Is your business succeeding or failing? Somewhere in between?
If you’re struggling to answer that question, Peter Christian’s debut book can help. In What About the Vermin Problem?, Christian shares the good, bad, and ugly business practices that he’s witnessed over his long career as a consultant and leader for companies like Crayola®️.
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s episode, including:
- [00:21] The most important policies and procedures to have in place from the beginning of your company
- [00:50] The main difference, from Christian’s perspective, between a startup and an established company
- [02:50] The number one systems implementation issue companies face
- [04:30] What makes information systems difficult and how the right disciplines can protect you from pain.
- [06:30] How consultants help you understand readiness for new initiatives and projects
- [08:00] Understanding business tools versus personal needs and how the human element matters for good optimizations
- [09:23] Mitigating risk by knowing what we don’t want or need to do in our work
- [12:10] How Christian helped one foodservice company save 15 million dollars on a new facility by optimizing the existing resources
- [19:10] The danger of using people to solve systems problems and what to do instead
- [23:30] How thinking about sunsetting products or services is critical to your planning process
- [27:14] Communicating differences of opinion in a way that makes your business stronger
- [29:51] Where the title, What About the Vermin Problem?, came from and how it relates to good communication
- [32:20] What it means when you continually don’t get what you want at the end of a project (Perhaps the most important part of the whole conversation).
- [34:04] Peter and Renia go wayyy deep and nerdy on the importance and power of strategic planning.
- [37:50] Why consultants can be dangerous if you don’t know where you’re going
- [40:54] Anticipating industry changes and evolutions that require adaptation
- [43:28] What Peter learned from leading production at Crayola®️ about forecasting for future circumstances
- [48:00] The danger of growth and holding large amounts of inventory
- [50:40] Where to begin, when you don’t know what you don’t know
- [52:54] What the best consultants do, that isn’t so common
- [57:45] Peter’s hopes for what you will learn by reading this book
How to connect with Peter Christian
