The right tool for the right job……

Ken Renker – Director of Sales

My father ran his own plumbing and heating business for 40+ years, and was a big believer in having the right tool for the right job. Long before the days of “Home Improvement” and Tim ‘the Tool Man’ Taylor, my Dad’s shop was jammed with the latest gadgets guaranteed to be the envy of any current day Weekend Warrior. At its peak, in order to accommodate all of his ‘stuff’, he needed to add more space and so he decided to expand into the abandoned auto body repair garage next door to his shop.

I was a 12 year old kid that loved to operate equipment and machinery….the bigger and dirtier, all the better…, and to me, this new place was a combination Disneyland & Smithsonian Museum. I experimented with acetylene torches, sheet metal fabricators, soldering equipment, pipe threaders, wrenches, cutters, die machines…and on and on.

Luckily, I never got injured, started any fires, or destroyed anything. More importantly, my mother never found out. As I got older, though, I came to understand that in the hands of real craftsmen, the right tools and the knowledge to use them, make all the difference.

Our toolkit at Optimum is pretty full too. It includes:

• Internet ordering capability – a “one stop shop” for all print and supply related needs
  
  
• Management reporting – usage and trend analysis
  
  
• 25 years of financial market experience:
  best practices to remove cost from your processes
  subject matter experts to implement those solutions
  
  
• Cost allocation of expenses – budget monitoring and reporting
  
  
• Print on demand capabilities to eliminate inventory and reduce obsolescence
  
  
• Warehouse / distribution support
  
  
• Graphic design support / on line proofing

In short, we have the right tools to help you operate more efficiently and reduce expenses.
We can make it easier for your people to do their job…and give them more time to focus on their customers. We’ll provide the reporting and budget controls needed to improve your bank’s efficiency ratio. And we’ll train everyone, so they know how to use the tools to get you the biggest bang for the buck.

The question is do you have the right tool for the right job …..and do you have the know-how to use them?

Let us know. We can help.

Introducing the Card Caddy!

Personal Accountability

Personal accountability is one of the core values at Optimum Companies. That is why our team leaders are all required to read "QBQ" and "Flipping the Switch", books written by author John G. Miller.

QBQ stands for "Question Behind the Question" and is built on the observation that our first reactions are often negative, bringing to mind Incorrect Questions (IQs). But if in each moment of decision we can instead discipline our thoughts to look behind those initial questions and ask better ones (QBQs), the questions themselves will lead us to better results.

Here are some examples of IQ or "incorrect questions" - how often have you heard these before?

“When is that department going to do its job?”
“Why don’t they communicate better?”
“Who dropped the ball?”
“Why do we have to go through all this change?”
“When is someone going to train me?”

These questions put the blame on someone else and are not constructive. QBQ questions are centered around taking personal accountability. Here are a few examples of QBQ questions:

“What can I do to contribute?”
“How can I help solve the problem?”
"How can I communicate better?"

Miller’s book is a quick read that is full of practical methods for putting personal accountability into daily actions. You can tell this difference when you are working with someone from both branches of Optimum Companies, Optimum System Products and Optimum Print Solutions.

Optimum provides great customer service!

"I just wanted to thank you again for all your efforts and for providing me with such great service with my business cards. I'm sure it was much more than you wanted to spend time on but I greatly appreciate your professionalism with everything. I've already handed out about 30 or so and everyone was very impressed and immediate asked where I got them printed.

Thank you for all your help!"

- Monty
openimagestudio.com


Want to know more great things our clients are saying about Optimum?

Check out the company information section on the Optimum-Print website.

GEM (Going the Extra Mile)

Something new & exciting we’ve started at Optimum for 2009 is a little Self Promotion! In order to accomplish this, we’ve begun collecting & distributing (internally) “stories from the front lines” ~ stories we’ve affectionately dubbed GEMs. This is to remind us how we all are Going the Extra Mile. Of course, we want to share them with others who might be in need of inspiration, so we thought it wouldn’t hurt to re-post our first GEM right here:

Our First GEM...A Little Training
Last month a bank in Florida e-mailed Rita a simple question ~ "Do we have teller receipts on hand & if so, how many?" The answer was simple, "Yes, you have 34 Packs of 500". But, instead of stopping there, Rita took the time to empower the customer with the ability to use one of our system's tools - A tool that sets us apart. Here is a part of Rita's response:
You still have 34 packs of 500 (or 17,000) in the warehouse. You can find this information on the website by clicking on TELLER SUPPLIES under catalogs on the left after you log in. Click on the ? in the blue circle to the left of the item number. A new window will open. Click on the LOOKUP button (make sure the drop down menu below shows Warehouse Inventory). The number of pks., pads, bxs., etc. will display. Of course, you can order the item from warehouse stock when you close the window by entering the number of pks. like you would any office supply item. Just let me know when you're ready to replenish the warehouse stock. It usually takes about 3 - 4 weeks.Please feel free to call or email me if any of this is unclear or if you have any questions....

Nothing earth shattering...but it is how we always try to Go that Extra Mile for every one of our customers!

If you liked it, Here’s another short one…

Stories from the front lines...when a customer asks...can you really get us anything?
A bank president's secretary asked if we knew where to get a specific brand of pen with a specific color of ink. After a bit of research, we found it at Pilot Mfg...but could not get it in the USA. The rep in Tokyo (yup, we called Tokyo!) explained that Pilot markets different colored inks based on world geography. The pen we needed was only sold in Europe. We were able to get the pen from London, and our customers were amazed we had gone to such lengths - - - for a $2 pen.