Small Green Stone

There are numerous ways we remember people, and lots of things that enter our lives and then are just around, sometimes for no real known reason. I have many of those in my office, my home, and my shop. These are the items that ... if we died, nobody would have a clue as to the story behind them, or the value that they hold for me.  One of these items is a small green stone.  It weighs very little and has a tendency to move around my desk. I hold it and roll it over in my hand at times when I am thinking about something.  Many might call it a "worry stone." That's a good name for it.

Over the years I've had the opportunity to work with a great number of individuals - from the old Payless days, through distribution, to today at Diamond Oil. I learned much from these folks and I hope they learned as much from me.

One particular group was from when I worked at Huttig in Kansas City. This group of people distinguished themselves by taking a facility that was losing a lot of money to becoming profitable in just two years. We got a lot of attention from others who tried to figure out exactly what we were doing and why it worked. It was the people, which is always the answer. Let me tell you about some of these individuals.

My Production Manager had come from Guatemala to make a better life for his family. Alary never met a challenge that he couldn't overcome.  As I continued to add production to his schedule, he complained in passing fashion and then dug in and figured out how to get it done.  He threatened me a couple of times about it, but always just got it completed. I still grin when I think about his words: "Meester Martin, I beech-slap you if you..." Add whatever challenge I set before him.

My operations team was made up of a lot of people, but Benny and Jamie were two of the folks that really got it done.  They were the people who made sure all of the orders were pulled and completed every day, and got the product on the trucks and routed so that everything was delivered.  This was one of the largest jigsaw puzzles that you could ever imagine, and they took it on day after day.  Pretty amazing.

Then there was the inside sales team.  Dawn, Donna, Joe, Grif, Andrelee, Dave and Roy.  They took tremendous care of the customer.  As we worked to change the way that the branch responded to its customers, this was the group that stepped up to tell the story and bring back the customers that we had lost with bad service and bad pricing.  They did the work one customer at a time, in conjunction with the outside sales team. These teams spurred our growth until we were moving forward again.  As individuals we were all flawed and had our quirks, but as a team, we were just about unstoppable.

So you ask, what does this have to do with a small green stone?  When I roll this stone over in my hand, these are all of the things that I think of and more. This stone reminds me of all.

But most specifically it reminds me of Grif Davies.  I'd known Grif when he was the sales representative for Magic Woods when I worked at Payless.  He sold me hardwood lumber and specially items and was always there to help. Years later, when I landed at Huttig, he worked as an inside seller for me. I remember sitting down with Grif for his annual review and asking him what his goals were for the upcoming year. He told me that he wanted to live to the next review, going on to tell me that he was going to need a lung/heart transplant in order to get there. Over the coming months, we all worked to support him in all the ways we could.  He ended up gong in for the surgery and although things started out well, as we all followed him through his "caring bridge," we hoped for the best. But in the end, his body was unable to overcome all of the indignities that had been done to it over the years and we lost him.

When we went to the funeral, there was a basket of these small stones at the entrance to the sanctuary. Each stone was unique and a handwritten note from Grif. He wanted us to take a stone and use it over the years to remember that day and the friends that were there with us.  It has always done just this for me.

I know there will be a day when someone goes through my things and tosses this stone in a box to go to Goodwill, or to the curb. But like so many things for so many of us, it really is just a symbol. This little green stone isn't just a rock to me. It's something that helps me remember.

Cherish the things in your life that are more than they appear to be.  There value will rarely be understood by anyone but you.

Ice Cream

In past blogs, I've talked about how one person can make a difference. Everyone who knows me knows I truly believe this, and there are more examples of it than there is time to recount, but I also have owed you a story about ice cream since a blog (One Person) I wrote in March of 2014. Seems to me that this is the time that I should share that story.

For many years, I worked for Payless Cashways. At one time, we were labeled the "Sweetheart of the Industry," but before it was all done, we had worked our way through two Chapter 11 reorganizations and then one Monday, found ourselves with a negative cash flow we couldn't overcome. At the beginning of the decline we were 150 stores and $1.54 billion in sales. I remember our President holding up a screwdriver at one meeting and telling us that there was nobody in the company that could tell us how many of those we had sold in the previous year. At that point, by the way, we were blind, but very, very profitable.

Over the next number of years, we continued to add capabilities to our computer systems to be able to mine more and more information from our system under the guise of making better decisions. We had a great deal of metrics and information at our fingertips, but in the end, it didn't really matter. The company seemed to do its best when the decisions were made at the local level by individual managers who were completely responsible for most of the decisions made in the store. Although I am not completely sure of it, this seems to mimic the current Hy-Vee model - which seems to be highly successful.

Enough of my soapbox. On to the ice cream story. In later years, after we decided to embrace the Professional customer in our "Shift Right" strategy, we ended up trying a lot of different things to try to generate immediate cash and draw/keep customers in our stores. One thing we tried was ice cream novelties. Items like "Drumsticks" and "Bomb Pops", and my favorite, the ice cream sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies as the outside of the sandwich became popular. I found these to be a delightful afternoon snack. When we first added ice cream to the stores, I was at Store 16 in West Omaha. I remember telling the person who delivered our stock that I didn't ever want to be out of that particular item. Being a good supplier, they made it happen. Over time, the company asked me to move to Texas and run a district down there. I set up my home store at Store 21 Contractor Supply in Garland. I had the same conversation with my new ice cream supplier and after a couple of mis-steps, he was able to get it right.

Time marched forward and somewhere along the line, we had a meeting in Kansas City with all of the leadership of the organization in attendance. Millard Barron, our CEO, was very much into the numbers and he had carefully watched all new product lines. Ice cream had been one of them. In a breakout session to discuss some of these initiatives, the comment was made that for a long time Omaha had been the number one seller of ice cream, but then for a reason that was hard to identify, the Texas Contractor's Supply had taken over the lead.

There in front of many people I'd known for years - many that I respected a great deal and many who respected me - it was pointed out that the thing that changed was that Jim Martin had moved from Omaha to Texas. This wasn't necessarily the best way to have pointed out that one person can make a difference, but it certainly did that for me, and here, twenty plus years later, as I recount the story to you, I still find a bit of embarrassment welling in my throat. Never forget that one person can, and does matter. Okay, laugh a little bit, if you haven't yet.

Now I've admitted the story and it's out there. There are a couple of other pretty wonderful things I need to share with you.

First, this is my 100th blog. When I wrote the first one, I wondered how much I would possibly have to say. Although there have been times I've been hard-pressed to find something to talk about, I kept after it until I am now at 100. I'm sure some of you are laughing right now at even the thought that I might not have something to say, anytime, but it was a concern for me.

Second, this week I sold my first item through my Etsy store. I know that there isn't much there, but a person found something they liked enough to ask me to build one for them. This feels like high praise and fits with the fact that I've had a good year producing items out of the shop that others seem to like. We'll keep that going. And, just as a little view toward the future, I've also been asked to produce a teardrop trailer for someone. This should be fun.

I hope this 100th blog finds you all healthy and happy. Let me know what's going on with each of you.