Be Tenacious!

According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the World’s Most Fearless Creature is the Honey Badger.  They have thick, loose skin that makes them impervious to stings, bites, arrows and machetes. They have sharp teeth and incredibly powerful jaws that allow them to catch, kill and eat every part of its prey, including the bones. They are even powerful enough to eat a turtle, including the shell, without difficulty!  To top off all these physical attributes, they are extremely intelligent.  They have been known to use tools to catch their prey and are actually smart enough to follow Honeyguide birds to find beehives where they’ll eat the larvae and honey.

However, these defensive and offensive capabilities are not what impress me most about this animal.  Any onlooker that views their activity is immediately cognizant of how tenacious they are.  No matter what comes after them, they keep going.  It could be a hive of bees, a King Cobra, Puff Adders, leopards or lions. It doesn’t matter; their resolve and aggressiveness are insatiable.

Though I am a firm believer in the theory of abundance (that there is enough business out there to provide win-win scenarios for competing companies), I am also a firm believer in the concept of natural selection (those companies that compete to win and survive will typically stay around).  Business owners need to be more like the Honey Badger: aggressive, flexible, tenacious and smart.  I do not see these as negative attributes, but ones that can be cast in a positive light.  So, what would that look like?

Find a niche

Part of being a successful hauler is to find a way to stick out from the crowd.  Too often when I ask leaders what makes their company different I get the typical responses like “great customer service reps, good pricing, consistency of service.”  However, when that company is tracked against others in the area, they do not stand out in those areas.

The fact is most leaders do not truly know how they are different.  You have to know how you are different, validate it, and make sure everyone else knows it.  If you do not have a distinction, then it behooves you to find a niche that you can own.  That niche may attract a new generation of customers that will help you capture all their business.

Be responsive

Almost every small to mid-sized hauler I have spoken with believes that they would rather compete against the regional/national haulers than the local ones.  Why?  Because the local haulers can be more flexible, responsive and capitalize on local relationships.  If this is the case then why is it that the more I investigate the more I find that the big 5 seem to have an edge, even against seemingly stronger smaller, local haulers?

Like the Honey Badger, be smart.  If you have the opportunity to respond to a local need, do so.  If you can bring value to a community by offering a service, do so. Be responsive.  In the wake of the many catastrophes that have plagued our country I have seen local trash haulers, firemen, and local ministries heralded as heroes. Leverage your ability to respond to the local market and make loyal customers for life.

Be better  

Recently, I was speaking with an owner who was frustrated with the saturation of their market with a host of haulers. He complained that the market was such that the customers would consistently jump from one hauler to another making it difficult to service and track start-ups.  Over the period of a year over 50% of their customers would “jump ship” to one of the other companies.  When I expressed alarm at the unusual attrition rate, he simply responded, “Eventually, some of them will come back”.  Is this acceptable to you and your company?  I would hope not!  If you are disciplined to be better, your customers WILL NOT leave you…period.

Complacency and mediocrity are the enemies of success.  Develop a culture of excellence and customer loyalty and you will not fail.  Your CSR’s and Drivers are two fundamental components to the success of your business.  If you are interested in hearing what people are saying about them, go into the chat rooms online and see about them, you may be surprised. Though many of the complaints are spurious at best, you may begin to see patterns emerge if you read long enough.

Successful haulers are committed to win and compete to win!  They realize there are a host of mediocre businesses out there that are more than willing to take your business if you let them. It is never too late to look at your business differently and take strides toward dominating your market.  Attrition is not an option.

This next and final blog will give you a final characteristic of successful haulers: better a late adopter than not at all.

Alpine Technology Corporation has been serving the waste industry for over 35 years with waste management software for both the office and the trucks.  Their office software,Visual RAMS-Pro, provides billing, work orders, container inventory, route management, customer and account management and much, much more. Their industry-leading truck solution, Visual On-Route, is more than a mere routing software and allows the driver to be connected real-time to the office.  Visual On-Route keeps the drivers accountable while allowing haulers the ability to generate additional revenue streams and cut expenses through efficiencies.

