The Mheda Journal

They’re called guilty pleasures…those things that you know you shouldn’t be enjoying but you secretly can’t enough of. One of those things for me is photos and, even better, videos of people doing stupid things. Now, I don’t claim to never have done anything stupid, after all I’ve already broken 3 pairs of sunglasses this summer. But that would fall into the non-life-threatening category, unlike the unfortunate chaps in the photos below or the fellow in the video at this link. Or the one at this link.

Now, I’m not totally up-to-date on my OSHA and PITOT regulations, but I’m guessing those are not recommended practices. Don’t try that at home (or on the job, or anywhere)!!!

So, one of the daily headlines on MHEDA’s newest online resource, wikiMHEDA, features the latest inductees to the Packaging Hall of Fame. First, congratulations to the honorees. Second, I have many questions. Who knew there was such a thing? What must one achieve to be included? What does one receive for such an honor?

Fortunately, wikiMHEDA not only raises questions, it provides answers.

Packaging Digest, the source of the news headline, says:

“Every year since 1971, a select number of career packaging professionals have been inducted into the Packaging Hall of Fame in recognition of significant contributions made to the advancement of packaging technology. PMMI’s Education & Training Foundation serves as the coordinating organization for this tradition of honoring packaging leadership.”

Well that clears that right up. I’m still a little fuzzy on what the honorees get…golden bubble wrap? I’m joking, of course, but if anyone knows the actual answer, I’m dying to find out!

It’s a good thing the manufacturer-distributor relationship is one of those topics that MHEDA members always seem to want to talk about. Because I’ve got lots of material for it! I was working on an article today for the next issue of The MHEDA Journal (which will be sent to MHEDA Members in October) and came across something interesting. I won’t say who the member was since he doesn’t know he’s my source for today, but a manufacturer was talking about the special traits that he looks for in a salesperson. Here’s what he said:

When I hire a salesperson, there are only a few things I look for. Give me somebody I can trust; if I can trust them, then the customer can trust them. Give me somebody who does what he or she says he or she’s going to do and gets out there and hustles every day. At the end of the day, those are really the important traits—someone who wants to work hard and do right by his customer. Every person has a different style and a different personality, but the constants are that the person wants to do a quality job, enjoys working with people and has a technical aptitude.

That’s all it takes. Trust. Apparently, it’s in short supply these days, according to some of the scuttlebutt I’m hearing around the industry. But MHEDA members aren’t to blame. They know that material handling is still a relationship business and that trust is still the most important trait of the relationship, whether it’s between salespeople or between companies. To paraphrase Billy Joel, material handling is “a matter of trust.”

In talking to MHEDA member Fred Oram, president of Oram Material Handling Systems, he made an interesting point about rental equipment. He was telling me about a long-term rental deal he made that included a full maintenance provision. “Remember, we still own the equipment,” he says. “It’s in our best interest to make sure it still runs right.”

That hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m sure this is an obvious fact to most distributors out there, but it was something I never considered. Why wouldn’t the maintenance be included? If the asset is still yours, and you’re in the position to make sure it stays running in peak condition, obviously you’d want to so. That’s not only great for the customer, who will have a top-performing machine throughout the duration of the lease, but great for the renter as well, who will have a top-performing machine at the end of the rental period to either re-rent or sell as used equipment.

I’m sure there’s lots more about renting, leasing and used equipment that I don’t know, which is why talking to Fred reminded me about the upcoming “Making Money in Rental & Used Equipment” conference MHEDA is sponsoring in a few weeks. I’m sure it will be informative and helpful to anyone in the industrial truck market.

My colleague Dan Vest, editor of MHEDA Edge, the association’s online magazine for young material handling professionals, turned me on to something pretty cool. As he said, “Who says video games can’t teach you anything?”

Click here to read Dan’s blog entry. I’ve been contemplating buying a Wii for the house…would this make it a work expense? Just kidding, but it is a pretty cool application.�

Yesterday I spoke with Peele Dunn at Virginia Forklift in Richmond, VA, for a Sales Success Story. In addition to providing me the information for what’s going to turn out to be a great story about turning quality service into a sale, he also said some interesting things about the temptations associated with saving money in a bad economy.

In a nutshell, what he said was, it doesn’t always pay off to save a few bucks in the short term. The customer he referred to had bought used forklifts from a dealer out of state “because he saved a few bucks.” When the units soon broke down, that dealer was nowhere to be found, and the customer was out of luck. (Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending, which will be in the October issue of The MHEDA Journal.) “He tried to save a few bucks, but guess what? He really didn’t save a few bucks.” Which means, the customer made a decision to save now but it ended up costing money later. Isn’t that often the way?

It just goes to show that, especially now, when everyone is trying to cut back, it’s not always a good idea to do so. Sometimes decisions made for short-term gain aren’t the best decisions for the long haul.

