Submitting Mags to CGC 3 3

[Frederic9494]

Mmh.. sent a bunch of Spirou ("Spee-roo") magazines to @joeypost for C&P in early January... so i guess I will be lucky if I get them back before September 2023  

[oakman29]

On 1/21/2022 at 11:56 AM, wombat said:

So economy pressing is currently 217 working days and economy grading is currently 249 days. Even worse than I thought as magazines are slower than regular comics. So 466 working days. lol. You can pay more to have them done faster. Some quick googling tells me that 466 working days from today translates to November 3rd 2023 if the clock started today. That doesn't even count holidays, just weekends. 

Just a sad state of affairs. 

[batmiesta]

I'm just glad I'm not getting mine pressed. 

[oakman29]

What if I sent them in , then died in the interim. Waiting a whole year for my books to get graded. I dont think I could wait so long for em .

[This is Who We Are]

On 3/1/2022 at 9:07 PM, oakman29 said:

What if I sent them in , then died in the interim. Waiting a whole year for my books to get graded. I dont think I could wait so long for em .

Oakman, they have some of my books.  If I die while they're in process, you can have em.

[Randall Dowling]

On 3/1/2022 at 11:07 PM, oakman29 said:

What if I sent them in , then died in the interim. Waiting a whole year for my books to get graded. I dont think I could wait so long for em .

Isn't this crazy?  I hate to point the finger at anyone in particular, but this is a management problem.  Whoever is in charge of operations over there is clueless about how to scale up and maintain being on brand.  It's really obvious and completely unsustainable.  Damage is being done to the brand every month they don't seriously address this.  

A year is a lifetime in the business world.  2 years is an eternity.  Entire universes are born and die in that time period.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 3/2/2022 at 7:16 AM, Randall Dowling said:

I hate to point the finger at anyone in particular, but this is a management problem.

Do you think that is part of the problem though, Randall - the fact that we give CGC Management an easy ride over this, and are reluctant to tackle individuals?

I know this is the magazine thread, but I have a small group of books that I want to submit to CGC. One is an AF15, and it seems I have little choice but to get it graded if I want to achieve anything like its worth if and when I come to sell. The other books are a rag bag of obscure variants, that I would get a kick out of seeing enter the system / census. But I face a year or more's wait if I do go ahead, and during that time I face the anticipation of all the things that could go wrong.

What would we do in CGC's position? They start a company, and it all starts to go very well. Good product, reasonable turn around times. All is good. Then the submission floodgates open and they begin - naturally - to struggle. You can't magic up an expanded operation, with new, experienced staff to work in it, over night. 

But what can you do? What options are available, to bring the TATs for 'natural' submissions down to a reasonable level? What would you do?

One thing they could do, is to stop touting for new business. Do you get those e-news emails from CGC? They're so full of everything that is great about CGC - all the wonderful things they are doing, in and around the hobby. Here is an extract from the latest one:

Now, how many submissions do you think that those signings have brought into the operation? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? What impact do they have on the TATs, do you think? Why would a company that is struggling with volume seek to artificially increase that volume? Does that make sense?

It does - but only if that sense is the sense of killing the competition, tying your customers in and keeping the money machine rolling whilst having a great time associating with the rich and famous.

So to bring it back to my opening point, where are the consequences? If CGC Management - the individuals - can run the company this way, and face no consequences for what has become an outrageous wait time for their product - a wait time that in most industries would precipitate their demise - why should they do anything other than what they are doing? Get as much business through the door as possible, regardless of the company's ability to handle it. It just keeps coming!

Every day that CGC Management's inboxes are not full of complaints, is another day the juggernaut rumbles along without anything changing. 

Maybe it would help if some of the key figures in the process - the big submitters - started to be more vocal. Why do you hate to point the finger, Randall? If you're upset, angry, annoyed, indignant, dissatisfied - point the bloody finger!

The chap below, splendid though he may be, is the President of the company that is facing this criticism. As President, does he not owe it to the customers of the business he is President of to at least respond to that one accusation - the accusation of touting for new business when the existing business is itself too much? Is that a reasonable responsibility to expect him to bear? With great power....

