Time is our most precious asset
Focus is a winning strategy

Dear reader,

It’s a fact of life: Time is our most precious asset!
 
This maxim is critically important for business owners and management teams. Success depends on truly appreciating the value of time when making business decisions.
 
Once time is spent, it’s gone. This means: 

1. Leaders must focus their organizations on high-value time investments. For example – if customer satisfaction is critical, low-value activities that steal time from meeting or exceeding customer expectations are costly distractions. 
2. Any process, function or activity that isn’t a core competency of the business is consuming too much management and staff time. 
3. Any task that adds only limited value is better off-loaded to others – or eliminated entirely. 
4. Any employee who doesn’t deliver critical value-added tasks should be reassigned - or become someone else's employee.

·         Watch for stories about businesses like yours that have successfully controlled their most precious asset.

·         Learn more about “Flex-sourcing*” – a concept for small and mid-sized who want the benefits of outsourcing without rigid contracts or loss of control.

·         Look for ideas that will help you lower costs and relieve headaches while freeing you up to focus on your most important priorities.
 

* Unlike outsourcing, "Flex-Sourcing" utilizes 3^rd party firms to support and manage non-critical core competencies without assuming total control of an operation.   
For additional information, or to discuss your situation call me at 847/251-3327 or click here: mailto:jon@rainmkrs.com. It will be worth your time.
 

Dear Reader;

In today's business climate focusing your critical resources (management team and employees time) on your critical core competencies is a pre-requisite to creating profits (delivering value/making satisfied customers while collecting revenues substantial enough to deliver ROI).

Last month's SMOKE SIGNAL discussed time being our most precious asset. We will illustrate in this and following months SMOKE SIGNAL’s various case studies and examples of how Rainmakers clients have used Flex-Sourcing successfully!

How to evaluate Flex-Sourcing for your business:

Obviously each business has somewhat unique factors to take into consideration when evaluating how a business could benefit from outsourcing or Flex-Sourcing arrangements.

The size and complexity of your business, coupled with your critical core competencies will dictate where you should investigate!  Click on the Full Story, below to review a Five Step approach that outlines how to Evaluate Flex-Sourcing for your business.

Why Bother

Profits are created by delivering something of value to a customer who pays a higher price than it costs to deliver the service/product.  Simple right!  Focusing on the critical tasks required to accomplish this can be considered critical core competencies. Any other function or business activity that takes focus (time and energy) away from key management and staff should be evaluated and either eliminated, outsourced or reengineered!  

Most customer satisfaction issues are caused by key management and staff being “stretched too thin” to competently meet the task load; and, inefficient business processes that create confusion and over-tax key staff!  In many cases a business can off-load the non-critical core competencies to another firm at the same or lower cost while improving the service level and freeing up critical resources to focus on the important stuff! – Customer satisfaction, product/service quality, tools/technologies that provide competitive advantage, skills enhancement, etc..

How can Rainmakers help!

In many cases a simple 15-20 minute phone discussion between me and management can determine if your company could benefit from any type of Flex-Sourcing relationships. I have absolutely no interest in wasting either of our time!   In our discussion we can explore the various options available and determine if any further investigation is useful.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or we can be of any service.

Thanks for your time.

The Rainmakers Team…..

Jon C. Liberman

Chief Rainmaker

Rainmakers

847/251-3327

jon@rainmkrs.com

www.rainmkrs.com

Dear “First name”;

Holding your breath is not a viable long-term strategy!  Many people we talk to are operating in “uncharted” territory.  Whether your business is in a high-growth mode… or you continue to feel your customers “pain” … several factors in today’s world are common:

1. Business is getting tougher.  Competitors may be consolidating – but maintaining (or developing) your competitive advantage is a must if you are going to prosper over the next decade.

2. Less is more. Lean and mean staffing is forcing hard decisions and the need to streamline critical business processes in order to keep your costs in line.  Simply eliminating headcount (or not adding people even if stretched) does not necessarily lower the costs of a business if the result is poor customer service, missed deadlines and crises management de jour.

3. Focus on the target.  Management must be aligned about the business objectives, priorities and action plans.  All critical management and staff resources must be dedicated to doing “good enough” to make “raving fans” of your critical core competencies – off-load or eliminate anything which is an obstacle to this condition!

