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Manufacturing-quality: How exactly do you hit the mark?

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” It is presumed that Henry Ford made that insightful statement, but I doubt it. Ford’s take on quality was entirely strategic—he was an industrialist after all. Sure, he knew integrity was important but I believe he had a different idea for quality as it relates to the manufacturing floor. I think it’s a definition worthy enough to kick around ...
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Industrial specialty products are customer focused

A great distributor knows; customers define the specialty products he will purvey. It’s what makes an industrial product a “specialty” in the first place. He knows an anti-flutter could be an unusual specialty to one customer yet an essential stock to another. What’s important, it’s your business—you define the specialties. A great distributor understands that your needs are unique—it’s a customer...
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Collaboration—critical, but attractive choices

Call it what you like but relationships where collaboration thrive is a one-plus-one equals-three proposition. Task by task, you can achieve shared goals that are more meaningful within your company, more valuable to your customers and more strategic within the supply chain. Companies that want to grow seek the competitive advantage gained from collaborative efforts. They see the disruptive comple...
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Quality Assurance? Call me crazy

With some companies, recording customer phone calls is common practice. Under the guise of “quality improvement,” or Quality Assurance, you can expect a utility or an insurance company to offer you the fair and familiar warning. “This call might be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes ….” Something like that. I’m never really sure. All they said was it “might” be recorded. I must s...
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From compliance to machinist mantras, four takeaways

Quips of recent posts save you time; enlarge your head Want to feel industrious? Here’s fresh insight for your business. Summaries of our last four posts optimized for faster reading. You decide if you need more. There’s a link after each one that will take you to the original story. 1. EPA gives way to EMS Born in the wake of elevated concern about environmental pollution, the EPA was established...
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3 Trends support funding email marketing

Plus 8 strategic advantages Business-to-business marketers continue to shift resources from traditional sales and marketing tactics to online. With websites improving (and social media still out with jury) industry loves the ROI of email marketing. It’s a cost-effective way to stay in touch with customers and cultivate new leads. Here are three factors that are trending, and later I describe eigh...
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Four new takeaways from the Bastard

Snapshots of recent posts designed to save you time Knowledge and knowhow help us navigate a complex world. But information is useless if we don’t have time to consume it. Here’s the solution. Each quarter the Bastard will publish a summary of the last three or four blog posts designed for quick consumption. Short. To the point, and each with a new takeaway. Now you’re feeling industrious. 1. “Sti...
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Give your sales strategy a huge leg up!

Dive deep for more customer insight. The purpose of your business is to create customers. In fact, it is the customer who determines what your business is. Obviously customers are crucially important to sales efforts. But don’t we need to understand more about what makes them tick? Don’t we need to know more about the perceptions that ultimately drive their opinions and decisions? Would it help i...
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Business development requires bravery.

Who’s not afraid to stand up and reach out? It’s tough staying objective. Especially when it comes to your own business. It’s much easier to let the Vision go fuzzy and accept the deceiving, but compelling, comfort of the status quo. This form of comfort is a disease and it is never good for a business that wants to grow. Among many of the problems, comfort sustains an atmosphere that is suffocati...
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