Category Archives: Business – Opinion

Am I a Hypocrite?

Leave a reply

Yesterday I wrote a post asking if Baptist Hospital or Novant should be considered non-profits.  Jim Caserta left a good thought provoking comment to which I replied and in the process had my memory tickled.  I remembered writing something a while back about good non-profits behaving more like a business than an organization that exists merely to do good.  Here’s what I wrote in May ’06:

As you may know I do most of my work with non-profits and here is what
I can tell you about them: the good ones behave just like well-run,
for-profit companies.  If they think of themselves as existing for a
"higher purpose" and justify their existence in that light then they
are doomed.  If, on the other hand, they view their members or
constituents as customers and view their existence as serving those
customers then they are most likely going to succeed.

So it looks like I might be talking from both sides of my mouth, or maybe I’m a hypocrite for writing what I did about Novant and Baptist.  Really, I think I just wrote poorly last year.  I do believe the non-profits that are run by zealots who believe that they will succeed simply because their cause is righteous are doomed to failure.  You do need to take a business like approach to your efforts; pay attention to your budget, balance your books regularly, live within your means which probably means you can’t do everything you want, regularly audit your operations, etc. 

On the other hand non-profits are also defined by their missions.  Unlike a business their success is measured in part by how they fulfill their missions and how they serve their communities.  While I see no evidence that Baptist or Novant provides sub-standard health services it does seem to me that they could do a better job serving everyone in their communities.  In other words they could stand to be a little more zealous.

Reap What Ye Sow

Leave a reply

Given that I’ve written over 1,200 posts for this blog I’m not too surprised when I stumble across something I’ve written and then totally forgotten.  A case in point is the post Bankers are Giving Lawyers a Run for Their Money that I wrote a little over a year ago.  In that post I take Chase to task for their behavior towards us regarding the last payment on our car loan.  Here’s an excerpt to give you a taste:

Here’s what has my dander up today: When we got back from San Francisco we had a message from Chase saying we’re late on our last car payment.  This confused Celeste because we’ve been paying with autodrafts from our bank account for four years,
or the entire lifespan of the car loan.  When she called Chase back
they said that if we’d read the fine print of our loan we would have
known that they don’t accept autodrafts for the last payment.  Okay,
fine.  So Celeste asks the very unfriendly bank rep why we’re hearing
about this only now that the payment is 90 days late and we’ve been put
in collections?  The rep’s reply is that she can only handle payment,
not answer customer service questions.

It gets better.  Celeste asks how much we owe.  The rep says she
needs our bank information before she can answer any questions.  Huh?
After Celeste asks again the woman gives her the amount and they take
care of the payment information, which by the way requires a $15
processing fee.  Huh?  (Celeste truly has a knack for getting the
asshole reps).

Before she gets off the phone with the bank’s collection-dolt
Celeste gets a customer service number, calls it and enters into
banker-logic zone. The customer service rep asks her for our address to
verify that he’s talking to the right person.  When she gives him the
address he says that it is the wrong address.  Bingo, they never got
our change of address when we moved two years ago, which probably
explains why we didn’t get a late notice on the final payment.  Yet
they were able to track us down for collection purposes.  Nice…

Here’s my problem.  The bank is probably within their rights,
technically, to treat us like this but in the real world they are
behaving reprehensibly.  We’d obviously been good customers for four
years, but they’re treating us like criminals because of an honest mix
up?  And who’s to say it’s our fault?  If they could track us down for
collection couldn’t they have done the same for a courtesy call
reminding us that an autodraft wouldn’t be accepted for our final
payment?

Less than a year later we see what’s happened to the banks and other financial institutions after the underestimated impact of the sub-prime meltdown.  The hubris endemic to the financial services industry has led to the inevitable "correction" but it’s near impossible to enjoy it because real people are losing their jobs while the jerks that engineered this fiasco are bailing out with platinum parachutes that make their predecessors’ golden parachutes look positively pedestrian in comparison.  Will someone please sue these turds and make an example of them?

Verizon Wireless Opening Up

Leave a reply

I’m no expert on the wireless business but my instinct is that Verizon Wireless just made a shrewd move.  They are opening up their network to any third party hardware and are going to allow any application to work on said hardware.  Some folks think they’re doing it because of Google’s recent announcements about their plans for wireless, and others think it has to do with the upcoming FCC auction of the 700mhz spectrum which will require the winner to enable consumers to access their network with any device or software they wish.

