Navigating Industrial Service Evolution: Insights from R.A. Jones Coesia
In this episode of the Aftermarket Champions Podcast, host Vivek Joshi interviews Paul Wolf (Director of Customer Service) from R.A. Jones, Coesia about his journey in the Customer service domain of the Industrial OEM industry. While talking about his journey, Paul passionately underscores RA Jones's commitment to a customer-centric approach, emphasizing the proactive understanding and anticipation of customer needs. This strategy not only fosters enduring client relationships but also elevates satisfaction and loyalty levels. Moving into training methodologies, Paul discusses the pivotal shift away from traditional classroom settings to interactive, video-based learning tools. This adaptation aligns with industry-wide digitalization trends, prioritizing swift information retrieval and efficient problem-solving. He addresses the challenges posed by a shifting workforce, particularly among younger generations who favor accessing information over retaining it. Paul highlights the critical role of knowledge management in transferring expertise from seasoned veterans to new hires, stressing the importance of capturing and standardizing knowledge effectively. Moreover, he emphasizes R.A. Jones Coesia's global approach to service, maintaining a delicate balance between standardized practices and localized adaptations to ensure consistent and effective support worldwide. Throughout, Paul underscores the significance of continuous customer feedback in refining service delivery, ensuring R.A. Jones Coesia remains agile and responsive to evolving customer needs and technological advancements in the industry.
Hi folks, welcome back to season 2 of the Aftermarket Champions podcast. I'm
your host
Vivek Joshi, founder and CEO of Entitled. We help equipment manufacturers
identify, prioritize,
and sell aftermarket and service solutions to their install base. Insights, our
purpose
built install base intelligence platform, is used by leading OEMs globally to
drive
revenue growth and improve customer experience and satisfaction. I'm delighted
to be back
funneling and reaching journey into the world of aftermarket excellence.
Throughout the season,
we'll engage in an insightful discussion with industry leaders, exploring
innovative strategies
and invaluable insights to propel us forward in industrial aftermarket sector.
So, without further
ado, let's embark on this journey together. Good afternoon everybody. This is
Vivek Joshi,
your host of the Aftermarket Champions podcast. I'm pleased to bring you
another edition of
our podcast with my guest today being Paul Wolf. Paul is the director of
customer service at
Ari Jones, which is a division of Cohesia, a large Italian conglomerate of
packaging and other
machinery making equipment. Paul is based in Devonport, Iowa, and that's where
he comes to
us today. Paul, welcome to the show. Thanks Vivek. I'm happy to be here.
So Paul, I always talk in my show of my interview, my conversation with my
guest for this very simple
question. Tell us a little bit about Paul, what's your background, what you do
along the way to get
to this role and then I can dig into a couple more questions from there. Sure.
So, I actually
started out as an engineer, so I went to the University of Iowa, there's my
Iowa plug.
Thank you very much. Started out in mechanical engineering and always thought I
wanted to be
an engineer, designed things for the rest of my life and that's where the
journey started. So,
in about 2000, I joined packaging technologies, which eventually became Ari
Jones as a mechanical
engineer, designing packaging equipment, working on auto product, home attics,
sealing equipment,
eventually some curing projects that got into coffee, but moved through
engineering,
a little bit of engineering management, got into some applications engineering,
went into project
management, and then eventually, Coagia bought us 13 years later and moved into
the Lean Six Sigma
program. So, after engineering, I moved into Six Sigma, did a black belt stint,
learned a lot of
business process and a lot of improvements, and then on the next side of Lean
Six Sigma moved into
customer service, where I thought I'd never be. I thought I'd sit and look at
designs and work on
equipment in my computer all day long, and they said, "Well, how would you like
customer service?"
I'm like, "Okay, what is that?" So, I moved into customer service operations,
worked on arts
and service to start with, and really have been there since 2016, growing,
learning,
figuring out how to work on the business, improve the business, help customers
out,
engage our team into really meeting customer expectations, and really trying to
push
Ari Jones into the next level of customer service, where we're really a partner
with our clients,
and really working hard to make sure their outputs are working. When our
customers are successful,
we're successful. That's really where we're looking to be. So, that was the 24-
year journey in 30 seconds.
