A Respectful Airline Captain

It is great to hear about how many Americans feel and how they express their gratitude for those the sacrifices made by those in uniform for all of us!

This story is from an airline captain about a recent flight he was piloting.

My lead flight attendant came to me and reported, “We have an H.R.”

The acronym H.R. stands for human remains.

“Are they military?” I asked.

“Yes", she said.

"Is there an escort?” I asked.

“Yes, I already assigned him a seat”.

“Would you please tell him to come to the flight deck. You can board him early”, he instructed.
A short while later a young army sergeant entered the flight deck. He was the image of a perfectly dressed soldier. He introduced himself and I asked him about his soldier. The escorts of these fallen soldiers talk about them as if they are still alive and still with us.

“My soldier is on his way back to Virginia”, he said.

He proceeded to answer my questions, but offered no words on his own. I asked him if there was anything I could do for him and he said no. I told him that he had the toughest job in the military and that I appreciated the work that he does for the families of our fallen soldiers.
The first officer and I got up out of our seats to shake his hand. He left the flight deck to find his seat.

We completed our preflight checks, pushed back and performed an uneventful departure. About 30 minutes into our flight I received a call from the lead flight attendant in the cabin.
“I just found out the family of the soldier we are carrying, is on board”, he said.
He then proceeded to tell me that the father, mother, wife and 2-year old daughter were escorting their son, husband, and father home. The family was upset because they were unable to see the container that the soldier was in before we left. We were on our way to a major hub at which the family was going to wait four hours for the connecting flight home to Virginia. The father of the soldier told the flight attendant that knowing his son was below him in the cargo compartment and being unable to see him was too much for him and the family to bear. He had asked the flight attendant if there was anything that could be done to allow them to see him upon our arrival. The family wanted to be outside by the cargo door to watch the soldier being taken off the airplane. I could hear the desperation in the flight attendants voice when he asked me if there was anything I could do.

“I'm on it”, I said and told him that I would get back to him.

Airborne communication with my company normally occurs in the form of e-mail like messages. I decided to bypass this system and contact my flight dispatcher directly on a secondary radio. There is a radio operator in the operations control center who connects you to the telephone of the dispatcher. I was in direct contact with the dispatcher. I explained the situation I had onboard with the family and what it was the family wanted. He said he understood and that he would get back to me.

Two hours went by and I had not heard from the dispatcher. We were going to get busy soon and I needed to know what to tell the family. I sent a text message asking for an update. I saved the return message from the dispatcher and this following is the text

“Captain, sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. There is policy on this now and I had to check on a few things. Upon your arrival a dedicated escort team will meet the aircraft. The team will escort the family to the ramp and planeside. A van will be used to load the remains with a secondary van for the family. The family will be taken to their departure area and escorted into the terminal where the remains can be seen on the ramp. It is a private area for the family only. When the connecting aircraft arrives, the family will be escorted onto the ramp and planeside to watch the remains being loaded for the final leg home. Captain, most of us here in flight control are veterans. Please pass our condolences on to the family. Thanks.”

I sent a message back telling flight control thanks for a good job.

I printed out the message and gave it to the lead flight attendant to pass on to the father. The lead flight attendant was very thankful and told me, “You have no idea how much this will mean to them.”

Things started getting busy for the descent, approach and landing.

After landing, we cleared the runway and taxied to the ramp area. The ramp is huge with 15 gates on either side of the alleyway. It is always a busy area with aircraft maneuvering every which way to enter and exit. When we entered the ramp and checked in with the ramp controller, we were told that all traffic was being held for us.

“There is a team in place to meet the aircraft”, we were told.

It looked like it was all coming together, then I realized that once we turned the seat belt sign off, everyone would stand up at once and delay the family from getting off the airplane. As we approached our gate, I asked the copilot to tell the ramp controller we were going to stop short of the gate to make an announcement to the passengers. He did that and the ramp controller said, “Take your time.”

I stopped the aircraft and set the parking brake. I pushed the public address button and said, “Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. I have stopped short of our gate to make a special announcement. We have a passenger on board who deserves our honor and respect. His name is private XXXXX, a soldier who recently lost his life. Private XXXXX is under your feet in the cargo hold. Escorting him today is army Sergeant XXXXX. Also, on board are his father, mother, wife, and daughter. Your entire flight crew is asking for all passengers to remain in their seats to allow the family to exit the aircraft first. Thank you.”