What I think this means is that we’re moving closer to having wireless services similar to Korea’s and Japan’s.  In short order I think you’re going to see the other providers do the same thing in order to stay competitive, and then you’re going to see an explosion of innovation for your phone(s).

I’ve been a Verizon Wireless customer for years, not because I love going to their store and navigating their byzantine pricing plans, but because they provide more consistent coverage in my town.  Heck, they’re the only one that provides a decent signal in my house.  Now if I can get any phone or software I want to go along with that strong signal I might actually like being their customer.

The Extra Mile at Office Depot

1 Reply

Celeste, who really should have her own blog but I’ve given up that fight for now, asked me to share this tale of great customer service.  Yesterday she went to the Office Depot on Hanes Mall Boulevard to buy a certain electronic item that they had on sale.  They were sold out and when she asked if she could have a rain check they said "no".  To his credit the man helping her, a fellow named Tim, offered to call the other stores in the area to see if they had one.  He did and informed her that one store did indeed have two units but there was no guarantee they’d be there when she got there.  She didn’t have time to go, but Tim offered to call her and let her know if his store got more of the units in the next couple of days.  She gave him her cell number and thought that was the end of it.

This morning Celeste got a call from Tim.  He’d driven to the other store, gotten one of the units, brought it back and had it waiting for her behind the counter and said she could drop by any time to pick it up.  Tim, who asked that she not give his last name, definitely went the extra mile and the folks at Office Depot should take note.  If he hadn’t gone the extra mile I’d be writing a post about how they’d lost a sale because of their silly rain check policy.  Celeste had already identified a store with a price matching policy where she could get the item she was looking for, and had Tim not called she’d have gone by there today.  I’m thinking Tim deserves at least a bonus, if not a raise.

Good Customer Service?!

1 Reply

It’s become so rare to get effective, prompt customer service that I just had to share this experience.  My mom is currently on a long trip to South America and the Galapagos islands and so her communications have been limited to sporadic email.  Before she left on her trip she put her Netflix account on temporary suspension, but unbeknown to her they had already shipped her two DVDs right before she changed her account status.  While sailing towards the Galapagos she was able to check her email (how cool is that!) and had a note from Netflix saying that she had two of their DVDs and if they weren’t returned promptly she’d be buying them.  She attempted to contact them but was only able to find their 800 number and since she couldn’t call it didn’t do her much good.  So she shot me an email and asked if I could handle it for her.

Yesterday I logged into mom’s Netflix account and found the customer service number.  Right under the number is a status message giving the current wait time on the 800 number.  Seeing that it was less than a minute I called and within 30 seconds I was talking to a rep and one minute after that we had the issue resolved.  As any of the 13 year old girls on my daughter’s soccer team would say, "O-M-G!"

The status message on the website is a great feature that Netflix provides and having a staffer answer the phone who is obviously empowered to use a little creativity to fix the problem is a massive winner in my book.  I’ve been a Netflix fan for years, but this really is icing on the cake.

By the way this happened the same day that I had a not-so-smooth experience with our van.  The battery died and since it was still under warranty we took it back to the dealer to trade it it.  The customer service was fine and the folks very helpful, but the system they have to deal with is a little tortured.  Despite the fact that I had the receipt showing that the battery had indeed been purchased there and was less than 24 months old they still had to do a load test to verify that the battery was dead. That was fine and the load test showed that our battery was as dead as a doornail, but unfortunately the tester that they’d found wasn’t the official Mazda load tester that spits out a receipt that’s required in order to get the new battery.  After searching for about 20 minutes they found the official load tester and were able to get me my new battery, but it took about 45 minutes.  In my mind once they found that the battery was dead they should have given me the new battery and dealt with the receipt issue after I was gone, but because the parts department wouldn’t release the battery without the receipt the service department had to find the right tester before I could get it.  In other words the dealership made their problem my problem.  To their credit their service employee didn’t push me aside despite being very busy, so two thumbs up for him.  To their discredit they have a system in place that puts unnecessary stress on the customer.

Still, yesterday was that rarest of occasions: a good customer service day.

