Problem Solving

There is a practice that takes place every day in companies around the nation and I hate. You should too, especially if you are a manager. In my position it happens time to time and I imagine the higher you go the more it has the possibility of happening. Do you ever have someone come into your office or email you about a problem they have noticed? I do. I don’t mind that, even if it’s a mistake that I made that needs to be corrected. I’m not perfect and I don’t expect others to be. However I hate when it is presented to me like this “The price for this product in XYZ location is wrong”. Some of you may be asking yourself what is wrong with that some of you may be saying to yourself yup that’s what I do.

Let me explain what my problem is with this and why you should have a problem with it too. I will not go into too many specifics about when I run into this so it was stay general to the role you may be in. I’m not sure where I was or who said it but they told me “Remember, when you bring up a problem also bring up a solution.” Too often people in the corporate world, managers especially, get problems dumped on them. People will say here’s the problem but they won’t say why it’s a problem or how it should be.

In my example above “The price for this product in XYZ location is wrong”. Ok that’s great, it’s good to know that’s it’s incorrect but why is it incorrect. What should it be and what’s the proof to back it up? It will take me twice as long to pick this problem out, decipher it, and then find out the solution. I may even misinterpret the information you give me and waste my time chasing ghosts.

How could this be done better? Say the price for ABC product in XYZ location is wrong based on this spreadsheet. The price is currently $x.xx but it should be $y.yy. Perfect, I know what the problem is I know what it should be changed to and if the information you have is incorrect I at least know where you are getting it from so I can correct you.

This is obviously a small and simple problem compared to many other potential examples. The principle should stay the same. Don’t dump a problem on someone regardless if they are a above you or below you in the company. Present the problem, present a possible solution or more if needed and maybe even assist them in fixing it.

I assure you this will get you further. If you are a manager delegating, it will help you employees feel valued and not like one of you minions but a meaningful piece of the problem solving puzzle. If you are raising the issue to a level above you it will help them do their job and not over load their already full plate. For me, if someone gives me a problem and a solution I will typically take care of it right away but if they don’t and they just dump it then I will just dump it to the bottom of my to-do list.

Simple as that. Don’t bring a problem unless you have a solution or suggestion.

Trent and the Browns

Hello Readers,

Today I would like to talk about a topic that is a little outside of the typical post I put here. As I said in my short bio, I am a big sports fan. I also almost worked for the Browns. This is where I would like to take the discussion today. Surely 1,000 different media outlets will cover this topic and I highly doubt you will get any ground breaking information from me that you haven’t heard or seen elsewhere. What I can offer is a unique perspective of this topic and the business and marketing impact.

ESPN

For those of you who haven’t heard, The Cleveland Browns traded running back Trent Richardson to the Indianapolis Colts for the Colts first round pick in the upcoming draft. Some of you may not know football or the NFL well and some may not know Trent Richardson well so I will try my best to explain as I go but I am not giving a scouting report on the guy or explaining what football is. Trent Richardson was the 3^rd overall pick in the 2012 NFL draft. The Browns trade up in the draft to get him which usually is very costly. The only players taken before him were Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III. That alone says quite a bit about the type of player you have in Trent.

I will admit, I am a little biased. Trent Richardson is probably my favorite running back in the entire league and one of my favorite players. I love complete running backs. I hate when a back is one dimensional and thus a team must employ a platoon or dual running backs to take advantage of the strengths of one and not allow the weaknesses to be exploited. Trent is a complete back. He is seen as a big back but stands just 5’9’’. However he weighs 225lbs of pure power packed muscle. He is a bruising runner who has the speed, running the 40 yard dash in 4.45 seconds prior to being draft (I dare you to try to beat that time at 225lbs). He is also a capable pass catcher. On top of all of this, Trent can block very well for a running back.

