Stuck

Musings from Dennis #76: I was stuck. We struck a promotional deal with this renowned electronic payment mode company (you probably have them in your wallet or purse) so that for a minimal spend, shoppers who use them to pay could redeem a Mickey Mouse premium at any one of ten selected malls in Singapore during the Great Singapore Sale. The client agreed on a face towel premium and all was fine until the supplier called me to say that cotton prices have gone up and she can no longer agree to the price she quoted, despite we already having signed her quote, and my client signing ours! She refused to budge despite knowing we can take her to court. But right now I needed to resolve the matter quickly as time was running out. Calling another vendor to come over we instead created a new premium idea of a notepad with an accompanying ballpoint pen. With a really cool packaging design, it looks really attractive. Pricing was also within our budgets but how was I to convince my client to accept this new idea? So I sent the premium mockup sample and called her to say ‘hey yes we agreed on the towel but we found something that could be of interest to you instead. Maybe you want to consider this as a replacement?’ A few days went and she called back to say “our team loves this new idea! Can we have it instead and hope it is not too late to cancel the towel order”. No problem at all, no problem at all, I gladly replied.

Think BIG.

Musings from Dennis #75: At age 35 I wasn’t that positive person some people see me now as. In fact I used to helm myself down with tunnel vision and used to say “let’s see how much we have in our marketing spend first before we come up with the idea that fits that budget”. Instead my superior sat me down “Dennis, try to look at things from a macro viewpoint. Don’t plan your campaigns limited by the budgets that you have. Instead just plan big, and then once when we have the big idea, we can always scale it down to fit the budgets we need” Wise advise like this cannot be discarded and so glad it had affected me well over the years and transformed my thinking and attitude since to now always think BIG. Thanks Anita.

What A Morning

Musings from Dennis #74: It was a morning like this. I sat there, upright in my bed one Saturday morning in the December of 2000 totally despondent. What was I to do. The day before, our Disney mall event retail operator, a renowned department store called me to say they felt cheated by their landlord the mall owner. Apparently between them there was a misunderstanding on securing a credit card company as a sponsor for the event. And they both got one each. But the mall’s sponsor gave way more money so they nullified the store’s regular partner, much to the store’s chagrin. In those days if you don’t have a merchandise area (and this was a 100-feet long stretch across the entire mall’s ground floor spine) you don’t have an event. And they wanted to now pull out, never mind the event was 7 days away and they made all the arrangements with our licensees already. So after breakfast, again I sat in the living room for an hour and suddenly an idea came to me. I called my boss (sorry it’s a Saturday I know), got his okay and then I called the retailer. I made them “an offer they could not refuse” (thanks to The Godfather for this quote) and the event went on. Essentially and a very unusual move that I have never repeated since: I proposed that we the licensor become the retail operator but we hired this store to do the work for us. No business risk or loss, just share a small percentage of sales. We took care of all operating costs and they could still use their store carrier bags and have their signage onsite, so it appears that they are the ones who are running the show. It worked and the show went on. One of the several heart-stopping situations I had to go through in my career life!

Ability or availability?

Musings from Dennis #73: In my early days of hiring, I began by earnestly looking for the person with the best qualifications for the job. But over the years I realized that unless they possessed the needed soft skills, not much can be accomplished in meeting our KPIs. So I switched gear and started looking into the candidates’ extra-curricular activities besides their professional expertise. I asked them what they did in their free time and how involved they were in their college or uni life, like participating in social activities and even organising barbeques! One person I met told me she preferred to sit at home on weekends and read. Nothing wrong with that but she did not like going out to shop, despite the fact that this position required someone to spot trends and shopper habits ‘out there’, besides also being a team player. I also found out that when someone is very qualified (able) she or he may not be that teachable to learn the nuances and intricacies unique to our company and trade. As such, from my point of view, having someone who is available (teachable, able to flex, open to trying new things etc) instead can do wonders for us both and for the team at large.

