By Toby Stansell
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07/05/2010
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Posted in Leadership
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The above phrase was once widely and regularly quoted as the standard instructions given by a doctor to his/her patient when the patient was prescribed a regimen of pills or tablets to take to cure an ailment of some sort. Not a whole lot of pomp and circumstance, but medicine was somewhat simpler in those days and not as many options were available to doctors in terms of antibiotics and other disease-fighting medications.
Wow. That prescription surely seems incredibly simple and unassuming today. Why… every medication that I receive from the pharmacy comes in a bag containing circulars and precautionary statements that take at least 15 minutes to read (I generally don’t), and the pill bottle itself provides every possible…
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By Toby Stansell
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04/07/2010
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Posted in Customer Service, Uniforms
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Most of us in business today overuse the age-old adage of” giving 100%”. In fact, if the truth be known, many of us encourage and prod our colleagues, contemporaries, and subordinates within our businesses to “give 110%”, whatever that means and if there is such a thing, which I don’t think there is. And then we create spreadsheets, charts, and graphs that identify the various components of our market deliverables and illustrate the amount of revenue, margin, and profit each component contributes, and to what degree internal resources—personnel and cash—are consumed by each channel or component. Generally, our charts attempt to depict the relative contribution—or consumption—of every major product and service group/family that comprises our solution set. In the end,…
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By Toby Stansell
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01/26/2010
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Posted in Customer Service, Leadership
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A few days ago, for no particular reason except that I happened to be thinking about some of my discussions that day, I took a marker and wrote on one of the flip charts in our conference room reserved for internal meetings, the phrase, “Criticism provides an opportunity for improvement.” I came back into that room for some reason the next day and found that someone had added the word “Constructive” to the phrase to create a new phrase, “Constructive criticism provides an opportunity for improvement.”
It took about four nanoseconds for that act to really get under my skin. I guess our society has advanced to the point and we are so smart that we can now be selective…
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By Toby Stansell
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01/10/2010
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Posted in Branding
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Personalization and customization are certainly two hot themes these days. The race to provide unlimited flexibility and configurability that result in highly personalized experiences and interfaces proceeds at full song within almost every consumer and commercial product category. Somehow, however, this pervasive and passionate focus upon individual consumer wants and needs has largely bypassed the commercial uniform market.
When it comes to uniforms, one size or style definitely does not fit all. The need for a made-to-fit/made-to-order program exists on three levels. They are…
At the industry level, we discover that different types of businesses exhibit unique functional requirements, operate in varying climates and environments, and employ unique roles and positions. Grocery stores and supermarkets…
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By Toby Stansell
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11/17/2009
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Posted in Branding
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As with most of these writings, my take on this topic is nothing more than a shameless attempt on my part to take an idea first put forth by one of my contemporaries and put some context around it in hopes of broadening and deepening its application in a business setting. My hope is that the appropriate application and execution of these principles helps increase your competitive advantage, growth, and profitability.
I can still remember exactly where I was when someone first introduced me to the principle of The Crooked Wire. I was in New York City visiting a firm with whom we had formed a sales and distribution alliance to address a particular segment of the corporate apparel market.…
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