@mnelsonCGC

Be honest though, Randall, as you read that last part, a little part of you is going "Oooh, he's having a go at Matt", isn't it. And a little part of you thinks it's wrong for me to have made this post, doesn't it. Petty, somehow. Unprofessional. Rude, even. If so, that is why this problem will continue. That is why they win. Because there are no consequences for bad performance and the owners are under no pressure to do anything about it - let alone explain it. 

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Get Marwood & I
Removed the unnecessary comments on remuneration

[Frederic9494]

It's been almost a year since the acquisition of CGC by Blackstone. Curious as to what their investment thesis was...

It's one thing to diversify and add more sources of revenues, but if you can't deliver the service to your customers in a reasonable time frame, the reputational cost could hurt the business big time... If they can't solve this issue organically by hiring/training more graders quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if they start acquiring the competition.

My two-cents

F 

[Randall Dowling]

On 3/2/2022 at 3:10 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Do you think that is part of the problem though, Randall - the fact that we give CGC Management an easy ride over this, and are reluctant to tackle individuals?

I know this is the magazine thread, but I have a small group of books that I want to submit to CGC. One is an AF15, and it seems I have little choice but to get it graded if I want to achieve anything like its worth if and when I come to sell. The other books are a rag bag of obscure variants, that I would get a kick out of seeing enter the system / census. But I face a year or more's wait if I do go ahead, and during that time I face the anticipation of all the things that could go wrong.

What would we do in CGC's position? They start a company, and it all starts to go very well. Good product, reasonable turn around times. All is good. Then the submission floodgates open and they begin - naturally - to struggle. You can't magic up an expanded operation, with new, experienced staff to work in it, over night. 

But what can you do? What options are available, to bring the TATs for 'natural' submissions down to a reasonable level? What would you do?

One thing they could do, is to stop touting for new business. Do you get those e-news emails from CGC? They're so full of everything that is great about CGC - all the wonderful things they are doing, in and around the hobby. Here is an extract from the latest one:

Now, how many submissions do you think that those signings have brought into the operation? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? What impact do they have on the TATs, do you think? Why would a company that is struggling with volume seek to artificially increase that volume? Does that make sense?

It does - but only if that sense is the sense of killing the competition, tying your customers in and keeping the money machine rolling whilst having a great time associating with the rich and famous.

None of us know how CGC Management are remunerated. Is it a whopping salary, or modest? Fast cars and bonuses? Penalties for failing to meet targets? Who knows. But there is one inescapable, known fact. You wait a year or two for a product that may return damaged or faulty, and they go to work every day during that period being paid and enjoying all those wonderful events and benefits. 

So to bring it back to my opening point, where are the consequences? If CGC Management - the individuals - can run the company this way, and face no consequences for what has become an outrageous wait time for their product - a wait time that in most industries would precipitate their demise - why should they do anything other than what they are doing? Get as much business through the door as possible, regardless of the company's ability to handle it. It just keeps coming!

Every day that CGC Management's inboxes are not full of complaints, is another day the juggernaut rumbles along without anything changing. 

Maybe it would help if some of the key figures in the process - the big submitters - started to be more vocal. Why do you hate to point the finger, Randall? If you're upset, angry, annoyed, indignant, dissatisfied - point the bloody finger!

The chap below, splendid though he may be, is the President of the company that is facing this criticism. How do you think he is paid? Well, or poorly? Either way, as President, does he not owe it to the customers of the business he is President of to at least respond to that one accusation - the accusation of touting for new business when the existing business is itself too much? Is that a reasonable responsibility to expect him to bear? With great power....

@mnelsonCGC

Be honest though, Randall, as you read that last part, a little part of you is going "Oooh, he's having a go at Matt", isn't it. And a little part of you thinks it's wrong for me to have made this post, doesn't it. Petty, somehow. Unprofessional. Rude, even. If so, that is why this problem will continue. That is why they win. Because there are no consequences for bad performance and the owners are under no pressure to do anything about it - let alone explain it. 

 

Last things, first, I don't think it's wrong for you to have made this post.  I don't think it's unprofessional or rude.  It's an open message board and I've generally appreciated your posts.  This reads like a letter from a frustrated customer and to that end, if CGC doesn't want feedback then they can ignore it as they like.  Or they can do something about it.