Interesting 24-year journey all in one shot. I think there's a couple of things
that were
actually of interest to me. You start as an engineer that, interestingly enough
, a lot of
the people have talked to start as an engineer, but unlike most, and I think
you might be one of two
that I've talked to, who journeyed into this whole realm of Six Sigma. I mean,
I did Six Sigma
a long time ago when I was at this big company on the East Coast that made it
popular.
But that was an interesting switch for you, and then more importantly, as from
an engineer
to Six Sigma to customer service, did that have any role to play in your shift
of focus or career
if you may? Yeah, probably it really did. As an engineer, I was never a real
good designer.
I was more a hands-on, make things work. So, once the machine, we built all the
equipment here in
the building. Once the machine was built and ready to start up, I was good at
figuring out how to
make it work efficiently, and my drive is in how to make things work better. So
, from engineering,
I did a lot of startups and helped in the field, and then learned how to
equipment work, learned
some of the electrical logic. I always thought I could have been a good
programmer too, because I'm
kind of logical. But, I mean, Six Sigma was a journey, and they said, "Hey, do
you want to do the Black
Bell program?" And I said, "Sure, what's that?" And they introduced it to me
was the start of
Guiz's Black Bell program, and really learned about process, learned about
statistics, and I never
realized how much I enjoy data and calculation, and looking at trends, looking
at visualizations of
where the highs and lows are, and figuring out how processes work through data.
And it was a neat
exposure to me, and I use that all the time now, because the data is everywhere
. And as we move
into a much more digital world, big data, there is a lot of information to go
through,
and if you can harness it and really utilize it to say, "Hey, here's the
important stuff. Here's
the noise," and say, "Hey, here's the things we need to change to make things
better. Here's the
stuff we can ignore." I think the Lean Six Sigma really gives you a tool to
look at data in a
different light, because you're looking for facts, you're looking for things
that exist in the world,
and trying to translate that into improvements and results on equipment. And so
I think that
gives you a base of relationship to looking at the data. A lot of things say, "
Hey, we're doing
this." I say, "Oh, great. Nice chart. Can I see the data?" Because I want to
analyze it,
because there's different ways to look at things. So I think that has really
given me the opportunity
to look at lots of big picture items, but break it down into a very methodical
data approach and
looking for results based on actual events versus, "I think we should kind of
go this way."
So I think that's really where it takes me to. I say, "Oh, that's a good idea.
Let's check the
data to make sure we're right." It's interesting you said that, right? Because
when I did Six Sigma
a long time ago, I think there are two things that I remember that stuck in my
mind. One is
you mentioned about the process, the ability to kind of follow that thing, the
other one is data.
But maybe there's a third thing that I think that took away. To me, Six Sigma
being in that
realm of Six Sigma was all about making processes more robust to have
consistent output in the face
of maybe varying input, which I think was the meta lesson out of that. How does
that translate
that mindset, if you may, translate into the customer service world? Because as
you said to us
before we started this conversation, a happy customer is really where you want
to be.
And happiness is as much about consistency of experience as anything else,
right?
Is that how you guys think about it as well? Absolutely. The real mindset that
you get to is
most of our happy customers have boring jobs because the machines are boringly
predictable.
I put anything in it, and at the end of the day, I get the same output machine
and product is
flowing out the door going to their customers. So boringly predictable is where
you want to get to.
And if you look at variations and changes, and if you can make machines boring
ly predictable
through proper maintenance, proper cleaning, proper training, replacement parts
when you need to,
and just make that machine just run. And now it becomes a boring job. That's
where you want to
get to because those are happy customers. When they're sitting at their line
staring at the
machines, they're like, "What do I do now?" I guess I'll just sit here and
watch it run.
