(re) IMAGINE Mondays: Change Is Good If It's Going In The Right Direction

"How many retail clerks are you on a first name basis with? How many retail clerks know what style and color shirts you prefer when you shop? Salemanship is an art and most companies don't have any real salesmen working for them that truly enjoy what they do, go the extra mile for their customers, nor build any genuine relationship with their customers."

Good Morning and Welcome to Monday FSO USA, Clients, Readers and Fans!!

Monday is a day to cause mayhem and havoc for our competitors! Rumors are flying around the country about FSO and our company! AWESOME! Our competitors are getting nervous and they are feeling the pressure.

Here's why:

Change is one of the most guaranteed things in life, but few people want to accept that fact, and fewer can deal with it.

Just look at history and you don't have to go far back to see how fast things can change. Take 250 years ago. That's not very far when you think about it. The United States of America didn't even exist. Look how much this one little band of rebels against the British monarchy accomplished in that time. We took on the most powerful nation in the world at the time and kicked ass and started our own country from scratch.

Go back 500 years ago. What did the United States look like then? There was nothing here but Indian tribes. No buildings. No roads. No corporations. No electricity. No water systems. No airports. No cars. No financial system. No banks. It was better than when the dinosaurs ruled our continent but not by much.

What was life like 5,000 years ago on this planet? Civilization was just starting to take root.

Let's move up in time. When I grew up we had 3 major TV networks and 3 UHF stations. TV was in black and white. There were no cell phones. No personal computers. No video games. No Internet. None of the great stuff like we have today. I remember going to the World's Fair and seeing the World of Tomorrow pavilion and being totally fascinated by what visionaries expected the world to be like in the 21st century and what has come to be was even beyond that vision.

But the bottom line is time changes everything and does it continuously. It is a destroyer and creator both. Change is remarkably efficient at taking out what is not right, what is not healthy, what is not good and productive, and what is no longer needed in a system. In that respect change is positive and it is vital. Change kills things and at the same time change gives birth to brand new things and brand new opportunities.

So to succeed when everything is falling apart you merely have to accept the reality and destructiveness of change and join its side and adapt as things are changed. Don't fight it, because you can never win trying to keep and maintain what needs to be changed. This is when those who know how to do well when life becomes overwhelming and each day brings another unforeseen punch in the face from change, thrive and succeed most.

The key is to make change your partner and look for the brand new opportunities that are being created from the transition of the economy. The new gardens that change is now planting and seeding.

You have to be an optimist and creative, pessimism and doing things the same way will take you down the toilet with everything else going downhill now. 

From a practical perspective, there's a great amount of inefficiency and unproductiveness in many aspects of business these days. You can go to any mall in the US and it all looks the same. You can instantly spot the stores that are well managed, with great staff, great products, great marketing, good value, good prices, etc. and those that are not. The stores going out of business deserve to and need to. They are not being run well or what they are selling is no longer marketable. And that's the bottom line. You can only get away with running a business badly for so long and then change will take you out.

I find it amazing how clueless and bureaucratically most businesses are run. It's a wonder they survive for as long as they do. In today's dynamic world things move and change at a lightning pace. You have to be fast and nimble to adapt and keep up with it each day. The dinosaurs in business are getting killed because they are just that running their businesses like dinosaurs and not able to keep up anymore. Someone is doing a better job. Someone has better trained salesmen. Someone has more innovative products or services. etc. etc. People like FSO!

I recently hired someone who started the interview sharing what he learned from his first job in in Philadelphia: working in a local department store in the men's clothing department. He told me, "I think I was the only one who actually WORKED in my department. Most of the other salesmen would stand around either chatting or pretending to be doing something. When I didn't have a customer to wait on, I would go around and straighten up my area and make sure it looked pristine. When that was done I would pickup the phone and call my customers and tell them about upcoming new styles coming in and sales for the next week. I was the only salesman in the entire store that would ask customers for their first name and phone number to keep in touch with them and build a relationship with them."

He continues, "My manager, Jason Bonner, said he'd never seen anyone do the things I did in all his decades of retailing. He'd never seen anyone look so happy to be working. I would even organize all the inventory in the back stock rooms perfectly which wasn't even in my area of responsibility. My sales per hour for the store were 4 times and higher to the norm and higher than anyone else. Customers would come in the men's department and specifically ask for me to shop with them and help select their clothes and suggest what'd look best on them. They obviously loved the fact that someone actually enjoyed and was enthusiastic about waiting on them, and showed a genuine interest in them."

Right in the first moments of the first interview I knew he had the skip, fire, passion and love of hospitality that made him a shoe-in for the job. It's easy to spot, because so few people that we meet with that "X factor"-- that extra smile, the inner happiness, the hunger to serve, all in the name of becoming all they can be.

How many retail clerks are you on a first name basis with? How many retail clerks know what style and color shirts you prefer when you shop? Salemanship is an art and most companies don't have any real salesmen working for them that truly enjoy what they do, go the extra mile for their customers, nor build any genuine relationship with their customers. This is one of the biggest problems and deficiencies in business today. And this permeates into other aspects of businesses as well. Management at most companies is atrocious and incompetent. They don't know what they're doing and most times they are just "coasting" instead of doing what they're supposed to do which is managing and building business.

I could go on and on. The mess, mismanagement, and incompetence out there permeates so much of our lives today. In business, big and small. In government, federal, state, and local. Especially with the incumbents we beat replace every day in the outsourcing world. So many people just don't know how to do things the right way anymore, have no enthusiasm, and aren't productive.

We all have talent and lots of skills. More than most. People in here will do fine because we are used to "dancing" with business challenges every day.

To build your own career - knowledge building is essential. Whether it's in hospitality, mail, copy, records, messenger, security or facilities there are trends, innovations, technology and essential best practices that surround these services.

Do you know what these are? Is your site "keeping up with the times?" Are you and our staff having discussions about things you have seen, read or heard in the market that are cutting edge?

What have you done this year to introduce something NEW, INNOVATIVE or exciting to our clients? Like onsite Concierge Services? Or an iPad Check-in App for guests? These are just a snippet of things that are being introduced by FSO but we are always looking for more ideas, more creative services and solutions we can bring to our prospects and clients.

Now get to work, ignore the negative energy, stay positive, smile, be happy, and energize your mind to its maximum potential to think of new ideas that create, innovate and build a future that makes possible what was never possible before.

Have a great day…make it happen…SMILE…and, thanks for being a part of this amazing journey.

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

ABOUT FSO:

• The fastest growing and most successful national onsite outsourcing in the U.S. focused on 1) improving services, 2) reducing costs, and 3) giving employees  an opportunity to grow.
• We outsource functions like: Mail, Copy, Reception, Switchboard, Office Services, Records, Messenger, IT, Concierge, Front & Back Office and much more.
• 1600+ employees, operating in 60+ cities, 225+ operational sites, 98% employee retention & 100% client retention.
• We (re)imagine the ways businesses are run.

ABOUT FSO CEO & FOUNDER – MITCH WEINER:

• Pioneer of the onsite outsourcing business model.
• 20+ years of industry experience.
•  Previous owner of Archer, which he sold to Canon.

VIDEO:
Brief "corporate portrait" video shows who we are and what we can do for you HERE