Breaking Gravity update

As you all know, our theme for the first half of 2013 is "Breaking Gravity".  What that means for each of us is overcoming all the obstacles in our way of becoming a great company.  We're growing and doing a lot of things well, but in order to reach our audacious goals and truly become great, we have to find a way to do EVERYTHING well, even the little things.  Every single one of us needs to be excellent in everything we do, going the extra mile to serve the customer, taking initiative to improve processes, always thinking and asking questions when things don't seem quite right, taking pride in our work and environment and culture, etc..  We call this Breaking Gravity.  It's a big task, but we're up for it!

We set some ambitious goals for the first six months of 2013 in conjunction with our Breaking Gravity efforts.  These goals support our 18% growth target for this year, and our need to improve our operating income.  Our sales goal we equate to traveling 240,000 miles, or the distance from the earth to the moon.  Our profitability we equate to 24,000 miles, which corresponds to 10% of our sales, and represents flying around the earth one time.  And we're also measuring our inventory variances, which contribute significantly to our ability to serve our customers, and be profitable.

As of March 31, we have traveled in our space ship 109,000 miles, or about 45% of the way to the moon!  We are well on our way, but we have a lot of work to do in April through June, our busy season.  Profitability-wise we have traveled 9,000 miles, or about 3/8 of the way around the world.  For example, if we started flying west from Charlotte, we'd be over Thailand right now, so we still have a ways to go.  We also have work to do regarding our inventory accuracy.

The next 3 months will be a very busy time for us.  Let's keep in mind our goals of Breaking Gravity and flying to the moon!

Serving the Community

I'm part of an organization named "What if Everyone?".  We put on 2 community service weeks a year, partnering with dozens of local charities and hundreds of volunteers to serve folks in our community.  This past Saturday I volunteered along with about 400 other people.  Our projects ranged from random acts of kindness, like giving out gas cards and handing out quarters at laundromats, cleaning up a gym at an urban youth center, sorting donations at a child advocacy center, providing goody baskets to fire stations, gardening and playing bingo at nursing homes, visiting kids at the children's hospital, building wheelchair ramps for several local residents, and collecting food donations for a food bank, and dog food for a great dane rescue center.

I myself volunteered at an organization in NoDA called the Free Store that serves the homeless by providing free clothing and meals as well as odd jobs and a place to hang out.  My team grilled well over 100 hot dogs for the patrons, planted shrubs, installed gutters, and spring cleaned.  I had a great day working and hanging out with the Free Store patrons and volunteers.  One gentleman in particular that I met made an impression on me.  He had just been released after serving 20 years in prison, and was working hard to get on his feet, and to find work and a suitable place to live.  His gratitude for some very simple things in life was inspiring and humbling.

I want to encourage every one reading this blog to take some time to serve the community.  I'm always a little hesitant to take time out of my schedule to volunteer, but every time I do it impacts me way more than the people I serve, and I'm always very glad I made the time.  It's amazing how giving can take your eyes off yourself and make you thankful for all the good things you have going on.

Here's a snapshot of just a few of the things that happened:

• 5,000 items collected for Second Harvest
• 750 pounds of dog food collected for Great Dane Rescue
• 2,000 toiletry items collected for A Child's Place
• $2,000 of free gas cards handed out
• Over $2,000 given away to local non-profits and beneficiaries
• Over 1,000 volunteer hours contributed
• Served at over 20 locations throughout Huntersville and Charlotte
• Over 25 goodie baskets given to local fire stations
• 2 handicap ramp built
• And much more!

For more information about What if Everyone, go to www.whatifeveryone.com, or check us out and like us on Facebook.  Thanks to Paul and Carolina Energy for sponsoring this event!

Kurt

Back From The Mountains

As you're all aware, the management team just returned from our quarterly offsite meeting. We spent two full days meeting and discussing our goals for the year and our strategy for meeting and exceeding them.

I have to say that as excited as I was when Paul first brought the Rockefeller Habits to us, and we kicked off the " Reignite " campaign, I am even more excited about all that is ahead for each and every one of us (and CED as a whole) in the coming months!

I hope everyone else will be just as excited as we continue to live and breathe our CORE VALUES everyday and as we begin " Breaking Gravity ". There are great things in store for us!

Tennessee Up and Running

Carolina Energy now has a warehouse up and running in Tennessee.  After 2 years of wasted time, money and lousy employees, Marty has taken the reins along with Nick.  Inventory should be arriving in warehouse today.  Lets go get the Volunteer State.

4th Quarter Reignite Goals

To refresh everyone's memory, our goals for the 4th quarter of 2012, which were laid out in our all-employee meeting in late October, were to reach 1,000 customer touches and a sales target for the months of November and December.  It was also announced that if we accomplished these goals, there would be a company-wide celebration in January.  So, the final results are in, and they are....drum roll please...