People will point to Trent’s lack of long runs as proof that he is not an elite back. To this I say look at where he plays. Cleveland’s passing game is sub-par at best. Defenses understand the talent that is Trent Richardson and they key on the running game. He faces a loaded box with great regularity and still ran for over 1,000 yards as a rookie. Watch him at Alabama. Sure it was college and he was a man among boys but this will show you his pure speed and breakaway ability on a team that can attack in both the passing and running game.

And he has more than enough power to break tackles.

 

 

Trent is a beast, plain and simple. One of my best friends is a huge fan of Alabama Football. I talk to him about player there regularly. We disagree at times about the abilities of a player. We do not disagree about Trent. We both say he is the best back to come out of Alabama since the ‘90s and possibly ever (I’ll admit I am not knowledgeable enough on Alabama history to say that definitively). Shaun Alexander came out years before Nick Saban took over the team. Alexander had a couple of good years in the NFL and on great game where he broke the record for touchdowns scored. The next prominent back was Glenn Coffee. I remember watching him while visiting my grandmother in her retirement community and watching that game I said he’s good but the kid behind him is better. That kid was Mark Ingram and he went on to win a Heisman Trophy Award. While Ingram was doing what he was my friend was telling me “Yeah, he is good but that kid behind him, Richardson, HE is unbelievable.” So I started watching more closely when Ingram was not in the game and I was blown away. For the second time I thought the backup was better than the starter at Alabama. Behind Trent was Eddie Lacy. I like Lacy but he could not hold a candle to Trent. Sure Lacy was big and powerful but Trent did it all. Then behind Lacy was T.J. Yeldon and I said boy he is better than Lacy but he is still no Trent. Yeldon is considered better than Ingram by some but still he is no Trent.

 

 

Now that you understand how I feel about Trent (you can call it a man crush if you would like), let’s talk about the Browns. They traded up to get Trent. They must have liked him A LOT. However, they didn’t win and that group that decided to get Trent was replaced. Evidently, the new decision makers do not feel the same way about Trent. Some people may say that they are clearly rebuilding but I disagree. First off you have to have been good recently to rebuild and the Browns have not been good for a long, long time. Also, typically when a franchise rebuilds they trade away their older players in the end of their career for younger players or draft picks. Trent is in his second NFL season and is just 22. So this is not a move in the rebuild process. You can say the Browns are trying to retool or get a team that fits the style they would like to play, that’s fair.

This was just a bad business decision, though. You used the 3^rd overall pick in the draft to get Trent. He is now on the Colts who could now earn a wild card spot in the playoffs and I see their pick being in the 20s or so. The better they do, the worse the pick and with Trent they will do better. So you traded a known player who was selected 3^rd for an unknown player selected 25^th? That makes no sense. It’s not that simple, though. The Browns will likely be worse now so their pick will be higher. Even if they don’t get the first or second pick in the draft, they could try to use their pick and the Colts pick to get the first or second pick. The fans can only hope this will be a quarterback. I’ll talk about the Browns Fans later. Clearly the Browns have very little hope for Brandon Weeden, I can’t blame them. But he was selected the same year as Richardson. You might as well ask the NFL for a do-over if you are giving up or giving away both first round picks. Some may say “hey cut your losses and move on.” And this is clearly what they are doing, but why not adapt a plan around what you have instead of trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole until you and give your square pegs away for pennies on the dollar and try to buy round ones.

Trent was the Browns. He was the star of the team. Now who do you have? Brandon Weeden? He’s on the way out so no one is buying his jersey in Cleveland. Joe Thomas? He’s a great player but who has an offensive lineman as their star player? Fans want to see their star in highlights on Sports Center and I can’t remember seeing many highlights focusing on the O-line. Maybe Barkevious Mingo. He’s a rookie and he plays on the defensive side of the ball. A Linebacker is not always the most exciting and Mingo is not Ray Lewis, DeMarcus Ware, or Von Miller. So the search continues. Joe Haden? Same as before but he’s a cornerback. He’s a good cornerback but he’s not a statesman like Champ Bailey and he isn’t as good as Patrick Peterson or Derelle Revis. Let’s try the offensive side again. How about a wide receiver. The first that comes to mind is Greg Little but he’s not even the top wide out in town. He has been a bit disappointing. He’s sort of a less talented version of Bryalon Edwards. So the search goes on. For now fans will have to wear their Jim Brown jerseys. If you want a new one I recommend leaving it blank. Your odds of picking a player that will still be there in two years and be good are about the same as winning on a scratch ticket.