Those are the kind of customers are the operators get bored and the output just
keeps going. So
when you talk about a lot of variation coming in, but it's boringly predictable
is what you
really want to be at for machine functionality. And that's what we try to get
to. How do we make
it so it never stops, and when it does stop, we know exactly what to do.
When you think about the other word you used to describe that role in between,
you said lean
and six-sigma. So lead was obviously popularized a long time ago with some of
the Japanese movements
out there to some degree six-sigma too with you know, Deming and everybody else
. But the lead movement
also wound up manifesting itself in the form of these quote unquote business
system kind of
mindsets, right? The famous one is down in our business system and a spot of
all a bunch of
different things. Is that something philosophy that Koija has adopted as well
or Jones particularly,
is that a way to kind of make it work together? Yeah, I think so. I think a lot
of the times you
say lean six-sigma and people, six-sigma is a lot of data which I like. Lean is
a lot of waste
management. I mean, how do you get rid of waste? How do you eliminate extra
cost? How do you get
waste, you know, waste in movement, waste in packaging? How do you get rid of
it? So,
so when I think about lean six-sigma, a majority of the times you start at lean
and you start at
waste elimination, what are the costs I can get rid of? Because those are
actually lean is actually
easier than six-sigma. Repeatability is a lot harder than starting at the
beginning. So,
so when I look at lean six-sigma, most of the time we start at lean and we look
at cost management
and what extra cost do I have that I can get rid of? What are the business
requirements? What
are the customer requirement? And then everything else I can get rid of to
reduce cost, reduce time,
and build more efficiency in the line. So when you really, when you really bake
time,
lean six-sigma lean really has a much bigger use when you start with customers,
when you start
in a in a plant, but six-sigma repeatability is great, but you really got to
start with the
lean. If you don't have lean, repeatability just isn't even going to be there.
So, yeah.
So, it's good because I knew you translate that in your customer service role
both for
some operations and now running the customer service or service business. You
know, clearly,
the intended cohesia broadly and Ari Jones and the division, I think CSNN was
the division name
of
the business. So, there's two years lost in just trying to, okay, let's stop
for a second and figure
out how to get the world back on track and then, okay, now let's start the
journey again. But
throughout the timeframe, I generally see packaging. The packaging world is a l
agging industry. The
technology is not cutting edge. You know, automotive has a lot of that.
Aerospace has a lot of the
cutting edge. Packaging is following up on some of the technology. So packaging
starts to see
things that are happening in the world and really progressing from the break
fix mindset. If it's
broken, I need to fix it. I'll run it, tell it breaks and then fix it to the
getting closer to
the preventative maintenance to the planned downtime. You get to predictably
boring. So,
I've seen the transition in some of our customers, some of the industries we
serve
throughout the last eight years and it's just kind of passing through industry
by industry,
getting to that mindset of really planning your downtime as opposed to break
fixing.
Because companies we started with years ago, when packaging technologies
wasn't to have import, absorb some companies. A lot of the smaller companies
were run and
tell it breaks, you bring in a service tech and you fix it with parts and then
you get up and
running against it and get production out. And that's transformed over the
course of the last,
even in the last eight years I've seen it to the mindset of, well, if I replace
it early,
I'm not, I'm spending a little more on parts, but I get a lot more production.
It's really focusing
on that output where the high dollar is. Saving money on parts is very small
compared to having
more production, more efficiency and more output with the same cost. If you can
get 10 more an hour
out of a machine with the same cost, minus the packaging and the cost of
materials, they're making
more money. So that's what we want to focus on. How do you make sure you're
very predictable,
you plan your maintenance, you do it at the right time. So it actually helps
them plan their
production and improve. So yeah, it's there. It's been a change. And a lot of
people are
changed on mindset. I get a lot more requests for this longer term planning,
this a can do monthly
preventative maintenance versus, hey, I need to take care tomorrow because we
just broke something.
Can you audit my machine to make sure it's going to keep running for the next
year versus,
hey, we need a shaft flown to a South pay a million dollars because I need
production tomorrow.
So it's that balance of emergency to predictability.
Predictability. And I think that's actually going back to the six signal
mindset.
