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There’s a well-known anecdote about monkeys' collective behavior that—whether it actually happened or not—speaks honestly about how many exporters act. It goes like this:
An experiment conducted in the early 1960's involved placing a pole with a bunch of bananas every day in the center of a monkey’s habitat. The monkeys would climb the pole to get the bananas, because that is what monkeys do. One day, as a monkey climbed the pole, the researcher sprayed it with water and got all the other monkeys wet, too. Every time thereafter, when a monkey tried to climb the pole, the researcher sprayed it. Soon, the monkeys learned to stop climbing.
The researcher removed one of the monkeys from the habitat after a period of time and replaced it with a new monkey to see what would happen. When the new monkey saw the bananas at the top of the pole, it started to climb up to retrieve them. The other monkeys pulled the new monkey down. After a while the new monkey learned that it shouldn't climb the pole. Over time, the researchers replaced every monkey in the habitat with a new monkey so that none of the original monkeys remained. Still, none of the monkeys climbed the pole.
Are any of these common behaviors holding your business back?
1. "Because that's how we've always done it."
Like the monkeys, exporters of all stripes use this crutch all the time, and it's one that often comes back to haunt them. Along with its equally lazy siblings, "this is how I was trained" and "this is how it's always appeared," this excuse will debilitate even the most successful companies if given enough time.
This warning sign happens when companies, specifically leadership, don't take the time to focus on the world outside of themselves or their organization. For exporters, this is toxic: Rulings can affect how documents and laws are interpreted daily, and if you're just filling out the same forms (which may also change, too!), you risk not only crippling your business, but opening it to the possibilities of fines and penalties.
How To Fix It:
Top-down accountability can ensure that the changing landscape doesn't leave a company in the dust or in hot water. Keep in mind, accountability doesn't have to be a "slap on the wrist" approach. By implementing an expectation of responsibility from the outset, you'll not only empower your employees, you’ll gain a whole bunch of expertise that can benefit everyone.
Ultimately, severe measures of accountability, like those fines and penalties I mentioned, can make you aware very quickly of just how flawed the "we’ve always done it this way" attitude is.
2. Your business operates on a plan that isn't scaled for growth.
Sometimes companies reach a point where they realize their current export procedures are putting their company at risk. So, like responsible corporate citizens, they invest a lot of time and money to properly classify their products and determine whether or not any of them require an export license, they screen their customers against the various denied parties lists to make sure they are shipping to anyone they shouldn't be, and they create samples of all their paperwork that can be copied and used for every export shipment. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, these companies have created an export process that is good for exactly one day. Tomorrow or next week or next month something is going to change, and the export procedures they have put in place will be wrong.
How To Fix It:
Instead of working from a fixed point on a timeline, implement a system that teaches everyone in the company that processes evolve. This is especially valuable in international trade where a single day can change the whole playbook! Make sure everyone in the organization is equipped to adapt to a changing landscape, and require that all employees keep up-to-date with changes in export regulations and procedures. Requiring more from your entire team will take more effort, but implementing a scalable blueprint will mean you don’t have to keep making changes to a consistently out-of-date plan.
3. You're reactive, not proactive.
Another sign that your business is headed nowhere quickly is that you are routinely reactive. Whether it's in response to clients, freight forwarders, or even enforcement officials—reactive business mistakes are costly to both your reputation and your bottom line.
How To Fix It:
Fortunately, getting out of the rut of being reactive is usually as simple as noticing the issues at hand and implementing the right systems and routines.
Take an honest look at your company. Ask your employees and your peers for their feedback, too. By being truthful about what you can improve, you've already taken the hardest step in improving your business.
Focus on improved administration. Once you've done that, you can shrink the chaos margin that forces you to react and allow yourself and your team quality productivity time. Make time to plan, set goals, and get in front of big projects on the horizon. By being proactive with your company's resources, you may find yourself in a panic much less.
Take a look at the things you and your team spend your time on. Verify that those things are beneficial to your company and ask yourself if they're really something you should be spending your time on. Perhaps allocating your time elsewhere will make you more productive. We see this often at Shipping Solutions. Company employees can spend a lot of time preparing their export paperwork, often times entering the same information over and over again on a variety of different forms. We've convinced a lot of small- and medium-sized companies that there's a better way to prepare their export documents, and we think we can convince you, too!
If you’re wasting time and resources on a task that you can get help with, consider doing so. The payback—more time to actually do the work you need to do—is much larger than the initial cost.
Be eager to know more. From continuing education seminars to webinars to individual guidance from U.S. Export Assistance Centers, there is a wealth of information your business can benefit from if you take the first step toward being proactive about your exporting company. You may even save yourself from costly fines or other penalties!
| Product Model | Inside Diameter | Outside Diameter | Thickness |
| PCMF202315B bearing | 20 | 23 | 15 |
| PCMF202311.5B bearing | 20 | 23 | 11.5 |