Canada Not "Open" to CCSVI

Wolfgang is a value-based company. That means that our four values – accountability, open, teamwork and win/win – form the basis of everything we do.

When we interview a potential employee we look for alignment on our values.  No alignment, no job. If a job goes sideways we fix it, at the expense of profit, because we are accountable. We have left work on the table because we felt that the customer was not interested in a win/win relationship.

Of our four values, I am most proud of “Open”. It can be a challenging, but we work hard to remain open to new ideas, opportunities and feedback. I believe that our open-minded approach to business is the main reason for our success to date.

Whether in business or personal, I am always frustrated when I witness narrow mindedness in action. Case in point, an MS/CCSVI seminar I attended recently with my mother.

My mother has MS, she is dong well, but her quality of life is compromised.  The CCSVI procedure, which involves the widening of constricted veins, offers hope for MS symptom relief. The Canadian Government, Canadian Neurosurgeons and the Canadian MS Society are lagging far behind the rest of the world when it comes to accepting CCSVI.

While not a cure, data from around the world is mounting that CCSVI offers MS patient’s symptom relief. Recently, I read that seventy five percent of MS patients show vascular constriction on their MRIs. At the time of the seminar, three thousand people worldwide had completed the procedure and two thirds of the patients experienced an improvement in their MS symptoms. Interestingly, two thirds of MS patients using drug therapies report symptom improvement.  The drug therapies have harsh side effects, there are no serious side effects reported with CCSVI.

According to the presenters at the CCSVI seminar some of the drug therapies cost the Canadian health care system as much as $40,000 per patient per year. The CCSVI procedure would cost $3000 per patient.

My mother knows personally at least ten people that have completed the CCSVI surgery. The vast majority experienced symptom relief. My friend, who suffers from MS, had the procedure completed in December. Since the procedure he is feeling better and I can tell you, he looks stronger, less fatigued and more mentally alert.

US, Poland, Mexico, Italy, Israel, Egypt are all offering the procedure yet Canada is holding back.  Canadians with MS are flying around the world to have the procedure completed. Why? The answer is that Canada health care system is waiting for results from their own studies to confirm to that CCSVI is viable.  It seems that Canada is not “open” to accepting data from studies around the world or from the three thousand patients that have had the procedure completed. Stubborn arrogance, very frustrating!

My mother is flying to California at on Feb 6^th, to have the CCSVI procedure completed at a private clinic at significant expense. My sister and I are going with her. CCSVI is not a cure, and my mom is not expecting to walk away from the surgery table symptom free. She is simply hoping to feel better.

My mom should be having this surgery in Vancouver, without hassle, and with her family and friends there for support.

At the CCSVI seminar it was announced that two class action lawsuits are commencing. Maybe the bad press and the fear of multi-million dollar settlements will force the Canadian health care system to become more “open”.

Our Customers Speak and We Listen

In the past, Wolfgang has blanketed Vancouver’s Property Management industry with paper marketing. Flyers, post cards, faxes, direct mail, proposal folders, display ads, invoices, you name it we did it. If we needed leads we dropped a bunch of flyers. If we needed “Brand” awareness we send out postcards. You get the picture. We never felt good about the paper waste but the marketing worked so we did it.

However, as the company grew and gained market share our traditional marketing tactics devolved from effective to unproductive to damaging. Our customers became bored and irritated with our marketing efforts. Eventually, one our customers, emailed, “stop with the paper or we’ll stop buying!” Right, time to change.

Today, we have eliminated paper marketing in favor of social media and PR. And, our paper billing has been converted to a digital format. The change in our billing process was a no brainer but the marketing has been challenging.

PR and social media take lots of legwork and time and the results are difficult to quantify. There tends to be long periods of “unknown” or “is this going to work?” and in business the unknown is scary. But, our customers let us know that a change was needed and we are committed to “greener” not to mention more effective marketing.

Check back in a few weeks to see how our campaigns are rolling out.

Painting the Town "Green"

The paint industry and its negative impact on the environment has been a popular news story lately. Let’s face it; paint is not a green product. The industry is improving though. Recycled paint is more common, proper disposal programs are in place and low or zero VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) paints are becoming the norm.

Now, a major step has been taken to clean up the industry. By the end of 2012 oil paints will be regulated out of production and not allowed for residential or commercial use. Low VOC, water based paints will be become the standard. The phasing out of oil paints as a method of “greening” the industry is a step in the right direction but it is controversial.

Low VOC paints require more energy to produce than oil based paints. Water borne paints under perform oil paints on high traffic areas like doors, frames or handrails. Moreover, when transitioning a surface from oil-based to water-based paint, harsh primers are required. Even with the proper primer, the water-based system breaks down faster and the surface requires more frequent re-paints.

