Books Shipped

I shipped out another 5 books to Amazon today. That's up from the 2 on their first order. I saw that the two I had sent them were sold and my page says Temporarily Out of Stock. Not good. People won't buy if it's out of stock. I thought Amazon had a super-duper inventory tracking and ordering system, but it is not as robust as I expected. Millions of items to keep track of, sure, but if you're going to be that big you've got to have the systems to back it up. They're good, but they need some work.

So after a couple of days of waiting for an order from them I contacted them. I am impressed at how quickly they do respond when I send them a message, and they answer the question too. Not bad. They told me I can monitor the inventory and send them an order request when their inventory is low. Not the best solution from my point of view, but I will do that since I want to sell the books. As soon as they answered my question they also placed the order, which I promptly sent them today.

I also found out about Amazon U.K. It is a totally separate entity (operated separately). I can register with them and do the same thing I'm doing with Amazon U.S. - Except - I have to have a U.K. bank account to do that.

O.K., I thought. Can I do that and is it worth it? Being an American English book, how well will it sell in the U.K.? But I thought with all the internet banks out there now setting up a U.K. bank account shouldn't be too difficult. Oh, how naive I am. No Can Do. Apparently, without being physically present in the U.K. and having a U.K. address it is impossible to open a bank account. And it sounds like even if you have those it's not always that easy to open an account if you're not a citizen. Being a business, I'd have to set up and register my business in the U.K. before I could open a bank account there.

Probably not feasible at this point, nor even necessary. This is when I start to re-think signing up with a distributor, one who has overseas offices. Or this could be a wonderful excuse to go back to Scotland!





Golden Ox Publishing

Temporarily Out of Stock

Amazon received my books two days ago, but they're not In Stock yet. Their system seems to know what's going on, up to a point, but it looks like a few tweaks are in order. I sent them an Advanced Shipping Notice, so they knew they were coming - but that wasn't reflected on my page. Could have said More on the Way or something. Now I know they've received them because I tracked the shipment. My page has been updated to Temporarily Out of Stock, but the books they've received are not In Stock yet.

I'm still looking into advertising. I'm creating a list of the larger APICS chapters around the U.S. and Canada and the price of ads in their newsletters, if they have one. Most are pretty reasonable, so I'll give them a try. Reasonable, that is, if it results in sales.

I've rearranged the boxes in my apartment so you hardly even know they're there. Hardly. Well, they're mostly out of the way, sort of.

Winding Down, stage 1

Finished stage 1 of this tour. I gave a presentation to the Mission Peak Chapter of APICS (that's in Silicon Valley) tonight, titled Lean & Six Sigma: Working Together. They had a good turnout, and I got to meet a few new people. If anyone has a work history of process improvement and Lean and Six Sigma, I met someone who's looking for a Continuous Process Improvement Manager, so let me know I and I can send you the contact info.

I broke one of my cardinal rules. I had a wonderful conversation with a young woman (I can say "young woman" 'cause I'm old), but I didn't get her card. She's looking for work in the Operations or Supply Chain field, in Silicon Valley, so if anybody is looking for an entry level person, she is someone you should seriously consider. Hank thinks highly of her, and if Hank recommends her, that's all I need. Again, if you need an entry level Operations/Supply Chain person in Silicon Valley, let me know and I'll send you the contact info.

If I haven't said this before; professional organizations = learning + networking = career success. Get involved!

Last night I gave a presentation to the Sacramento Chapter of APICS. I did my Effective Strategic Planning presentation. It's always interesting, because the topic really involves the top level management of an organization, but the people who attend the presentations represent all levels of management. It's important for everyone to understand Strategic Planning, even if they're not involved in developing it. For one, some people will rise to the top, and they need to understand Strategic Planning. For many people, they won't be directly involved with much of the planning, but they are an important part of the Strategic Planning process. Because it is a process. It's not something you "do" once a year then pull out the next year and review. But I digress. What I was going to say was that I met one gentleman who works as an inventory manager and has been having some ongoing frustrations. This talk has nothing to do with inventory management, and is at a much higher level than some ongoing inventory issues. But he got a lot out of the talk and said I gave him some things to think about. Hopefully this will help him down a path that will get rid of some of those frustrations. It just goes to show you that sometimes, instead just trying to fix a problem that has been going on and on, you should step back and look at the big picture. It just might give you a different path to explore.

So tomorrow I'm back to Hawaii, for about a week, then I'm off to Tucson. I've still got some work to do for that trip, so I'll be busy.

I didn't make any tour t-shirts for this tour. Last time a did a tour like this I made up some t-shirts. I figured if the Rolling Stones can have tour t-shirts, so can I. I made a few up myself and gave them out as "gifts". I'm sure most of them are cleaning up oil stains, but I thought it was fun. This was going to be my "Joey Bag of Doughnuts Tour". I guess I can still print up some shirts.

Well, it's way past my bedtime, and I've got to get up and catch a plane in the morning....

Why should customers be happy?

Back to Safeway this morning… Rule #1: Never go to Safeway if you’re in a hurry. Especially in the morning. They’ve got this one person working at the checkout in the morning. He’s usually the only checker. They operate under the if-a-line-forms-call-for-help method, which occasionally works if the checkers calls for help at the first sign of a long line. They’re not the only ones who do this, but it rarely works as the checker never calls until the line is 20 people long and everyone is getting all huffy. And don’t even talk about banks; they won’t add a teller no matter how many people are in line, out the door, standing in the rain. So this particular checker is close to the worst checker ever. Slow, nervous, never calls for help until it’s way too late or until another worker discovers a line and tells them to call (usually with an added lecture about calling for help when the line backs up). I guess once you get a job as a checker at Safeway you’re in for life, no matter how bad you might be. Unhappy customers? Who cares about the customers?

Rule #2: Don’t expect to get the coffee you want. They have a little self-serve coffee bar. The menu shows about six different varieties of coffee. You usually have one choice, maybe two. It’s never the choice you want.

Customer service, inventory management, they’re part of Operations. Training employees on proper procedures, and making sure that the process and procedures work to achieve organizational goals, are a big part of Operations. Managing inventory and providing excellent service are part of Operations. But who’s actually in charge of ensuring your operations are effective? Somebody has to take ownership. Somebody has to take responsibility. If you know a procedure is broken, fix it or make sure it gets fixed. If you know someone isn’t fulfilling their job responsibilities, help them improve or make sure someone with responsibility and authority helps them. If you don’t have the inventory to satisfy your customers, improve the inventory system.

Why should customers be happy? Because without happy customers you won’t have a successful business.