AT&T Getting Hammered This Week

Leave a reply

AT&T is getting some pretty bad press from some pretty serious bloggers.  First there’s Ed Cone’s billing fiasco that was prompted by AT&T sending him a DSL package that he never asked for, billing him for it and then cutting off his service when he didn’t pay the DSL bill he didn’t even know about.  They promised to fix it and then shut his service off again a month later.  Then I read about prominent tech blogger Fred Wilson’s scrum with AT&T over his iPhone.  You have to read this to believe it:

Last night I tried to activate the iPhone that I recieved as a gift
with a pre-paid plan. A plan that I am sure tens of thousands of people
have on their iPhones. The iTunes system would not allow me to
activate. I got a message that said:

Additional information required to activate your iPhone

Please call AT&T at 877-800-3701 to complete your activation.

Refer to your Activation ID when calling

It
was late when I got to that point, so I called AT&T this morning. I
talked to a very nice customer service rep who told me that I could not
get an iPhone without giving them my social security number. I told her
that I was a tech blogger and just wanted to test the iPhone, review
it, and then give it as a gift and I had no need or desire to sign a 2
year contract. She told me there was nothing she could do. So I asked
for a manager.

After about five minutes, the manager got on the line. I repeated my
case, asked him to authorize a prepaid plan for my phone. He said he
could not do so. That it was AT&T policy to only issue pre-paid
plans to people with valid social security numbers who fail a credit
check.

So there it is. You cannot get a prepaid plan from AT&T unless
you are a deadbeat. That’s discrimination in my book. And I suspect its
illegal at some level.

I will never, ever, use an AT&T service again.

Both of these guys are widely read bloggers who exert a great deal of influence in their respective readership communities.  I hope that someone over in AT&T’s PR department is paying attention, but I seriously doubt it.

 

There’s Only One Way?

1 Reply

I was reading the July issue of Direct Magazine and came across Ray Schultz’s column, "Sweetening the Pot", which stopped me cold.  Here’s how he starts his column:

It’s been said by everyone from Don Peppers to Fred Reichheld: Customer satisfaction starts with a company’s employees.

But how do you make sure that your staff fully supports your objectives?

There’s one way.

Incentives.

Yes. Companies of all types are using incentives to motivate employees, above and beyond bonus compensation.

First,
it’s always dangerous to say "there’s one way" or "the only way to" do
anything.  Not much in life is so cut and dry and when you’re talking
about directing human behavior you can be pretty sure you’re going to
be wrong to say "there’s one way" about how to do it.

Now maybe Schultz means that there’s one kind of internal marketing
program to implement to incentivize employees to further a specific
program or goal, but that’s not how the column reads.  Later in the
column he writes:

Many people have opinions on this, but only a few of these thinkers
really count. One is Don Schultz, professor emeritus-in-service at
Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Schultz feels that incentives are an element
of internal marketing, the science of getting employees to buy into
“programs and processes needed to achieve organizational goals and
objectives.”

Another is Reichheld, author of “The Loyalty
Effect” and other seminal works on customer relationship management. He
believes that “you must have loyal employees if you want to build
customer loyalty.”

Mind you, we’re not talking about cheap pens
with company logos on them. Incentive programs work best when the firm
gives away luxury items like gift cards, electronic devices and travel.

And there has to be a trophy element to them. A cash reward, easily spent and forgotten, doesn’t cut it.

So
it seems that he’s talking about motivating employees in general, about
creating loyalty to the company and by extension to the customer. Given
that I’d say that this is a much more complex issue than creating a
trophy award system.  Things like creating an environment of mutual
respect between managers and employees, offering flexible schedules for
employees with difficult situations at home and providing good health
benefits are among the many basic business considerations that are no
longer a given in today’s workplaces. 

Schultz later points out that you need to focus on the ROI of
incentive programs and he’s absolutely right, but more importantly you
have to realize that no matter how nice the trophy for exceeding a
sales quota it won’t make up for a hostile work environment or a
personal financial crisis caused by an extended illness not covered by
a company’s lousy health plan.  Simply put, creating loyal employees
isn’t so simple.

Cross posted on LowderEnterprises.com.

Who’s Responsible?