Six signal about predictability, boring predictability, like I said, and
getting
getting a customer to that point also helps level load your resources as well.
So it's actually
it's helping both sides reduce waste in the system. Like you said, so it's all
connected to one another.
Yeah, because we are running out of people a lot of the time. It's hard. It's
hard to find a
lot of people right now, a lot of harder to hire people these days. So yeah,
you got to do more
with less. Everybody does. So it's funny who said that, right? Because one of
the questions I was
going to ask you, which was related to that is I actually did a webinar
yesterday. Of course,
there's a bit of marketing. I call it the autonomous aftermarket, right? And
the idea behind the
autonomous aftermarket autonomous aftermarket is to make it boringly
predictable or particularly boring.
But also to address the fact what you just said, Paul is almost everybody I
talk to in your shoes.
And even the website people are having a huge issue with two things. One is,
you know, people like me, we're retiring. My age is retiring. Lots of guys
getting out of the
workforce. Lots of people get into workforce. But the generation behind them is
not coming in the
volumes and quality skills that you expect. And so it's creating this little
capacity and capability
crunch right now, almost every single manufacturer. And the idea to use data,
to use automation,
to use intelligence to kind of overcome some of those gaps is a big deal. Is
that how you guys are
thinking about it? Also, are Jones and even Cohesia, broadly? Yeah, I think
everybody's thinking of
it that way because it's just our current reality. But there's more and more
plants where the
the guy who has been there for 45 years, everything about the machine has all
the parts stored away
in his office. Oh, that broke. I have one of those is disappearing. And it's
being replaced from
somebody that's has less experience, you know, much younger grew up in a
different different
mentality. The guys that have been there for years, they worked on their cars,
you know,
they changed their own oil. We don't change our oil anymore today. And some
kids have cars that
don't have oil. They're electric now, you know, you don't, you don't do oil
changes. So the world
is changing. You find in the past, if you needed information, you had to go
look it up. You had to
go to the library. And it was so much effort to find the information. Now I
have to retain it.
Nowadays, I can go to my phone and I can know something in two seconds. But I
don't remember
it tomorrow because I don't have to because my phone it phone knows it. So you
're we're finding
more people are better at indexing information from a source than they are
remembering information.
So how do you how do you make that information readily available to somebody
who's used to finding
it right away? I may have to look it up every time, but something else is
remembering it for me.
So indexing information becomes more important than remembering information.
And now you get into
okay, how do I prevent how do I present that information in a way that my
customer can utilize
it with the operators who are younger and they need to index it faster versus
remembering it?
How do I train people to do that? And and how do I how do I get them to do it
more
on and faster? And then you step into how can I get the machine to think for
itself to say,
hey, you should probably adjust this thing because I feel vibration in my
machine. I mean,
this is this is where you're getting into, you know, that a machine that's a
smart machine
that can give you hints on what to do next or you put your Google glasses on,
you walk up and there's
a note that says you need to do these five things. I don't know how to do that.