4. Walk the talk. Continuous improvement must be “Top of Mind” in your management team or someone’s going to hand you “your lunch”.  The only consistent way I have seen, in the past 22 years, business improve their bottom-line is by focusing on their clients and continually making little improvements to what they do.  They learn to “fail-quickly” when attempting to change something, until they come up with a workable formula for “good enough”.

How well you are able to do these things will dictate how successfully your organization will be!  Rainmakers is uniquely positioned to help your company fill in the gaps between where you are… and where you want to be!

Real Life Example of how Rainmakers adds Value….

Review the Jel Sert Case Study – Making Progress with Progress – Jel Sert Co. in the Information Technology topic section to learn how Rainmakers helped solve a common problem:

Client Problem

-         Maintenance and enhancements to existing ERP systems are too costly and difficult to staff internally

-         Lean & mean staffing poses problems when multiple skills sets are required to support ever-more complex technologies

-         Outside consultants brought in on temporary staffing become very expensive and expertise exits at project completion.

Rainmakers Solution

-         Evaluate Flex-Sourcing opportunities with client of local boutique firms who have the expertise needed and can deliver services in flexible client tailored format

o       Develop regular support schedule at negotiated high value rate

o       Maintain committed staff with back-up available when needed

o       Eliminate the “employee syndrome” – Flex-Sourcing Partners must continually deliver on promises to maintain relationship

-         Monitor client satisfaction with Rainmakers Account Manager regular customer calls to ensure expectations continue to be met on time and budget!

Flex-Sourcing arrangements can be successful in mid-market businesses in a wide variety of business areas.  If you would like to investigate if/how Flex-Sourcing could be an advantage to your firm feel free to contact me. 

Thank you for your time.

Jon C. Liberman

Rainmakers

847/251-3327

jon@rainmkrs.com

www.rainmkrs.com

Dear Reader,

The Game of Business

Useful lessons can be learned by looking at business, managing resources to deliver some product/service to a customer in exchange for compensation, in the same light as playing a game!

Football is a game won or lost in the hearts and minds of the players, and on the “line of scrimmage”.  The basics of blocking and tackling determine who wins the line of scrimmage.

The game of business is won in a similar fashion:

1. Leadership that instills a sense of purpose and direction, that motivates people to “stretch”, and “peer pressure” to install a common “culture – the heart represent a firms collective commitment and willingness to win.
2. The head represents a firm’s ability to plan effectively and organize the business activities to deliver the value proposition to customers at a low enough cost to make a “winning profit”.
3. Business basics - “line of Scrimmage”:
   1. Customer Satisfaction
   2. Cash flow management
   3. Incentives for motivating behaviors in employees, suppliers, channel partners and customers
4. Intelligently manage costs

If you apply this analogy to your firm what lessons would you learn?

• Is your teams “heart” ready, able and willing to win?
  
•       Is your team prepared to win?

-       Business planning process in place and managed on a regular basis

-      Communication lines open – involvement of cross-functional teams in planning process

-       Value proposition in place for customers that differentiates you from your competition

-       Theory of constraints understood by management to leverage “bottlenecks” and scarce resources

•       Are you “blocking & tackling” effectively?
  

-       Do you regularly perform customer satisfaction surveys

-     Is cash flow managed to minimize bad debt, collection problems and vendor/partner dissatisfaction while funding necessary capital improvements and continuous improvement initiatives

-      Are your people (and suppliers) incented to perform to required levels

-       Are customers (and channel partners) incented to do business with you versus your competition

-       Have your critical business processes been optimized to minimize costs while speeding up throughput (delivery/processing time)

Ask yourself – honestly – these questions:

1. Do you know what to do to improve your business?
2. Do you know how to do what you plan?
3. Are you going it (successfully working plan)?
4. Can you renew/support/enhance it (the plan, project or process established to do it)?

Can you answer Yes to them all?  Would all of the people on your management team answer the same way?  Alignment of coaches and ownership is a critical requirement in winning professional football organizations.  This is especially true in Mid-Market & Entrepreneurial run organizations.

Rainmakers exists to help Mid-Market businesses, including Greater Chicago area manufacturing and distribution companies, as well as high growth businesses prosper through the intelligent use of Best Practices, Technology and Human Resources.

If your firm can’t answer Yes to these questions we can help. A simple phone call with me will help us determine if Rainmakers and our Consortium of Strategic Partners can deliver any value to you.

Call me at 847/251-3327 or click here : mailto:jon@rainmkrs.com to initiate a discussion.

Please let me know your preference for how you like to be communicated with.  Simply answer the survey questions to the right and click submit.  Thanks for your time.

