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Something I was reading the other day noted that if every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of 20 million full-time volunteers.

Can you imagine how much stronger and better places to live our communities would be if that statistic were to become a reality?

This is certainly something we think about in our business. We endeavor to be involved in serving our local communities at a number of levels. Just one way in which we try to make a difference is by investing in the present and future business leaders in our cities. For example, in our home base of Chickasha, Oklahoma, we hold a business prayer group every Monday morning at the Crazy Eight Cafe. The group is designed to give young and emerging business leaders the opportunity to be mentored by more experienced members.

These men and women have the potential to be on the leading edge of fighting poverty and social injustice in the community. Of course, as a businessman, I am not called to be a pastor or minister. But I’m called to make a difference in my community—spiritually and materially. I am called to step up to a place of leadership and offer what I have.

With local involvement and volunteer trips to Third World countries, it’s so gratifying to see members of the business community stepping up and reaching out. We all need to do more of it, encourage it, and recognize it.

By the way, if you are in the Chickasha area, that Monday group meets at 7 a.m. and is open to guests.

In our business, we do the same thing today we did in 1934—only faster. In ‘34 we put ink on paper at the speed of 34 wpm (speed of a good typist), today we do it at 270 pages per minute on a sophisticated piece of equipment. But the product we sell is still the same: ink on paper.

It is new technologies built into new types of equipment that has enabled us to create these remarkable increases in speed and throughput.

In these difficult economic times it’s easy to forget that the economic boom of the 1990s was fueled in large part by huge increases in business productivity made possible by new technologies.

But a variety of recent studies have shown that many small-to-medium-sized business owners are reluctant to embrace new technologies—particularly businesses owned by baby boomers. Just one example is a recently released a report from a company called eMarketer.

This particular report focused on the personal use of smart phones as a productivity tool. The report found:

Boomers made up 30.6% of all mobile phone users in August 2009, according to comScore’s age breakout. However, they made up only 19.6% of all touch-screen users and 21.1% of smartphone users. Younger boomers (ages 45 to 54) were more likely than older boomers to use touch-screens, smartphones and any mobile phone.

The individual reluctance to adopt breakthrough technologies extends to businesses as a whole. So, why do many great companies hamstring themselves by resisting the adoption of technologies that will make them more efficient and more competitive?

Some of the rationales I consistently hear include:

• “We’ve always done it that way.” People won’t use the technology that sits on their desk. They become creatures of habit.
• “I can’t be sure things will get better if we change.” There are no guarantees in life. But what I do know is that something must change in order for a company to experience better results.
• “I hear conflicting opinions. I don’t know who to trust.” There is certainly a lot of information flying around out there. And much of it can seem contradictory or confusing. That’s why it is vital to develop a relationship with a business technology vendor who not only is abreast of the latest tools, but who also is committed to understanding your business and your processes. That kind of partner can help you sort through the noise and take the next step in adopting new methods and innovations.

Today, new technologies enabling networked information sharing and storage; and new classes of support like Managed Print Services hold the promise of making small-to-medium-sized businesses more efficient and therefore more profitable.
But only if these breakthroughs are adopted.

It’s why golfers keep score and distance runners time their races. When you work hard and strive for excellence, it’s helpful to have some way to measure how you’re doing—compared to others and compared to your own past performance.

For us here at Standley Systems, we subscribe to a national rating system developed by BEI. They rank office equipment dealers’ performances nationwide. Subscribers submit their records to BEI on a monthly basis and they compile the data—generating rankings and comparisons among the dealers for the various manufacturers in our industry.

Within every BEI report, there is a category called First Call Effectiveness (FCE). In the most recent report, Standleys was once again ranked in the top 10% of dealers nationwide in FCE.

For customers of a company with a high FCE score like ours, it means they are up and running quickly when they have a problem. It also means that the service man does not have to go back to fix issues that weren’t handled properly the first time around.

Now my dad was a service technician all his life. He instilled in all of us an ethic of doing whatever is necessary to take care of customers. He didn’t just preach it. He lived it. (I can recall many occasions in which he was called away in the middle of dinner or during a vacation.)

I know dad would be pleased to see the BEI rankings. But he would also challenge us to keep improving.

That’s a major key to success in any business: Strive to meet your customer’s needs quickly and with excellence, solving their problems and reducing their pain factor. Then find a way to measure how you’re doing at it.

Copier and printer technology has evolved is such a way that the differences between the top brands is small and shrinking all the time. For the most part, every reputable manufacturer builds a good copier.