Leave a reply

I just read a great piece by Seth Godin that essentially says that marketers are responsible for the affects that the products/services they market have on society. From his piece:

If marketing works, it means that free choice isn’t quite so free.
It means that marketers get to influence and amplify desires. The
number of SUVs sold in the United States is a bazillion times bigger
than it was in 1962. Is that because people suddenly want them, or is
it because car marketers built them and marketed them?

Cigarette consumption is way down. Is that because people suddenly
don’t want them any more, or is it because advertising opportunities
are limited?

Others will tell you that if it’s legal, it’s fair game. If it’s legal for Edelman
to post a blog called Working Families for Wal-Mart (when it’s really
working Edelman employees for Wal-Mart), then they have every right to
do so. In fact, they have an obligation to their shareholders to do so. Or so they say.

I believe that every criminal, no matter how heinous the crime,
deserves an attorney. I don’t believe that every product and every
organization and every politician deserves world-class marketing or PR…

Let me be really clear, just in case. If you think that the world
would be a better place if everyone owned a handgun, then yes, market
handguns as hard as you can. If you honestly believe that kids are well
served by drinking a dozen spoonfuls of sugar every morning before
school, then I may believe you’re wrong, but you should go ahead and
market your artificially-sweetened juice product. My point is that you
have no right to market things you know are harmful or that lead to bad
outcomes, regardless of how much you need that job.

Along the way, “just doing my job,” has become a mantra for blind
marketers who are making short-term mistakes in order to avoid a
conflict with the client or the boss. As marketing becomes every more
powerful, this is just untenable. It’s unacceptable.

If you get asked to market something, you’re responsible. You’re
responsible for the impacts, the costs, the side effects and the
damage. You killed that kid. You poisoned that river. You led to that
fight. If you can’t put your name on it, I hope you’ll walk away. If
only 10% of us did that, imagine the changes. Imagine how proud you’d
be of your work.

Thankfully I’ve never had to market anything of social consequence, but I have had to market products that I looked at and thought to myself, "Who in their right mind would spend $x for this?"  In those cases it was extremely difficult to write compelling copy or to enthusiastically sell the product, and honestly I didn’t stay with those companies for long.  The flip side of the coin is that I’ve worked with services/products that I didn’t personally find valuable but it was abundantly clear that the customers did, and from that experience I learned to try and work beyond my own biases.  In other words just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean that there aren’t a million people out there who do like it.  Either way I agree with Godin that if you market it or sell it, you are responsible for it.

Cross posted on LowderEnterprises.com.

Member Blogs Create New Issues for Non-Profit Managers

1 Reply

Cara Michele Forrest is a member of the Homeless Prevention Coalition of Guilford County and also happens to be a blogger whose blog, Chosen Fast,
deals mostly with her advocacy for the homeless.  A link to her blog
was included in her profile on the HPCGC’s member page, but now that
someone has complained to the president of the coalition about her blog
they’ve decided to remove the link.  Cara Michele shares the email
exchange between herself and the Coalition’s president Karen Bridges here, but I’m pasting most of it below for convenience:

—– Original Message —–

From: Cara Michele
To: Karen Bridges
Cc: Mike Weaver ; Travis Compton ; Nancy McLean ; Craig Thomas ; Elizabeth Hedgecock ; Shanna Reece
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 4:57 PM
Subject: Re:

Karen,

The only place that my blog is linked on the HPCGC web site is on
the member list. My blog is my web site for the homeless advocacy that
I’m involved in. Other members have their web sites listed, as well. Is
my web site the only one that is a problem? What was the nature of the
complaint? If you want my web site removed from the member list, then
you can remove it and provide an explanation for why you’ve chosen to
do so.

Please be advised the all correspondence will be blogged.

Michele Forrest
ChosenFast.com

—– Original Message —–

From: Karen Bridges
To: Cara Michele
Cc: Mike Weaver ; Travis Compton ; Nancy McLean ; Craig Thomas ; Elizabeth Hedgecock ; Shanna Reece
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 5:27 PM
Subject: Re:

You are the only individual member who has a personal link on the
HPCGC website, all others are service providers. And yes, your website
is the only one that is causing problems. The HPCGC website is not the
place to share your personal opinions and thoughts, particularly ones
that are contrary to the success of the Coalition. No one’s trying to
stop your advocacy, Michele, but you need to use the proper channels.

kb

—– Original Message —–
From: Cara Michele
To: Karen Bridges
Cc: Mike Weaver ; Travis Compton ; Nancy McLean ; Craig Thomas ; Elizabeth Hedgecock ; Shanna Reece
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 5:56 PM
Subject: Re:

Karen,

I may be the only individual member who has a web site.  There shouldn’t be a penalty for that.

