Art of Listening; Lesson 1
Less than 1% of the population has this built-in innate ability, this simple act of listening. It is one of the hardest things to teach. If one pays particular attention, one can learn "to listen". However , this presents a slight problem. If a person is concentrating fully on listening, while consciously trying to keep his tongue in check, his brain will short-circuit.There will be an inner conflict. This person's vocal muscles have been conditioned over a life time and they ( the muscles) respond as an unconscious reflex action to the first spoken word that hits the listener's ear drums. Overcoming this habit is a daunting task indeed. "Rebuke a wise man and he will bless you. Rebuke a fool and he will curse you"
(Bible..Solomon..proverbs)
A few years back, I had a call from a gentlemen in California. I listened
very carefully to what he was tring to accomplish. As he talked I took notes and underlined the key points. I always scribble notes while Iam taking calls from clients. When he had finished, talking, I knew exactly what he wanted. Now let's lay out the scene so that everyone can follow.
There is this huge big company in our neck of the woods. Over 500 employes and publically traded to boot. The plant manager they had hired, for one of the divisions, was a close relative of one of the powers-to-be. You can see where this is going. This guy had never run any kind of converting machinery much less work on one. As a matter of fact a few years earlier, he had started a converting operation and run it into the ground a short time later. In this new position the guy was in-charge of a whole division with about 40 guys working under him.
They spent almost a million dollars updating an old sheeter. Brand new computerized drive systems installed by some company out of the East coast. Rebuilt shaftless unwind systems that were custom installed on special tracks cut into the floor. Special overhead hoist systems. The list goes on and on. This process, of updating took over a year. Ofcourse, while this "remodelling project" was going on the company could not fullfill the orders coming in. They started to sub-contract this work out and the prices started going up.
A couple of guys that worked for this division saw this and realized that they could start a new company to fulfill this need. Sure enough, they started a new company. For starters they bought a brand new , latest state of the arts sheeter. And within weeks they were up and running. They are one of the fastest growing companies in our area.
Meanwhile, the remodelling kept going. Seemed like every other day the guy would have a new vision and add to this remodelling project. To this day, I cannot fathom what the management was doing while this was going on. Wasn't accounting paying any attention? Who knows.
Finally the sheeter was ready. Almost 14 months from inception. Top speed of this sheeter was 800 feet per minute.
The new competitors meanwhile had gone on to double fly precision sheeters at a cost of 2 million plus, a piece. These machines ran at an average speed of 1,200 feet a minute and they cut perfectly square sheets. Not only were these machines almost twice as fast but they also eliminated several supplementary operations. These guys could run a 1,000,000 lbs of paper in less then 3 days.
So this newly remodelled sheeter sat idle. Don't get me wrong, once in a while they would run this sheeter, but that was mainly for in-house sheeting. They had lost all sheeting jobs to this new competitor.
The stock took a nose dive. Heads rolled. From 40 guys at this division, they were down to about 6. But Mr. Brain had not been let go....not yet...he wasn't done yet.
It was at this time that I got a call from the new accounting dept. asking me if I would be interested in buying this "remodelled sheeter". I went and inspected the unit and gave the accounting department my valuation on this unit. The accounting dept. had asked 3 other dealers the same thing. The other 3 dealers had already presented their reports and valuations but not one of them wanted to buy it for inventory. They all wanted to "list it" on an exclusive basis.
I listened very carefully to what accounting had to say. They would be closing this division down in less than 3 months. However, they had a long term lease on the building and the rent payments would still have to be paid for the next 3 years plus! I bought the sheeter and about 10 other pieces that were at this facility on one condition....that I be allowed to leave the machines in the plant for 3 months free of charge...after which I would pay the pro-rated rent based on the square footage my machines occupied. The accounting chewed me down to one and half month free rent and I did not quibble. It was a fair deal.
I suggested that they sub-let the building. Sell all the machines that were not needed, transfer the ones they could use to other departments and empty the warehouse. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet. No point in throwing good money after bad money.
This was a perfect sheeter for the gentleman in California. It had almost 95% of the features that were needed and the other 5% could easily be added at very little cost. In short this unit was a perfect machine for their needs. I called California and told the gentleman to come over for an onsite inspection. However, before he came I suggested he ship over a few rolls of his stock material, so he could see his material being sheeted in real time. This came as a total shock to him.
After they had inspected the machine, seen it in action, they bought it. It took 3 flat beds and 3 days to disassemble this machine and load it, for shipping to California.
It was over dinner that the gentleman from California told me why he had decided to buy this sheeter from me.
1) He had been looking for a machine for a long time.
2) He had called all the dealers....but none understood what he really wanted.
3) But you actually listened to me said.
4) The clincher was when I suggested he send sample rolls to run on this sheeter...
Folks, like I said in my earlier post, buying is the easiest thing in the World. Just make sure that the seller knows what the hell he is talking about. Listen and you will be able to seperate wheat from the chaff.