Well, let me get my
phone out and I can find it. So we're moving into that market and and there's a
high turnover,
a lot of fluidity in the in the in the human capital in the market. People are
moving all over,
changing jobs more often, working less. So how do you take how do you train
people faster,
provide the information faster and really replace the the veterans who know
everything about the
machine with people who know how to find information, they're mechanically
skilled or they can run
the machine, but they they need to find information quickly. So we're working
through that. It's a
struggle. It's a different mindset. But but that's the that's the next group,
the next generation,
it'll take over. They can index information, not necessarily remember it. I've
done it before. So
my son was the same way. He said, he said, I needed to fix my dryer and he says
, well, why don't you
just look up the YouTube video and go instead of calling the repairman? So I
looked up a YouTube
video and I watched it and I'm like, oh, I can do that. And I did it. And I'm
like, hey, I fixed my
dryer. So but do I remember what I did? No, because it was on a YouTube video,
I need to do it again. I
go look up the video. So there's a lot of struggle with how we deal with that,
how we change our mindset
how we train operators, train mechanics, and really enable them to to do things
with the technology
we have today. There's a lot of places they're like, oh, you can't have your
you can't have your
phone in production because it's a distraction. You're not going to work. And
now it's like, well,
you have to have your phone because you have information on it. So making that
information
available and utilizing it is is the next next ways of smart machines and how
we actually running
the world. So that's right. I love the term use. I'm going to borrow this term
indexing information
versus remembering information. I think that's really powerful because you're
right. The first
thing people do now, I just like you, I do this in the hour, automatic to go do
a YouTube search for
stuff that breaks in the house, right? Because it's the easiest thing somebody
's put a video on how to
fix it. What's interesting and actually, and this is a slightly different
direction for this
conversation is, but if you just think about what you said about your watch
experience, a dry experience
in YouTube, do you see that in your customer base where people are saying, Hey,
are you
Jones, why don't you guys put some repair videos online so I can quickly look
and see things because
maybe there's somebody who's skilled and talented enough to do it and they don
't want to wait for
your technician to show up. It's both good and bad, right? Good as in you make
information and
knowledge available bad. Yeah, they may be one less service call on behalf of
our Jones, which is
revenue, but you may have a happier customer because they have that. Are you
seeing that shift at all?
We do see that. We're seeing the request for more animation, more video content
. Less
classroom training is probably a thing in the past. People don't do as much
classroom training.
They want to do hands-on. I need to see it touch it, but they also want to see
a video of it and
training by video versus training by reading. We used to read everything
because there weren't any
videos. Now we want to see videos. So it does go that way and customers fast
forward and how do
you bridge the gap of providing content and then still maintaining a successful
business. I mean,
if you give away all your intellectual property, it's a problem, but if you don
't transform to
what the current market needs, you have problems. So to be a good vendor to our
customers, we've
got to provide that information. We've got to show them how to use it. We've
got to make it
available and how to control it, how do you access it. Then you're starting to
get to chat
GBT and this artificial intelligence stuff. Suddenly if something has all that
information,
you could have people servicing machines without any help. So it's a different
world we live in.
So, but I like to think that even if people have the information, they still
work with us because
we provide value. We help them do other things and help them really grow. So
that's what we're
focusing on, but it's a different world. It's always changing and it's growing
faster and faster. So
content, indexing information, controlling it, it's all moving forward. People
are asking for it.
It's where we're going. You know, it's the other point you made, which is
interesting.
And I've heard people say that, but I think you explicitly, I think you may be
saying this
explicitly as well, which is it's one thing to have your 45 year veteran who
has the art store,
it's some catalogs and some drawing store that is or her cabinet somewhere. But
you have the same
picture happening on the operator side and the on the customer side because
there have been
people who are running these machines for a long time. They've just been
running the same
machines for a long time. They have all that stuff stored in the head and now
the next generation
coming in dozen. And so it's fascinating to see the shift on both the vendor
side and the customer
side where the worlds are going to basically be the colliders or onward, but
definitely wind up
conversion where this change is going to create a need for service to get
delivered differently,
right? Going forward. Yeah, it's a different world. What is useful to the
customer, you know,
a lot of our customers, they just want to service tech to show up because they
don't have capacity
to work on their machines. So they need more capacity than any people. And then
sometimes it's
the knowledge base. But some of our, we've got senior service techs that have
been doing it for,
you know, 30 years. And when they leave, we're going to lose the knowledge in
itself. And I always
tell them and say, I'm just going to plug you into the matrix will suck your
brain out. So now we
have all your information. But unfortunately, you can't do that. So you
interview them, you
haven't build videos, you have people write it down. If you can, if you can get
it written,
if you can get it transcribed, it somehow get the information that people have
into a format that people can find. That's where we really, the world is moving
to. You got to have
the information available, but in somebody's head just doesn't work until we
start planning
chips and heads and they can read their brain, but brave new world there. But
it's finding
information and getting it out of people. We've got the same problem internally
. People who are
retiring and they've got lots of information and you've got to, you've got to
really plan for that.
