Jen Butson

JLTV? Yeah, we’ll go with that for now.

Starting next week, I’m going to start doing small videos for my company, Jennifer Lee Promotions. I will be educating viewers on the promotional products industry, tips and tricks when ordering products, and also exhibit some cool products that we offer. It will hopefully be really cool and interesting, and you’ll all learn something from it!

SO, send me your questions, either by commenting to this post, or emailing me at Jen@JenniferLeePromotions.com. I will feature them in the video and answer them for you Send away curious people!

A total of five days after an article was posted outlining how Maple Leaf Foods was finally “back in black” with their finances after last summer’s listeriosis outbreak, another recall was performed. I’m going to put aside the fact that I ate some of these “tainted” hot dogs, and put forth a question: what would you do?

I’ve heard the machinery that is used to produce and package the food isn’t ideal for cleaning…there are apparently crevices that are impossible to reach by staff, and therefore become a hotbed for bacteria. Maple Leaf has apparently put pressure on the machine manufacturers to come up with a machine that is easier to clean, as I believe they do thorough cleanings twice daily. So to any entrepreneurs/inventors out there…here’s your task. Solve Maple Leaf’s problem, because I’m not so sure the recalls will ever end.

A very wise entrepreneur, Bruce Firestone, once tweeted that “Entrepreneurs are called to it. They feel they can create more interesting work for themselves than others can create for them.” These are words I think of every single day while at my part-time retail department-store job that I hate. I’m just waiting for the big idea…It’s amazing how a job one hates motivates them to follow their dreams. Dreams should be motivation enough, but sometimes the mountain is too steep. That’s where extra motivation comes in. Mine, is Canada’s own company. Well, Canada’s American-owned company.

Lesson #1: A recession is a natural occurence, more or less, that cannot be fixed easily. Therefore, do not get in a panic and start throwing around money to try and make it better. It most likely will not work.

Lesson #2: If a company is headed in the direction of bankruptcy, let it go. Billions of bailout dollars will not save it. (Exhibit A: German retailer; Exhibit B: GM and Chrysler)

Lesson #3: If you are a company that is not headed in the direction of bankruptcy (i.e. Ford), you will be put at a disadvantage. This is the point I will go further in depth with.

General Motors and Chrysler, though bailed out and bankrupt, have two significant competitive advantages over companies such as Ford – the only one of the big 3 to not receive bailout funds, nor go bankrupt. What are these two advantages?

1. Wiping out their debt – Ford accrued a lot of debt because of the recession as well, but had been planning for a recession and therefore was not in a position of need necessarily. Ford still has this debt to deal with. GM and Chrysler do not. Because of their bankruptcy, they get to start with a clean slate, but under the same name, brand, etc. So after taking billions of government dollars, they get to start over anyway.

2. Union concessions – under the threat of losing their jobs, the CAW union members agreed to concessions in their agreements – namely a decrease in benefits. However, because Ford was not under this same pressure, the union has not agreed to any concessions. Good thing Ford wasn’t dumb enough to offer them as much as GM in the beginning.

The good thing for Ford, is that they still have the public’s trust and their dignity intact. According to the Economist, 70% of taxpayers disagreed with the bailouts. I couldn’t be more proud of Ford…I have been a Ford girl for as long as I can remember and this just makes me love them even more. And also gives me so much more material to smack-talk GM fans with.

I hate to make this into a cheesy business post, but it’s all the motivation I have right now. Networking is by far the most important thing anybody can do. You don’t have to be in business to network…it’ll help you anywhere. But the difference between doing business with an established network or doing business in a new city where nobody knows who you are…astronomical. If I were to go back to my hometown of Peterborough, I could do anything. I have the network there. But here, in Ottawa, where I have not been employed anywhere, I have an extremely limited professional network.

Networking is easy…struggling without one is hard.

It’s one thing to send a thank you card, email, or phone call to thank a customer for their business, but where is the line and when do you cross it?

I ask this because of my recent experience with Rogers. After notifying us that we would be charged $50 for installation of our new internet service (a fee just instated in October), I was a little bit irritated. Within an hour after they had set up the internet in our apartment, I received a phone call. This phone call was a survey, done by a taped recording, that required me to push numbers on the scale of satisfaction. I thought, “is this what we paid that $50 for? For a bit of extra service?”

Now today, I get another phone call from a company representing Rogers. This is barely a week after we got our internet. Though this phone call was from a real person (who spoke English flawlessly, thankfully) this time, it got a little bit annoying. It was literally the exact same questions I had been asked in the recording, and it was really just a phone call I could have done without.

So I ask you, when does customer service go from being helpful to being a nuisance?

Would you prefer a phone call from a company representing the company you did business with? Or an email survey where, upon completion, you get entered into a draw for an iPod or a trip to Cuba? I say, stop calling me and give me an iPod.