Of course to put pen to paper nowadays is hard. We all have access to cellphones, laptops, and iPads - so most writing is done on a screen. I do a lot of extra writing on screens everyday. I’ve been fortunate to have been exposed to IT at a young age. My Godmother is a talented writer - and she had early on given all her nephews and nieces access to hardware and software. She used to work for Microsoft. My first major foray into computing was largely on a Macintosh. It was a beige computer with an integrated monochrome monitor - a keyboard - and a single button mouse. It had a 3.5 inch floppy drive so I could make copies of files - as well as install programs. Back then owning a printer was a luxury - but I had one. That Macintosh was amazing as it had an integrated handle on the top so I was able to move it around. Of course I should mention that I spent a good chunk of my early life living in cramped apartments so it was nice to be able to move my computer around. Writing back then wasn’t an escape from anything - I just liked doing it - and I would types lots of random things everyday. Of course having a Godmother that worked at Microsoft meant that I got a lot of word processing software packages. I remember using Microsoft Works - then Microsoft Word . Word changed everything for me - I wrote the majority of my essays in High School and University on Microsoft Word. There was another word processor program called WordPerfect back then . It was used heavily by lawyers. I did try Word Perfect - but by that time I was already hooked on Word. WordPerfect was a big blue screen - it seemed very minimalist and sleek - but it wasn’t Word. I should point out now that back then these word processing programs weren’t downloaded on the Internet - they were all on 3.5 floppy discs . Installation would take anywhere from 15-30 minutes. Anyway - that’s a bit of my background. Somehow in all of that I developed a love for writing.