The Process of a Lifetime

This week was interesting.  We learned about Roxanne Quimby who started Burt's Bees a company that makes lip gloss and other products using beeswax.  Roxanne Quimby is an interesting person.  She ran Burt's Bees by bootstrapping and using the money they made to invest more in the business.  They started out very small in Maine and as their company grew they would employ women who needed jobs.  No one at the company knew how to use a forklift and so they had to work harder to carry items and do things that needed to be done.  Quimby knew that is she wanted the business to grow it would need to be moved and so she took the business and and moved to North Carolina where it thrived.  Quimby never believed in going into debt because she wanted to be able to leave the company at a moment's notice if it did not work out.

We learned about the importance of looking at the processes of our company and seeing which ones need improvement and then working to improve it.  We need to constantly be checking the processes we use to see if they are wasting time, money or resources.  We need to see if our processes need to be easier.  If we find many processes that need improvement we can make a process selection matrix.  You put the processes down the left and then judge them on different criteria to see which one should be started first.  Having good processes can help your bottom line and increase your income.

This week in Cl333n we worked again on cleaning the office of the client we have.  It has been easier to clean and taken so much time since the initial cleaning.  We are doing better at doing the jobs we have decided to take on and so it is becoming faster to do them and having good results.  This week we will clean the windows and sweep up outside.  Many of the cleaning products we are using are still full since it usually does not take a lot of product to clean well.  The office is looking good and people visiting the business are noticing the improvement. 

CATHERINE ROHR:

Catherine Rohr was a Wall-Street financial mogul who like many had a hard heart towards criminals.  After a friend told her that she did volunteer work at the prison and Rohr visited the prison she realized that the people there were not criminals but human beings behind bars.  She realized what potential the prisoners had and founded the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. Most of her family and friends told her that she was foolish and that she should abandon the idea but she persevered.  She said, “If I could make it through that time of opposition, I’d be onto something really good”.  Rohr never doubted that she was doing the right thing and even after they closed her program down for a time she never gave up hope.  Rohr had guest speakers come and talk to her classes and she says that it is important to seek out the best people and involve them in the strategic decision making and in seeking counsel.  I admire Rohr and what she is doing.  It can’t be easy to take such a path and it is great that she is committed to helping others.

COREY BELL:

Corey Bell has had an interesting life.  At age 29 after losing both of his parents, he and his wife took on the responsibility to raise Bell’s nine younger siblings.  At the time he had worked for a variety of companies and then he sat down and wrote down where he wanted his life to go.  He decided that he could not get there on the course he was presently on and so he decided it was time to change and he started TriFusion.  Corey Bell says that his business is like “pimping your ride” in the IT world.  He goes in and sees what his customers challenges are and then he works to make them better.  Bell feels that it is important to touch people’s lives and he is inspired by people he meets along the way.  Bell says that his employees are people of character, passion and intelligence.  He says that he works hard to make an impact.  I especially liked his quote “Everything is possible if you want it”.  Bell has four TriFusion companies in the United States and is thinking about going global.  Bell enjoys working for himself and giving to others.  He seems to embody his values of having character, passion and intelligence.