Retailers Who Care

Musings from Dennis #72: It is so gratifying to work with retailers who don’t see themselves as ‘king’ but treat their wholesale suppliers (our licensees) as equal partners who together with them can bring product to shelf in the most mutually beneficial way for the best retail sales outcome. They understand the concept of ‘free to buy and free to sell’, on both sides of the table and do all the initiations. I recall a Singapore retailer who dropped their asking margin for the short promotional window for ‘special buy’ products so that it attracted a great volume of product participation thus getting everyone the desired outcomes of stupendous sales - and the sales volume of these merchandise outdid any normal margin they could enjoy if the margins were not dropped. How about that Indonesian department store who organizes annual lunch treats for their suppliers as a way to thank them (in the words of their senior buyers). Then there is the Filipino retailer who organizes annual Chinese New Year dinners and play fun table-based ‘Bo Bing’ 跋狀元餅 dice games for a great way to interact with their suppliers (I attended once and it was such a great evening). Most memorable for me was this Malaysian department store who invited me into their staff breakfast meeting and there I got to enjoy a fabulous meal of ‘Nasi Lemak’ (fragrant rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaves) just before our meeting. How’s that for hospitality and partnership!

Egg-citing Story

Musings from Dennis #71: Sometimes overpreparing for an event does not work out. It was the Easter weekend at Sentosa Singapore and we were tasked to promote the new Flower Terrace attraction, a series of landscaped gardens planted on terraces along a hillock near the ferry terminal. So my colleague and I decided to organize the traditional Easter Egg hunt for members of the public but replacing the eggs with ping pong balls. Thinking it would be better to prepare early we hid hundreds of balls along and among the foliage along the terrace the Saturday evening before the hunt. The very next morning, Easter Sunday we came all hyped up and ready to go but got the shock of our lives – the enthusiastic and diligent cleaners removed most of the balls! Thankfully we still had an hour to go and managed to hide a few more balls but never to the level of impact we wanted… oh the perils of event management!

Pulled out!

Musings from Dennis #70: I never feel comfortable when things seem to go well whenever we do projects especially on-the-ground ones. 1999 and it was our first Mickey and friends event at the mall below the world’s tallest towers (at that time), Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur (KL) Malaysia. We were so excited until just two weeks before the event start date. The call came on a Friday afternoon from the mall’s marketing department and I was told that the main credit card sponsor pulled out of a six-digit cash sponsorship despite having signed a contract with the mall (this was a global brand nonetheless!). There was no turning back, press releases were out, vendor contracts signed, set production in progress and the talents booked to arrive – so we could not cancel. After a quick chat with my boss to figure out how best to solve the problem, I flew out on the first flight to KL from Singapore the very next day for a day trip, skipped breakfast and met the organisers and hammered away possible solutions the entire late morning and afternoon, skipping lunch. That Saturday I remembered having my first meal of the day at the airport at 6pm before I flew back. But we solved the issue and I was back a fortnight later for the launch - Phew!

Don’t Pass Me The Monkey!

Musings from Dennis #69: Ever since that ominous week 35 years ago (#67), I became accustomed to expect and anticipate issues and problems to be part of any project over the years – and to actively and consciously source for solutions instead of passing it on – something I have learned to cultivate and improve on over the years. I recall visiting a Disney CP office in another market and seeing a document left at the MD’s table by his Marketing Manager with her handwriting at the top: “Boss, so we have a problem. What do YOU want to do about it?”. My own boss had been reminding me throughout the decade plus I was reporting to him “Dennis don’t pass me the monkey on your back, ok?” Problem solving needs to be a core attribute and skill set of any senior management person. Things will not always go our way and when that happens, are you going to be handling that monkey or pass it along? Isn’t this a hallmark of leadership in all of us who aspire to be one? I had a marketing executive direct report who sincerely wanted to climb up the corporate ladder and he made it known to all but when it came to solving a work issue, he was stuck. And always so but yet not trying to think of solutions. This does not have to be the case when one puts on a mindset change of a strong sense of ownership. Now, when my team and I face challenges, the immediate action plan would be to think of some solution options no matter how workable or not, and then bring into a team discussion on how best to solve it. I will begin to share stories of project problems over the next musings I faced over the years and how these were overcome. Many extremely unpleasant!