Seven Ways To Get Your CEO To Follow You

Ever had a good idea that just sat there, collecting dust?

There are many ways that effective leaders make things happen. And leaders aren't always executives. Leaders are people who have a vision, who get things done, and are able to get people to follow them.

Sometimes you need to get your CEO to follow you. Believe it or not, your CEO wants to follow you. She can't possibly come up with all the ideas on her own.

Here's seven ways to get your CEO to follow you.


Just Do It

I know of an employee who wanted to start a blog. This employee presented the idea to the executive. The executive turned the idea down. A day later, the executive asked the employee why the employee didn't just execute the idea, guide it to success, then ask for forgiveness? The executive couldn't possibly authorize the idea, but could have potentially saved the idea if it had been implemented and become successful without the knowledge of the executive.

Seasoned employees, those trusted by leadership, have a longer leash than those who are new to a company. Sometimes the idea needs to be implemented in order for leadership to understand the potential of the idea. The seasoned employee gains much by learning how to read the tea leaves.


Profit And Loss

Two employees have an idea. One has a beautiful powerpoint presentation, chocked full of facts and figures and market research. The other employee has a simple presentation, but presents two profit and loss statements --- one illustrating minimal risk, one showing a reasonable expectation of potential.

Over time, the latter presentation has more potential for success than the glitzy powerpoint presentation. Know your facts, but also know the profit and loss implications of your idea.


Budgets And Timing

Ideas are more likely to succeed at the start of a fiscal year, and at the end of a fiscal year. Your CEO has a budget for projects. At the start of the year, that budget is full of money. At the end of the year, especially if your company had a good year, there may be money left in the budget that can be spent. Time your presentations around the rhythm of your fiscal year accounting cycle.


Evangelize The Idea

Back in 2002, I was the VP of Direct Marketing at Nordstrom Direct, the catalog/online channel at Nordstrom. Our employees were divided. Some liked catalogs, and believed that catalogs were the reason the website was so successful. Others loved the online channel, and thought the catalog folks represented a fossilized group of old-timers.

I took a presentation "on the road". I scheduled meetings with every department at Nordstrom Direct, illustrating to every employee how the combined efforts of all team members contributed to a happy customer, reminding each employee that Nordstrom was about pleasing customers, not about in-fighting over which channel was most important.

Sometimes, you sell your idea to the masses, not to leadership. When the masses align on a concept, leadership falls in place.


Be Humble And Confident

Leaders listen to humble, confident employees. Leaders are turned off by arrogant employees.


Align With Leadership Objectives

Ideas that foot with leadership objectives have a far better chance of succeeding than ideas that do not, on the surface, help leaders accomplish their objectives. Your CEO wants to be successful, and will do what it takes to keep her job. Help her succeed, and you succeed in the process.


Leave

Is your idea really important to you? Instead of fighting a battle you can't win, find a company that believes in your idea, and become a happier employee in the process.

E-Commerce And Catalog Management Case Study: Managing Details

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Yesterday, we demonstrated how the little details make a big difference in the profitability of an e-commerce or catalog brand.

Unfortunately, few of us get to be a CEO, few of us get to learn this valuable lesson.

In our example, there are four metrics that require significant attention. Let's review each metric.


Merchandise Fulfillment Rate

This rate represents the percentage of merchandise a customer asked for that the merchant was able to deliver to a customer. Take a customer who orders over the telephone. She asks for three items, but only two are available, one item is sold out. The merchandise fulfillment rate is 2/3 = 67%.

The CEO uses this metric to understand how effective the inventory management team is at satisfying customer demand. If an item sells out, and the inventory manager is somehow able to procure additional merchandise, then everybody benefits.

There are problems with this metric. When business is bad, merchandise is always available. When business is great, merchandise is never available! So to some extent, the metric has an inverse relationship with brand success.

Online brands often fail to understand the importance of this metric. Customer advocates preach that online brands should "pull down" items that are sold out, so that the customer is not disappointed. It's great that a customer should not be disappointed, but it is terrible for next year's customer, because the inventory manager doesn't learn how much s/he "could have" sold.


Return Rate

Return rate measures how much merchandise is returned to the brand by the customer. This metric plays a disproportionate level of influence in the profitability of an e-commerce or catalog brand. A new CEO will look into different ways that return rates can be lowered. Are there indirect reasons why the rate increased, like merchandise preference skewing from low-returns items to high-returns items? Or are there direct reasons why the rate increased, like quality being lowered in order to improve gross margin?

