Get out of your office

How often do you get out of your office, and visit your  partners? A lot? A little? Never?  In our day in age sometimes we think it’s fine to do Skype conversations,  host their visit to you, or work by emails, but I’d suggest that’s not good enough.  

Get out of your chair, get in a car, on a train, or on that plane across large oceans to sit with your vendor, and see from their perspective how and why your goods or services are being worked on, at which rate, and what cost.  It is the only way to think about different ways to crack an egg, make that omelet, and present it in a more beautiful manner to your customers.  Sure, it takes time, money, and valuable sleeping time that I will never get back, but as I sit here 35k feet above a large ocean, I am always reminded about the importance, and I have yet to return from one of these trips without significant progress being made, that would have never had happened if I stayed at my desk.

This is my passport.   It’s almost in need of another fulfillment of supplemental pages to be installed, because I believe in this principle.  Sure, I have plenty of partners and industry friends that travel way more then I do, but never the less, I value the time to get out and sit in a fabric, trim, or service provider’s office, but more importantly, getting on to that factory floor to see the entire process of how the goods are being worked on – and try and always think about alternative methods.  

Without being there in person, I find it hard to relate to the actual methods and procedures in place, and maybe how we could do it a different way.  It’s the collaboration of more minds, different thinking minds, that create an overall better and more innovative product, method, or service – to ultimately progress our business into unchartered waters, and keep innovation alive.