The Wastebroker Blog

Why I'm Not as Smart as a Fifth Grader

It’s bad enough that I can’t answer all the questions from the TV show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.  Even though I’ve apparently got a lot of company when it comes to my inability (most contestants and a fair majority of the viewers if I had to guess) it still grates at me.  And the fact that Jeff Foxworthy, the man who created the whole “You might be a redneck if.  .  .” movement, is the host with all the answers is, well, like a stick in the eye to boot.

And now this.  As it turns out, last June I foolishly (in retrospect) engaged my just matriculated 10-year old fifth grade daughter, Morgan, in a summer reading contest,  I did this, of course, with the highest of noble intentions wanting to stimulate her desire to read, learn and imagine her way through the summer.  I also made it interesting, offering her a $5 bounty for each book she might read in excess of my total for the summer.  She accepted, and the race was on.

At the outset, I assumed she would win because she enjoys reading and would have more time to read during the summer than I would.  I figured maybe five books more than me would be her total.  But not unlike many government projects, I soon found that my costs would exceed my budget – and, like Uncle Sam, I couldn’t tell by exactly how much.

I knew I was in trouble early when I noticed Morgan reading a book whenever I saw her.  She read in bed, on the couch, in the yard, while she ate, in the car, in a tent in the yard, in the bathroom, on a walk in the park.  You name the place, she had a book.  The books seemed attracted to her, like a magnet to a refrigerator.  Almost every other day, I’d be met with her smiling proclamation, “I finished another book,” then the jab, “How many have you finished?”

On Labor Day, we settled up.  Her total, 26 books all above our 200-page minimum and including Harry Potter at 700 pages plus.  My total: 8.  Difference: 18 books!  Cost:  $90!  She was thrilled and I .  .  . was too, despite my whooping.  We high-fived, and I congratulated her like the winner she was; “I’m not worthy,” and that was so true.

Morgan came to me a short time later with a proposition.  We’d agreed that she would collect her winnings in a Barnes & Noble gift card.  Ninety dollars, she told me, is a lot of money to spend on books at Barnes & Noble; would I consider the following attractive:

Ø      $30 Barnes & Noble gift card;

Ø      $30 cash so that she could buy something for herself and her younger sister, Rachel; and

Ø      $30 for charity.

   

Wow! I was impressed.  I’m still not sure if I’m any smarter than a fifth grader, but I do know that I can learn a lot from a fifth grader.  Congratulations, Morgan!

Buying What You're Selling

One of the most baffling truisms I find in so many businesses is the dichotomy in the message being preached by the sales side of a company with that being preached by the purchasing side of the company.  It often goes something like this:

Sales:   “Our job is to make sure our customers know all the benefits of our product/service
.  .  . we must make them understand our value add.  .  . price is only part of the buying equation.  .  . it’s all right here in our brochure.”

Purchasing:      “I have no use for your brochure.  What’s the price?”

Most companies teach their employees that buying and selling aren’t at all related, and I think that’s silly.  Doesn’t it make much more sense for the company to be speaking the same language out of both sides of its mouth?  After all, you’re expecting your sales people to be able to position your product/service to your customers as a benefit to the success of their business.  Shouldn’t you expect the same benefit focus to guide your purchasing?

Why doesn’t it happen more often?  Two reasons:  Ego and habit.  Ego breeds delusion and sounds something like this – “We have a unique value proposition for our customers.”  We convince ourselves that our value proposition is, like our mom always told us we were, “special.” 

Habit is the curse of repetition, the belief that the lesson we were taught early in our careers by one of our clueless managers – that vendors exist to be brutally beaten into submission – somehow continues to make sense today, even though it is opposed to what our own company preaches and sells, or at least in “those” offices of the company.

The fact is that Selling and Buying are not unrelated.  They are the same.  And the same expectations are necessary in your company to make both successful.  Your customers should know, understand, value and pay accordingly for the benefits that your product/service brings to their business.  On the flip side, your buyers should know, understand, value and pay accordingly for the benefits that your suppliers’ product/service benefits your business.

Let’s face it; there aren’t too many places in this world today where you can sell a penny’s worth of value for a dollar; it just ain’t happening, at least not more than one time.  Customers are too smart for that.  You also aren’t likely to buy a dollar for a penny, no matter how many times you ask, demand or slam your hand on the table.  Your people are too smart to fall for that.  Aren’t they?

Six Walls and a Thousand Angles

I'm trying to learn how to play raquetabll and it's not going so well.  In fact it's going terribly.  The first time I played was on a Friday afternoon and it wasn't enough that I was, well let's just say, humbled by the beating I took.  No, on top of that - and thanks to being improperly shoed, I came away with the skin on the bottom of my foot split like a fissure from which blood and "stuff" leaked out and I couldn't walk for the entire weekend.  I even went to Walgreen's to see about buying some cruthces (they were all too small).  To add to my dilemma and my pain, my wife and kids thought this was all very funny.

I probably should have taken this as a sign that perhaps racquetball and me weren't meant to be, but, I'm a bit harheaded, so I didn't quit.  I got the right shoes, which I was told was the problem, and went back for more pain.  And that's exactly what I've gotten - no wins, but lots of pain.  Not the foot kind though, I've learned that I can go an hour and survive with my foot in tack, the pain I now have is mostly in my brain with a dash in my ego for flavor. 

And here's why.  By all rights, I should be beating the guy I'm playing against.  Sure he's got lots of experience, but I'm younger, faster and stronger (no offense Jim).  In most sports those are advantages.  But the thing that's killing me is not the speed, it's those friggin' angles.  I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see what appears to be the same shot coming toward me and find myself frozen and confused suffering from the failure of my brain to tell my body what to do.  Most times I look like a squirrel trying to cross the road, all kinds of movement but no sense to any it.  And Jim, God please him, somehow manages to hold back laughing at me, at least on the court.  I imagine he gets a good chuckle on his way home. 

I've discovered that the things I lack in racquetball career are anticipation, visualization and patience, or, in other words the skills that are necessary to be good.  And I also suck, for now at least.  But, on a positive note, I get a good workout and I suspect that all of that flailing about I do is at least "heart healthy". 

But I'm not discouraged, in fact I'm just the opposite, I'm optimistic.  Not that I will become the club champion, but that I will train my brain and my body to understand the angles and that I will, one day, threaten Jim with defeat at the hands of my mad skills.  And if that never happens, at least I can take comfort, literally, in knowing that I have the right shoes.