The Soft Pitch

It’s the last day of our fiscal year, and I know all our teams are working hard to make it happen for their customers, suppliers and our shareholders.  The energy is high and quite frankly I’ve spent the last two weeks just trying to stay out of their way. So I haven’t asked for details on any new programs, gone looking for pictures of a community service project by one of our branches or even dug for a news scoop to share via this blog or Twitter. What am I doing?  Listening.

Listening to the rumblings across a global organization that shares a common goal – serve the customer the best we can.  Here’s what I’m hearing: there’s a new team in Thailand affectionately nick-named “The Magnificent Seven.”  It’s a small team focused on IT solutions – they made a sale the first day they opened their doors. Sounds like we’re ready to meet an unmet demand in that market.  There’s an effort in Europe to streamline how we go to market to make it easier for customers to buy. In Mexico, they’re getting ready to announce a new relationship (I can’t tell you who, because then I’d break the cardinal rule of letting them announce their own news).  But I can tell you they’re bringing on a new partner that will help them provide high availability and disaster recovery solutions to resellers. How do we make a decision to open a new office, sign a new supplier or change-up how we go to market? We listen to our customers – and not just once a year in a survey (even though we do that too), but all the time.

So while I’m listening to employees across Avnet, they are listening to their customers and their markets to make decisions on how to serve them better. One of the best pieces of parenting advice for those with teens I ever read basically said, if your teen wants to talk, no matter what you’re doing, stop and listen. It doesn’t matter if you’re too busy or are right in the middle of something. Stop and listen. Fifteen minutes later is too late, the moment will have passed and your teenager will be on to something else. I do it, it works with my teenage daughter. Sometimes I forget, but I always try.  Just the fact that I try on a consistent basis sends a huge message that I care. It’s the same with our customers. We listen when they’re ready, when they have something to say. There’s nothing more important because we certainly don’t have all the answers, so listening helps us make decisions.

We’re not perfect, but our research tells us that all other things being equal, more customers prefer to do business with Avnet.  I think it’s because we listen better.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS