GW here for another episode of Make it Happen Monday, a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week.

Well, as a business owner I’m constantly concerned and focused on Culture. So, one thing that we did this year that we’ve done in past years but we try to do it at least once a year, is we did a survey among our people and we gave every employee a piece of paper that said, on one side, 3 questions of the 3 things you like about Poly Enterprises and then, on the backside, 3 things that you’d like to see changed about Poly Enterprises. And, not surprising, we’ve garnered from our folks some really good things that we’ve implemented as changes that have helped our Culture and the biggest fear I have is that there’s some kind of crack in the Culture at some level that festers itself and then rises up and unfortunately you lose a good person or a couple good people that really alter your path to success. 

So, they turned them in and one of the things that was most prominent, which is not surprising, in something that we know but maybe we don’t pay the day to day attention when we should is that high achievers don’t like mediocre people and mediocre people don’t like high achievers. You know of our sixty people, you know, we probably have 20-25 just ass-kickers and they get frustrated working with people who are just getting by and the people who are just getting by don’t like those high achievers because it makes them look bad. So, what do you do as a business, what do you do about those mediocre people because you don’t want a mediocre person to cost you a high achiever. So what you do is, you work with those mediocre people. You give them extra training, you put them with a mentor, you try to get them on the same page and after efforts of doing that if they just aren’t gonna be a high achiever or they’re not going to fit in, you get them off the bus. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made over the years is I know somebody doesn’t belong on the bus and I don’t act quick enough and it ends up costing us a high achiever. So, interestingly just getting the results in, again, that’s a prominent factor that high achievers get frustrated with mediocre people and that’s in every team and every organization. 

So, just remember… You Can’t Cheat The Grind. 

-GW

GW here for another episode of Make it Happen Monday, a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week.

Well, this is our 32nd episode of Make It Happen Monday. Its been really cool filming them and I’ve never dated any of them because we wanted the opportunity to be able to air them at different times and repeat them at different times of the year but today is July 23rd, 2019 and the reason that I am dating today is because I have been alive 20,279 days. Now, you may say, who cares how many days you’ve been alive. Well, I had a guy tell me the other day… he asked me, did I have a good day? You know how those pleasantries are asked at different times and I said, “Yeah, having a pretty good day” and he said (asked), “Was today worth trading a day of your life for?”  And, the way he said it just, kinda took me back a little bit and I thought, man, did I ever really think about “Did what I do today really be as valuable as trading a day of my life?”  So, now I try to think about that at the end of each day. It’s hard to have great days every day, it’s really hard but if you have that attitude at the end of the day you think to yourself, “Was today, did I trade a valuable day of my life… of my 20,279 days. Was today worth it?” I think if you have that attitude it will benefit you in the long run and remember…

YOU Can’t Cheat The Grind!

– GW

GW here for another episode of Make it Happen Monday, a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week.

Well, this past weekend we were fortunate enough, here at Poly Enterprises, to enter a team of 5 into the Hall County Corporate Olympics. This is the first year that they had it so they reached out to all the corporations and asked that they wanted to put on these Olympics that have 13 events and actually have 13 Corporate teams that participated. So we entered our team of 5 and as we were watching them going from event to event, we had no idea what the events were in going to be. It was about team building. It was about working together. The competitive nature that came out in these 5 individuals was just off the chart and that didn’t surprise me at all working with them every day but a lot of the people were putting on the Olympics were like, “My Gosh, these guys are very competitive.” You know, every event that they got up to… if it was a timed event, they asked “What’s the fastest time so far?” And the handful of ones that they did against other teams obviously tug of war and beach volleyball, you know it was just them beating the other team. So I was extremely proud of them but the one thing to take away from that is, one of the reasons that we’ve had success here at Poly is because of that competitive nature that is part of our culture, that grit, when you’re backed up against the wall that you dig in to really get done exactly what we need to do and I couldn’t be prouder of these 5 guys that made up this team and how they are a great example of the rest of our team and the competitive nature that’s the culture here at Poly Enterprises. 

And remember, You Can’t Cheat The Grind!

-GW 

GW here and welcome to another episode of Make it Happen Monday, a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week. 

Well for those of you who have seen many of these episodes that we’ve done I always end everyone with, “And remember, You can’t cheat the grind!” Well, what does “the grind” really mean? What am I talking about? The grind is… successful people typically are grinders. They’re in it every day. They work hard when they don’t feel like it. They do the things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. Its day in, day out, staying focused and it’s tough. Its really hard to be at your best every day or, at least, to mentally get yourself to being that good on a regular day-in / day-out basis. 