The fact is, when it comes to purchasing a new piece of equipment, the crucial differences lie not in what you’re buying but whom you’re buying it from.

In other words, whom do you trust to work with given that choosing a supplier is a pretty much a five-to-seven year commitment?

To make sure you’re making a wise choice, ask yourself a few questions about the company that is trying to win your business:

Did the sales person do a document review with you?

Has ownership of the company that’s trying to sell and service your equipment changed recently? How stable is it?

How many times over the term of this agreement will they come out to show you how to continue to drive your costs down?

Where will you be mailing your checks for your lease payments? Will they be going to an in-state address? An out-of-state address? Or even a foreign address?

Will you be able to call an in-state number to report a problem and get your questions answered?
When you order supplies, can someone drop it to your office that same day? Or will you have to pay extra for overnight delivery from somewhere else?

A prudent buyer will spend as much or more time researching the companies that are trying to sell them a copier than the time spent exploring the features and benefits of the various machines.

A passage in the Old Testament reminded me recently how important it is to watch our words. I realize we’re all living through a time in which it can be hard to find encouraging economic news regarding our state’s or nation’s economy.

Budget cuts in both the public and private sector are presenting challenges to businesses of all sizes. These challenges tend to be amplified for the small and medium-sized Oklahoma companies.

All of this means it is very easy to be overly-influenced by the fear and doubt reported all around. We can fall into a pattern of murmuring and complaining about what is occurring and imagining the worst about the future.

May I suggest that we need to hush?

I got that reminder a few days ago as I was reading in Numbers 13 & 14 about the 12 spies that crossed the Jordan to scope out just how good the land was that the children of Israel were about to occupy.

If you are familiar with the story, you know that two came back with a positive report and recommended moving forward to capture the prize. The remaining ten returned with news of giants and obstacles, agreeing that the land was wonderful, but that there was no way it could be conquered.

The people who heard these conflicting reports had a choice that day. They could believe the two who basically said, “We can do this!” or allow the fear and negativity of the ten to stop them short of their goal.

Like most people today, they chose to believe the negative report and began to murmur and complain. They doubted the Lord’s ability to complete His promise. The result of the murmuring and complaining was another 40 years in the desert and an entire generation missing the opportunity to experience a land flowing with milk and honey.

As business leaders it is important that we guard ourselves against the urge to bring a negative report. As leaders we must be the first to believe that all things are possible, regardless of the situation that we see with our natural eyes.

For the sake of our families and businesses let’s remember to speak things that aren’t as though they are. Let’s start believing for a victory over the giants that stand between us and our land of plenty.

Trust. I suspect it is the most precious commodity in business. The goal has to be earning every customer’s trust and then keeping it.

I think the fact that we have lots of customers who have been with us a very long time is a good sign in that regard.

If I were advising a friend just starting a sales-oriented business, here is what I would tell him or her: When on the front end of a relationship, don’t go in just trying to sell some equipment. You’re not offering any real value in the relationship if the customer just tells you what he thinks he needs and you sell it to him.

I would encourage them to make their broader focus helping customers assess their business costs and manage those costs down. That’s certainly the approach we take with our customers.

Trust also comes from being honest and transparent about how you make your money. In our business model, we lose a little bit of money on every piece of equipment we sell so we can make a profit in the long run through servicing the account.

We lay those cards on the table up front with our prospective customers. I purpose to get rid of all the smoke and mirrors and our customers really appreciate it—at least the kinds of customers that we want to be in relationship with do.

I think the best approach is to view the customer as a partner for life.

Our country continues to be on quite an economic roller coaster. A lot businesses and a lot of families are hurting. Here in Oklahoma we’ve been fortunate to a certain extent in that, because we didn’t have a big real estate boom we didn’t get the big bust that always follows.

Still, these are tough times for a lot of families—some of the toughest in several generations.

We’ve been blessed and I think that makes us extra aware of our responsibility to give back to our local communities.

For us, part of giving back means finding ways to address the poverty issues that are prevalent in our cities.

For example, we were shocked to learn that 80 to 85% kids of school children in our home base of Chickasha are on a free or partially funded lunch assistance. We have to do a better job of breaking the cycle of poverty by helping kids, single moms, etc.

So, it was our pleasure to help start and to provide ongoing funding for the Chickasha United Outreach Center which works to address poverty at its root. We provide monthly financial support and have pulled churches together to become an ongoing part of the initiative.

Great stuff is happening there and we’re thrilled to be a part of it. You can find out more about the initiative here.