When I was in college I took a sport marketing class and we read the book “On Being Brown” which discussed what is was like to grow up as a Browns fan. You hear all the stories of the greatness that once was and you have eternal hope that those days will return and you get dirt thrown in your face consistently. At least they have the largest fan base of any sports team in the world so you have plenty of people that share your pain. In the 90s they lost the team to Baltimore and then came back to draft the savior, Tim Couch. We all know how well that worked. They have had promise during the draft recently just to fumble it when they put it all together and forget one or two key pieces. Now this, they lost arguably the best offensive threat they have had since Jim Brown.

The fans can only hope for Teddy Bridgewater to be the outcome of all this. He is not a guarantee though. You knew what you had in Trent. A rookie QB could be Tim Couch or Andrew Luck. And they are not guaranteed to be in position to get him. Or they could decide they want to highlight their defense and draft Jadavion Clowney. That should not be too exciting for the fans. In today’s NFL you must score to win and defense does not do that.

How do you market this team? If they are honest they can say “cheer for us, we will always let you down!” Ouch, that’s good if you are a self-loathing individual but I think most fans want to see good things from their team. Maybe they should make a better attempt at getting LeBron James to come back to Cleveland.

 I can’t imagine they will sell many jerseys. I can’t imagine they will sell many single game tickets either. At least they have a steady stream of season ticket holders to fill more seats than the Jacksonville Jaguars.

It is a sad day in Cleveland for sure, but happy times in Indianapolis. The Colts are saying “Trent is better than what we would have gotten with that pick.” And he addresses a need. Sure they had a promising back in Vick Ballard but he had his limitations so they got Ahmad Bradshaw to sure things up but he’s at the end of his time and has injury issues. Trent is young, promising, improving, health, and better than most backs as it is now. The Colts can use their other picks to get good defensive players of offensive line help and they will be very competitive for a long while. Good work by the Colts! Browns, we will wait and see where the franchise goes from here.

Who Am I

As I promised weeks ago, I wanted to post a little background about myself.

My name is Jake. After completing this course I have just two more courses left to finish my MBA! I graduated from WNE (at the time WNEC) in 2010 with my undergraduate degree in Sport Management and I began my MBA program the following fall.

 

I am a big sports fan, especially basketball and football. Unfortunately, God didn’t give me the great gift of superior athleticism so after High School my days of playing organized sports were over. I still enjoy playing sports whenever I have that opportunity and the free time.

During my time at WNE I participated in many various activities including clubs and intramural sports. The summer after my sophomore year I interned for the Men’s Head Basketball Coach at Plymouth State University in my home town of Plymouth New Hampshire. This opened my eyes to the career I had initially planned to pursue. I enjoyed my time in this role, but after the internship I decided that I would prefer to make my career in a different role inside a sport organization. The same summer I traveled to China with a group from WNE for the Beijing Olympics. This experience was nothing short of life changing. I could go on forever about the trip but I want to try to keep this brief.

 

Toward the end of my junior year I took an internship with an Arena League football team in Manchester New Hampshire. This role was much closer to where I hoped to take my career. I was involved in a great deal of the promotional and marketing activates with the team and I had a great time while working very hard. As the summer came to an end I was offered a chance at another internship at Harvard University working with their Athletics Marketing department. This was a very similar role but in Division I college athletics. I worked with the department at football games, both men’s and women’s hockey, and men’s and women’s basketball. This made for a very busy but fun beginning to my senior year. In the second semester I took an internship with the Springfield Armor. This was much more convenient for me and the team was in their first year so I was able to see a lot get built from the ground up.

