Red Wing Software - Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

I recently returned from a conference in St. Louis attended by about 40 consultants and business owners from around the United States. There were several interesting topics on big data, business planning, replicating yourself, and how to move your business to the next generation or management team when you are ready to move to a different life adventure. (I don’t plan to move on any time soon, but the topic was interesting.)

I have been attending the conference and annual meeting of this national, 50-year-old, group for close to 30 years. I have served on several committees and on its board of directors in many positions, including its president. I go to these meetings primarily for three reasons: 1) the networking opportunities it provides, 2) the continuing education I receive, and 3) attending a certain number of meetings is a requirement of maintaining the certification I earned from the group.

The reason I bring this up is to remind everyone about the importance continuing education has on staying on top of your business or career. Many people attend classroom training provided by Red Wing Software to attain some of the knowledge they need to get a better handle on the finances of their operation.

In an effort to provide even more value to attending Red Wing Software educational training sessions, we received certification from NASBA (National Association of State Boards of Accountancy) that allows us to issues CPE (Continuing Professional Education) credit for attending our software training classes.

What this means for our customers is that they can now not only get valuable information from attending our seminars, but can also get credit toward professional continuing education to satisfy educational requirements of several organizations like the CPA designation. You can find a list of the classroom training sessions schedule for 2015 by going to our web site at this link: Red Wing Software Classroom Training

We feel this is one more item in a long list of important benefits we can offer to our customers.

- Ken Hilton, President


Red Wing Software - Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

If you’ve read this column for any length of time, you know I like to share experiences I’ve had in customer service. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. And, if you read the column two months ago about word-of-mouth marketing and how I virtually promoted someone’s product, and then read this one, you’ll think I’m being paid to promote other companies. But, I have to, again, share an experience I had recently.

I was in Wichita, KS, last week and my brother took me to a restaurant called the Redrock Canyon Grill. It must be a small chain, as I learned there is one in Oklahoma City and one in Tulsa, as well. The building looked like many average priced restaurants, and the menu prices were average, too. But, that’s where average stopped.

The food was excellent, and even if the food had been mediocre, I would go back just for the service. Of course, we had our regular waitress that was assigned to our table when we arrived, but everyone else that worked there seemed to know exactly what was going on at our table. When our food arrived, delivered by someone that we hadn’t seen before, she knew who ordered what and where to set each plate. Another person noticed an empty beverage glass and offered to bring another, then when our regular server passed by a few seconds later, she said “that beverage will be out right away”.

When we started a conversation with the person clearing the plates when we were finished, another person noticed the conversation, took the plates, and finished clearing the table so the first person could continue talking to us. They understood that talking to their clients and making them feel like guests was important to securing repeat business.

I was so impressed with the efficiency in this place I wanted to go back the next night just to see if I could figure out how they do it. Wouldn’t it be nice if the service in every one of our companies was so good that, even if our product was average, people wanted to continue to do business with us just to get great service? Now, put a quality product with that service and you will have people telling all their friends about your business.

- Ken Hilton, President


Red Wing Software - Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth communications when it comes to promoting a product or service. I recently witnessed an example of how quickly a good (or bad) word can spread about a product that I’d like to share.

This spring and summer, the gnats in our area have been vicious. They swarm, they bite, and they basically drive you crazy. On Independence Day, we were sitting on our patio with some lifelong friends, and the gnats began to attack. My friend ran to his vehicle and returned with some amazing, natural, gnat repellent that he said you can only get at two certain retail chains.

At my next opportunity, I visited our local Red Wing Ace Hardware store (one of my favorite places to shop) and asked about this product, Bug Soother. They had never heard of it, but looked it up in their computer system and ordered a 12 bottle case. I stopped two days later and bought 4 bottles because I didn’t want them to get stuck with 11 bottles of something they might not sell just because I asked them to order it.

This stuff worked so well and smells so good that I couldn’t help but tell people about it, and I let several people try it when we were getting “bugged” by these gnats. I didn’t actually witness this, but I heard within a few days people were lined up outside the store one morning waiting for them to open so they could get their own bottle. The store has apparently sold hundreds of bottles to date and can’t keep it on the shelf.

No one has ever told me they saw it on TV, on the internet, or any other kind of media, but word has spread around the area by word-of-mouth. We should all strive to have our customers so excited about our products and services that they spread the word about us like I just did for this product and store.

- Ken Hilton, President


Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

How do you know if you’re doing something the best way if you only know one way to do it? Take a look at any important process in your organization and think about a way to change it. You might be surprised to find out the way you’ve been doing that process isn’t the best way. Try taking a different street to work. Maybe the distance is not as short, but might be faster. At least you’ll see different scenery.

You may ask someone (or yourself) to do something faster, more efficiently, at a lower cost, or with fewer errors, but is the system they are working in allowing them to accomplish any of these results? Trying one or more alternatives to a given process might produce the results you’re looking for.

At Red Wing Software, we never assume that there is only one way to accomplish a task. We constantly challenge our staff to find ways to improve what we do; make our software faster, easier to use, have fewer errors, etc. Sometimes we need to think outside the box and try some ideas that seem a little obscure. Quite often this exercise yields a result that no-one would have thought of without a group of us throwing out ideas and hammering through to a conclusion.

Try it. You might be surprised. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but a wise customer told me once, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you already are.”

- Ken Hilton, President

Notes from the President

Ken Hilton - President Red Wing Software

“Creating the Best Management Software Experience” is our vision at Red Wing Software. Now, we don’t pretend that we are perfect in every way, but we do try hard to reach this vision every day. Even if our software was completely error free, there is much more in creating the best “experience.”

The experience that our (and your) customers get when they deal with us (you) involves the entire organization. When you think about every contact point a customer has with any company, you start to see the importance of the experience. For example, at Red Wing Software, these contact points include; printed sales and marketing materials, salesperson conversations, Web site, front desk personnel, support people, the invoice the customer receives, the packaging of the product, and all of these experiences can take place before they even see the software.

So, when we think about the “experience,” we look at every function and process in the company that can affect a customer’s opinion of us. Most importantly, the only way we can improve on this experience is to get feedback from our -customers. So, please let us know whenever you feel there is something we can do to improve your “experience” working with us.

- Ken Hilton, President