But let me tell you one thing if you have ever grinded or been a grinder and that’s been taken away from you for some reason. A health reason, you lost your job, your family situation changed, let me tell you, as much as you think you hate it as you’re going through it… not having it is the worst. And as soon as you can get it back, you get it back and you’re back at it. Nothing’s better than absolutely grinding. The results are amazing so remember…

“You Can’t Cheat the Grind!”

-GW

GW here for another episode of Make It Happen Monday- a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week.

Well, ironically, we’re filming this on a up to date iPhone type camera, we’re gonna post it on Social Media but here we are back at a show, on the road, doing the ASI promotional products show and the biggest thing that is a benefit of a show like this is that face to face, one on one with existing customers and new potential clients. You just cannot replace it. Social media is great to get the word out and again, as I mentioned, ironically here we are going to post this but absolutely invaluable being able to meet with people and really have that face to face contact because our business like many businesses is so relationship-based and thats what I enjoy personally the most about being in this business.

So we had a great show and remember… YOU can’t cheat the Grind!

GW here for another episode of Make It Happen Monday- a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week. 

And we took the gang on the road this week. We’re in Chicago at Retail X exhibiting at one of the largest Retail Trade Shows in America. You might be wondering, why the camouflage theme (?) Well, Poly Enterprises has been in business for 47 years and it seems every show we do people come up and say, “Jeez, you’ve got some really cool stuff and we’ve never heard of you” so we went to the theme, “The Hunt Is Over” so, you’ve found us. So that’s why the camouflage theme and it gives us a chance, when we follow up with our customers to say, “Hey, we were the camo guys” because quite honestly we’re the only ones silly enough, in this whole show, to be in camouflage. That’s our little stitch on Retail X and remember…

YOU Can’t Cheat the Grind. 

GW here for another episode of Make It Happen Monday- a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week. 

Well, the message today is about preparation. As you can see from the time-lapse video to my right, that’s us putting the booth together, getting ready for the two trade shows that are coming up. So part of our marketing program is we exhibit at four trade shows a year and it takes about a full week in preparation for that trade show to get ready. We set the booth up, we make sure all the components are exactly shown the way we want to show them. We’re getting excited about meeting new people but the whole key is Practice. The whole key is Preparation. The whole key is putting the sacrifice and the time in prior to getting to that show to make a successful show. The wise John Maxwell once said, “You have to give up to go up. Everything worthwhile is uphill” and it’s like practice for any sport or anything else. You gotta put the hard work in prior to the event to make that a successful event and make it worthwhile and remember…

YOU can’t cheat the Grind!

GW here for another episode of Make It Happen Monday- a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week. 

Well, a good friend of mine, a very successful business person and I were talking the other day about the younger generation and one thing he was complaining about was how they’re kind of up in each others business and the gossip amongst his company seems to be rampant at times. Well, I’ll tell you a little lesson I learned when I was younger about minding your own business. 

I grew up in Central Ohio and I happened to be walking past a Mental Hospital one day and some of the patients were out in the yard and they were yelling , “13,13, 13!” and I was too short to see over the fence so I snuck up to the fence and there was a crack in the fence and I looked through and some idiot stuck a stick through it and poked me in the eye and then all of them started yelling, “14, 14, 14!” 

So that is just a little lesson about keeping to yourself and minding your own business and that goes back to people within your organization who might be a cancer or might be that energy vampire. The biggest mistake we all make is we don’t get rid of those people soon enough. We think that their value to our organization outweighs the detriment that they’re causing among your key players and believe me we all wait too long for that. Don’t be one of those who wait too long to get rid of that energy vampire. 

And remember… You Can’t Cheat the Grind. 

GW here for another episode of Make It Happen Monday- a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week. 

Well, my friend, John Maxwell says that there are two kinds of urgency that dwell within people. The first type is the person that puts things off, maybe isn’t as focused as they should be and that sense of urgency doesn’t arise until it’s absolutely necessary for any level of success and it’s usually not a productive one and then there are the folks that have the sense of urgency before its needed. Obviously, that’s going to promote the most success within an individual. Think about which one you are, and remember… YOU Can’t cheat the Grind!

GW here for another episode of Make It Happen Monday, a motivational minute to help you attack and win the week. 

Well, it’s Sunday night and Robb and I have ventured down. We’re in Orlando, Florida. We come down for our annual trade show, which is a speed-dating format. So, over the next three days, Robb and I will have 32 twenty minute meetings with potential new customers. It’s a long process, the days are long and kind of tedious but well worth it and something we look forward to every year. 

There is always a lesson in the Make It Happen Monday and I guess the lesson for all of us this time is: The distance between goals and dreams is action. So this is a week of action for Poly Enterprises and remember… You Can’t Cheat The Grind.

-Robb Donker