The House of Estell

Once every other month on a Friday night, my wife and myself join one of two teams from our Sunday School class and serve at a local homeless shelter. Well, it’s much more than a “homeless shelter”, its’ goal is “to move people from homelessness to permanent housing”. Our role, while we are there, is to work the cafeteria line and serve the food, OR IS IT.  I have been thinking about it and what the word “serve” means.  http://www.merriam-webster.com/ gives as the primary definition “to give (food or drink) to someone at a meal, in a restaurant, etc.”. Sure, we do that, but if you dig down a little into the definition you find some other interesting aspects of “serving”. a) “to be a servant to“, b) “to give the service and respect due to”, c)”to furnish or supply with something needed or desired”, d) “to answer the needs of”. Isn’t “serving ” so much more that just handing out food?

I think that the third definition is the most telling “to furnish or supply with something needed or desired”. If we are going to the ministry to serve, are we supplying the individuals there with something they need or desire?

Estell runs a tight ship

Certainly food is maybe a primary need, but there is an opportunity to serve the individuals in many other ways.  Giving respect, looking someone in the eye, being cheerful and encouraging and accepting, there are a significant number of different ways to serve individuals. There is so much more to serving than just handing out food.

And, even more telling, is serving those that we serve with. Estell is the ministry individual that runs the kitchen area and does an incredible job. Day after day, she works with countless volunteer groups and individuals that come and go. It has been fun to get to know her a little bit and start to work on finding out what serving her means. What are her “needs and desires”?

I’m sure than we do a very inadequate job of truly serving the individuals that we come in contact with in the short time we are engaged at the shelter, but I need to make it my goal to look at serving in terms of the whole picture!!

But wait, there’s more. Let’s transfer those thoughts to the business world and McDonald Containers. If we say we want to “serve our customers”. What does that mean?

Is all we are doing is just serving up products? Is that the extent of it? I hope not. Our goal needs to be serving in the broadest sense. To be a great company or supplier, we need to do so much more than just “serve up products”. We need to “to answer the needs of”. That need may be product today, but tomorrow it may be some advice on where to find cremation tags or the best place to look for the address of the Swiss Consulate.

In order to deserve your business and be worthy of the confidence we want you to place in us, we are striving to meet all the definitions of serving. It is our goal to improve every day in that quest to serve.

How are we doing? We want you to tell us if our service level is where you need it to be. Are your needs being met in the areas that you trust us with? PLEASE, give us call and let us know, drop a note on this post, email me at jwfaber@mcdonaldcontainers.com or leave a comment on the website at http://www.mcdonaldcontainers.com.

Thanks,

Jim

 

 

 

 

“Choose wisely”

I’ve been thinking about relationships over the last month or so and had a number of thoughts come to mind regarding teamwork, cooperation and working with other companies.

2 Corinthians 6:14 says “Do not be unequally yoked”.

Unequally yoked

I believe Paul is talking here about interpersonal relationships and relationships between Christians and non-Christians, but I think it has some real application in the business world and how companies work together.

I have had an increasing number of situations that have arisen where I have felt that another company that we work with does not have the same level of commitment to customers and customer service that we have. It so happens that it is our goal to ship “every order, every day, out the door”. We are not always successful in achieving that goal and it is not always what the customer needs, but it continues to be our goal.

This goal gets increasing difficult to accomplish as you get later in the day. Orders received at 8:30AM are easy to ship, orders at 12:00 can be more complicated and orders received at 4:00PM can be downright challenging. It is almost impossible if your freight company is not on the same page with your goal and will not pick up after a certain time late in the day. I’m not trying to whine here, (ok, maybe a little), but it made me consider what it means to be “unequally yoked”.

To deliver a product or service to an end-user at the right place at the time at the right price, is an incredible venture. A cremation container, for example, starts as a tree in a forest. The tree is harvested, turned into paper and wood (plywood and lumber), milled, shipped, formed into cardboard box, assembled and shipped to a funeral home and offered to a family for use with a loved one. The chain of companies that touch the materials or assist the product in its journey are numerous. All of these companies are yoked together to deliver that product to that family in their time of need.

I would argue that that process is most effective and most efficient when those companies are “equally yoked”. That is, that the companies have the same goals of customer service at each step of the way. Anywhere that companies are not on the same page in terms of their goals (and service levels), there will be problems and disruptions.

