November
5, 2001
To: All of Cornerstone
From:
Rick Rodell
Re:
On My Mind
Last
January I sent all of you a letter concerning
a workshop others and I had attended,
and the resulting resolutions or actions
I was going to attempt to do this year.
For your reference, and for those of you
who are new, I have attached that original
letter.
My
purpose for this is to tell you how I
did, and what I have planned for the coming
year. Like all things concerning humans,
I did some things well and others, well,
not so well.
As
you can see from the letter, one of my
goals was to have lunch with all of the
Memphis people. I did that with the exception
of some of our newer people, but I will
host a lunch for them shortly, and will
continue to meet with the corporate group
regularly.
I
did not get to the outside offices. I
got to a couple, but really count this
goal as a failure. Starting in January,
I will start getting to the offices. I
look forward to seeing, again, those of
you I already know, and meeting those
of you who are new.
I
have seen several of our major customers,
some of those more than once, but, again,
I do not feel that I accomplished my intent.
Starting in January I will be scheduling
visits with our top accounts. I like team
approaches or what is called vertical
selling. That is where we bring in people
from ops, accounting, collections, etc.,
and attempt to meet with all levels of
our customer to make sure that we are
doing the best job we can do at every
contact point. Our sales people our good,
or should I say excellent, but just one
of us, including me can mishandle an opportunity
to shine and destroy a lot of good will
that has been built up over the months
or years.
To
help us in our customer relations, we
will be having many of you attend a workshop
on customer focus. Notice, I did not say
customer relations or service. I said
focus. Our top sales people, along with
the Senior Staff recently had a half-day
seminar on this subject. Believe me, it
is presented in a way that we do not often
think of. We will be looking to start
these sometime in March.
I
mentioned my Mom last time. She is doing
fine, and is in an Alzheimer’s facility
that is very pleasant. Yes, I have quit
worrying about her, I visit her a couple
times a week and bring her home on Sunday
for a couple of hours at lunch time. Interestingly,
two to three hours is about all she likes.
She is out of her comfort zone and enjoys
getting back to the home where everything
is familiar. She seems generally content,
and on most occasions recognizes me. That
is good enough.
On
the next page is some humor, as if any
of us actually needed that.
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