What are the “pain points” of doing business with us? What are the “pain points” of doing business with you? What are the “pain points” you deal with each day?

Being “easy to do business with” is a guaranteed success strategy. “Pain points” are what you attack to make it easy to do business.

We were talking about customer service issues that we face in the retail centers we serve with treated lumber. This year we will ship almost 400 million feet of lumber. That’s more than 25,000 truckloads.

When you’re doing that much volume, it’s easy to say to ourselves that mistakes will happen when you’re trying to do so much.

But there is tension to that thought process. If we accept mistakes as just part of the process, the chances are that mistakes will grow.

So the people who are easy to do business with adopt the mindset that mistakes can happen, but we shouldn’t accept them as inevitable.

Hassles and pain points must be identified. They must be discussed. Plans should be made to address them — every day.

Rather than say pain points are inevitable, we must have a mindset and bias for action that says, “we can get better.”

Look around you. If you’re causing pain, act to change it. If you’re experiencing pain, figure out who can help you with it and open dialogue.