Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/177159
The President's Message Accountability and Respect— You Can't Have One Without the Other have two young children and accountability is a concept that completely escapes them. It's easy for them to point their fingers at each other and say,"I didn't do it, they did" or "It's not my fault." The idea that something they said or did may have caused the problem is completely foreign to them and at their ages I understand that. However, that doesn't mean that I excuse their actions, as it is my job to teach them about accepting accountability. So why is it easier to hold our children accountable than it is to hold our customers, vendors, or ourselves? It's a problem every one of us has in our companies in some shape or form. I know we have issues in our company and we want to get better. I know we have customers that have forced us to pay for their mistake. I know we have vendors that have violated our contracts with them, be it confidentiality concerns or negotiating our rebates away without talking to us first. I also know that we've had our own issues with accountability and have asked others to "help us out." Can you say you are holding those responsible accountable? If one of your vendors goes to an end user and negotiates the price that will now be nonrebateable, what do you do? Do you even have a conversation? If it happens again, do you stop buying from the vendor and move product to another vendor? How many returns have you taken without a restocking fee? Have you replaced an item without charge when you know you ordered exactly the item the customer wanted but they still insist it is wrong? Have you replaced an item that you know was on a job site, and in perfectly new condition, but you got a call insisting that it was missing or I Brad Wasserstrom, President The Wasserstrom Co. BradW@wasserstrom.com 4 FEDA News & Views damaged? Has your company ever made a mistake in quoting a job and ended up winning the job—only to discover the error. That's when you come to the painful realization that there's no way to make money on that job. I'm guessing you have and one of the ways you tried to work it out was by calling the vendors you were supplying on the project and asking for price concessions. In the big picture, holding each other and ourselves accountable is one way you get respect. Respect is what there is not enough of between the various segments of our industry. We don't always respect the role of the vendor, particularly when they bypass the dealer by selling direct. Conversely, the manufacturer shows its lack of respect for the dealer's role in the chain whenever those direct-pricing discussions occur. At some point,the cycle needs to be broken. If we all start by holding ourselves accountable, followed by those that we work with, we will all earn a great deal more respect from each other. If we truly want to work on the issues that affect all parties within the channel— consultants,manufacturers,reps,dealers and end users—it all starts with mutual respect for all of our places in the chain. Accountability and mutual respect are small parts of what is needed to get us all working together in mutually beneficial ways. Both are necessary to make this industry as healthy as it can be. K