Jon C. Liberman
Chief Rainmaker
Rainmakers
847/251-3327
jon@rainmkrs.com
www.rainmkrs.com

Rainmakers perspective… emerging trends in the Chicago Mid-Market

Dear Reader,

I was having a discussion with a client, someone I have worked with for several years. He is the IT Director for a mid-market manufacturing business in the Chicago suburbs. His story is a common one – business has been rocky… better than it was… not as good as desired. Management is uncertain what the future holds – as a result all spending is on hold.  The wait & see game is on!

As Rainmakers begins our 5^th fiscal year (July 02) we realize the trends we are seeing are a direct by-product of a major epoch shift, or Paradigm change in the world.  Things will never go back to the normal we once knew. Y2K was a unique milestone in history. Never before – and probably never again will the whole economy be forced into making a buying decision related to a specific point in time. This has caused several logical consequences in our economy:

• Y2K created a “Sellers Market”. IT vendors and service firms experienced a bonanza during the late 90’s up through 2000. The tremendous growth and profits created the belief in many IT businesses that they had some unique competitive advantage. They became “starry eyed” with rapid expansion, IPO’s and continued success. The fact that in most cases these firms had no real competitive advantage or differentiator was lost in all the sizzle.
• The dot com bubble (promoted by IT and Wall Street) obfuscated the fact that businesses invested heavily to cope with Y2K and, in most cases, saw little if any ROI from these efforts. People’s natural tendency is, after such an experience, to cut back and “tighten the belt”.
• The market collapse was in full swing prior to 9/11. No question that the pendulum has swung full circle – we are now in a “Buyers Market”. 
• In difficult markets marginal players fail. The demise of many IT firms through bankruptcy or merger is a result of these firms having poorly defined value propositions and no real competitive advantage.
• The experiences gained by businesses over the past decade of technology usage and failures (lessons learned) have fundamentally changed the manner in which technology and IT services are purchased, especially by mid-market firms.
• “People’s” pain thresholds have risen (the pain has to be greater to get businesses to act). Management is forcing extensive cost-justification and business case explanation prior to committing resources to any project which will cost money.  Businesses appear much less willing to take a risk!
• Group and committee decision making is much more prevalent. This creates long, drawn out sales cycles for both large and small projects.
• Technology is not the dominant decision driver as in the 90’s.  Process optimization and relationship management improvements are more typical the drivers for decision making. Technology, at best is an enabler, not the end.
• Those firms that “fixed” existing systems to handle Y2K are beginning ERP replacement projects – but with no drop dead dates the sales process is long and laborious.
• IT service businesses that focus on specific niches or value-propositions where their knowledge of industry and technology will provide some competitive advantage will prosper. Those “we do everything for anybody” IT firms will become extinct. Simply having bodies available with some technical skills is no longer a viable business model.
• Continuous improvement is the mantra for those businesses that want to “pull away” from the pack. The need to continually change has become a fact of life!

Businesses in general have become very dependent upon technology and technology has become more and more complex to deploy and support – even as it has become supposedly easier to use.  Mid-market firms, because of their “lean & mean” staffing philosophy, are being challenged to cost-effectively deploy and support this technology.  We see a trend where the mid-market is beginning to investigate various outsourcing, flex-sourcing, ASP’s and other models to deploy and support technology without greatly expanding their internal IT staff. 

What are people talking about?

The wait & see posture of many firms is creating a “pent-up” demand for improving business performance. Several areas appear to be the primary focus points:

Ø      Use information more intelligently. Business Intelligence, Knowledgebase, Data Warehousing, Market database segmentation and other “tools” are examples of businesses trying to get value from all the data. Extrapolation of insights and knowledge from information so that people can make intelligent decisions, quickly, is the goal.

Ø      Reduce cycle times and optimize processes.  Supply chain optimization both from the procurement/production and client/channel management angles are priorities.  Quicker, better, cheaper is the goal.

Ø     Becoming easier to do business with to enhance customer and channel relationships, protect margins and raise competitive barriers is a common goal.

We believe that once businesses get some confidence that the “bottom will not fall out” from under them these pent-up demands will drive various initiatives whose objectives will be to accomplish one or more of the focus points described above. 


