I came across this time lapse video of Vancouver yesterday. The video does a fantastic job of showcasing Vancouver with the 2010 Olympics right around the corner.
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The Economist magazine made this fantastic interactive chart available that compares house prices in different countries. Where available, it compares pricing from 1990 until quarter 3 of 2009. I found it particularly interesting how little the run up in house prices was in Canada versus many other countries including the UK and the US. Although, I am sure that the data is correct for Canada, Vancouver has experienced significant appreciation in the same time period, proving that broad data is difficult in real estate pricing.
I also found it interesting how in some areas, there has been almost no correction.(Australia - in comparison to the US)
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I have been thinking about the world class athletes coming to compete in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics. It is going to be a great time in the city celebrating the best of the best in sport. I have also been thinking about what it takes to be the best. Not just in sports, but in anything.
How did these athletes become the best? While I am sure that genetics has something to do with it, the research seems to point to something at least as important. The 10 year or 10,000 hour rule - that states it takes 10 years or 10,000 of extensive training to excel at anything. Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book Outliers (which is a good quick read) brought more attention to this scientific research, but as you can see here, it is something that National Coaching Institutes and Advanced Training Organizations have used for years in athlete development.
10,000 hours is not a small amount of time. It requires focused practice to reach this level and it is of critical importance to becoming the “best” in sports.
Why do athletes spend their lives striving for the best?
The “best in the world” is celebrated. People talk about the best. The “best in the world” makes most of the income and the “best in the world” scales easily.
We don’t often see athletes in the Olympics that are the best in the world at two completely different sports? Say figure skating and downhill skiing. I think that again, we see the 10,000 hour rule and that it is extremley difficult to practice the required amount in two different disciplines. Being the best then, means specifically choosing what you want to be the best and then committing to development in that specialized area.
It means focus and discipline. It also means saying no to things that are outside of your focus.
This is a video of Tiger Woods at 2 years old putting against Bob Hope which probably tells a story of a golf focus.
I wonder what things he or his parents had to say no to in order to maintain this level of focus.
Moving away from sports, I think that the same rules apply to business and more importantly, to every role inside a business. The “best in the world” is celebrated. More income is available to the “best” because they drive exceptional results. People talk about them. They are in demand. What organization wouldn’t want the “best” receptionist, the “best” salesperson, the “best” customer service representative, the “best” in operations, the best leader?
I am extremely fortunate to work with some talented people that if they’re not there already, they are on their way to becoming the best in the world, and my job as the CEO is to always be on the lookout for more of these types of people.
If you know someone, please drop me a line through the comments section of this blog. If you have a comment on this post, I would love to hear it.
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I spent my holiday season getting some much needed rest and relaxation with the family. No cell phone, no television, dial up Internet access - which is another way of saying no Internet access.
What did we fill our time with? Campfires, guitar, feeding the horses, board games, hot-tubbing, long walks through the forest and incredible family time. What a fantastic break from the hustle and bustle of daily life and a great moment to clarify what is really important in life. It was also a great way to start the new year feeling completely reinvigorated.
My wish is that all my friends experience the very best of 2010 and that all of your dreams come true.
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At BuildDirect, we are often confused with a company called DirectBuy. They spend a ton of money on advertising so I can understand customer confusion.
I am frustrated though, because our models, other than promising the best prices, could not be more different.
One of the fundemental differences is that:
Membership is FREE at BuildDirect. You actually do not even need to be a member to buy.
Searching Google for reviews of DirectBuy points to countless customers talking about the company in a very negative light. Many of the reviews talk of being pressured to pay membership fees of $5,000.00 to get pricing that they could have achieved just about anywhere. I imagine that much of this $5,000.00 goes into advertising to drive new members. Would the model collapse if there weren’t enough new $5,000.00 members?
Some people reviewing the company go as far as saying that the business is an outright scam as seen from these reviews. I will hold my judgment on that.
Other than the membership fees, I can say that from looking at the reviews and how they practice business, there is a more fundamental difference in the way we operate.
That fundamental difference is: Transparency!
At BuildDirect, we feel it is an advantage to be transparent.
Our unedited product reviews are a good example. By sharing openly, even when there is a problem, we learn and improve faster. That way, our customers help us and we have the benefit of increasing trust at the same time.
The thing that we are really trying to achieve by committing to transparency is that there are no “secrets” . We win when we provide the best value in the eyes of the customer.