In regard to how the management is compensated.  I sincerely think it is completely inconsequential in regard to how it should impact the quality of their work.  I don't care if Matt gets paid $1 per year.  Assuming he's the one in charge of operations (I have no idea if this is the case, hence why I'm hesitant to point the finger), he took a job and agreed to do it.  He may have no idea how to do this.  In which case, he's the wrong person for the job and ownership should address that.  Or he may not care about how this is going.  In which case, he's the wrong person for the job and ownership should address that.  

Right now, there may not be an obvious impact on their business, but I assure you, there are a lot of people not submitting books because of this.  In business, this is considered a golden opportunity for another company to step up.  Reputation is everything.  The history of companies that were known for high quality products and/or services that didn't know how to grow (couldn't scale) and then failed is pretty long.  

There's an expression in business called the "unobtainable triangle".  Imagine the 3 corners to be the 3 general aspects of business- quality, time, price (there are derivations of these but let's use these for our conversation).  All three at the same are impossible to accomplish for any length of time but focusing on any two of them is a reasonable expectation.  You can provide high quality for a cheap price, but it won't happen fast. Or you can deliver things quickly and cheap but their going to be low quality.

CGC is currently struggling to deliver any of the three.  The cost of certification is going up.  TATs are horrific.  And the quality of their work is incredibly low.  This last is perhaps the most important.  They are a certification company.  It's a basic expectation that they provide a high level of consistency in grading and not damage the items they're certifying while in their care.  The inconsistency of their grading is stunning right now.  I know of books that were old label 9.0s and 8.5s that were cracked out and then resubmitted and received 7.0s and 7.5s upon resubmission.  With no intervention.  On the other end of the spectrum, we have books that would have gotten 6.0-7.0 just a few years ago coming back as 9.0.  That's an unacceptable swing for a company who's primary role is to guarantee and certify an objective grade.

While I don't doubt that they have seen an increase in business in the last couple years, they didn't just open their doors.  They've been in business for 20 years.  If they don't know how to do this after all that time, why should anyone have confidence they will in the future.  As I said before, reputation in business is everything.  And although not all the damage may be readily apparent right now, I assure you it's happening.

Again, I have no idea what Matt's responsibility is and/or how they have things structured.  I'm sure he's stressed.  But if he's in an impossible situation (i.e. being given expectations that are not possible with the resources he has), then he should resign.  Not because he failed, but because ownership has to get the message somehow.  Or whoever is in charge of operations.

[This is Who We Are]

At one point didn't a card grading company put a hold on submissions?  As a business I imagine that's the last thing you want to do, but seems like they will otherwise run this train off the rails.  If I understand correctly, you pay for Economy, it means someone able/willing to pay more, essentially gets to cut in line, thus pushing your TAT back...I guess they only have so many graders, but a parallel process seems in order (one for fast track, the other for Economy and they shouldn't intersect).  But as stated above, a 2 year wait is ludicrous and unsustainable IMHO and that is if even if one of the "corners" (quality) was there.  Wonder if people will eventually pick up there ball and go pay a visit to the other competitor(s)....in this case, I didn't but ask me in six months, a year or a year and a half if I'm happy I submitted my books to CGC?

[batmiesta]

On 3/2/2022 at 2:39 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

 

"Guys, we hear you on turn around times which have become unacceptably long. We are therefore suspending the celebrity signing programme until such a time as we catch up, and are confident that we can fulfil all submissions in a timely manner. We know how valued the programme is, but it simply isn't right that submissions to a one off event should hold up - indeed overtake - books submitted in the normal course of business. Please bear with us and our staff as we do all we can to meet this unprecedented demand and get things back on track"

 

I would love them to say this and to stop accepting any more subs until they can get get their act together, I mean, where else do you pay for something then wait a year or more to get it? 

I have had an email from them saying my card has been declined for my 2 subs that are there at the moment, emailed them back twice trying to resolve with zero response, phoned my bank and they told me whoever tried to put the transaction through had entered the wrong expiry date, WTF?  

[Get Marwood & I]

On 3/2/2022 at 3:10 PM, batmiesta said:

I would love them to say this and to stop accepting any more subs until they can get get their act together, I mean, where else do you pay for something then wait a year or more to get it? 

I have had an email from them saying my card has been declined for my 2 subs that are there at the moment, emailed them back twice trying to resolve with zero response, phoned my bank and they told me whoever tried to put the transaction through had entered the wrong expiry date, WTF?  

Come to think of it, most cards likely would have expired and been reissued after two years, wouldn't they!