The Rainmakers role:

We believe the people responsible for making decisions in Mid-Market businesses often times need help, especially when many options are available, the people are unfamiliar with the tasks at hand or the resources needed are scarce and hard to find. In essence Rainmakers helps Management in four ways…

ü      Need to figure out What to do…  how to utilize best practices, technology and human resources to enhance your competitive advantages while delivering an appropriate ROI

ü      Need to figure out How to do the What… what technologies, resources and processes will be required; how to overcome your organizational change obstacles and eliminate the gaps

ü      Need to do it… what specific technical, product, subject matter expertise and project management resources are needed.

ü      Need to support/maintain/renew it… how to keep it running while continually making small enhancements at the lowest possible cost-of-ownership

Rainmakers Consortium consists of various experts in Information Technology, Production/Operations, Sales & Marketing, Financial and Human Resource areas. Our Partners are independent firms, typically local boutique operations, where their value propositions and expertise are well documented and proven. 

We understand how the Mid-Market wants to do business.  We also promise what we deliver… and deliver what we promise!  We invite the opportunity to prove ourselves.

Thanks for your time.

Jon C. Liberman
Chief Rainmaker

If we can be of service contact us by

….. Calling Rainmakers at 847/251-3327

….. click here mailto:jon@rainmkrs.com

…..Check out our web site www.rainmakers.us

Dear Reader,

One of the facts in Rainmaking is you have to be totally customer focused. Relationships are the name of the game!  My analyses of what’s happening to my customers mirror’s current market conditions and several impactful changes have taken place:

ü      The Y2K “Sellers market” radically shifted to become a “Buyers market” even before September 11^th 02. Decision making tends to be group based and take a long time to decide what or how to do it.

ü      The days of IT-centric technology decision-making appears to be ended. Resources (especially cash) are spent only if the business case is strong-enough & technology is viewed as an enabler (at best).

ü      World-wide competition and Supply Chain Optimization pressures are causing firms to re-evaluate their fundamental business processes and relationships.

ü      The lack of inventory in the Global Supply Chain (a result of Just-In-Time practices being widely practiced) creates havoc with forecasting and business planning. This cause’s risk-averse behavior in executive management ranks which holds-off on capital improvements and depresses the economy.

ü      Business is not getting easier!

The nature of mid-market businesses employing “Lean & Mean” staffing policies exacerbates many of these problems. Lean & Mean can quickly produce “Stretched and Stressed” which makes effective forecasting and planning even more difficult!

Yet, this difficulty does not eliminate the critical need for businesses to do so!

How is your company coping with these realities?

Click here or on the Full Story Below to learn how Rainmakers can help!

Jon C. Liberman
Rainmakers
847/251-3327
jon@rainmkrs.com
www.rainmakers.us

Dear Reader,

Mostpeople tend to want to be optimistic in their outlook for the future. Even as they fear what might happen and become risk adverse – hope springs eternal. Business, made up of people, act in similar patterns.

The lack of predictability creates anxiety and concern – fear of the future. I can’t remember anyone who recently argued with me when I say that current economic conditions make forecasting sales/business performance very difficult.  Emergency orders one month are off-set by silence the next.  This creates risk adverse business decision making where “Cash Is King” – the goal is not to spend it versus make more of it!

Shrewd entrepreneurs and business leaders are focusing on expansion – using the “Risk Adverse Mindset” of their competitors to their advantage. Of course the adage “a fool and his money are soon parted” is as true as ever – but many opportunities exist if one knows how to “traverse the terrain”.

Right now in this article you might be wondering where the title “Have we turned the corner?” relates to what I am talking about?  The “Corner” is the recession gripping the world economy. “Turning” signifies changing the course from progressively worse to better for the economy as a whole.  My point is actually to suggest what has changed is the Paradigm that businesses have traditionally used to gauge economic cycles & patterns.

There have been fundamental changes in how we do business and the environments business will compete in.

v     World-wide economies are highly integrated & inter-related

v     The World-Wide Web & technology has transformed how we organize, communicate and deliver value to clients, partners, suppliers, employees and stakeholders

v     The trends bombarding all businesses are customers demanding quicker, better & cheaper/more value!

v     Constant change has become a constant factor we all must learn to adapt to.

The complexities in today’s world are astounding and mind boggling, but a few simple truths do exist:

• If you (as an individual or a business) are not constantly enhancing yourself (improving) – you are atrophying (dieing slowly)!
• Less is more! We all must strive to get more done with less (time and money).  That’s what your customers are clamoring for.
• Quality of Life appears to be gaining momentum as the primary motivation for consumers as well as employees, owners and management. What I mean is that people are becoming primarily motivated to improve the quality of life which necessitates managing time efficiently.