Each brand has a return rate that is typical for the business model the brand manages. Within this range, brands can succeed or fail. The new CEO will try to eliminate the failures in returns, since every item that is not returned drives increased profit.


Gross Margin

Gross margin represents the difference between what a customer paid for an item, and the cost the brand paid for the item. Take a $100 item that the brand paid $40 to acquire. The gross margin is (100 - 40) / (100) = 60.0%. Now, take a $100 item that is on sale for $60. The gross margin is (60 - 40) / 60 = 33.0%.

Gross margin has a disproportionate influence on the profit and loss statement. When a business is failing, the CEO is required to liquidate or discount merchandise, in order to get rid of it. Consequently, gross margin will be low. When a business is succeeding, it can charge a premium for merchandise, driving up the gross margin.

Gross margin is also a reflection of the ability of the inventory management team to accurately forecast sales trends. When the inventory management team buys too much merchandise, regardless of business trends, merchandise must be liquidated, lowering the gross margin rate.


Pick / Pack / Ship Expense

This metric does not receive enough attention, yet is also important to the profitability of a brand.

This metric is defined as the cost to pick, pack and ship merchandise to a customer as a percentage of net sales. For instance, if a brand spends $10,000,000 delivering merchandise to your home, and generates $80,000,000 net sales, the rate is (10,000,000 / 80,000,000) = 12.5%.

Outstanding catalog and e-commerce brands drive this rate down relentlessly, via automation and efficiency. Other brands look for low-cost solutions, or look for shipping and handling revenue to offset delivery costs. Ultimately, automation and efficiency result in lower rates, and increased profit.


The new CEO will focus on these four metrics, seeking to drive all of these metrics toward historical best performance. The best leaders realize that as much as half the reason a catalog or e-commerce brand fails is due to mismanagement of these four simple metrics.

E-Commerce And Catalog Management Case Study: Does Operational Management Matter?

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

The purpose of this series is to view a broken e-commerce/catalog business from the viewpoint of a new CEO.

Recall that this business has largely been mediocre or unprofitable during the past five years, resulting in the overhaul of the management team.

A new CEO needs to quickly assess several factors, many of which we'll discuss in this series. An easy first step is to look at the metrics associated with operational management of the brand.

In the attached profit and loss statement, we notice that the operational management of the business hasn't been optimal.

• Notice that merchandise fulfillment rate hit a high of 94.5%, but was only 90.9% last year.

• Return rates were as low as 25.0%, but were 27.4% last year.

• Gross Margin improved some (48.8%), but has been as high as 50.0% in the past.

• Pick/Pack/Ship expense has been as low as 11.5%, finishing last year at 11.8%.

A new CEO will ask the CFO to run a version of last year's profit and loss statement with historical best operational metrics plugged into the profit and loss statement.

So take a look at the attached image. With historical bests plugged into the profit and loss statement, we turn a loss of $258,000 into a profit of $327,000.

Now obviously all of these factors are interconnected (gross margin decreases when sales decrease, due to clearance-related needs). But the exercise is important to the new CEO. In this case, the CEO realizes that if s/he can "run the operations" of this business at historical high levels, profitability significantly improves.

In reality, the CEO wants for this business to operate at a 10% EBT rate, meaning that ten percent of sales are converted to profit. The business was twelve points away from this level (-1.9% EBT). Fixing the operational management of this business makes up at least four of the twelve point shortfall.

In other words, the CEO will make operational excellence one of his/her top objectives for the upcoming year.

Your Homework Assignment: Operations play a key role in getting a brand to high levels of profitability. What is the next thing you would look at in this profit and loss statement, when diagnosing what is wrong with this business?

E-Commerce And Catalog Management Case Study: A Failing Business

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

When we read about improving the performance of a catalog / e-commerce brand, we frequently read about "extremes".

On one hand, we focus extensively on the "tactics" that improve the performance of marketing campaigns. E-Mail subject lines, call-to-action, catalog page counts, branded vs. non-branded keywords, prospect mailings, there's a veritable plethora of tactics that folks can improve upon. Better yet, there's no shortage of folks who can help drive tactical solutions.