The post Must-Do #3: Compete to Win appeared first on Alpine Technology Corp..

I could try and convince you that my 28 years of operations and marketing experience might grant me the right to voice my opinion…but know that would not impress you.  I could then throw out the fact that for over a year I have visited with and/or spoken with some of the best haulers in the country; seeing firsthand what makes a company great…but that would probably not impress you either.

That leads me to probably the only reason why haulers, small or large, should listen to me.  I am, and have been, a customer (both residential and commercial) of waste services all my life. I am a garbage producer and will continue to do so the rest of my life.  I am part of that segment in the U.S. that produces 25% of the world’s trash. Without individuals like me, haulers would be out of business.

Now that I have impressed everyone with my credentials, let’s get on with the four things every hauler must do to run a successful hauling operation.

Whether you are a small hauler or large, have a city franchise or compete in the open market, have one location or compete nationally, there are certain fundamentals that all successful hauling operations seem to have in common.

#1- Customers, Customers, Customers

20 years ago in a typical Business 101 class you would have certainly heard the magical ingredients to any successful business: location, location, location.  While that may have been true then, such Professors overestimated the longevity of “brick and mortar” establishments, did not anticipate the internet revolution or foresee the absolute necessity to create and foster a “customer-centric” business model.  What does customer-centric look like, you ask?  Here a few questions to ask yourself as to whether or not you are that type of business:

1. Do you make it easy for your customers to do business with you? Compare your business with other services you use in your daily life.  Is it easy to make changes to their account or communicate with you?  A quick look at your website or a call in to your company may reveal a lapse in communication, lack of information or a difficulty in connecting with a Customer Service Representative.
2. Do you find yourself at odds with your customers instead of being “on their side”?  Do gaps in your service leave the customers lacking in confidence that you have their best interest at stake?  Maybe a disputed “extra” or “not out” has left the relationship strained?
3. Have you developed a sense of community that encourages their feedback, good or bad?  All good business people know that two-way communication is critical for success, but what channels have you provided to receive such communication?  Are you proactive or reactive?  Do you leverage Social Media and the technology tools available to you?
4. Bottom line, do your customers feel cared for? In an age where loyalty is not cherished as it used to be, haulers must lead the way in developing a culture that encourages, even mandates, customer loyalty.  Businesses should make themselves indispensable.

Create a loyal customer base

Customer care creates customer loyalty which, in turn, creates a consistent revenue stream for haulers.  Do not underestimate the power of little conveniences like online bill pay, real-time communication with the drivers and waste management software that enables the CSR’s to respond to your customers quickly and accurately.  Next week we will move to the second “must” for hauling operations: trash companies don’t have to look like trash to be successful in the trash industry.

Alpine Technology Corporation has been serving the waste industry for over 35 years with waste management software for both the office and the trucks.  Their office software,Visual RAMS-Pro, provides billing, work orders, container inventory, route management, customer and account management and much, much more. Their industry-leading truck solution, Visual On-Route, is more than a mere routing software and allows the driver to be connected real-time to the office.  Visual On-Route keeps the drivers accountable while allowing haulers the ability to generate additional revenue streams and cut expenses through efficiencies.

The post 4 Must-Do’s To Be A Successful Hauler appeared first on Alpine Technology Corp..

Those of us who grew up listening to these simple, yet profound, tales understood that each and every tale had a “moral” that seemed to resonate with the old and young alike.  The “Ass and the gardener” taught us that though we might want change, it is not always for the better (an ancient version of “the grass is always greener on the other side”, I believe).  The “Wolf and the Crane” urged us not to be greedy but live life with an attitude of gratitude (sounds like a sermon I have heard at least 100 times). The “Fox and the Crow” warned us not to trust flatterers. So what of this “Boy Who Cried Wolf” fable?  What is the moral of this tragic tale of sheepish proportions?  To answer that question, one must wear two hats.  The first hat is that of the shepherd boy.  The moral for him is that he should tell the truth, knowing that if he is a habitual liar people will discard him and not take him at his word.  This, of course, is social suicide and a lesson many a student has learned.  The second hat is that of the villagers.  The moral for them is that trust has its limits and that they need to exercise prudence when making decisions about how they should react to warnings.