These factors play out in many ways – but for mid-market businesses special challenges exist:

ü      Mid-market businesses are all “lean & mean” in their philosophy on staffing, this is a qualifying characteristic. When “lean & mean” becomes “stretched & stressed” bad things happen:

o       In service critical areas stressed employees and staff creates customer satisfaction problems and cost productivity which is money.

o       Stress destroys Quality of Life for you and your people. Burn-out, employee turn-over and other people problems do not make businesses profitable! (In fact the opposite is true)

ü      The unpredictability in the foreseeable future makes something critical like effective business planning – urgent and life threatening, if not done competently and in a manner capable of quick adaptation.

ü      Mid-market businesses, from my perspective, have great difficulty in planning and effectively managing change. Little time exists for planning or improvements.

To survive let alone prosper in this new business Paradigm smart businesses will focus energy on two critical areas:

1. Get Close to customers & channel partners – figure out how to add more value in competitively defensible ways – use “virtual capabilities” to integrate communications while wringing out “headaches and costs”.
2. Optimize your critical business processes – eliminate any activity that does not add value! This not only lowers costs and speeds up flows, but can also free-up time and plays a key role in Quality of Life factors.

Firms that accomplish these objectives will have to embrace the culture of Continuous Improvement and treat people as assets to be nurtured versus exploited.  If these things were easy to do I’d be out of business and you wouldn’t be reading this now!  If what I’m saying makes sense to you, and you are unsure how to do it (or having difficulties that affect your Quality of Life) give me a call.

This issue of The SMOKE SIGNAL contains many relevant case studies, best practices and other useful information that can help. 

In summary, we have “turned the corner” in a sense. The problem is the path ahead is a maze which will keep us “turning” for the foreseeable future.  Thanks for your time.

Jon C. Liberman
Rainmakers
847/251-3327
jon@rainmkrs.com
www.rainmakers.us

Need help? Looking for an expert on a full-time, part-time or project basis? Let us know what you need and we will introduce you to the experts. Simply select the topic area closest to you need, and respond to the questions. We will get back to you in a timely fashion.  Click here Find A Resource™

Dear Reader,

I have found that learning from both our mistakes and successes is invaluable. In fact figuring out the difference is the cornerstone for growing and enhancing our knowledge. 

One of the advantages of Rainmaking is that I get to interact with hundreds of mid-market businesses every quarter.  I am always on the prowl for opportunities to learn what’s working, and what’s not. The following is my list (albeit short and sweet) of what appears to be working and not in regards to navigating businesses towards prosperity in today’s difficult climate.

What’s Working:                                                                                           

ü      Continually improve what you do by involving as wide-a-group of staff as practical

ü      Eliminate any non-value added steps and costs

ü      Understand what customers/products are profitable and which aren’t (track actual costs)

ü      Treat opportunities to do business as an asset instead of simply a transaction

ü      Use partnerships and selective outsourcing to enhance channel performance and lower the cost of internal service levels

ü      Perform Post-Mortem’s on projects to harvest lesson’s while still fresh in participants minds

What’s Not:

ü      Battering down the hatch” and hoping things will get better

ü      Buying ERP software to solve business process problems

ü      Competing solely based on lowest price

ü      Immediate gratification schemes – especially for any marketing or business development activities

ü      Allowing your business to operate totally reactive to market changes versus planning towards proactive behavior

ü      Allowing any major project or initiative to move forward without consensus from all key-stakeholders as to what the expected outcomes/business case will be, and how they’ll measure success

The Rainmaker in Native American traditions was the “Prosperity Manager” for the tribe.  Rainmakers, based on this tradition, was founded over five years ago to help our client’s prosper through the intelligent application of Best Practices, Technology and Human Resources in mid-market businesses.  Keep us in mind when you need help or good ideas. 

Don’t take my word for it. Click here to review Rainmakers Case Studies and Testimonials

Click here to review Rainmakers services and offerings

Click here to view our People and Partners

Need help? Looking for an expert on a full-time, part-time or project basis? Let us know what you need and we will introduce you to the experts. Click here Find A Resource™

Thanks for the opportunity to be of service. Enjoy this issue of Rainmakers SMOKE SIGNAL on-line newsletter.

Jon C. Liberman
Chief Rainmaker
847/251-3327
jon@rainmkrs.com
www.rainmakers.us