So let’s summarize: more energy, harsh primers, less durable paints, more frequent re-paints.  Doesn’t sound very green? Short term, it is not. However, paint technology is rapidly improving and the manufacturers are developing more durable water borne products all the time.

Despite our concerns, Wolfgang is on board with the new paint regulations. Long term, the changes make sense. For now, our job is to adopt the new regulations and educate our customers along the way. 

Hang onto to your bottom line like your life depends on it, because it does!

I remember leaving my first meeting with the bank, the year that I founded Wolfgang and thinking “OK, he’s not quite as enthusiastic about my business as I am?” The bank was not interested in loaning me money. I was on my own and I needed to be profitable or the business would fail.

During my start-up I had no choice but to compete on price. Margins were tight, they still are. A thousand dollars loosely spent in the second quarter didn’t seem like much, but at the end of year, that thousand hurt. Two, three or four line items over budget, as was my case, and your profit is seriously compromised.

So, I learned to watch my overhead closely. Overhead is fixed. I had direct control over my overhead. If I overspent I had no one to blame but myself. Accountability, I love it!

Next, I learned to budget from the bottom up. In other words, I set profit goals not revenue goals and built my budget around the profit goal. This was a hard concept to grasp because revenue is sexy.  Of course, there is value in a revenue goal, it helps you to think big. But, revenue is useless without profit.

After a rough first year, I realized that I needed to track expenses properly. So, I bought some accounting software and soon after hired a bookkeeper. The particular software was not important, excel could have done the job. The lesson learned was that the budgets needed to be to be tracked weekly.

Once I had a smart profit goal and a proper tracking system, it all came down to discipline.

Ikea’s “as is” section furnished my office. I cold called and networked non-stop to generate leads. I bought used equipment and vehicles. Shopped my uniform, insurance, and marketing suppliers relentlessly. Grind, grind, grind . . . And, I utilized co-op programs (free labor) when I needed administrative help.

I am not saying that I haven’t spent money through the years. I have, you can’t grow without investing in your business. I just learned to spend on the right lines, track properly and to hold on to that bottom line.

Humble Pie

My mentor says, “Meeting with your managers to solve business issues is bull s . . t! If you want to learn about your business, if you want to solve a problem, talk to your customers”.

We survey our customers a lot. Once a year we ask our customers to rank ”what’s important” when it comes to hiring a service company (the survey concept was taken from the Frances Frei EO Event). At the end of each job we send out the classic survey question “On a scale from one to ten how likely would you recommend us to a friend?” Occasionally we ask our customers how they perceive our brand? Specifically we ask them “How would you describe us to a friend? Heck, we even asked our customers, through our facebook page, to vote on a “Wolfgang” Bouncy Castle that we are going to donate to community events (another borrowed idea from an EO colleague).

The feedback we receive from our surveys is invaluable and sometimes painful. The results are invaluable because our customers hold the answers to most of our strategic questions. And, painful, because our customers have a keen sense of where and how Wolfgang needs to improve.  Sometimes, you need to eat a piece of humble pie.

I hold my breath every time the results of a survey come back. The strokes are great, the pokes hurt. I am a passionate guy, I have poured my heart and soul into the business. Any time I hear something negative about Wolfgang I get defensive.  It’s something I ‘m working on and I still got a ways to go. So, reviewing the surveys is not my favorite task.

This year our surveys respondents told us that we are easy to work with, our workmanship is solid and our customer service is great. At the same time, our customers suggested that Wolfgang should work to become more consistent.  Specifically, we need to start and finish projects in a more timely fashion.

One customer stated,  “It doesn’t matter how easy or friendly your staff is to work with, if the you take too long, if they don’t deliver on a deadline, I am not happy with your service.” Ouch! We heard similar feedback from enough customers that we needed to take action. After all, any construction project is a pain in the rear and no one wants it to drag on.

We listened and learned. When we sat down to talk strategy for 2011 we let our customers feed back guide us. In fact, consistency is our organizational theme for 2011. And, we are putting our money where our mouth is.

For 2011 we will be offering a “Start and Finish” guarantee.  In short, we guarantee to start and finish our projects when promised or our customers get five percent back.

We have aligned the staff and built a bonus package for the entire organization based on our “start and finish” guarantee.  This guarantee is risky for us. Commercial Painting is competitive and we don’t want to give away five percent of our hard earned profits. But, improving our service is important and we hope that this guarantee gives our customers another compelling reason to buy from us.

So, Wolfgang is stronger for 2011 because of our customer’s feedback. We will keep on asking them for help in 2011 and I will try not to cringe every time a survey with a “poke” hits my desk.