Once again this year, the Fourth Quarter issue of The MHEDA Journal is all about Sales Success Stories. We debated doing them this year, thinking that “sales success” and 2009 don’t belong in the same sentence. Ultimately, though, that’s why we decided to go ahead with them. Companies that have had sales successes throughout the last 12 months really have accomplished something, and the techniques they used may be even more helpful than normal to other MHEDA members.

So that’s our rationale. And so far, I’m glad we’ve decided to press forward. I’ve heard great stories from members about all the different ways they’ve convinced customers to buy. I’ve been surprised to learn, in many cases, that the customers have approached the distributors more so than in years past. 

Whatever the case, I wish continued success, sales or otherwise, to all of you out there. I hope I have a chance to share one of your stories!

As editor of a national industry magazine, I get lots and lots of press releases. Some pertain to the material handling industry, and some just make me wonder how I got onto certain mailing lists. Today I got one from a group called the Center for American Progress, a self-proclaimed “progressive” organization which, according to its Web site, is “a think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action.”

Now, for the record, this qualifies as one of those that makes me wonder how I got on to their mailing list. That being said, however, the item I received today had a slew of interesting information in. Titled “Economic Snapshot for August 2009,” it outlines 11 current financial indicators and then the Center’s breakdown of what they mean.

Below are some excerpts. You can read the Center’s full press release, including graphs, here. Hopefully, you find this information useful and helpful in your business.

“The longest recession since the Great Depression may be coming to an end. This is quite different from a recovery, never mind a strong one. And the country needs a strong and sustained recovery to reduce the economic slack that is obvious everywhere. Economic slack means that the economy is able to produce a lot more than people are currently buying, which is crucially reflected in the highest unemployment rate since the early 1980s.”

Among the cited economic facts:

1.      The U.S. economy is still shrinking. GDP declined at an annual rate of 1.0% in the second quarter of 2009 after falling by an annual average rate of 2.8% during the first five quarters of the recession, from December 2007 to March 2009.

Some of the other stats they cite are more negative, so I won’t go into them here. But I encourage you to click on the above link and see for yourself.

I don’t know how many people are aware of it, but there’s an interesting battle being waged in the material handling industry about, of all things, pallets. It’s a classic tale of the old-fashioned, long-time market leader being taken on by a relative industry newcomer.

In this case, the veteran is the wooden pallet, while the industry upstart is the plastic pallet. A conflict has been ongoing for the better part of a year now about which is better/more productive/more efficient/more environmentally friendly. 

The most recent salvo came from plastic pallet maker Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (iGPS), who called on the FDA to investigate the safety and health issues of using wooden pallets for food transport.  Interestingly, the NWPCA responded yesterday by supporting the investigation and even providing previous studies that show wooden pallets are not harmful. 

This all comes on the heels of last month’s debate between iGPS and the NWPCA about which pallets contain deca-bromine, a fire retardant. The discord between these two competing factions is understandable–after all, the marketplace is a dog-eat-dog competition for the desires of the consumer. But is rare to see, at least in the material handling industry, such issues play out in such a public way. Each time one side issues a press release, the other side is hot on its heels with a reply. Good business, sure. Not to mention, good entertainment.

Again, the animosity is easy to comprehend…what’s harder to figure is what’s going to happen next.

In yesterday’s (August 10) Wall Street Journal, there was a very interesting article about the expectations employers should have for hourly workers who are “off the clock.”

“Two recent lawsuits raise a question that many employees and employers have deliberated: Should hourly workers be paid for time spent responding to work calls or emails while off the clock?”

The lawsuits, one involving T-Mobile and the other involving CB Richard Ellis Group, are currently pending in federal courts. With the proliferation of company-issued cell phones, smart phones and other technology, this is an issue that is only beginning to scratch the surface.

Clearly, the argument doesn’t seem to hold much water for salaried employees, but for hourly employees, the lines are much blurrier. Is an employee who uses a company cell phone for work after hours “working”? Is that same employee who uses a company cell phone for a personal call during work hours “working”? I would think both sides of that issue must be addressed.

One expert interviewed for the Wall Street Journal article says:

With smart phones, which typically provide Internet access and email as well as voice calling, “the boundaries become much more permeable” and work is difficult to monitor, said Christina Banks, a senior lecturer at the University of California Berkeley and president of Lamorinda Consulting LLC.

From another person quoted in the article:

Employers should adopt policies to regulate smart phone use outside the office. Managers should contact employees sparingly, and make sure they are paid for responding, he said. “There is a practical approach to this,” he said.

I doubt the results of these lawsuits will be so cut-and-dried, but it will be interesting to find out. This is an increasingly important issue to young people in the workplace who strive for “work-life balance.” What is the line between “work” and “not work”?