There’s Almost Always a Workaround

After 27 years in the delivery business, Stacey and I have learned something:
There’s almost always a workaround.

Not always. Sometimes circumstances really are beyond anyone’s control.

But before we tell a client, “Sorry, we can’t do that,” we’ve learned to ask a better question:
What can we do?

That may be one of the biggest advantages we have from deliberately staying small.

We don't have layers of management, a call center, or a giant corporate rulebook telling us what we're allowed to do. When something unexpected happens, we can make a decision, change the plan and get moving.

And after 27 years, we've come up with some pretty unusual plans.

Not long ago, a client had closing documents that needed to get signed and returned in time to complete a real estate transaction that day.

There wasn't enough time to pick up the documents, drive them to Vancouver, get the signature and bring them all the way back.

So we changed the plan.

The client emailed us the document. We printed it at our office, drove it directly to Vancouver, got the signature and immediately sent a photo of the signed document back while the original was on its way.

Problem solved.

Sometimes the workaround is much simpler.

Maybe a delivery can't reasonably be completed that evening, so instead of making promises we can't keep, we arrange for it to be the first direct delivery the following morning.

Other times, things get considerably stranger.

A few years ago, a customer called late in the afternoon because toner was desperately needed at a wildfire command center in Goldendale, Washington.

So I picked it up and drove it there.

Apparently, fighting wildfires requires more than firefighters and water. It also requires toner.

And then there was the time a ship couldn't leave without a replacement part.

I didn't deliver that one to a receptionist or loading dock.

I boarded the ship, found the chief engineer and handed him the part so he could install it and the ship could leave.

After enough years in this business, you learn that the package is rarely the real issue.
It's what happens if that package doesn't get where it needs to go.

A closing doesn't happen.

Someone can't do their job.

Equipment stays down.

A ship doesn't leave.

That's why when something unusual happens, our first instinct isn't to reach for the rulebook.

It's to look for the workaround.

We can't promise that we'll always be able to say yes.
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But we can promise that before we say no, we'll look awfully hard for another way.