We continued the turn to the gate, came to a stop and started our shutdown procedures. A couple of minutes later I opened the cockpit door. I found the two forward flight attendants crying, something you just do not see. I was told that after we came to a stop, every passenger on the aircraft stayed in their seats, waiting for the family to exit the aircraft. When the family got up and gathered their things, a passenger slowly started to clap his hands. Moments later more passengers joined in and soon the entire aircraft was clapping.

Words of 'God Bless You', I'm sorry, thank you, be proud, and other kind words were uttered to the family as they made their way down the aisle and out of the airplane. They were escorted down to the ramp to finally be with their loved one. Many of the passengers disembarking thanked me for the announcement I had made. They were just words, I told them, I could say them over and over again, but nothing I say will bring back that brave soldier.

I respectfully ask that all of you reflect on this event and the sacrifices that millions of our men and women have made to ensure our freedom and safety in these United States of America.

Customer Reviews

The following email sent to the Sacramento office is a testament to the level of service and excellence our locations are delivering to their customers.

Carol,

Thank you very much for the information. I will contact them directly and put this to rest on my end.

Please do not worry about your involvement in our company’s drug testing in the future. Your company has already proven its commitment to the customer and I have in the past, and will continue to in the future, single sourced you for all of our needs.

Thank you again for your help with this issue.

Thomas S. Lindsley
Tricorp Construction

When you get a ‘high five’ from a customer ask them to post a review on the Google business listing. This will have a a dramatic impact on the organic search results because Google gives substantial weight to customer reviews in their organic rankings. The more customer reviews the better.

Jeff and Ken Are Kings

I visited the Sacramento franchise location on Wednesday, September 23, 2009. My visit was a pop in visit. No announcement just showing up. In the perfect world, when a field support visit is made the franchisee responsible for business development would never found in the lab.

True to form, Jeff and Ken (the star sales person in the Sacramento office) were out making sales calls and presentations. Around 4:00 pm Jeff called to check in. I was privy to the phone call which went something like this:

Carol: AccuDiagnostics, may I help you?

Jeff: Hi, it’s me hon. (After a bit of logistic information was exchanged about the ride home after work). Guess what? We are going to have to change our logo marketing piece.

Carol: Why?

Jeff: We are NOW officially doing the testing for the Sacramento Kings organization. We will start with the administration staff and work our way into who knows what. It is a foot in the door.

Congrats to Ken and Jeff for hanging in there and never giving up on a client.

Moral of story: The bigger the client, the longer it takes but the better the reward when it does happen.

Bing VS. Google

Microsoft launched Bing a few months back to replace MSN. Bing is working very hard to be competitive with Google and they are doing very well. Steadily over the months we are seeing Bing bring more and more organic (unpaid) traffic to our websites. Some locations are seeing very close numbers between the amount of traffic Google and Bing bring in. Prior to Bing, MSN hardly made a dent in our organic traffic numbers.

So we can't help but take this opportunity to ask, "Have you checked on your Bing listings lately to ensure it's optimized to bring traffic to your site?"

Please ensure the website listed is for your new URL, not the old landing pages. Upload updated facility pictures or new services you may offer. Post a new special you are running on your business listing.

The Future is Now

Be sure to make your plans, if you have not already made them, to be at the National Convention on October 23rd through the 25th. I have been talking to Felix and they are pulling all stops to make this a convention to remember. The focus is to set the course of the company for future growth.

See you in Greenville.

How the ‘Failure to Success Model’ Should Work

There are three components to the ‘Failure to Success Model’: Fail Frequently, Fail Fast, and Fail Frugally.

1. Fail Frequently. If you are not failing you are not taking enough risk. Complacency is the nectar of permanent and unrecoverable failure. Venture capitalists plan for failure. In order to identify big ideas VCs invest in unproven ideas knowing full well that 8 or 9 investments out of 10 are going to fail. Entrepreneurs that try different things in marketing, operations and personnel without having all the answers will build powerful, efficient and profitable companies.

2. Fail Fast. When you realize something is not working - cut your losses. Too often there is too much emotional investment in a project or a plan, to be able to separate the emotion from what the data reveals. For example, Sony had engineers in the company that realized the digital download of music was the future of the Walkman, a product that Sony had developed into a dominate brand and category leader. Management viewed the development of a new business format for the Walkman as destroying hundreds of millions of dollars of profits. The myopic decision was made to continue with the existing Walkman business model to milk profits, even when the data pointed in a different direction. The result: the iPod and the crippling of a once brand dominant company. Why: Unwillingness to fail fast and to hang on to an emotional investment for Sony not only cost them billions but nearly destroyed the company.

