Finished Goods Enterprises, Inc.

This month:

Text of Jim Pfister's NJPEC Packaging Hall of Fame induction speech.

Hello everyone. My name is Jim Pfister, and I would first like to thank you all for coming this evening.

I must tell you that I’m a guy who’s been told he has a face made for radio, and a voice designed for a mime, so you will in no way confuse me for Bill Clinton, Barack, or any other silver-tongued orator.

I especially want to thank James and Lorraine for first of all putting me forward as a nominee this year, and of course, Charles for that fine introduction as well. The love that just oozed out of it was incredible.  Almost if I wrote it myself.

And since I’ve been in the club, the help that I’ve received from Susan can’t be measured, and is truly appreciated.

Let me next point out that I have some family members here. My wife Linda, whom I’ve known for over 40 years...with the last 38 of those as my spouse. My youngest son Eric is travelling, in Pittsburgh, but my oldest son Jimmy and his girlfriend Colleen are also here. Jimmy by the way is the creative member of the family. He is the only fine arts degree in the family, and can do things in metal and wood that blow me away. If anyone is looking for a creative piece of sculpture for their home or office…you need to talk to him.

I have been working in this field for 40 years, but focused on the packaging end of things only since 1985. I had been doing process design work for both Campbell Soup and Minute Maid, when a friend of mine named John Pilgrim told me that I really needed to learn packaging equipment, because very few engineers specialize in that, and very few people...period...understand it. Needless to say John’s advice worked out.

I really don’t want to risk putting you all in a trance by recounting the balance of my career. But…if you ever have trouble sleeping, you can learn all about it through my website (www.fgepa.com ).

I actually think it would be a better use of my time to talk a little about what I’ve learned low these many years. I know we have students in the audience tonight, and maybe some of what I say might help them in their careers.

Overall if there’s one thing that you need to learn, internalize, and utilize in your everyday life, it’s what I have always called the Fundamental Law of the Universe. And that law is:  W I I F M. For those of you who don’t understand that acronym, it stands for “What’s in it for Me?”

What this is saying, and what it means, is that whether you are trying to convince a colleague or a client on the merits of what you’re proposing, trying to get your boss to agree with you, or even trying to get your small child to eat his peas, you will only be successful if you are able to put yourself in their shoes, see things from their point of view, and be able to speak in a way that they can understand and internalize.  If you can’t do that you will probably fail.   Remember W I I F M.

The next thing I would say to you, is that you need to establish a uniqueness about yourself. Jay Abraham has coined a phrase “USP”. In other words what is your Unique Selling Proposition? For example, if I have an appointment to see somebody at 10 a.m., I always assume that he saw somebody just like me at 9 a.m., and has a third appointment after me at 11 a.m. Therefore, my job is to make sure that – out of  those three persons -  I’m the one he remembers. That I am the one whose idea and proposal stays resident in his brain.  So I suggest to you that you find what is unique about you. Then if you are able to translate your uniqueness in such a way that benefits that other person -  again you will be successful.

A classic, by the way, is when someone asks you the question “What do you do?”. How you answer that question will either put you back with the rest of the herd, or provoke a follow-up question – which is of course what you want to keep the conversation going. A droll answer like “I design packages”, or “I am an engineer”, or –worst of all – “I’m in sales” won’t do you a whole lot of good. For me, my answer to the question almost always is “I fix plants”.

Data.  You must be careful about data.  We can be inundated by data. And methods.  And “in vogue” metrics.

Whether it’s N=2, 3 degrees of freedom, 4M, 5S, 6 Sigma, the 7 wastes, 8 maids-a-milking, 9 ladies dancing…..whatever.

You should be suspicious of data.  Even though you have the numbers right in front of yourself, you must still ask yourself “Yeah, but does this make any sense?. In other words, what is my gut telling me? What is all my experience telling me?  In the end, if it just doesn’t feel right, then don’t do it!  One thing I’ve noticed about common sense – is that it doesn’t seem to be all that common anymore. Let’s bring back common sense!

When people speak to you, you should be suspicious of certain words. My personal favorite is the word “clearly”. That is a real buzzword, cause I know that anytime somebody begins a sentence with the word clearly, what I’m about to hear is anything but clear, and in fact, is probably very opinionated…and can’t be backed up.  Again be wary and use your common sense.

One last thing, and it’s about people and working in teams. If you have something that needs to be done, and ‘Joe’ is an absolute world-class expert at it, but – for whatever reason - just doesn’t like doing it – then don’t ask him to do it. Forcing somebody to do something they don’t like doing…even if they’re good at it…is just not going to end well.

And so in closing, I hope that you will take away at least one thing from everything I have said. In fact, I have found that that’s a pretty good yardstick. If I can go to a meeting, or a seminar, or dinner like this, and come away having learned one thing, then it was probably worth my time.

So, thank you all for listening, and I must say that - clearly - it was worth your while.  Thank you again.

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