I am an advocate for the homeless in Greensboro. If telling their
stories and telling the truth about homelessness is “contrary to the
success of the Coalition,” then you have a much bigger problem than my
blog.

Has it occurred to any of you that I’m not the enemy? If you’ve
actually read my blog, then you know that I haven’t written about the
most damaging things that I know. I’m not your enemy. Perhaps you
should stop acting as though I am. I thought that the goal here was to
serve homeless people. Why don’t we stop the pointless posturing and
backside-covering and shananigans? I’m weary of it.

Michele

This case points up an interesting new conundrum for non-profits:
what to do when a member or volunteer has a blog, links to it and then
other constituents find it offensive?  There will always be
disagreement between the various constituencies within a non-profit’s
community but until recently there wasn’t really a platform that
individuals could use to easily get their viewpoint out there in the
public domain for all to see.  Now you have blogs (and wikis and
Facebook profiles, etc.) that individual members can include as part of
their contact info.  What kind of policy, if any, should a non-profit
have to deal with this?

Ed Cone, another Greensboro blogger, posted about Cara Michele’s dust-up
and in his post and in the comments to his post there are some
interesting points made about the appropriateness of Cara’s blog in
this case in particular, but those same points also highlight the
considerations that should be made when thinking about whether or not a
member should be allowed to link to her individual blog.  From Ed’s
post:

Bridges is correct that the Coalition site is not the place for
Michele’s personal opinions and thoughts, and if Michele was using the
Coalition site thusly the HPCGC would have a legitimate complaint.

But such is not the case — Michele merely links to her own site as
part of her personal identification, much as member organizations
include links to their sites.

Ed’s absolutely right.  While the coalition owns its own site and
should police it, if one of their members chooses to link to her blog
as her form of identification then they should honor that.  In his
comments, Ed continues:

It seems to me that there are two issues in play here.

One involves politics within the community dedicated to helping the homeless and fighting homelessness.

The second involves reasonable standards and expectations for links and other details of online publishing.

The second issue is one where common ground might more easily be
found, and one that applies in a far broader context than the HPCGC and
its members.

The politics drove the second subject into public view, but perhaps
the issue of linking can be resolved independently of the political
particulars — and any such resolution can provide a context for
addressing some of the politics as well.

Again, Ed’s correct.  Invariably non-profit’s will have members,
board members, volunteers who don’t see eye to eye and in some cases
literally dislike each other.  The key for those running the non-profit
is to create a level playing field and to treat all constituents fairly
and equitably.  Along those lines the proper approach for the Coalition
would have been to inform the complaining parties that Cara was allowed
to link to her blog because that is part of her contact information and
they are welcome to do the same.

This case is fairly straightforward in that Cara Michele’s blog is
applicable to her role on the Coalition.  It may not have been as
straightforward if her blog had been about her pets, her travel plans,
etc.  Still, as a policy it would probably be best to just say that
blogs are the same as a person’s email address or a company’s website:
it’s a point of contact and if that person wants her blog to be her
point of contact, no matter how inane that blog may be, then that’s her
choice.

Cross posted at Lowder Enterprises, LLC

For My Friends (and Relative) in the Newspaper Business

1 Reply

In an interesting opinion piece written for the Wall Street Journal online Walter Hussman, the publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, makes the argument that newspapers are killing themselves by providing news on their websites for free.  He compares the circulation losses of newspapers that provide free news on their sites to the gains or less egregious losses of his paper and the Wall Street Journal (they both charge subscription fees for full access to news on their site).  He also throws out some numbers like this:

The Inland Cost and Revenue Study
shows that newspapers will generate between $500 and $900 in revenue
per subscriber per year. But a newspaper’s Web site typically generates
$5 to $10 per unique visitor per year. It may be that newspaper Web
sites as an advertising medium, and free news, just can’t generate the
revenue to sustain a valued news operation.