So, what’s the lesson here? When choosing a company to work with, whether that is a supplier or a contractor or anyone to work with, consider who they are and how they fit with your goals, motivations and service expectations. Make sure that you “yoke” yourself to other companies that will pull in the same direction as you will.

 

In just a couple of words, “choose wisely“.

We, here at McDonald Containers, believe that we are a company that is on the same page as companies that are committed to customer service at the highest level. We would welcome an opportunity to talk to you about being “equally yoked” to provide the level of service and products that you need for the families that you serve.

Please contact us if you have any feedback or need further information. Comments are welcome on this blog, at our website http://www.mcdonaldcontainers.com or calling us at 800-888-0753.

Remember, “we must all hang together, or assuredly, we will all hang separately”. That one from Benjamin Franklin.

Hmmm, I need to still consider what to do about our freight company.

Thanks for reading,

Jim

Scotty, we need more power!!!

In honor of the opening of the new Star Trek movie this weekend, I wanted to start with a quote from the original “Captain Kirk”.

As always, this post is a result of some things that I’ve been thinking about lately. I’ve been chewing on some thoughts about “power”. What is power? How does power work? Who has power? Is power good or bad? How do we as a company use power, manage power and engage in relationships where we may not have power?

First of all, on a personal level, I believe that everyone has power. I’ve heard the phase that some people use that they “feel powerless”, but I think that, even thought they don’t feel it, they still have power.

We need more power!!

Power to change things, to improve people’s lives, to influence others, to succeed, to do what they want to do. People are as “powerless” as they let themselves be. Last Sunday at the churches that we attend, I saw two illustrations of pastors using their power (as revered, respected individuals) to encourage, cheer and brighten individuals (EXCELLENT).

I don’t care who you are or in what situation I’m in, we all have power. There are so many examples everyday of people using power in a negative way, whether it’s to cut someone down, to treat someone poorly or to somehow take advantage of someone by use of their power. How much better it is to use the power we have in a positive way.

Companies, as well, have power. Power to provide great service or poor service. Power to make a fair profit or use their power to make an unfair profit. Have you ever been at the mercy of a company in an emergency? I get extremely upset when I watch an expose of a repair company that uses its power to gouge customers. How about other situations where a company may use its’ power to the disadvantage of its’ customer (shame, shame).

We, here at McDonald Containers, are trying to make sure that, with whatever power we have, we use it to brighten your day, help you serve families and provide you with the most price competitive, high quality great service products that you can get in the cremation and shipping supplies industry.

Visit us at http://www.mcdonaldcontainers.com and let us know. With our “great power” are we fufilling our “great responsibility”. You knew that I couldn’t end without fitting that in somewhere.

Hey man, we love you guys.

Thanks,
Jim

Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!

We recently discovered some fun little trinkets. They are little solar powered “bobble toys”, for lack of a better word. The toys are small, usually only about 4″ tall, and have movement powered by a solar cell. The figures run anywhere from a daisy complete with moving leaves and flower to a bumblebee to elephants and bears. Set somewhere with light, they move constantly with heads (or flowers) bobbling back and forth. My wife, Dawn, has a penguin mounted to her dashboard.

Solar powered penguin mounted on Dawn’s dashboard

There is so much movement that it is sometimes hard to believe that it is powered by the solar cell and not the movement of the car. My daughter was in the car with some friends and it took some convincing by her to prove to them that the movement was from the solar cell. If fact, Dawn and myself were out one day with her car and her penguin was quite active in the bright sunshine. She observed that it seemed to be moving with the motion of my driving and he was scared and with his arms out was going “WHOA”. I countered that I thought he was having a great deal of fun and had his arms out going “Wheeeeeeee!!!!”.

I’m not sure which of the two options it was but it got me thinking again about the relationship that businesses have with their customers. Many of the businesses that I deal with I have either a “Whoa” or “Whee” attitude to. Some of the businesses I don’t look forward to interacting with and wish that they were “better drivers”. Other businesses are great fun to work with and I look forward to calling and ordering or just contacting them.

How about your business or my business? Do your and my customers look forward to going for a ride with us? Or do they put on their seatbelt first thing, close their eyes and hang on for dear life.

Our goal at McDonald Containers is to have you look forward to the day when you call us to place an order or just call to let us know your college team beat up on our college team. We want to have you raise your arms in the air and gleefully yell out “wheeeeeee” when you ride with us.

