The windswept California coast at Half Moon Bay provided a setting of stark beauty for Tag & Label Manufacturers Institute (TLMI) converter members and their spouses and guests to ponder the current and future state of their label businesses. Even the traditional afternoon golf outing was hostage to the rain and high winds that kept most indoors—not really a hardship considering the Ritz-Carlton and all its amenities was the venue for the three-day conference.

TLMI strives to be the type of organization that prepares its members for changes in the industry, and no technology is changing the label landscape like RFID. The technical sessions kicked off Monday morning with a panel session on RFID technology, moderated by John Bennett of Flexcon. Panel members, who gave individual presentations, then assembled after all the presentations were over to answer questions from attendees, were: Tom Pounds, Victor Vega and Dave Bledsoe of Alien Technology; Dean Frew of RFID solutions provider Xterprise Inc.; and Chris Munro of the Imaging and Printing Group of Hewlett-Packard. The sessions concentrated on the nuts and bolts of RFID implementation: what works, what doesn't, which applications make money, which don't.

Hewlett-Packard is one of the top three consumer-product companies in terms of usage of RFID tags on its retail products (the other two are Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble). Munro claimed that H-P has tags on every product it sells at Wal-Mart. Far from just staying ahead of the retail giant's RFID mandates, Munro detailed how the RFID tags yield specific retail advantages to H-P in terms of more accurately flagging inventory problems, tracking the success of regional promotions, etc.

Business consultant and author Joe Calloway gave a presentation whose subject matter, summed up in the title of his presentation, perked up the ears of the label converters present: "Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison." Label companies have for years been battling price pressures and customer perceptions that labels are commodites, and should be priced accordingly.

According to Calloway, these extraordinary companies (and he gave dozens of examples, not only from today's most successful companies, but from audience participants' favorite local businesses) have several actions and philosophies in common:

• A bias toward action: "Mediocre companies talk about action. They are often masters of cheerleading and conversation. Extraordinary companies act. They are masters of execution."
• A willingness to fail: "Extraordinary companies know that mistakes are seldom fatal. You gain new information from mistakes, you learn from them, you fix them, and you move forward. What is fatal is the mistake of doing nothing in a dynamic marketplace."
• Constant innovation: "If you don't wage a daily war against complacency, your days are numbered. You don't have to be wildly creative to be innovative. You simply have to look at the same thing as everyone else and see something different. And you have to be willing to go first."
• An experience, not just a product: "Most customers really don't see a big difference between you and your competitor. Not, that is, until you wrap your product with an experience of doing business that is so compelling, that you command customer loyalty."
• Consistent performance: "Inconsistency of performance is the great brand killer. Extraordinary companies make consistency of performance a top priority. They create repeatable processes and establish a standard of habitual dependability."
• Knowing what's important: "Everything begins with your culture. People who work for extraordinary companies have great clarity and a deep commitment around who they are and what they stand for. At great companies 'what's important' gets talked about all the time. It's in the air. It's in their DNA. It's why they're a great company."

Another principal part of the TLMI Converter Meeting agenda—which all attendee members eagerly anticipate—is one to which the media attendees are not invited. It is a private presentation and discussion of what is called the Ratio Study.

Presented by Shawn Six of Industry Insights, it is a data-based discussion of information gleaned both from TLMI members and comparisons from the tag and label industry in general, with the aim of helping member comapnies—both those who attend the converter meeting and those who don't—run their own businesses better as a result.

According to TLMI, defined business ratios, calculated annually through the TLMI Management Ratio Study, help and encourage TLMI members to incorporate new and innovative methods of improving productivity and efficiency in order to increase financial returns to their own companies.

Those companies who perform the best in these defined business ratios are awarded the annual Eugene Singer Awards (see sidebar), also called the Best-Managed Company awards. These are presented in four different categories according to sales volume. The Ratio Study program and information in general is considered one of the most valuable features of TLMI membership, according to both newer and longtime members.

Editor's note: For more information on Joe Calloway's books and presentations, see his web site, www.joecalloway.com. For more info on membership in TLMI, future events, or to search among member companies, their web site is www.tlmi.com.