Learning to hit the sweet spot
Golf is a sport of precision and accuracy. After all, the object of the game is
to hit a ball that is about 1.68 inches in diameter into a hole that is
approximately 4.25 inches in diameter, not the easiest feat in the world to
accomplish. Yet, the prospect of achieving that goal becomes even more
difficult with distance. Golfers usually start anywhere from 250 to 650 feet
away from the cup. At first, it doesn’t seem possible, but that changes with each passing stroke.
Once a golfer finally drops the ball into the first hole, he still has 17 more
to go. Thus, golf is also a sport of fine-tuning and finesse. Golfers are
constantly adapting their strategies to weather and fairway conditions. Factors
such as wind, sand and water hazards, the angles and inclines of the course are
all taken into consideration before each swing. The best golfers analyze all
the details and then select the right tool for the job, be it a wedge, putter,
iron or driver. The best of the best do even more than that. They look to find
the elusive “sweet spot” of each club to increase their success.
The sweet spot is the ideal surface on the club in which to hit the ball and it
is usually found right smack in the middle like a bullseye. It’s not the biggest target to aim for, admittedly, but the reward is well worth
it. Golfers who hit the ball with the sweet spot of the club can expect it to
be driven to its maximum potential, and, ultimately, closer to the hole.
Marketing a drycleaning business is a lot like playing golf, though not nearly
as much fun. Like the gentleman’s sport, marketing requires precision and accuracy, fine-tuning and finesse. It
also helps to use the right tools and to be knowledgeable of your company’s own unique “sweet spot.”
In this issue, columnist Dennis McCrory offers advice on the subject. As he
notes, the best cleaners are the ones who poll their core customers for an
honest, unbiased view of what they like and don’t like about their business. The best of the best take it a step further by
addressing their company’s weaknesses and enhancing its strengths in order to place themselves in an
irresistible position, right on target with their customers. So, any cleaner
eager to play a better game now will be happy to know that this month’s lesson tees off
here.
Upon further review, they still lose
Hanger producers in the United States who have closed up shop in the last few
years must feel like the pro football fan who learns on Tuesday that the NFL
office has decided that referees made a game-costing error on Sunday.
Six years ago a group of U.S. hanger manufacturers appealed to the U.S.
government for help against the tide of cheaper Chinese hangers that was
flooding the domestic market. Their appeal did not fall on deaf ears. The U.S.
International Trade Commission agreed that the U.S. industry needed relief from
Chinese imports. At the time, the trade commission said that hangers made in
China were “being imported into the United States in such increased quantities or under such
conditions as to cause market disruption to the domestic producers” and recommended a tariff on the Chinese imports.
The Bush Administration rejected that proposal in 2003, citing the fact that
domestic producers still owned 85 percent of the U.S. market.
In the wake of that decision, imports from China increased, doubling between
2002 and 2005 to just over a billion hangers, then up to 1.7 billion in 2006
and 2.7 billion in 2007. And the cost per hanger went down. While this was
going on, U.S. hanger makers were, one by one, closing up shop until just one
was left. That one remaining manufacturer, M&B Metal Products, tried again last year to get the U.S. government to intervene.
As was the case the first time around, they were successful in the first round
of gaining protection for the domestic product. Again a tariff on Chinese-made
hangers has been put forth.
The harm to the U.S. industry from imports is indisputable now and this time the
tariff is likely to stick. That should be good news for M&B and it may stimulate renewed domestic production. But for those companies that
cried foul in 2002, were overruled and have been vindicated by the course of
events, the new ruling from “the league office” cannot reverse the adverse outcome of the original mistake.