Customer Touches:  we attacked this goal with fervor in early November, determined to make sure all our customers were "raving fans", and not just satisfied.  There was much creativity, with all employees, including drivers and warehouse and office staff, getting involved to touch customers.  Read the blogs below for examples of employees going above and beyond.  Eventually the novelty wore off, however, and, combined with the holidays, customer touches dropped off significantly.  But...I'm happy to report that we topped the 1,000 customer touch number late in December.  We definitely need to do better in 2013, but great work all in reaching the 2012 goal!

Sales:  our goal for the final 2 months of the year was the sales figure that would give us 10% growth in sales over 2011.  This was a challenge, as we were facing the loss of 2 large customers.  Here I'm also happy to report that we beat our sales goal, by about $100,000.  So good job everyone!

Now for the fun stuff:  the company celebration will be held at Strike City in the Epicentre in Uptown Charlotte on Saturday, January 19th, from 3 - 6 PM.  All employees, spouses and children are welcome.  The address of Strike City is 210 E. Trade Street, Charlotte NC 28202.  Let's enjoy the fruits of our labor for 2012, as we gear up for bigger things in 2013!

Happy New Year!

from a post I saw today on Facebook, comes a great thought to begin the new year with.....


"When you have a spirit of excellence, you do more than you have to. You don’t just do the minimum amount required; you go the extra mile."

                                                                                                            - Joel Osteen

Giving Back

Hi, I'm Brien Joyner. Last month, my daughter came home from school and told me that her school was helping give presents to a less fortunate school. On Tuesday, December 18, my daughter's school, Olympic High School and I went to Hidden Valley Elementary School and passed out presents to all the kids throughout the school. From this experience it reinforced how my family and I are truly blessed. It felt great to give back to the community and see the smiles on the kids face when they got presents.

Four Children Have Christmas - Karen

As part of Carolina Energy's Core Value of Community Service, Jenn and I had the priveledge of shopping for 4 children. Rose (Jr's wife) works with the York School System and Paul was approached about sponsoring a child off of their Snowman Tree. In the spirit of Christmas and giving Paul took on not one child but a family with four children ages 2, 4, 5, & 7. The Snowman clearly stated to just buy a $30 or under gift for the children but that was clearly not going to buy Christmas for these Children. Jenn and I were given a budget of $125.00 per child and set off on a mission. We were able to get each child a full outfit including shoes, socks, thick sweatshirts, and of course each child got a toy.

As a parent I look forward to watching my children's faces light up as they open their treasures of Christmas Morning. Now I know that these parents can watch her childrens faces light up also. I would like to thank Paul for this experience, I truely enjoyed the spirt of giving I felt as we shopped for these children. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and I hope these babies enjoy their presents.

Time, Talent and Treasure

Most times when you donate your time and or talent what you get out of the experience is much more than what you give.  Sure does make you feel fortunate to be able to do something for those who need the help.  Thanks to my mom who even in death inspires me.

Training

Just wanted to issue a friendly reminder to all employees to be sure you are visiting the Trojan extranet site regularly to keep up with all the current news and training information. I have the laptop available for anyone who wants to train and/or blog about what's goin' on, see Jenn if you need your log in info again.

Reignite goals update

We finished the first month of our 4th quarter challenge ahead of our goals.

For customer touches, our goal was 500 touches in the month.  While touches dropped off considerably from our initial pace, we finished the month with 569 customer touches.  Yes, some were more creative than others, but we did beat our goal.  Our challenge is to get back our early zeal and continue touching our customers so that we can meet our 2-month goal.  It's a busy time of year, but a great time to impact our customers going into 2013.  We also beat our sales goal for the first month of the challenge by about 25%.

December is a difficult time to get our customers' attention, so we all need to work hard to make sure we finish the race we started.  Everyone has worked hard so far, but the job is not done.  Let's enjoy the holiday season, but continue to Reignite! the passion our customers have for us.

Kurt

Junior Helping in the Community

On November 30, 2012, I spent the day with a widowed lady in my community as part of our Community Service Core Value.  She had a handy man list prepared of items around the house that needed to be fixed, moved and a few projects for me to do.  I spent the day with her enjoying fellowship as well as completing all projects.  I am really excited that Carolina Energy has started the Core Value Concepts.  This is something that was instilled in me as a child and I have been doing all my life.  As a child I helped my elderly neighbor around the yard with leaves every fall and carrying wood in the house in the winter for her heater.  By doing this community service most of my life has helped me probably more than just doing all the little chores I still do every week for a lot of different members of the community and family.  The fellowship shared in talking and getting to know them and hearing their stories has enriched my life. 

Thank you for this opportunity .

Junior