Communicate your plan
Once you have determined where your problems areas are and what needs to be done to fix them, you have to communicate to all your employees why those changes are being implemented.
“The most important thing is to communicate [your plan] internally so you make sure people understand what you’re doing and why,” Toler says. “We did everything from e-mail communications to town-hall meetings to plant floor meetings to conference calls and various other forms of communications. It wasn’t easy, but it was straightforward. It was something we knew we needed to do and something we had to get at right away. The one thing that happens in challenging situations is that people often don’t communicate enough, and we tried to be very upfront with folks and let them know where we stood.”
The planning process is a calculated, communicative process that requires collaboration with everyone on your team. There is no substitute for communication during planning.
“I think the thing we tried to do was talk to the people that were closest to the business,” Toler says. “You have to talk to people working the lines, the front-line salespeople, talk to the marketing team and understand what they thought were the issues in the business. One of the things I’ve always found is that when you have a problem in a business, you go to the problem. You try and find out how we can help. You put people out in the plants, you put people out in the field and you talk to the team and ask them what things they think need to get changed and what things could get better.
“Assess what you’re good at. Assess where your competitive advantages are and assess where your weaknesses are and then leverage your strengths and try and either strengthen your weaknesses or get out of them. Stop trying to do things that you can’t do and focus on the things you can do really well.”
This strategy also paid off for integrating acquired companies, including two recent ones made last fall.
“When most companies go in and do these type of deals they just take the home-teams approach and wipeout the other guys,” Toler says. “The most important thing to do is to listen and to defer judgment when you’re getting opinion from folks that are new to you. You shouldn’t automatically assume that your approach is the best approach, but you should listen and be open to each others’ ideas. That’s been what we have all tried to do. We believe you can find a better approach by listening to each others’ best practices versus just saying, ‘Because I’m doing it a certain way, that’s the best way.’ It takes a little longer and sometimes it’s harder, but generally you end up with a better outcome if you have the patience and willingness to do it.”
Toler’s solutions led to the company’s best performance in 63 years.
“Coming out of the bankruptcy, the strength of the first year results has enabled us to more than double the size of the company,” Toler says.
Pierre’s merged last September with Advance Foods Company Inc. and Advance Brands LLC, creating Advance Pierre Foods, double the size of the pre-merger organization.
Today, the company has $1.3 billion in sales and more than 4,000 employees, making it the largest privately held company in the tri-state area.
“Fixing the bottom line by productivity and pricing, staying focused on our core products and understanding how to merge two businesses together with us that strengthen us in our product lines and also strengthen us in our core channels have made us successful,” Toler says.
HOW TO REACH: Advance Pierre Foods, (800) 969-2747 or www.advancepierrefoods.com
