Perspective: 2001 Quips of the Year

John Wolz

One quip can be worth a thousand words. Entrepreneurs who have sold their companies usually try to dance around about any disagreements they have with the acquiring companies.
Arriving a few minutes late for an National Fastener Distributors Association spring meeting roundtable on employee relations, Leann Rayburn apologized for her tardiness at the early morning session. �I was dancing until past midnight,� she explained.
During the roundtable she told numerous stories of how she treated her Flexalloy employees, including cooking meals once a month on the loading docks. When asked if things had changed since Textron acquired Flexalloy, Rayburn hesitated and then quipped, �I didn�t dance with anyone from Textron.�

Wally Olczak said he started JuWal Associates Inc. this year because he needed something to do with extra money. �I already have a boat,� he explained the reason for opening a Chicago-area construction fastener distributorship.

In his Western Association of Fastener Distributors seminar on getting higher prices, Lawrence Steinmetz asked if anyone in the audience would use the low-price bidder for brain surgery. �Raise your hand and I�ll believe you did,� Steinmetz made his point.

After noticing the cigars in the lobby humidor started at $30 and hotel rooms were $300, one distributor at the NFDA annual meeting at the Ritz Carlton in Naples, FL, suggested an additional workshop topic: ��How to Get Your Price,� with the hotel sales vice president as the speaker.�

Jim Ruetz (pronounced �ritz�) quipped that from the moment he drove up to the Ritz Carlton for the NFDA meeting and told the valet, �I�m Jim Ruetz� he has �received the best of treatment.�

Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association president Jim Smith announced the keynote speaker did not wish to be introduced and turned the microphone over to Larry Winget. Winget explained why he eschews introductions: �Nobody cares how good you used to be.�

Public relations experts know several tricks for dealing with a sagging economy. In recent good years news releases prominently touted the percentage gains in sales or earnings. As the numbers fell this year the raw figures were buried in long paragraphs, and the percentages of decline were not given. Go figure � for yourself.

Sign of the times: STAFDA conventiongoers could choose to attend two of six workshop sessions. A year ago finding employees was a hot industry issue. Times change quickly. This year there were plenty of seats available for Lou Benson�s �Recruiting & Retention Strategies,� but there was standing room only in Michael Fortino�s sales workshop.

Some people complain about lost luggage. Optimists can play it to their advantage. Ningbo Haixin Hardware Co. Ltd. of Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, arrived at the Columbus show without samples to display. Instead, Ningbo posted a handwritten sign in its booth: �Ladies & Gentlemen: I beg your excuse for: All our excellent samples are kept by American Airlines. Most probably for their own use, though it is a great honor on our side. Sorry I can only offer you our brochures.�
Lots of fastener companies would like to list American Airlines as a customer.

�You have to have a certain amount of money in your pockets to have ethics,� one distributor remarked at the spring meeting of the Western Association of Fastener Distributors.

�It sounds like a level playing field, but it is level all down hill,� Lan Boyd said at the WAFD spring meeting.

�If you don�t use it right, a respirator can kill someone,� safety equipment expert Larry Bogo remarked at the joint meeting of the Southwestern and Southeastern associations in Biloxi.

G.L. Huyett produced its own series of �Another Fastener Fallacy From www.huyett.com� bumper stickers. One defines �vendor partnership� as �Free freight, net 60 and no margin.�

The Boomerang Quote of the Year goes to Mike McGuire. In promoting his website, McGuire wrote in a news release, �There is no reason whatsoever to go anywhere else to locate suppliers for any or all of your fastener requirements � it�s all here online.� One reader said he finds the �unequivocal, emphatic statement clearly tells fastener buyers not to read advertisements in his magazines, not to attend his trade shows and not to buy through his rep agency.�

�The secret to being a successful economist is to give a forecast or a date, but never both,� economist Adam Fein told the NFDA.

Ross Barnhill�s quip last year that the new dot.com millionaires would be bankruptcy lawyers proved prophetic. This year Fein renamed B2B dot.coms as �B2B2B � or business-to-business-to-bankruptcy.�
�Instead of measuring their EBITDA, dot.coms used �EBE,� or �earnings before expenses.��
Fein said Internet auctions �offer the sweet taste of lowest price followed by the sour taste of lousy service.�

An exhibitor who spent five figures to participate in a fastener trade show was complaining to a show manager about the lack of attendees. The show promoter interrupted the exhibitor to complain about losing a two-figure attendee registration fee to a badge swapper. The normally mild-mannered exhibitor earned the �Make My Day Quip Award� for his expression later of his feelings at that earlier moment: �I wanted to pin the attendee badge on that donkey.�

And the Flip-Flop of the Year Award goes for the second consecutive year to the management of the National Industrial Fastener Shows. Last year�s quip involved their flip-flop from one-and-a-half-days to one-day and back to one-and-a-half-day shows at Columbus. This year the flip-flops were the announcements of expansion from one-day to one-and-a-part days at Las Vegas and back to one-day all within one year. And then they announced next year�s show will be a day-and-a-half.
�It is d�j� vu all over again,� an exhibitor imitating Yogi Bear said of show management�s multiple switches.
�At least Coke made the New Coke mistake only once,� said another.

Charlie Wilson, an institution within the Industrial Fasteners Institute, said he wanted to start easing into retirement and approached managing director Rob Harris about working fewer days. They agreed to three days at reduced pay, but Wilson soon found �I talked myself into doing the same amount of work in less time for less pay.� \ �2002 FastenerNews.com