Change My Boss

Musings from Dennis #52: In my mid 40’s I decided to go for a 3-day counselling course to up my soft skill sets on managing people; anyone, not just for those who seek counselling. On the first day and right at the start, the lecturer asked us all to write down on a piece of paper what each of us would have as a desired outcome from the course, fold the paper, write our name on the outside and then surrender for review at the end of the third day. The sessions were indeed eye opening and very engaging, and right at the end we were given back our slips. When asked if anyone wanted to share, a hand went up. She was secretary to a difficult boss as she shared that she had written down “I want to come here to learn how to change my boss”. The facilitator then asked what happened. She said “well over the last 3 days I actually learnt now to change myself!”. How insightful! Many a times when we want to “heal the world, make it a better place” we need to understand that “If you wanna make the world (or your boss!) a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change” (Gosh MJ I am indeed missing you, thanks for this epiphany!)

Late?!

Musings from Dennis #51: Oh no am I late? Sometimes travelling between markets with slightly different timezones can really throw you off. I once flew in from Jakarta Indonesia into Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and forgot to set my personal alarm clock forward by an hour (yes mobile devices not so dependable then). I remember waking up thinking all good, then realized to my horror I was an hour late and going to miss my meeting with my licensee! There goes breakfast and a whole lot of make up! But I made it, phew…

SKU

Musings from Dennis #50: SKU? If you are involved in retail, retail marketing, consumer products licensing and all connected professions with retail and you don’t know what the acronym SKU stands for then well, er… not sure what to say! Learnt this right and early in my retailer days – a way to identify items in an inventory management system via coded numbers. SKU or Stock Keeping Unit (or we simply say skew like screw…) is dependent on the retailer’s preferred system of accounting. You could have 3 SKUs comprising 3 t-shirts which are of 3 different designs no matter the sizes nor colour ways (the t-shirt base colour) or you could have 36 SKUs comprising 3 designs with 4 colour ways and 3 different sizes each.. for toys, hard goods and FMCG (or CPG) it is much easier as you can simply count each design or flavour as one SKU (again depending). Of course, everyone knows what FMCG stands for right? Er...

Three Things Each Day

Musings from Dennis #49: Just three. One of the best advices I received at work was from my immediate boss while at Disney. You see my daily to-do list was long (aren’t we all the same?) and I try to accomplish as much as I can each day, many times leading to frustrations because inadvertedly something new will pop up and demand my immediate attention even if it was not on that list in the first place. “Dennis if you can complete just three tasks each day and allow yourself room like 40% of your day for new unplanned projects, it would have been a very good day already” You need not stress yourself unnecessarily because the work will always be there. How right she was as I began to incorporate this thinking and practice into my daily chores, then and now. Not always successful but still trying nonetheless!

Don't Close That Cashier Counter Too Soon!

Musings from Dennis #48: Hey cashier! It was 30 minutes to store closing and I wandered in to this GMS store to see if I could do any last-minute shopping after a long day of meetings. Lo and behold only one cashier point was open on that floor with the others all closed! A long and slow queue had formed with shoppers up to 30 people deep patiently waiting to pay but you can also see a line of abandoned merchandise left behind by those who simply could not wait. When I had a chance to chat with the buyers later, I asked why the case. I mean they lost sales opportunities and also disgruntled customers. Sigh, it was a company decision for the cashiers to be under Operations they informed. Clearly these guys at Operations just want to pack up as soon as they can and go home without a care for the store's bottomline but don’t they know that most store purchasing decisions are made at the cashier points – and much sales are also lost from those who could not wait at the queue? My retail experience made sure that no queue was more than 5 customers or so deep wherever possible. When I was duty manager, we would direct customers to less busy cashier points whenever we spot long queues. If cashiers are not opened we had to address that. If we could add more cashiers to that single point we would and sometimes we ourselves will get in to help do the packing. Never lose a sale we say! The death note to any retailer is this customer line “Oh I will come back and buy another day” because they never will. If retailers take pains to observe their customer traffic near closing time, and address this misstep, I am sure their annual sales revenue would deliver an upside. And that cashier may get an extra bonus even!