 

As graduation came closer and I was applying to everything I qualified for in the sports industry. I landed one interview for what I thought at the time was my dream job with the Cleveland Browns. I was a finalist for the position but they chose a local candidate over me. I was crushed but decided this would give me the chance to get my MBA. I started taking courses while working as a bank teller in Chicopee, MA at PeoplesBank. About a year later I took a job as an Investor Relations Associate at SS&C in Windsor, CT. Roughly a year into that job I found a much better fit in my current position as a Cost Analyst at Sun Gro Horticulture in Agawam, MA.

A few other fun facts about me:

-          I LOVE Christmas!

-          I also like shoes, a lot. I think I have more pairs than my wife. I started with basketball sneakers and now have various kinds of sneakers as well as a good number of “dress shoes”. However, I am a bargain hunter so I try to keep my costs down.

-          I like shopping in general, much to the pleasure of my wife. This kind of goes hand in hand with my love for Christmas and my enjoyment of shoes.

      -     I like to travel. I have been to a number of different places inside the United States but I have only traveled outside of the United State 3 times to Canada, Turks & Caicos, and China. I plan to travel much more in the future.

The End has come....or has it?

Hello Readers,

My Marketing class which I created this for has come to an end but does this mean the blog must come to an end as well? Nope. I have decided to keep this blog active. I also have decided to start another blog. My other blog will be about Christmas. Here is the link http://thechristmasblogjaker.blogspot.com/

As for this blog I will post here about anything relating to business. If I find an article that I find interesting I'll post it and share my thoughts. If I have a opinion about something I am seening then I will post that as well. I encourage everyone to participate as well. If you have comments or suggestions then please share them.

Later today I will also post a short bio about myself as I had promised weeks ago.

Week 11

Hello Readers. This is the last week. It’s bitter sweat. Being the last week of the marketing course we were asked to contemplate this question, “What is Marketing?” In class this week our professor shared a quote with us and the piece that stuck with me was very relevant for this question. Marketing is intuitively simple but deceptively difficult. We all know what marketing is when we see it. We buy various products every day and we know what our reasons are for buying the products we do. But what is it that the companies actively and purposely do to impact our decisions? This is the difficult part. When you are in a position in a company to implement these practices it may be overwhelming. We intuitively know why we would or wouldn’t buy something but we have to figure out how to convey this people we don’t know in different cities, states, or event countries. This is the difficult part.

 

Marketing is truly a focus on customers, both new and existing. We have to evaluate customer’s values and their goals. In some cases we must understand the customers sort term goals or long term goals or a balance in between. What we in the company see as quality may not matter to the customer so we have to determine what does matter to them and fulfill their needs.

 

Marketing is not sales. This is a common misconception and it can confuse people. Drucker explained this in depth. He said that if marketing is done properly there will be no need for sales people. This is nearly impossible to achieve however. Marketing also is not focused on products, it is focused on the customer.

On a large scale marketing is essentially creating a brand. As it is said in Cohen’s book about Drucker’s thought on marketing, “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.” With this in mind Drucker also says, “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing people.” What he means is it needs to be reflected throughout the company. Everyone should be concerned with marketing or at least mindful of what the brand is from a marketing standpoint.

 

This is my last posting for this course but in the days to come I will update all of the readers as to my future plans. So this is not good-bye.

Week 10

Hello readers. The semester is quickly coming to an end. The finish line is in sight. For the week we focused on our revisions. Based on the first 7 periods we are now making any changes we would like to our strategy. We made only small tweaks. We like where we are going. We are refocusing on a few aspects we think are our keys to success. I don’t want to give away too much but we are excited about the future.  Only time will tell how well we do but so far we haven’t done too badly and we think we will improve with our adjustments. Next week will be my final update for the class as it is our last week. This does not me you will not hear from me again. Stay tuned for news on the future of the blog!