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.