On the other hand, we focus on "brand management". Boy, do we love to focus on brand management. Everybody is an expert at what Starbucks should do to grow same-store sales. Folks have no problem telling brands that they have to become "multichannel", or that implementing a transparent, authentic blog will cause a brand to grow in a "viral" manner.

Unfortunately, neither end of the spectrum meets the needs of the newly appointed CEO of a multichannel e-commerce/catalog brand that experienced several years of sour performance. More often than not, the newly appointed CEO needs to implement a "meat and potatoes" approach to fixing the profit and loss statement.

The brand we'll study in this series (click on the image please) achieved "best" performance five years ago. Since then, the brand wobbled between mediocre and awful performance, resulting in the firing of the management team.

Let's review net sales and earnings before taxes performance.

Net Sales Performance (Year 5 = most recent year)

• Year 1 = $12,600,000.
• Year 2 = $12,400,000.
• Year 3 = $10,700,000.
• Year 4 = $11,200,000.
• Year 5 = $13,500,000.

Earnings Before Taxes Performance

• Year 1 = $661,000 (5.2% of Net Sales).
• Year 2 = ($315,000) (-2.5% of Net Sales).
• Year 3 = $63,000 (0.6% of Net Sales).
• Year 4 = $550,000 (4.9% of Net Sales).
• Year 5 = ($258,000) (-1.9% of Net Sales).

Clearly, this business is in need of fixing.

Over the course of the next several posts, we'll talk about the ways that a newly appointed CEO uses "meat and potatoes" and "multichannel forensics" to address the performance of a floundering brand.

Your homework assignment: Study the image at the top of this post. What areas of the profit and loss statement suggest mismanagement of this brand?

Playground Supervisor

In college, my summer job was "Playground Supervisor".

For eight weeks, from 9:00am to 11:30am, 1:00pm to 4:30pm, and 6:00pm to 8:30pm, four days a week (closing down at 5:00pm on Friday), I was partnered with a young lady. It was our job to corral anywhere between ten and forty youngsters, ages five to maybe sixteen. We had to plan activities that weren't too advanced for the five year olds, weren't too childish for the sixteen year olds.

There wasn't a better management lab than playground supervision. Some kids were needy, some were mean, some were sick, some were shy, some were outgoing. We earned $4.00 per hour, considered a good summer wage at the time, trying to balance the needs of three dozen kids.

We had maybe eight or nine playgrounds across the city of Manitowoc. Attendance at each park was directly tied to the environment created by the playground leadership team. Some parks had a half dozen or dozen kids during each session. Other parks had between thirty-five and fifty kids attending each session. All it took was effort, activities and kindness to bring the kids in.

I recall there being a sixteen year old who liked to stir up trouble. Overall, this kid had a good soul. But from time to time, he liked to pick on various people. Each Friday morning, we spent several hours at the municipal pool. His job was to drown me. My job was to let him drown me. Our management team thought it was good for the kids to try to torment us in the pool. At times, I'd have six or seven teenage boys trying to drown me. Those were heady times. Imagine what a lawyer would think of that in the year 2007?

After a few weeks of incessant horseplay, I became frustrated. It became my mission to find a way to "get even" with this kid.

My opportunity came during a game of dodgeball. This young man was standing all by himself, no more than fifteen yards away from me. I had a perfectly-sized playground ball in my right hand. Seeing the opportunity to toss this ball at a high velocity toward the teen's belly, I reached back, and with all the strength I could muster, catapulted the ball toward the bully.

The young man was quite agile. Realizing this whistling weapon would cause undue damage to his abdomen, he dove to the ground, his face full of fear.

As the teen hit the ground, I saw a young boy, five years old, standing maybe ten yards behind the teen. This young boy was not watching the epic struggle between sixteen and twenty-one year old. No, this boy was probably daydreaming about strawberries or frogs or Max Headroom.

No sooner than I could yell "Watch Out Harold!", the projectile struck the innocent youth flush in the left cheek, pushing Harold's head back at the velocity of the playground ball. The force of the impact lifted Harold's tiny little feet airborne, much like a teeter-totter. The back of Harold's wee-little head hit the pavement first, followed by his hands, buttocks, and finally, his previously airborne feet.

Lord knows how Harold felt. I know how I felt. I realized that I may have killed Harold!

