Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Standard of Excellence: Partnerships Made Us Stronger

It's 2022, a brand-new year, things are going to be different, and we are going to change it up. We have now settled into the COVID life. Every time we think it's going away, it comes back. We have spent over 22 months with this evil monster, and it looks like there is more to come.

But the good news is that we are getting used to this. We have learned how to do things effectively during these especially challenging times. Some of us have increased our marketing, others have found different ways to communicate with our customers, and many of us, much to our surprise have found that our top numbers have been increasing in the past two years.

Many I talk to have had better 2021 performances than they predicted. This is amazing when you think of all the challenges we have faced last year. From COVID-related shutdowns and labor shortages to material shortages, we somehow managed to grow. Surprisingly enough, our business got better.

The legendary international strategist Clotaire Rapaille talks about American ingenuity and tenacity in his book, The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do. He says that American are filled with the assurance, confidence, and bravado that we can always find a way to make things happen.

He says that Europeans have a hard time understanding that about Americans. The Europeans, who like to carefully plan things, build straw models, and see how things will turn out, are amazed at how the Americans somehow always find a way to do things. They look at us as a country of MacGyvers in a way. I certainly believe that is true.

We have certainly seen evidence of this in the past year more than at any other time in our lives. I know that in my own business we have had to come up with solutions to challenges that we had never faced before. And we're not alone, of course.

There were not only the challenges of manufacturing and delivering our products on time. There were new challenges, such as shipping. Once you got your product onto the delivery truck, you weren't sure it would get there on time. There were no guarantees. Another challenge was when equipment broke down, we had to wait weeks for the right equipment people to come to our company, and when they finally came they had to guarantee for two weeks on each end of the trip. Often, we had to figure out how to do things for ourselves or they would not get done.

Then there were all the personnel issues, including keeping people safe, masking requirements, constantly sanitizing our entire building, and social distancing issues. Many of our people had to work remotely. Our customers were working remotely so we could not visit them, not only sell to them but to help them solve their own problems.

But we have made it through. Actually, we have more than made it through, as difficult as it was, many of the companies I know have not only survived but thrived.

And now, as the experts say, that this torturous chapter of our history might be waning, we will be coming out of the other side of this stronger, smarter, and better prepared than ever.

One of the most important factors in our success through the challenges of this pandemic has been our loyalty to one another-those strong partnerships that we have all worked hard to build during the past few years.

Because of these partnerships with our customers, our vendors, and even with our competitors, we will all come out of these hard times better than ever.

Remember the beginning of that pandemic, when we kept hearing this phrase so much we actually got tired of it: "We are all in this together." But as trite as it felt, it was true. In the end, the spirit of partnership saved us. We all wanted to help one another any way we could. That is what helped us to make it through these difficult times.

For me, because of the partnerships my company had develop prior to the pandemic we were able to do much better than we would have without them.

Our vendor/partners were there for us, which allowed us to be there for our customers as well. There were several times when we were privileged to help a competitor out and there were other times when they did the same for us.

Those who regularly read this column every month know that I am passionate about the power of good, strong partnerships. Without a doubt it was those partnerships that made it easier for my company and our partners to make it through these hard times.

Now, no matter what happens in the future, let's all remember that working together helped us survive these difficult times, and that by going through these ordeals together, we have forged even stronger partnerships that will serve us well in the future.

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