The Mheda Journal

As someone with a journalism degree and several friends in the newspaper industry, it is with great chagrin that I see cutbacks and closings of newspapers all around the country: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is now online only, The Rocky Mountain News stopped printing, both Detroit papers cut back to three days a week, and the list goes on and on. Of course, this is bad news for an informed citizenry, and much has been made of that. One angle I failed to consider, however, is brought up in this blog entry and is an important consideration for MHEDA members and small businesses in general. (This blog comes from the aforementioned Seattle Post-Intelligencer, so it’s pro-paper, but it raises a valid point.) Local newspapers have traditionally been a place for small businesses to advertise and post job openings. What does the demise of newspapers mean for those practices? Where will small businesses turn next?

Here’s a link that many material handling companies may find useful. It details some points in Obama’s stimulus plan that can be directly applied to our industry. (The site this article appears on is run by Hyster Company, FYI.) I found it interesting and thought I would share. Your thoughts? 

In conversations with two different MHEDA members over the last week, I’ve learned about two incidents of forklift theft. This is a trend that appears to be on the rise. Of course, taking the proper safety and security precautions is always helpful, but even the standard measures may not be enough to thwart would-be thieves. As we reported in the March 15 issue of The MHEDA Connection e-newsletter:

Sunbelt Industrial Trucks (Dallas, TX), who had a new 22,000-pound Komatsu lift truck stolen from the yard of its Houston branch on March 8. Thieves cut through the chain on a wrought-iron gate to enter the premises. “The thieves were brazen. The truck was in the front lot in broad daylight on a Sunday afternoon,” says CEO Warren Cornil, adding that a nearby company also had a forklift stolen at approximately the same time. Be sure to take the necessary precautions to reduce the chances that such an incident happens to you. As Cornil says, “We’ve all heard stories about forklift theft, but getting hit really brings it home.”

Since that news item was published, I received a comment from another member who received a call from a customer who was offered a stolen forklift to buy. Luckily, the thief was captured thanks to tracking the vehicle’s serial number. Especially in tough economic times, people will do most anything to get what they want, particularly high-value items like lift trucks. Keep an eye out for more prevention tips in upcoming MHEDA publications.

It’s nice to see distributors embracing new-ish technologies like blogs. A colleague of mine stumbled across this site today: http://blog.peaklogix.com/. It’s a blog hosted by MHEDA distributor PeakLogix in Richmond, Virginia. Not only is it nice to see them using a blog, but the information is actually really interesting. I enjoyed reading about their engineer’s trip to Japan for training. Maybe it’s something other distributors should think about.

Rumor has it that tomorrow (March 10), the Employee Free Choice Act, commonly known as Card Check, will be introduced in Congress. This is very controversial legislation. Essentially, it eliminates the secret-ballot voting process whereby employees may choose to become unionized. Small business advocacy groups are nearly universally opposed to such legislation, claiming that it puts too much of a burden on employers and reduces their rights to negotiate with union organizers. To be sure, that’s not the most eloquent explanation out there. (Here’s a link to an article that will explain it better. NAW, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors is another good source.) But the interesting thing is the buzz this bill has generated, and it hasn’t even been introduced yet! By most accounts, the only beneficiaries of such legislation is the unions, and MHEDA members and other small businesses will be left with little or no recourse to prevent their employees from unionizing. I didn’t know much about unions before I began researching this issue, and I don’t claim to know much now, but i am looking forward to seeing how this legislative action plays out. Keep your eyes open tomorrow.

The latest issue of MHEDA Edge is now available for download at www.mhedaedge.org. MHEDA Edge is MHEDA’s online magazine for young professionals. This month’s issue features a “Spring Training” theme, with articles about MHEDA training opportunities, strategies to survive the economic slowdown, tips for overcoming fear, an interview with a young leader and much more. I hope you have a chance to check it out! Let me know what you think!

Anyone out there done any studying of the Recovery Plan/Stimulus Bill? How is it going to be impacting material handling companies? With all the emphasis on energy and infrastructure, will MHEDA members see any of that money? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Does doing your job correctly qualify as “customer service”? In other words, is doing what you’re supposed to do enough to make a customer satisfied and motivated to do business with you again? Surely, the customer wouldn’t have negative things to say, but is doing what’s expected really customer service? (Anyone who’s flown recently would probably argue that it is.)

I was privy to an interesting debate about this the other day. Surely, to not do what you’re supposed to do qualifies as bad customer service, but is the inverse true? Is it good enough to do only what we are expected to do? It seems to be a fine line. Doing what’s expected certainly is not a bad thing, right? Anyone out there have anything to add? Does this make sense?

To me, it’s similar to the debate about schoolchildren’s grades. It seems that more and more people are willing to reward the minimum. A’s for everyone; everyone who shows up gets a star. Not to digress, but isn’t that what C’s are for? A’s are supposed to represent an exemplary job, not just doing what is acceptable. That seems to be the same with customer service. To truly create a customer expereince, doing a “C” work, only what’s expected, is not enough. Do “A” work; do something extraordinary.

Maybe it’s a matter of semantics. Or maybe I’m losing my mind. What do you think?