Five seconds later, air returned to Harold's lungs, and he began to cry at decibel levels reserved for jet airliners. At that moment, forty children, a mortified playground leader, and a laughing sixteen year old bully stared at me like I was the anti-Christ.

No amount of apology solves a problem of this magnitude. I remember Harold wiping the tears off of his little face, a face that was half pale, half bright red, swollen slightly out of proportion. He quietly sobbed as he walked to his bike, mounted the vehicle, and peddled home.

Harold never came back to the playground.


As leaders, how often do we inadvertently do harm to the employees placed in our care? How often do our petty battles and problems with various leaders cause situations that spill over and impact folks like Harold? Worse, how often do we not notice the damage we do?

Rewarding Greatness

If you are basketball fan, then last night you witnessed a 22 year old named LeBron James make the move from potential to a previously unseen blend of genius, talent, leadership and physical gifts.

Are there instances when you witnessed an employee as s/he experienced a "defining moment"?

How do you reward an employee who has a "defining moment"?

I had an employee who had a defining moment. This person went beyond anything I ever thought this individual was capable of. Once this employee crossed this threshold, there was no turning back. This person became a leader, out of nowhere, at a completely unexpected moment in time.

The latter portion of that sentence is what causes struggle in companies.

I immediately wanted to promote this person. And I immediately became demoralized.

I could not promote the individual, because there were "x" leadership positions available. We would need one person to leave the company, or be promoted, in order to open up another leadership position.

I could not give this person a salary increase, because the grading system utilized by our compensation department indicated this person was properly classified, and properly compensated. Furthermore, salary increases were tied to annual performance reviews, which weren't due for six months. Even worse, a future salary increase for this individual would require that another person not receive as big an increase, in order to balance the "salary increase" budget.

And I was a Vice President. I should have been able to do more than I did.

We do odd things in companies. We won't reward an employee at his/her moment of greatness. We will reward an employee when a brand has a need. We quickly seek leaders when sales are in a free fall, purging those we previously thought highly of in favor of a "new regime".

All too often, the employee, having achieved an unexpected level of professional growth, looks outside the company for a reward. There are plenty of brands who will take a chance on this individual.

What are examples of businesses that have properly rewarded greatness, and what examples have you observed where greatness hasn't been rewarded? Have the companies you have worked for recognized your greatest moments?

Making Decisions In The Catalog/Online Business

One of the best comments I've received on this blog came yesterday from Graham Hill. Here is his comment about my rejection of the hypothesis that marketing bloggers are largely negative:

"But, as one statistician to another. Are you not in danger of making unfounded generalisations about blogging based upon a hugely inadequate number of observations."

The answer to Graham's question is "YES"! I'm absolutely in danger of doing this! Graham's comment is insightful and correct.


Early in my career, when it was my job to be a statistician, it was my job to be "right". I made sure that my work was perfect, that my conclusions were rock-solid and air-tight. I was given months to complete a project. Those were good times.

In 1998, I became Director of Circulation at Eddie Bauer. I was member of the "Catalog Business Team", a group of Directors and VPs responsible for meeting or exceeding budgeted sales and profit goals for the Catalog/Online division at Eddie Bauer.

We met as a team every Wednesday morning.

Questions would come up, questions that required rapid answers. For instance, the Merchandise executive might say "We're killing this business by running Mens merchandise in the first twenty pages of the catalog. Let's stop this practice, and run best-selling Womens merchandise in the first twenty pages."

Maybe we ran Mens merchandise in the front of the past two catalogs, and maybe those two catalogs were ten percent below our expectations, whereas the prior five or six catalogs met expectations. On the surface, the merchandising executive seemed to have a point.

As a statistician, you'd like to run a series of experiments, and prove that Mens merchandise was killing the performance of the book. However, these experiments required many folks in print production and creative to create various versions of the catalog. Once created, it would be close to two months before the print production process was completed, resulting in catalogs being mailed to customers. Another month needed to go by before a proper statistical analysis was completed.

So, sitting in this meeting, my choices were to recommend a three month process to test the hypothesis in just one catalog, or to quickly review as a team the past eight catalogs in an ad-hoc, unscientific manner, and make a decision as a team before leaving the room.

It requires a lot of patience to learn the balance between making ad-hoc, gut-feel decisions and doing a thorough, accurate statistical analysis. You never really perfect the balance, you make mistakes, and you make the right decisions.