Hey, stop at your local dollar store and pick up one of these little “solar bobble heads”. They are great fun for a buck. Or, drop us a note at http://www.mcdonaldcontainers.com or on the form below and we will send one out to the first 10 funeral homes that request one.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Comment and / or Funeral Home Mailing Address

Submit

Here’s hoping your ride is a fun one,

Jim

“Pick me, Pick me.”

A couple of things happened in the last month that got me thinking. Do you remember those playground experiences where sides were being chosen for some type of activity? How terrifing is that! No one wants to be the last one picked (or left out). Isn’t it great that we don’t have to go through that anymore as adults, or do we?

     My son, Brad, has started a new company “Sceneyouthere”. It’s a photography / advertising small business that using photography at events to promote products and advertisers. He made his first sale about two weeks ago and was very excited. Someone “picked him”.

     My daughter, Michelle, is a senior at ClemsonUniversity and is starting to work the resume pretty hard with the hope that someone will “pick her”.

    It struck me that very few of us ever really escape the horror of waiting and hoping that someone in some way will “pick us”. Whether its as an employer, a friend, a spouse, a customer, we all still are in situations where we join “Donkey” saying “Pick me, Pick me, Ooh, Ooh.”

  Even in social settings, we find ourselves in the unenviable situation of being new to our surroundings and want desperately to have someone pick us.

 The shoe can sometimes be on the other foot, though. Isn’t great to be in the position of being the “picker”. Oh, the power. How easy is it to abuse that power instead of using that power to contribute to someone else’s self worth or self image.

  Well, I’m getting a little off track. I, too, am asking for people to “pick me”. We sent out a direct mail piece last week to a significant number of funeral homes and crematories asking them to “pick us” here at McDonald Containers.  So, here I wait by the phone to see if they will pick us. We feel that we  deliver the products and services that would make anyone happy to have picked us.

     If you’re one of those individuals that are considering which company to pick to provide you with your cremation containers and shipping supplies, I hope you will visit us at www.mcdonaldcontainers.com and “PICK US”.

     As always, I appreciate comments and feedback. Oh, and by the way, we really like it when you “PICK US”.

Thanks,

Jim

“We’re here to see the tapestries!”

A couple of weekends ago, my wife Dawn and myself were in Grand Rapids, Michigan to visit my parents. The occasion was my dad’s 80th birthday. We had a great time. We went with them to my father’s “cousins” reunion and then to Chicago to visit my sister.

It reminded me how grateful I am to have to have wonderful parents that gave me a childhood that few people enjoy. The positive influence that they have had on my life will continue for the rest of my life. I thought about Edith Schaeffer’s biography named “The Tapestry”. She makes the point that our lives are a living tapestry that God is weaving.

I believe that God used my parents to set the “warp” (the base thread of a weaving) of my life.  Other people and experiences have since then are the weft (the cross threads) of the tapestry, combining with the warp to create the picture that is my life.  Our lives become a picture of the threads that are our experiences.  Each individual thread contributes to overall color and beauty of the work in process.

Dad, weaving some more threads

 I think businesses are the same. When someone looks at or works with a business, what is the tapestry that they see? The business owner sets the warp of the design, the base, the pattern, the image he (or she) is trying to build. He uses suppliers, customers, employees and the community as the weft to develop the tapestry. 

I love the concept of a business as a tapestry.  As I work on relationships with vendors, customers, employees and my community, I am trying to be aware that each of these have an impact on the tapestry that we are weaving. There are some thread in our tapestry that may need some attention. Either they are not contributing to the picture or worse yet, they may be creating an image that we don’t want.  

I hope that you consider McDonald Containers as an important thread in the tapestry that you are weaving, if you are one of our customers. We are working hard to make sure that our thread in your tapestry is not one that you feel needs to be removed. 

We would welcome some feedback about your thoughts. How can we be a brighter thread in your tapestry? Are we contributing or distracting from the image that you are creating in your tapestry?If you’re not a customer, do you have a thread that needs replacing? We would love to take to you about cremation containers and shipping trays. Visit us at www.mcdonaldcontainers.com, or call us at 800-333-0128, or leave a comment with this blog entry!!

Oh, the title? You knew it was from Raiders, right?