3. Fail Frugally. When experimenting with operations, marketing ideas and processes do not bet the family farm on these new ideas. Do as GE, Google or Apple do. Allow individuals freedom to try new things that are incremental in scope and then reward success and praise failure. This leads to a culture of innovation that can eventually be the birthing of big ideas that can change the course of a company or add significant profits to the bottom line.

Failure is not an option, it is a requirement. Just do it frequently, fast and frugally and big successes are inevitable.

Bing Pay Per Click Accounts

This month we've started a new PPC Campaign on Bing, the Adcenter Account we are testing out is for Las Vegas. The process was streamlined from our current Google Adwords Campaigns which made creating the account go quickly.

However there is still a learning curve we are adjusting to. It took the folks over at Microsoft nearly 3 weeks to review our campaign and approve it for active ads due to the "Drug Content". The manual review process they currently have is a headache.

We are currently trying to find a happy medium in our bidding as well. We want to ensure we have a good position without under or over bidding. This will take some time. Our campaign for Las Vegas has currently been active for one week now. We will follow up with results in coming weeks.

Newsletter Issue #2

On Wednesday, September 2nd our second newsletter was sent out to all the customers you have requested it be sent to.

Here’s the link for this most recent issue: http://www.accudiagnostics.com/newsletter/Sept_09/NASCAR_testing_policy.html.

For any past and future issues of the newsletter, you can always view them from the main newsletter site at: http://www.accudiagnostics.com/newsletter/.

Our next issue will go out in November.

The ‘Failure to Success’ Model

The ‘Failure to Success Model’ is not complicated but it is difficult to implement because there is so much emotional capital invested in failures. It is not uncommon for an entrepreneur to internalize failure and take it personally. When this happens it is difficult to separate failure as a process from failure being a personal short coming. Failure should never be taken personally. Failure should be viewed as an opportunity to learn and then use that knowledge to move closer to success. Tom Edison viewed failure being one step closer to the right solution. One of his all time great quotes is, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

You will fail. Being an entrepreneur guarantees it because you do not have all of the answers. Get use to it. The real question an entrepreneur needs to sort out is, “How am I going to handle failure?”

Next Blog Post: How the Failure Model Should Work

Culture of Creativity, Brainstorming and Innovation

Why do two companies with the same type of product in the same industry turn out to be so different? Let me share with you an example that recently unfolded before our eyes.

Company #1 started in 1994 and was one of the pioneer companies in their field. They were wildly successful. They were heralded as a new breed of company after only few years in business. They crushed many of the other early entrants in their industry.

Company #2 started in 1998 as a company that was initially funded by a government grant to index books for public libraries. During the library project the founders noted that the most popular books were often frequently referenced in many other books. They designed an algorithm to index the references as well as the books. This allowed them to rank the popularity of the books in the library by how many references a book had in other books. This concept of relevance became a basis for a new technology for ranking all sorts of information. This new concept of ranking based on relevance vs. traditional methods of indexing changed how data could be found by ranking of relevance.

The companies continued to grow on different paths. One company seemed to become intoxicated with their early success and began to morph into more of a traditional company business model after other successful companies in related fields. They even hired a big time CEO from one of these traditional companies.

Company #2 focused on their new technology hiring the brightest people they could find, which was easy to do during the .com bubble popping in 2000-2002. Both companies survived the Internet bust but by taking vastly different paths.

Company #1 continued to grow but at a much slower rate. Company #1 allowed their employees to work one day a week on anything they found interesting. Out of this culture of creativity, brainstorming, originality and innovation comes huge new ideas as well as some real bombs.

Fast forward to 2008-2009.

The headlines read:

August of 2008 Yahoo (Company #1) turns down a $42B offer from Microsoft. Nine months later the founder/CEO is fired and a new CEO is hired to save the company. The stock plummets 80% from the time of the Microsoft offer shedding tens of billions of dollars of value. The new CEO strikes a deal with Microsoft for no money invested (down from $42B) but a partnership to join forces and share revenue in order to compete with Google on search.

Google (Company #2) continues to build market share and innovate and commands nearly 70% market share of the Internet search market. Google ranks as the company that took the shortest time to become a billion dollar company. In fact, in March of 2009 Google’s market capitalization of $108B surpassed GE’s (a 100 yr old company and considered the platinum standard for all blue chip companies).

Same business, different philosophy. It is amazing what the right vision, focus, attitude and bright people can do.

Although your company, or the company that you may build in the future, may not be a Google, you need to consider the lesson of these two companies...be staid and traditional or focus, innovative and create a culture for brainstorming and the expectation that everyone that you hire be optimistic and think outside of the box and then reward that behavior.