The key factor in this is that you "make decisions". Decisions, positive or negative, move a business forward, increase accountability, and reduce red-tape.

I once met with my marketing Vice President, when I was a statistician. I wanted a lot of time to do an analysis "the right way". He told me that he'd rather make five decisions with 80% accuracy than make one decision with 100% accuracy, because at the end of the day, you'd make four correct and one incorrect decision, whereas the "right" approach yielded only one correct decision. He preferred to make four right and one wrong decision each day than making one right decision.

I've tried to balance his viewpoint with my statistical heritage of "being right". I've always admired the leader who is decisive, makes four right and one wrong decision, and takes accountability for the wrong decision.

Working At Very Large Corporations

How many of you work for large corporations?

I spent seventeen of my nineteen professional years working for companies that sold at least a billion dollars of merchandise on an annual basis. As a result, I am probably a 'big company guy'.

Back in 2000, I spent ten months working at an internet advertising startup called 'Avenue A' (now called aQuantive). Within two week of being hired, I worked on a small team of four people. We created a product that we took to market just six weeks later. No red tape, no approvals, just a small company allowing a small group of individuals to use their experience and best judgement.

Compare that experience to things that happen in large companies.

During my time at Eddie Bauer, I was Director of Circulation. This meant I was theoretically responsible for determining the best way to determine how to mail customers catalogs. My job was to maximize sales and profit by determining an optimal catalog contact strategy.

In 1998, I wanted to add a catalog to our contact strategy. I determined who the target audience would be in this additional catalog mailing. I determined how many pages should be in the catalog. I determined the merchandise composition of the catalog. I determined the in-home date for the catalog. I calculated the expected net sales, profit, and ROI of this endeavor.

To get this decision approved, I had to do the following:

• My boss, the Divisional Vice President of Marketing, had to approve of my idea. He could alter the page count, merchandise composition, or in-home date. He could approve, alter or kill the idea.
  
• If approved, the Sr. Vice President of Marketing had to approve of my idea. He could alter the page count, merchandise composition, or in-home date. He could approve, alter or kill the idea.
  
• If approved, the Executive Vice President of Global Brand Direction had to approve of my idea. He could alter page count, merchandise composition, in-home date, and suggested creative presentation. He could approve, alter or kill the idea.
  
• If approved, I had to pass the idea past the Director of Inventory Management. She had to support the sales plan by making sure that merchandise would be available. She could alter page count, merchandise composition and page count. She could alter or kill the idea.
  
• If approved, I had to pass the idea past a team that I participated on, a team that focused on maximizing the catalog strategy. Our internet marketing leader, finance leader, operations leader, creative leader, and inventory leader could all alter the page count, merchandise composition, page count, in-home date, or creative execution. This team could approve, alter or kill the idea.
  
• If approved, I had to pass the idea past the Executive Management team --- a team of Executive Vice Presidents, and our President/CEO. This team could alter page count, merchandise composition, in-home date, and suggested creative presentation. This team could approve, alter or kill the idea.
  

Assuming that I didn't have to go back to the drawing board and re-work my numbers, the idea, altered and morphed based on the feedback of numerous leaders, became policy.

Policy meant that many employees learned this idea was likely to happen. If powerful employees were opposed to the idea, they could lob the project back to any of a number of executives, who could begin the approval discussion process anew.

This process of iteration either resulted in a final decision, or resulted in the death of the project. Occasionally, there was not enough time to implement the idea, resulting in the death of the project.

Many big companies have better decision making processes than this. Many big companies have sub-standard decision making processes.

We wonder how big companies like JetBlue can completely ruin seven spotless years of brand equity with one day of bad mistakes. We wonder how Microsoft fails to compete with Google, or Apple, or a myriad of competitors. We wonder how Ford and Chevy implode when faced with foreign competition. We question why Dell plunders its brand heritage at a time when it needs to consider a viable online strategy amid significant competition. We wonder why record labels are busy destroying the music industry.

I have yet to work for a company led by 'dumb people'. It seems that problems occur when a bunch of smart, strong business leaders experience conflict, and are required to maintain sales and profit growth.

The self-organizing processes that occur when decisions need to be made become part of the culture of a large organization. Eventually, the culture becomes inflexible. The business struggles to be able to right itself, and focus on the change needed to survive.