You've got to figure out how to capture the good morsels and tidbits that they
have in their head
that they've done for years that they've really never told anybody about. And
if you don't get them,
then you got to relearn them. But once you learn them, you got to write them
down or capture them
somewhere. So it's a, everybody has that problem. So people keep retiring.
Now, when you think about what you've described, I think this picture for our
zone series, what I'm hearing. Now, Kavizya, you guys are very active, I think
overall,
as a company in terms of sharing these best practices, having some form of
harmonization of
these ideas. How does that work across the larger company? I think there's 14
to 15 different group
companies, right? I'll be thinking there's more. There's actually 20. So I
think it's, yeah.
So yeah, it's several. But we've, I mean, Kavizya is really, it's a packaging
company. So everybody
knows packaging. And we like to leverage our companies in a way that how do we
make sure people
have consistent practices? How do you have one way of doing things, really
getting to the,
when you talk to RA Jones, when you talk to Kavizya, you're getting this one
standard of service.
And on a global company, global basis, there's multiple regions we have.
Cultures are different. So really understanding the difference in regions
versus the difference
in company and presenting a consistent approach. It's a complicated way to do
business, but we're
maneuvering through it and figuring out how to really get that consistent
approach. And really,
you know, if you want a packaging partner, we have Kavizya here, we can be a
packaging partner,
and we can support you around the world. That's really where the vision is. And
we're, we work
together all the time and are getting closer and closer. So the world gets
smaller once you have
a lot of teams. COVID actually made the world smaller. So we used to travel to
see each other.
Now we just turn on the video and talk. So it's a different word.
I mean, there's a lot of different things that happened in the last four years.
They said,
"COVID made us operate differently. I'm sitting in my co-working space today. I
almost never
come here because it's easy for me to turn on my computer and my teams and
start the morning off
from home office." But if you consider some of those things you just talked
about,
which is the changes in the customers and how they think about stuff, the
changes in the workforce,
you know, data and rigor and process discipline, if you may, with some of the
things you guys are
doing. If I were to ask you, "Sippal, if you think back not just in the last
eight years and
customer service, but you've been observing service and customer service now
for 20 years,
you know, at the Harajons/Korija companies, you know, what's your take on what
sets
apart what I would call a, uh, for market champion, somebody who's doing
certain things really well,
be it, you know, a systematic way of growing, systematic way of delivering your
service and so on and so
forth, versus that the examples you've seen in your professional career are the
people who don't do
such a good job. But what's your, what's your take on the champions versus not?
So that's a, that's a strong question. But uh, I think the real side that you
have to get to is
what does the customer need? What does the customer want? What is their
expectations?
Dabble and agile a little bit too, customer feedback, customer response.
Every time I go somewhere or do something or on my phone, I get, I get a,
somebody sends me a survey
and says, "Hey, what, how good did we do?" But that continuous feedback loop
and really, not just
getting the feedback, but listening to it, embracing it and understanding it
really makes the champion
stand out. People collect information and if you collect information and don't
do anything with it,
your customer isn't satisfied. So I think what really, really makes,
I mean, it's customer service. You got to deal with the customers. You need to
listen, you need to
react to them, you need to work with them, you need to communicate with them.
It really is, is focused on
how the customer success is managed and how we can enable that customer success
versus the people
that haven't quite gotten there yet is like, "Well, I want my, you're talking
to everybody's in the
business. It's my business success. How can I be successful in my business
versus how can my
customer be successful in their business?" And once you transition from your
own success to the
customer success, suddenly your business actually becomes more successful. But
it's, it's that
measurement, you know, the finance people want to know how your business is
doing. The customers,
when they're successful, they actually give you more business so you do better.
So, so it's a,
it's a matter of really focusing on how successful your companies are, what do
they need
and adapting to what you're hearing and, and really building your strategy on
enabling them to be
successful. I think that, that really gets to the point of how can you be
successful.