Baby Baby

Musings from Dennis #47: Among the fun Sentosa events I had the pleasure of leading in the organization of or supporting my team mates in the late 80’s/early 90’s were the relentless series of pageants and contests on the island. We had the usual beauty pageants and bodybuilding championships at the beach but also ventured into more interesting twists like the Sentosa Mother of the Year pageant to commemorate Mother’s Day. The most memorable one to me was the Baby Show. These were very popular in those days. We partnered a US-based personal care baby brand for their sponsorship and we had competitive categories from infants 3 months+ until 24 months (toddlers actually). The contests involved parents (sometimes they bring along the grandparents, aunts and uncles etc for support) bringing in their child for review by a medical doctor to judge with a set of parameters and then at the end of the day, winners were declared. At times to the dismay of the parents their baby had a bad day and that was the end of it. I had the chance once to enter a judging room where a doctor was meeting up with one of the contestants and the parents. “Oh doctor my baby can say big words like… oh he can walk very well.. oh he can smile and laugh when directed…come on boy, say this to the doctor come on girl…” wow was this a baby show or a pet show I remembered asking myself! I am glad this type of contest is now a relic of the past as all babies are winners in their own right, aren’t they? And having my own twin babies 7 years later proved me right as well.

Designing your Resume

Musings from Dennis #46: Resume Design. We sat down after lunch for a quick catchup, my Takashimaya Singapore Department Manager colleague (shout out to Joyce Lim!) and I. “Hey Dennis”, she said, “Have you thought of where and what would be your next career move if you were to ever leave this place?”. It can’t possibly be for another retailer unless it was a move up in position she advised, or have in mind an employer that would be one-up in brand prestige at least and let it keep going up… I never thought of it that way and found it to make sense and I took it to heart. Glad that when I go back and look at my own resume now, it looks good from that time to now. So over the years I have used this resume planning reframing strategy to share with my mentees: Try to design your life long resume with the companies you plan to work at and with. Don’t be attracted by that mere extra $100 or $200 but rather look at the spectrum of where you plan to take your career growth to and then see yourself beyond the years progressing. It must get brighter and brighter as you go along – not up, down or yo-yo. Would-be employers always want to see that progression as it will paint a very positive picture of who you are and how you can likewise add value to their purposes and then earnestly seek to get you (on your terms) to join them.

That billboard!

Musings from Dennis #45: Licensing sales people are always looking for new leads for new businesses. Such was the case when I was looking for a footwear licensee for some of our newer Disney properties when the cab I was in passed by a huge billboard at the side of a huge KL mall. It seemed to be a reputable footwear company and so I took down the telephone number. The following week back in Singapore I made a cold call and the person in charge was extremely polite to meet me but I had to fly up north to meet him and his team. We agreed to have dinner together whatever the outcome so I was all pumped up. We met for the first time and the intros began. But sadly my pitch went downhill 5 minutes into the meeting and it was apparent that no one was interested. It was already the end of the day too so everyone started to pack up and leave the meeting room, and so I started shutting down my laptop as well with my host politely waiting for me. As I reached into my laptop bag I found an A4 printed colour photo of our office showroom and showed it to him, inviting him to come over and visit us when he could. He glared at it and said “you license pirates?” I looked back at the picture and now noticed some t-shirts on display with the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie visuals on them. Yes I said and a part 2 movie is coming… what happened next completely surprised me. He called everyone back to the room and said “we found our Pirates IP”! One thing led to another and they signed this IP with me instead of my originally offered ones! The rest is history and we have been friends to this day. Isn’t it amazing when you work towards something and with a plan in mind, yet find yourself changing course completely midstream, and with amazing results? Also never diss that humble signboard as that could be the means to your next deal! And oh did I mention that the dinner was especially nice and delish?