Get Better & Get Bigger

Hello, my name is Gary Shotton, and we are sitting here in my machine shop. Where we have workers making metal parts with high-powered big machines, and I am having the time of my life. I am learning things every day; I am a constant learner and today I am going to talk about the subject make it better. What I mean by that, so I am going to start with a true story here about a chicken company in town, those that are from America, you would know it as chick-fil-a. But if you are not just call it a chicken fast food restaurant, it is a unique restaurant.  Guess what it is run by a gentleman that believes in family values and even though almost every other fast-food restaurant called Sunday. A very important business day they are closed he wants to be sure his workers have a day arrest; they want to go to church. They can wonderful idea and wonderful concept they have the best food there are lines of people just waiting in line any time they are open a new store.

Opens they just are the communities are begging them to come in my little community, that was the number one question for the Chamber of Commerce. To say when we are going to get this chicken store, we want one, why do not we have one of course. it was not up to the Chamber of Commerce it was up to chick-fil-an and it sure enough, they did come into town now. The story was told by Mr. Truitt the owner, who is now deceased that back in the 90s, when there were late 90s, they were just getting growing. They are good-sized and by the way they always owned all their facilities, they always pay cash. As I understand it and they are very solid company, but he had his staff his younger workers and they are all concerned. Because another chicken fast food restaurant was coming into the market and they seem to be duplicating, what this one chick-fil-a was doing and so it seemed to be at this board meeting. They are just talking about how they can outdo this other cut competitor and what they need to do different to compete and how to get ahead of them.

Mr. Truitt was sitting there apparently; they say with his arms folded just listening in and to get is their attention. He bangs his head hand on the table so everyone could hear it loud, and they all took notice, and he said this classic statement, it says if we get better our customers will demand that we get bigger. Classic statement that is a keeper and think about it he is not concentrating on getting bigger, he is concentrating on making his chicken better. He is listening to his customers he is making what goes out on the plate in his food whatever he has done it is better and guess what happens the customer said please come, we want you to get bigger. Now I have seen this firsthand at least two times in my life they are very significant time so take a minute to build the case with my dad, Aubrey Shotton.

A-U-B-R-E-Y, Aubrey Shotton, I loved him dearly and to this day he has been passed gone more than 25 years ago. But I still think back what he would say in different situations, and I absorb it still today and this is what happened. We were farming in our case we are farming our land and that means we have tractors and equipment, and we cover the clan ground. It is just wheat, and it is not a lot of irrigation so you can take on a lot of land and we have land, but it was interesting that my dad was a very good farmer. If someone were going to have a cash crop grow the crop in any given year dad would have the best or be one of the best, so if someone else own land they would want my dad to farm that land. Because they knew they would have a chance of having a cash crop that is the only time they got paid. So, I have a list in several times when i was a young man where someone would call up dad want to talk to him in the evening.

And they would try to convince him to take on more of their land, you know dad was always inclined to be honest with my mom. Basically, said we have got enough do not get bigger, but the point was the more dad got better at what he was doing the more landowners called him asking him to take on their land. So that there would be a crop and they would make money, because of my dad’s diligence good example for me know I am in this machine shop. It happened about 19 hours sorry 2008 we are rolling along pretty good fast, and I am sorry it would and 10 and as the economy has it. There’s ups and downs and there’s surges and there is more demand and less demand, and so we had gone through a time wind, frankly. We work that busy but man it came on strong we need more capacity we needed have more manpower, more workers, more people to keep our current customers happy.

With what we are doing for them, and this happened I will just use his first name Jim and with one of the major companies. We work for and he made it appointment, he said Gary I want you to get in here and he set the time. I want you to be at my office I was there and then he proposed this with a strong demand he said Gary we need you to get bigger, we need you to make more parts we need you because we have more orders than we can in now. Is like the harvest time we have got to get these out you have got to come up with a written plan to tell me what you are going to do to increase eat my capacity. My company’s capacity and fairly quit oh that is a problem so took me a week or so I talk to my banker, and I came back with a proposal it was generally this I said listen it is going to take us about six months, but we are going to add and build another building 12,000 square feet.

We are going to add six more employees and I am going to buy two more pieces of equipment, that is what it is going to take to ask and meet your demands for a higher volume of work. Is that the opposite of me going out and begging somebody to get their parts, please i want to do your work they told me that to make them happy. I had to do more for them I keep working harder to get better and better. It happens all the time that our customers then come to us, and they give us work, because they know we are always getting better. it is another complete teaching on a continual improvement I let my customers know what we are doing tangibly what we’ve doing this week. I have a meeting tomorrow with my big customer I am laying out some things, we are doing to make things better you know what they do not always say it. But they are saying huh I want to move more parts more work to auto turn my company it happens all the time.

We got to do good work we have to have quality, good price on time delivery good lead times everything that they demand. But when we have that this is the difference, so I encourage you get better do not worry do not spend extra money don’t overspend just to get another customer. Because if you will put most of that same money into getting better training consulting whatever, it takes to make your team better. You will put out a different product or service and your customers will come to you I will guarantee it thank you for listening you could do us a favor if you would share this with a friend relative. Somebody my internet or and or give us some constructive feedback we sure want to hear from you we are trying to present topics from multiple speakers from multiple called cultures and languages with the theme of Inspiring Better Business!   thank you very much.