And I think that's something important that I've heard from multiple of my
guests, which is the
ability to make sure you focus on what makes your customer successful is
important. The other thing,
and I think that applies to you as well, people for the products our Jones
makes, such as the
machines you make, the packaging machines you make last for 10, 15 years in
your customer base,
right? There's some of these old machines out there. And your customer service
is probably the only
touch point that consistently stays connected to your customer over time, right
? The, the equipment
people go the one time big sale for a million dollars, two million dollars,
whatever it might be
a line, a set of lines and then they go away. Yes, they treat them as special
customers, but your
group, your team is the one that's constantly touched in delivering that
experience, delivering
that success. And I think that's really the, the aspect of service. I think
people need to keep
in mind as well. Yeah, and, and people have lots of names for it, but we call
it asset management,
but it's the life cycle, the life cycle of the equipment, you know, you'll
spend two, I don't know,
two years, six months, nine months buying capital equipment. And that's a whole
group of people,
but now we're expecting it to run for 20. We, we're servicing machines that are
50 years old,
so some that are a year old, but it's, it's a matter of how do you maintain the
asset, how do you make
it run and, and maintaining that communication and touch point and, and really
looking at your
customers and, and understanding what they need. Some of them like to do it
themselves,
some of them like to do it with help, some of them like to have you do it for
them and understanding
what they need, but really make letting them understand we're here to help. And
this machine's
going to be around a while. So hey, let's get to know each other and let's
really build that
relationship because it, their production keeps going. And that's what they're
in business to do.
So we're in business to help them keep going. That's right. Well, this has been
a great conversation
and almost with every one of my guests, I actually like to end with my favorite
question because I'm
a big podcast listener as well. And one of my favorite podcasts is a guy, that
's the person
called Guy Raz. And his question always to his guests is like, Hey, you know,
in the, in this
spectrum of luck to good looks to amazing talent. How much do you ascribe to
where you are today
to luck versus talent versus hard work? Right? I mean, what's your point of
view on that one?
And, and I would have to say, there's some of all of that. And it's, you know,
call it luck,
call it fate, right place, right time. There's definitely times when things
just happened.
A lot of my employees ask, well, how come we're not doing this yet? It says,
well, I have to be
patient and wait until the company's ready to do it. But being at the right
place at the right
time is a bit of luck. But hard work, effort, paying attention, learning new
things, creating,
you know, self awareness, how do I react to things? How do people react to
things,
learning from each situation, how businesses function, how people function, you
embrace that,
and you learn from it. So if you continually learn, sometimes you make your own
luck, because if you
get that right situation and you say the wrong thing, it doesn't go anywhere.
If you get the
right situation, say the right thing, it does go somewhere. So I really think
it's a mix. I think
we're all working through our individual realities. We're embracing other
people and it comes down to
when you find the right people to work with, you give your high level of effort
and everything you
have and share that. I think you become successful when you take that approach
and really you listen
to people, you work with people, and you share your ideas and the luck just
kind of happens sometimes.
So it's been a great journey. I think it's some of both. So I wouldn't say, and
it's definitely not
my good luck. So I got looks for radio probably. That's a great one. That's a
great one. It looks
so radio. Well, I think this was awesome. Well, thank you so much for the great
insights. I really
think in terms of the kinds of things we talked about, which is a process
discipline, there's a
data rigor. It's making customers caring about their success person foremost,
right, in this whole
process and removing waste from the system is a really, really good way to kind
of capture a lot
of the mindset if you may that you guys bring to customer service. So this has
been a great
conversation. I appreciate it very much. And I'm sure our guests are listening
and appreciators
as well. So thanks for your time today. Really happy to be here. Enjoy the
conversation.
As we complete another enlightening episode, I extend my sincere gratitude to
our esteemed guests
and you are valued listeners. If today's conversation resonated with you,
please subscribe to this
podcast and Spotify, Apple podcast or Google Play. I'll simply visit a website
at www.entidal.com
for more interesting content. Remember, the pursuit of aftermarket decks is an
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and I look forward to continuing with you. Until next time, stay informed, stay
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and continue championing aftermarket success.