Jim

If I only knew then, what I know now!!!!

I’ve been writing blog entries for almost a year now and I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve tried to take an opportunity to share some thoughts about running a business and our committment to customer service. I have also tried to show that we try to be a learning organization and whenever I go somewhere or experience something it provides a chance to grow as a person or as a company.

My daughter, Michelle, was writing a paper for a class at Clemson a few months back about leadership and we talked about being a “learning leader”. We felt that great leaders are always learning and growing. I was thinking about that some more and I remembered a conversation that I had with my father a while back about some of his experiences in his 40 some years in retail banking. WOW, a lot of lessons learned and knowledge gained. So, I asked him if he would be willing to share some of what he has learned over his career in this blog. He reluctantly agreed.

What a wealth of knowledge and wisdom from 40 years of people management and customer interaction. I am looking forward to consuming his wisdom over the next few months.

We’ll start with a little bit of his experiences with McDonald Containers. This from my dad, Warren Faber (sometime West Coast sales rep):

Vacationing in Switzerland

Each year, the first week of November, my wife and I travel from Michigan to Arizona and stay four months in Green Valley, Arizona and two months with our oldest daughter in San Diego, California. Over the last couple of years, we made several business calls for our son, who owns McDonald Containers. The purpose of those calls was to get feed back from the customers as to service and product satisfaction. We hoped that it also showed the human side of the business and not just the every day activity it takes to operate a business. Jim has a masters degree in advertising and a CPA degree in accounting and he has a strong interest in people. This is an excellent combination to run a successful business. In 2011, we left home on November 6^th and made business calls during that week. The lst call was in Iowa, then Missouri, next Kansas, then Oklahoma, then Arkansas, and the last call was in El Paso, Texas. The response was the same each call. The product was superior and the service was excellent. It is possible that not every customer is completely happy with service and product, but I know that Jim has addressed every problem and learned from the feed back. He wants feedback both good and not good so that both the company and customer will have a good business relationship.

Thanks, dad.  I’m looking forward to hearing more from him over the next few months. As always, we love to hear from you. Visit us at www.mcdonaldcontainers.com.

Jim

Let’s make beautiful music!!!!!

My daughter, Michelle, is currently studying abroad for a semester in Scotland (Stirling University). We took a trip in March to go visit her and do some touristy stuff. It was a great time. First of all, great to see her and secondly, good to be able to see Scotland.

One of the days, we were in St. Andrews. No, I’m not really a golfer, but we did stop by the “Old Course”, just to be able to say we had been there. One of the other places that we visited was the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral. Very cool. So why bring this up? On the grounds of St. Andrews Cathedral was a cemetery head stone that I found fascinating. It said “As measured notes of set music we pass in fast or slow marches to the grave.’

I think that it is very interesting to think of our lives as a musical piece being played note by note. Many times this musical piece is played in front of large audience. And who are we playing for or to?

I guess each of us makes a decision about what kind of music we play and what the audience is that it is intended for.  But, alas, I am getting significantly off my intended track.  I really wanted to comment on organizational music.

Think, a minute, about what kind of music your organization is playing. Do your customers enjoy the tune? I think that a simple melody is the best of all.  My wife and myself had symphony tickets this past winter for the first time and we attended a number of performances. We found, however, that we just did not understand the music enough to appreciate or enjoy it. I think that an organization’s customer must be able to understand the melody of the song that we are playing.

That can be a lot easier when an organization is small with only a couple of people playing, but, how about a company of 100 or 100,000. The music gets a lot more complicated with that many people playing and that many parts to the music.  Is complexity good or bad? It certainly makes it a lot more difficult to keep all the musicians together!! However, many people working / playing their parts in harmony with each other can create something of great beauty.   

It’s enlightening to think of an organization as playing music to their customers. I know I’ve had situations where I or on of our associates were a little out of tune. As we grow, I know I need to work hard to make sure that we are all playing the same tune even though the number of different parts being played increases.

Hmm, food for thought. McDonald Containers as a musical piece. Some days it’s rock and roll, a little edgy and maybe rough around that edges, other days it’s hymns, comfortable and familiar.  

I hope that the tune we are playing for you (our customer or potential customer) is one that you enjoy and if we start to get out of tune or someone has lost their place in the score, you will let us know. Drop us a note here, visit us at www.mcdonaldcontainers.com or give us a call at 800-888-0753.

