A couple days before my 27th birthday I took a solo business trip across the southern border of the United States. I was working for a duty free company—you know those stores you see at the borders of Canada and Mexico and at airports that advertise discounted liquor, tobacco, and luxury goods—and the owner of the company wanted me to see more locations.
The most efficient way to see the stores in California is to fly into San Diego and drive to the border. I had my map and thought I was following my directions correctly. The duty free store is the last stop before the border. The parking lots of duty free stores are designed so that you exit into either Canada or Mexico. You do not have the option of reentering the United States.
BIENVENIDOS A MEXICO
I was chatting with my sorority sister on my cell phone and then I saw the sign welcoming me to Mexico. I swore. I was panic stricken. I didn’t just miss an exit…I just left the country! I had a flight out of San Diego within five or six hours and I realized that it might take me hours to get back into the United States since there are typically really long lines of traffic at the US border. I immediately called the local store manager and asked him what to do.
The store manager told me to tell the Mexican customs agent right away what happened and ask if he would open the partition between the areas of traffic entering into Mexico and the United States. I also asked the manager if I had to bribe him and how much. I think the store manager did not think a bribe was necessary but I could offer him five dollars. I was not going to take any chances and was grateful that I had a twenty dollar bill in my wallet.
I explained the situation to the customs agent and shyly revealed the $20 folded in my palm. He shook his head…and then he walked away. I started to breathe deeply wondering if I had just made the matter worse by showing him the money. Could I be arrested for bribery? As I watched him walk away, I realized that he was not walking away from me but walking toward the gate. It opened and he signaled me to approach the gate. I crossed it enabling my car to join the swarm of folks that were entering the United States. The gate was really close to the border and my wait time was perhaps twenty minutes. Within an hour, I was able to get to the store.
THE EPIPHANY
I realized during my 40 or so minutes in Mexico how crucial billboards are for directions to the duty free stores. I had been made aware that we had billboards advertising our store next to the Mexican border but other more strategically located billboards were already under contract and would not likely become available. I started to wonder how much revenue we were losing on account of customers who like me, missed the exit, but had intended to go to the store.
Six months later, I am now reporting to a new director of marketing. I informed her that some of our billboards in Buffalo were up for renewal. I showed her the both photos of the actual location as well as printouts of the actual billboard graphic from the designer. Additionally, I showed her the spreadsheet containing the contract details and locations of the billboards. She looked at the quantity of billboards and simply said that we did not need all of these billboards. She had never worked with billboards in her previous jobs.
BILLBOARDS 101
There are two things you need to know about billboards. There is a finite amount of billboards. You cannot just build a new one. Also, contracts are lengthy—normally around a year. Once you get out it can be very difficult to get back in since other advertisers will likely sign one year contracts. It is very easy to be entirely shut out of a market for an indefinite length of time.
Part of our strategy for having the same billboards year after year was that we were always able to negotiate very modest rate increases. If we were to not renew a billboard, we might have to pay far more in the future for the same board or we may not be able to afford the same billboards. If there is demand for the board from wealthy advertisers, the price will go up. Moreover, the directions to the store on these billboards helped ensure that we were not losing customers. If a customer cannot find the store, he will not be able to shop there.
From my Mexico experience and my billboard knowledge, you can see how having a strong billboard presence in a market would be a natural part of our marketing strategy. Since the director failed to inquire about the rationale of the billboards, she set herself up for a painful lesson. If sales declined after the billboards came down, the store could easily blame her single handed decision.
CONCLUSION
I left the company before the billboards came down so I cannot speak on how the decision affected sales. However, I did learn a valuable lesson: ask before you suggest. The more you know about why a particular practice or protocol occurs in your company the better chance you have of making a successful process improvement since your recommendation will take into account the relevant details.
Have you ever stepped into a role at a company where you made a significant change without asking enough questions and it backfired on you? Perhaps you would rather share what is the most interesting lesson you learned on a business trip?
Photo: Mexican Shots, SD.
Stop by Super Frugalette before she leaves on maternity leave!
It is way too common to speak before we have the facts-especially if we are trying to prove ourselves…. I am reading Ben Franklin’s autobiography on my Kindle (free of course), and that topic (listen more than talk, know your facts before you make a decision) is high on his list of self-improvement strategies. And he didn’t have ZIg Ziglar or Jim Collins to help him.
I agree. I usually jump to conclusions far more often in my personal relationships. I really have to work to pushing the “pause” button in my life and ask more questions before I jump to conclusions.
Ask before you suggest and look before you leap!
I wonder how successful billboard advertisements are in generating revenue compared to other forms of ads.
It really depends on your business model. For duty free stores, billboards are crucial and are the majority of the advertising budget. For say Ally bank..an online bank, I wouldn’t put money into billboards. I would be spending the bulk of my money in online advertising.
Great call – I call it “seek for understanding” before making and decisions. It is essential to know the whys first!
I have learned to not care about things more than the person whose job it is to care. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I have enough stress in my life without assuming stress on behalf of others. I don’t mind going above and beyond, but I always test the waters first.
Like in Financial Samurai’s recent post, I embrace being average.