[batmiesta]

Joking aside, the lack of response has really pizzed me off.  

[Get Marwood & I]

On 3/2/2022 at 3:25 PM, batmiesta said:

Joking aside, the lack of response has really pizzed me off.  

Yes. It can make an otherwise rational and cool person act out of character, can't it....

[batmiesta]

On 3/2/2022 at 4:14 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Yes. It can make an otherwise rational and cool person act out of character, can't it....

Yes! Like me. 

[oakman29]

I cant believe that after 20 years of business CGC couldnt foresee the explosion of submissions and dealt with the issue in a timely manner. That's just poor management and planning. Now they are inundated with so many books they cant get them out fast enough, which causes the quality control issues you are now facing. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 3/2/2022 at 5:12 PM, oakman29 said:

I cant believe that after 20 years of business CGC couldnt foresee the explosion of submissions and dealt with the issue in a timely manner. That's just poor management and planning. Now they are inundated with so many books they cant get them out fast enough, which causes the quality control issues you are now facing. 

I worked in Barclays Bank for a bit, years back, on a Change Management team. It was our responsibility to set up a third party supplier to manage that year's ISA campaign (back in the days when an ISA actually paid a decent rate of interest). This was always a tough gig, as the ISA campaign was a one off event - a massive, immediate spike of time critical work - making it difficult to resource. The staff would be needed only for a few months, hence the third party supplier option. The Bank had years of ISA campaign volume data from which to estimate volumes. The experts did their very best 'maximum likely' calculations, and then added a bit more resource on top to ensure it would be a success. They then received ten times the volumes they were expecting. That was a fun one to work on. Absolute panic stations and 24HR disaster management. 200 processing staff trying to manage the time critical work of 2,000. 

In the end, a massive backlog grew. When submissions finally slowed down, they decided it was better to process the new incoming applications first - within Service Level Agreements (SLA) - rather than add them to the back of the queue in which case every application would fail SLA. Good for the late submitters, but rotten for those who got in early and had their application held up in the backlog.

So even the most experienced outfit can get it wrong, and get caught out. The staff involved worked like dogs. The customers, and media, said they (Barclays) were useless.

[The Lions Den]

On 3/2/2022 at 12:12 PM, oakman29 said:

I cant believe that after 20 years of business CGC couldnt foresee the explosion of submissions and dealt with the issue in a timely manner. That's just poor management and planning. Now they are inundated with so many books they cant get them out fast enough, which causes the quality control issues you are now facing. 

It's tough to see your way out of the jungle when you're in the middle of it...     

[seanfingh]

On 3/2/2022 at 12:12 PM, oakman29 said:

I cant believe that after 20 years of business CGC couldnt foresee the explosion of submissions and dealt with the issue in a timely manner. That's just poor management and planning. Now they are inundated with so many books they cant get them out fast enough, which causes the quality control issues you are now facing. 

Dealt with in a timely manner is an interesting way to put it.

This is in no way intended to be viewed as me approving of the way their business runs or the way they treat customers.  In fact, their accounting / billing department has been atrocious for as long as I was submitting to them.

But this submission backup is not a standard business issue that can be addressed with standard business thinking.  There are no schools churning out expert graders.  They can't put out ads (or they can, but would most likely be inundated with unqualified individuals.)  The amount of training that someone would need to receive in order to be qualified would be significant, and how would they do it? Open a "Grading Academy" and literally school people to grade?  Maybe that's what they need to do. But it certainly isn't normal business scaling where you just order more widget components and start making more widgets.

Again, this isn't an excuse. I'm sure that folks smarter than I am about business growth and scaling (which should be what Blackstone is good at) could make great strides.  But I don't think it is easy. I know how long it took me to be able to grade to CGC's standards and honestly, I was only worth my salt at 8.0+

If you gave me a 5.5 I'm as likely to call it a 4.5 or a 6.5 if it has defects I don't like.  There is a reason there are shortages of doctors - there aren't enough to go around.  Graders are not the same thing, but the qualified individuals versus the need is analogous.  

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Having had time to reflect, there's a lot in my earlier post above that is unfair, I think. I should - and do, I hope - know better. 

There are problems in the model, but it is both pointless and unkind to sling unfounded mud about as I did earlier. I should do less of it, I think, and have edited the post accordingly.