We endevour to be the best in the world at 1) price, 2) dependable products, and 3) service and shy away from tricks or gimmicks to fool our customers.
Compare transparency with this DirectBuy advertising practice on Google:
The red arrow points to what I would expect would be a neutral review site. I will not say that DirectBuy owns this site because I cannot prove it but I will say this:
It is highly suspicious that any neutral review site would have ALL amazing reviews.
I am not alone in my suspicion.
Many businesses in the past have been successful by hiding facts from customers or being less than transparent. We see it often in the building industry when some competitors “leave out” important details.
My belief is that in this age new age of customer engagement, the great businesses of the future will be more open. Time will tell if I am right. If it is better to be more transparent or not, but the side benefit of building a company this way is that it sure lets me sleep well at night.
I would love your thoughts, comments!
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You know those moments when you hear something so compelling, it just sticks with you. Well, about two months ago at a Growth conference, I had one of those moments, and I have been thinking about it since.
The moment I am talking about is while listening to a speaker named Aubrey Daniels who is a foremost authority on change management and bringing out the best in people.
Aubrey talked about how punishment or penalty was only effective in stopping a behaviour, and how positive reinforcement was the only way to effectively change behaviour.
For you parents out there: Have you seen this in your kids? What things do they do well?
Are you positively reinforcing those things? I’ll bet the answer is yes.
What about the things that you want to change?
My personal example comes in my daughters piano lessons. We were about to give up on them. She would not practice. She hated them.
We applied Aubrey’s lesson and reinforced the positives when she practiced and very quickly, she started loving playing the piano.
The change in her was fast and incredible but really….the change was in us. It was how we reacted in both cases.
The other thing that Aubrey stressed the importance of is that small immediate certain consequences are more important than large future ones in changing behaviour.
Research shows that it takes many positive reinforcements to make a habit. He used the following as an example.
Your top sales person sells $40,000 per month and your bottom sells $20,000 per month. The following month what do you set as a goal for your bottom salesperson?
A) 40,000
B) 32,000
C) 26,000
D) 22,000
I answered (A) thinking that the best way was to break down everything that the top performer was doing and replicate it quickly.
The research shows that the correct answer is (D) because people need to see the positive reinforcement of the wins to want to do more.
I started this post by sharing how compelling a talk this was and how I have thought about it often since then. I will share this:
As I have looked my own life, I realize that the reflection that I see is mostly influenced by me. If I like that reflection, all is good, but if there are things I don’t like, maybe the behaviour that needs changing is in me.
How about you?
I would encourage you to read the Aubrey Daniels books “Oops” and “Bringing out the best in People”
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Yesterday I was asked a question that I am often asked and I thought it deserved a blog post.
The question I was asked is “Where is your call center?”
I always answer the same….. WE DO NOT HAVE A CALL CENTER!!!
We have product experts, and that function is handled in our head office.
The expertise in our sales department is a core competency. I would put our product experts up against anyone in the business in their deep knowledge of the respective products. They each have incredible knowledge on flooring, decking, and other products. Because of our unique supply chain, they each understand the manufacturing process and have direct contact with the factories.
They are trained to help customers find the best value and help them understand the myriad of choices.
There are two main reasons that we do not outsource this:
1) The level of knowledge required for the role is immense!!
2) Our customers are too important!!!!
When I think of outsourcing customer service, my own horrible experiences spring to life. I think about getting my call routed overseas, automated messages, waiting on hold, and then not having someone that can answer my questions. When given a choice, meaning that the company has competitors in the marketplace, I would rarely choose a company that runs their operation like this.
It seems to me…shortsighted. Potentially increasing profits short term, but risking the business long term.
Although we do not yet share the feedback of our product experts on the web, (We thought product quality was more important) it is something that is measured every day in our office. I am extremely proud of our people and their commitment to our customers.
To conclude this post, I have included some of the comments we received this week. Keep up the great work.
1) Great people to work with that really went the extra mile to make the project work. Worked hard to get product out on time-flawless performance under difficult circumstances. Superb group-THANKS!
2) I am very happy with my dealings and purchase from your company. Before I even purchased the flooring I called your customer service number and spoke to a gentleman (I believe his name was Alex) in your laminate department. He was very knowledgeable of the product and answered all my questions on the transition molding. After speaking with him I was even more confident in my decision to purchase our flooring from your company.