Jim

My daughter played keeper at the World Cup

We are passionate about futbol. We try to follow the US Men’s National Team as much as we can. Fulham is our team in the English Premier League (Go Dempsey! ).  We closed the shop to watch the US games during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Hey, we even watched the US Women’s Team’s heartbreak last summer. Passion is a good thing, right?!

I was thinking about what passion is. I think it is about an emotional involvement in something. I’m not that passionate about Pro Basketball, I just don’t have an emotional involvement. Is passion good or bad? It depends on what that emotion causes you to do.  There certainly are numerous examples of people that have done things under the guise of passion for their team/college/etc. that should not have happen.

So, why write about passion? What does passion have to do about running a business? I have run into numerous examples in the last couple of months of companies that certainly were not passionate enough. Based on their behavior, there was no emotional committment or involvement on the part of the employees. They may have been passionate about getting a paycheck or keeping their job or getting to Friday at 5 o’clock, but they sure were not passionate about me as a customer or potential customer.

I’m here to say that we need more PASSION in the workplace. We need more people that care, that are emotionally committed, that are actually engaged in what they do. As I consider some of the best customer experiences that I have had, I would have to say that a vast majority of them were with companies or employees that were very passionate about what they were doing.

As I consider McDonald Containers, are we passionate? About soccer maybe, but more importantly, are we passionate about serving customers? I think we are. We try to remember that every time the phone rings, it may be someone that is trusting us and giving us a chance to serve their needs when it comes to shipping and cremation trays.

2006 World Cup before the US Ghana match

About my daughter playing keeper, my son also played forward at the World Cup. It did happen to  be just one of the fan pickup games outside the actually World Cup matches, but it was still a great time.

Hey, we are passionate about what we do, let us know what you think! Tell us how we’re doing.

Could we use a little more customer passion? We always value any feedback that we get. Drop us a

note here on the blog or feel free to use the comment page on the website at

www.mcdonaldcontainers.com.

By the way, “OLAY ~ OLAY OLAY OLAY ~ USA USA (repeat until you run pass out) GO USA”.

 Jim

Tell me a story, Aunt Bea!!

Aunt Bea from the Children's Bible Hour

My wife, Dawn, and myself took some time last week and did some customer visiting and spent a night in Helen, GA. Helen is a kind of a German / Europe village transplanted to northern Georgia. Quiet in early December, but I understand it is a madhouse during their celebration of Octoberfest and during the summer when they have a lot of active water activity ( a little river runs through town and there is a number of tubing places). We had a great time and as we were driving we listened to a number of NPR Podcasts that I had downloaded to our MP3 player. One of my favorite podcasts is “Walter Edgar’s Journal” (http://www.scetv.org/index.php/walter_edgars_journal).  Why do I enjoy it so much? It’s the STORIES.

What is it about stories that we all enjoy so much? As a kid, I used to listen to a radio broadcast from the Children’s Bible Hour called “Tell me a story, Aunt Bea”. I can still remember enjoying immensely. You know, that’s even more true today. I still love a story. Things come alive with stories. I have the privilege to teach a sunday school class occasionally and I know that if I start to lose my audience a great story will bring them right back.

Stories connect with people, they create emotion, they engage, they get people involved. If you want people to sit up in their chair, move forward in anticipation or pay attention, tell a good story. I don’t believe there is a much better way of communicating or educating than by using stories in your presentation.

Stories also create culture. Join any group of people and spend some time in a casual setting and almost any group with something in common will start to tell stories. These stories serve to unite the group, to create a certain attitude about the subject matter and educate newcomers to the group.

Stories are a big part of a company culture. Employees and customers are constantly tell stories about your company. These stories create and reinforce an image of what your company is. The key is what are these stories telling about your company. Are they stories of successes, of employees who are heroes, of customers victories, of service beyond belief? Or are they horror stories about mistreatment of employees and customers, of bad attitudes and even worse customer service? What do the stories being told tell your new employees and potential new customers?

I hope that the stories being told about McDonald Containers are stories of employees going the extra mile, of customers expectations being exceeded, of products and service levels that are beyond belief.

We want to hear your stories. Give us a call, tell a friend, send us a comment at www.mcdonaldcontainers.com. Let us know what your story is. We need to learn fr0m your stories and we really do love stories.

Jim