That’s a tough one – it really could have happened at my last company as my boss left and I stepped into his shoes, but before anything could really blow up in my face I found another job.
You were in a no win situation. I have inherited a few “messes” at work. Not fun to dig out from the rubble!
Billboards create a crucial need some of the time an eye sore in others. I think we all see how crucial it is that there are billboards by the boarder. Especially if you don’t habla espanol.
That’s one of the reasons why I don’t like the corporate world anymore. A new manager/VP always want to put their stamp on the team. It’s a pain the ass. Why don’t you ask the people on the ground how to improve things.
I cant help but agree with you there joe – there’s a lot of top down directions, and they end up wasting so much time/money. Just let people do the work and figure out how it’s working before changing stuff
All too often the people on the ground are motivated by making their job easier, not a more efficient department, or a better product. It is a delicate balancing act to take over an intact team.
So I wonder if the border patrol didn’t take the $20, because he could risk losing his job if caught, or if he was just being nice and it was not necessary. I do love that you tried to slip the border guard a $20 to let you cut back into America, like it was a nightclub, that’s pretty cool. Yeah, it’s definitely a good idea to learn as much about how the system at a company works before you go trying to change it, especially when it comes to things like the billboards, where it’s not so easy to reverse your decision once you let them go.
I started to wonder if I was crazy for trying to give him $20….or would everyone else do the same thing in this situation?
I haven’t been in the position where I was able to change everything, but I took a job and in the first year, the nice, reasonable CEO had a heart attack. He retired and a woman in the administration took over. It was miserable. I kept waiting for her to leave, but I ended up leaving first, nine years later!!
It always pays off if you can articulate benefits of suggestions to the manager and the risk involved with not implementing the suggestion in a plausible way.
“Ask before you suggest” great words of wisdom. Do some research and some listening before you open your mouth. Very cool way to relate a point.
When I was a consultant, my job was to suggest changes. In order to make changes or even suggest changes you have to ask questions. Usually a lot of questions! I think of myself as fairly thorough, but I never ran up against management who said I asked too many questions. They just wanted me to implement changes. I learned a lot from that experience.
I believe that people love to hear themselves talk…I am sure management was thrilled that you gave them the opportunity to be heard.
I love the billboard story. I worked for Wendy’s right out of college and made a recommendation to my DM at the time that they rent the billboard located right near the exit close to our store. Nothing came of it at the time, however 2 years later (I was no longer working there) that billboard sported a Wendy’s advertisement directing people to the nearby store. Over 20 years have gone by and that same ad is still there on that same billboard. I guess it is working for them :)
In a former role at a non-profit I was once encouraged not to say anything for the first 4 years. I don’t think I succeeded, but the advice sounds similar to what you said. But I also see a metaphor in the billboards (of a sort). If you cannot see the way ahead, look for the clearest signs of imminent trouble. That works for unexpected trips to foreign countries, but it might speak to leaders as well.
Great advice…now if only I could better implement it in my own life! ;)
So true about “ask before you suggest.” I used to be guitly of not asking and suggesting because I didn’t filter my thoughts to spoken words of suggestion fast enough.
I have since learned to ask why things are done in a certain manner and sometimes that stopped the would be suggestion because it would not have improved the process. Other times it has allowed me to come up with suggestions to improve more than one aspect of the process. Great post!
I think I am one for making changes before asking if I think it would improve things. It’s one of the reasons that I am better off being the boss :)
I once worked for a construction company as a Project Engineer. I’m sure I annoyed some of my bosses by always asking why we did things a certain way. Things that made sense I followed dilligently; things that seemed off I worked to improve. I’d love to know how things worked out at your old position.
Interesting story. For me, it pointed out two excellent points. 1) when you are in a new situation, don’t be afraid to ask for advice. 2) a successful analysis requires knowing all the current facts
Must have been a bit nerve-wracking! A friend of mine once entered the US to get his Canadian visa renewed, and it was already expired. The US officers were pissed, refused entry and put him in a taxi to drive him back to the Canadian border, and he thought he was going to go to jail.
The officer at the Canadian border looked at his passport, noticed the visa was expired, said “oh, oh well”, stamped a new one and let him through. I don’t know if he realized that it was expired cause he had been in the country illegally. My friend was very lucky that day!
You never know what you are going to get with border guards. One time my UK boss was traveling with us across the border. The Canadian border guards had a real issue with him…I remember being asked “how did I know him”…I worked for him.
The Canadian border patrol also picked up my husband’s accent which is very faint. They started to have an issue with him as well…
Fascinating story Super Frugalette! I once took the initiative to fix some grammatical things in my boss’s powerpoint presentation and he flipped out lol. I was trying to be proactive and help him out but didn’t realize he wanted things a certain way and that he almost missed his deadline because he had to undo all of my changes. I learned to ask before jumping into a project after that! -Sydney
I would have done the same thing. I worked under a manager from the UK who was replaced with by a French woman who spent her career in South America. The most difficult part was persuading them on “copy” that it is “the way we say it” in the US.
My most favorite boss/mentor taught me to ask why, why, why before jumping in to a project. I use it in my personal life and it works amazingly well!