Without getting into the details (read his piece if you want the details) he goes on to conclude that the decrease in revenue leads to layoffs in the newsroom, which is essentially killing the newspapers’ Golden Goose:

Collectively, the American
newspaper industry spends $7 billion on news and editorial operations.
This includes everything from copy editor salaries to sports travel
expenses. In addition, the Associated Press spent about $600 million
world-wide in editing and creating news. By offering this news for
free, and selling it to aggregators like Google, Yahoo and MSN for a
small fraction of what it costs to create it, newspaper readership and
circulation have declined.

These declines are accelerating.
In 2004 and prior years, industry circulation declines were usually
less than 1%. Since March 2005, these declines have been 2%-3% per
year. With declining readership comes declining ad revenues, which are
followed by layoffs.

The newsroom layoffs are most
troubling, as less news with less quality, context and details results
in more declines in readership and later, declines in advertising. If
the $7 billion spent covering news becomes $6 billion, and later $5
billion, it is not just the newspaper industry that gets hurt.
Journalism will be diminished in America with less investigative and
enterprise reporting; indeed, less reporting of state houses, city
halls, school boards, business and sports. Clearly a lot is at stake.

It is time for newspapers to reconsider the ultimate costs and consequences of free news.

I think there are some very valid points to be made about newspapers charging a subscription for access to their news, but I think Mr. Hussman is being short sighted, and here are some reasons why:

  • Ad dollars have only just started to migrate online.  Online advertising is still a relatively immature business and old-line advertisers, agencies and publishers are just now figuring out how to best buy and sell ad inventory.  The online piece of the advertising pie is going to explode and the newspapers that put up a paid wall around their online operations will probably suffer in the long run.
  • Web sites are a hell of a lot cheaper to run than printing presses.  When the online advertising takes off the margins of the online operations will make the print guys green with jealousy.
  • The "newsroom" is going to look very different in the future.  I think the trend towards a professional staff of writers/editors managing content submitted by semi-pros in the community will continue.  Operations like the Greensboro News & Record are beginning to show that members of the community who have a vested interest in stories are more than willing to provide content for free, or really cheap.  Editorial operations should actually get bigger as a percentage of total head count in the future.

These last three points are a real stretch, but since I have no vested interest and everyone knows I’m not that bright I’m going to make them anyway.

  • I think that offset presses are going to eventually be replaced by digital on-demand presses that do small runs for micro-markets.  Think of all those neighborhood editions on a smaller scale.
  • With the digital production I think you’ll see micro-market ad packages being sold. The ad rates will be higher on a cost-per-thousand basis, but they will be more attractive to advertisers because they’ll offer more neighborhood-specific targeting.  For instance, if you’re a restaurant wouldn’t you be willing to pay $30/thousand to reach the 5,000 people who live within a 5-mile radius of your restaurant than $10/thousans to reach the entire 100,000 newspaper circulation?
  • This type of production might necessitate a new distribution model, i.e. using the US Postal Service for home delivery from Mon-Sat.  Not sure what would be done on Sunday, but the reason this might happen can be found in the direct marketing industry. Direct marketing companies already do household-level prospect targeting using digital production and the USPS Zip+4 database.  You know those Money Mailers you get in the mail all the time?  That’s advertisers buying space in an envelope that they know will be delivered to only select neighborhoods they want to reach.  The newspapers could offer similar targeting.

    You could argue that readers want their paper first thing in the morning, but honestly how many people use their local paper for breaking news?  They get that on TV, the web and radio.  The local paper is for depth of local coverage.  I’d be willing to bet that most people would be okay with reading the paper over dinner rather than breakfast.  Also, because the number of home subscribers is trending down, quickly, it might not be cost effective to have dedicated delivery people who drive around delivering papers door to door. If there are only two deliveries per street how much can a delivery person reasonably expect to make?  On the other hand the mailman is delivering one way or another so why not piggy back?  Obviously the USPS isn’t the only option, but I think it would be interesting to look at it. I’m still not sure what you’d do about Sunday delivery, which is a rather large hole in my thinking.

These are just some of the reasons that I think Mr. Hussman’s conclusions are right in the short term, but not the long term.  The media environment, of which newspapers are but one part, is dynamic.  Mr. Hussman is right to challenge the current thinking in the newspaper industry, but I think his strategy will ultimately limit his newspaper’s growth potential. 

(Cross posted on Lowder Enterprises, LLC).