3) Your staff in the hardwood flooring department were amazing. I couldn’t believe that no matter which one I talked to over the course of the order process, they were all organized and knew exactly what was previously discussed. Excellent to see a company where communication is clearly a priority.
4) Sales representative was very helpful. I needed the travertine molding asap because i was scheduled for tile the following week and representative made sure it got out priority that same day i ordered. That was enough for me to go back to your site.
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If you’re on Twitter, some of our people are too:
Follow them at:
@BuildDirect
@BD_products
@marcmcpherson
@jameskomenda
@davidtomson
@fil_haile
@clint_joy
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At the Gazelles growth conference last week, I had the opportunity to see Jim Collins speak. One of the things I liked most about his speech, is the depth of research that he has done to examine what makes companies truly great.
Jim has made a life study out of the differences between high performing companies and those who failed to excel. He comes to some interesting conclusions that are often left out of the popular media.
One of the things I found most interesting according to his research was that turbulence and tummult causes nothing. In other words, a crisis, or an outside event, had very little to do with a company’s long term success or failure.
I think that is worth thinking about in the world we live in today. In this current environment, it is very easy to blame outside events. The problem with doing that is: that according to the research, it is rarely the outside event.
What really matters is what the company does prior to, and during turbulent times that makes it truly great or not.
There is a power in that…..knowing that you….ultimately shape your own destiny.
I know for our own company, when faced with one of the worst housing crises in the last century, our team looked inside at what we they could do better. What needed to change? They were accountable and never blamed the market. They also didn’t blame each other…..they just looked at what they could control and brought forward healthy debate.
It’s a good thing they did.
They found some incredible opportunities to improve upon our business and prove the saying that “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste”.
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I’m leaving today for Verne Harnish’s Annual growth conference. It’s always a great event but this year looks fantastic. The theme this year is how smart companies are taking advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime economic opportunity. It’s expected that more market share will change hands in the next twelve to eighteen months than did in the last several decades.
I’m also looking forward to meeting Jim Collins, who wrote Built to Last, and Good to Great.
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Each day we receive feedback from customers rating their experience with BuildDirect on 3 different criteria. 1) Customer Service 2) Product quality 3) Delivery service. We treat this feedback as crucial to our business. Even though it hurts when the feedback is negative, it uncovers areas that we improve upon. We never hide from it. In fact we share the product quality reviews un-edited for everyone else to see.
The vast majority of the responses are not only positive…but extremely positive. Although it would be nice to take full credit for this, I actually think there is something bigger at play here.
I think that something bigger is the perception of risk!
And when we deliver what we promised or more, customers are blown away.
I think most people are taught to think “you get what you pay for” and as soon as they see a price/quality that is far better than their competitors, a natural scepticism sets in. If it is too good to be true, it normally is… so the saying goes.
The problem with this line of thinking is that the Internet has changed the rules. Supply chains are completely changing. Many of those changes result in a completely different cost structure and therefore pricing structure. The comparisons we used to use are no longer valid.
Look at the news for an example of what I mean. News is just as relevant today as it ever was. If this is true, why are most newspapers dying? The answer is that the medium has changed. Many didn’t realize that the value was not in the paper….it was in the news. Like any change, the easiest thing to do is pretend that the new channel is somehow inferior…that it lacks quality. In this case, it is true that many blogs and news sources are inferior in quality, but the best are very high in quality. People today consume news that is more specialized and important to them through specialized sites and blogs. I myself get brilliant financial information from sites like www.calculatedriskblog.com and Mish’s blog Thought leaders like this who understood this new medium and committed to quality are thriving today, just as the thought leaders did before them, when the medium was the paper.
This transformation is not just happening in news. It is happening in all industries…..some faster than others.
Do you remember the last time you looked in the yellow pages (Google) or bought a CD? ( iTunes)
In the Google example: Is it the right information that is important, or the pages that it is written on.
In the iTunes example: Is it the music that is important, or the store that you could buy it from.
The same business principles apply to using new technology as they did to the old way of doing business. Great businesses that drive more value to their customers….. win and businesses that do not….fail.
With respect to building products: Is it the product that is important, or the shelves that the product sits on?
I think that many of the people sending their feedback have found the answer.
Do you agree? Disagree? I would like your comments!
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