I cringe when a pundit suggests that companies don't have the guts to ask questions. I have yet to work for a business that didn't have the guts to ask tough questions, or to make changes. That being said, every big company struggles to overcome a culture that formed over a long series of good decisions that led to successful business results.

Do you work at a large company, or a small company? Have you experienced the challenges I described in this article? What have you done to overcome these challenges?

"Hand On A Mouse" Syndrome

Seems like the past week has been 'reunion week' --- numerous phone calls from colleagues from all over the country. I wish there was a little more cheer in our industry. Maybe the end of the fiscal year has people edgy. For many retailers, this Saturday evening is the end of the fiscal year. Be careful out there this Saturday evening, folks. Way too many fiscal year end celebrations get out of control.

One of the more interesting discussions was with a former colleague. This person talked about bring branded as a "database" person. In particular, this person said "Once folks knew I could get data, they didn't care about what I thought about anything, they just used me to get at more data."

All too often, our analytical folks are treated poorly by folks who have no idea they are mistreating anybody. I call this "Hand On A Mouse" syndrome, named after a computer user holding a mouse.

The syndrome occurs when a talented analyst gets so efficient at doing his/her job that management sees the analyst as the best way to get at information to promote various management strategies. Management uses the analyst as their own personal mouse, as a tool to access a corporate database.

If you are in management's shoes, this is a logical strategy. Management cannot keep up with the myriad of questions they are peppered with each day. An analyst who can quickly access the customer database becomes an ally, an asset.

Management appreciates the new found access to data. The analyst wants to showcase business analysis skills, not query skills.

Eventually, the questions asked of the analyst become more and more rudimentary, and easier for the analyst to get at. This allows management to answer more and more questions, allowing management to look good among their peers. Finally, feeling under-unappreciated, the analyst looks for and identifies career opportunities elsewhere.

Management wonders what went wrong? Management cannot possibly understand the fundamental problems, the frustration felt by the analysts.

How are your analytical folks perceived, where you work? Does "Hand On A Mouse" syndrome infect your analytical team members, and if it does, what do you do to vanquish it?

Running A Profitable Business

Given that today is the alleged day that retailers finally turn a profit, we should spend some time on profitability.

We frequently read about the importance of merchandising, branding, gross margin, marketing, and expense management in driving a profitable online/catalog business. We infrequently read about the importance of managing the mundane details of a business, things like filling orders, minimizing returns, and running and efficient fulfillment center.

In the example below, we have an online/catalog business that is barely profitable.

Profit and Loss Statement / Break-Even
	Key	Annual
	Metrics	Results
Total Demand		$40,000,000
Lost Sales Rate	15.0%	$6,000,000
Gross Sales		$34,000,000
Return Rate	30.0%	$10,200,000
Net Sales		$23,800,000
Gross Margin	45.0%	$10,710,000
Marketing Expense		$3,025,000
Fulfillment Expense	17.0%	$4,046,000
G & A Expense		$3,570,000
Earnings Before Taxes		$69,000
EBT / Percent of Net Sales		0.3%

Now, let's assume that management improves three key metrics. Assume that the lost sales rate improves from 15% to 10%. Assume that the return rate improves from 30% to 25%. Also assume that fulfillment expense (what it costs to pick, pack and ship and item) improves from 17% to 12%. The profit and loss statement below illustrates the impact of these improvements on profit.

Profit and Loss Statement / Improvement
	Key	Annual
	Metrics	Results
Total Demand		$40,000,000
Lost Sales Rate	10.0%	$4,000,000
Gross Sales		$36,000,000
Return Rate	25.0%	$9,000,000
Net Sales		$27,000,000
Gross Margin	45.0%	$12,150,000
Marketing Expense		$3,025,000
Fulfillment Expense	12.0%	$3,240,000
G & A Expense		$4,050,000
Earnings Before Taxes		$1,835,000
EBT / Percent of Net Sales		6.8%

In this example, profit dramatically improves, from about break-even, to more than $1.8 million in annual profit.

This is one of the big secrets about profitability. Many management experts look to driving top-line sale, improving gross-margin, driving sales via marketing, or managing general and administrative expenses as the route to business success. However, a relentless focus on filling each order, reducing returns, and improving distribution and contact center efficiency have a significant impact on overall profitability.