As a child, I never heard the second application of the fable from the perspective of the villagers.  I was only told by my parents, teachers and baby-sitters that lying has its consequences.  So let’s take a few minutes and apply this latent application to none other than the behemoth Microsoft itself.  Over the years, it has developed or acquired more than a handful of software applications, operating systems and languages.  As time and technology naturally progresses, many of these solutions get updated or upgraded to newer versions.  Microsoft is no different in this regard.  Instead of supporting multiple generations of solutions (which would be practically impossible), it has to draw a line in the sand as to which ones it will support.  By the mere fact that they are not supporting all the other solutions does not necessarily mean that all previous versions are substandard or obsolete.

This is where the shepherd boy cries wolf analogy comes in.  You see, many waste management software sales people are like that boy crying wolf to the villagers.  To better position their routing software, and denigrate the value of others, they cry out to the villagers about the competition, “their software is obsolete; it will not be supported and you cannot risk your business staying with them.” Wearing the hat of the shepherd boy, I would say that he is not telling the truth regarding the natural state of technical solutions. But I want to spend time wearing the hat of the villager, which in this case, represents those unwitting customers that do not fully understand the implications of software evolution.  They, like the villagers, need to exercise prudence when making judgments, and as a result decisions, with respect to the direction they need to go technologically.  Shame on the shepherd boy for his lying but shame on the villagers for listening!

To bring this a little closer to home, Alpine Technology is faced with a similar situation with respect to Visual FoxPro, a language produced by Microsoft and the language in which Alpine’s waste management software application Visual RAMS- Pro is presently written.  Since the announcement that Microsoft will only support FoxPro through 2015, I have heard many a “shepherd boy” crying out to “villagers” about the inadequacies of any application written in this language and the woes of those customers that find themselves attached to this sinking ship.  Though I can’t follow around such ill-informed wolf-criers I can take the opportunity to use any platform I have to address the issues.  So, for the sake of those interested and prudent villagers, here are the facts:

• Fact #1– Development languages become obsolete.  When Visual RAMS-Pro V6 was developed, the language du jour was Microsoft’s Visual Basic 6.  VB6 moved into the “unsupported” phase in 2008, yet Microsoft still ensures the runtime is still operational in Win7.  The life span of any language is dependent on the company that owns it…period.  So here we are 5 years after VB6 is unsupported and it still works.  In the case of FoxPro 9, 5 years after unsupported will be 2020, although this can’t be predicted with certainty.  However, it is possible to continue running older systems for many years by selectively accepting updates.
• Fact #2-RAMS incorporated SQL server, a leading database solution that displaces the FoxPro tables, in its last two releases.  SQL uses long life industry standards and, as a result, poses no real risk to the operations of those using Visual RAMS Pro.
• Fact #3-When is the last time you tried to get support from Microsoft anyway?  The fact that Microsoft announced their removing support of Visual FoxPro by 2015 does not mean that the development language itself dies.  The community of Visual Fox Pro consultants, users and developers will continue on well into the future. It is in these forums that most support is obtained anyway.
• Fact #4– Long before the announcement that Microsoft was no longer supporting Visual FoxPro, Alpine leadership was already crafting out what the next generation application would look like. Alpine, like every other leading technology provider, has to invest in R&D.

Alpine Technology Corporation has served its customers for over 34 years with stable, industry specific, feature-rich waste management software applications and intends on doing so well into the future.  While I still have on my “villager” hat, I feel the need to visit the shepherd boy, show him the errors of his ways and send him on with a stern scolding.  However, I know such misguided fervor will only show up in another village so this blog will have to suffice.

The post The Boy Who Cried “Wolf”: Aesop’s Beloved Fable Meets Technology appeared first on Alpine Technology Corp..