By David Maloney, Sr. Account Manager
I’ve been asked countless times how I’ve managed to stay successful in the resin business for over 30 years. My short answer is always the same: failure. It may sound counterintuitive, but failure isn’t just necessary—it’s the engine that drives long-term, sustainable success for both individuals and companies.
Failure is one of the greatest learning tools we have. But to benefit from it, you need an open mind, humility, and a forward-thinking attitude—qualities that allow you to turn setbacks into turning points.
Even after three decades in this business, I never assume I have it all figured out. I still make mistakes, and I’m not immune to criticism. In fact, humility can become even harder to embrace with age, but it’s essential. Owning your missteps is the only way to keep growing professionally. As the saying goes, even an old dog must be open to learning new tricks—and sometimes those tricks come from people with far less experience than I have.
In the resin business, we face multiple tasks, complex decisions, and unexpected challenges every single day. Of course, we’d love to “bat 1,000” in every situation, but the reality is, perfection is nearly impossible. There are simply too many variables to get everything right all the time.
The best we can do is treat each experience as a lesson, to embrace it, learn from it, and file it away for future use. At Genesis Polymers, when we fall short, we kick into gear immediately. The wheels of corrective action start turning fast. Our entire company becomes laser-focused on fixing the issue and ensuring it doesn’t happen again.
Clear, honest communication with customers, suppliers, and support personnel is critical when failure strikes. If a customer’s expectations don’t align with what we thought they were, it’s our responsibility to close that gap quickly. We need to understand their perspective and adapt our approach to meet their needs.
Genesis Polymers is nimble, thorough, and forward-thinking. We’ve built a high standard of excellence in the way we support our customers. Our team is among the best in the industry, and our producer partners are reliable and trustworthy. We believe our system is a model for delivering superior customer satisfaction.
When we don’t meet a customer’s high expectations, we don’t chalk it up to an outlier or pass the blame. We dig in. We thoroughly review our processes and commit ourselves to continuous improvement in our pursuit of maximum value for our customers.
Sometimes, that means reacting faster. Other times, it means choosing a different resin, improving our paperwork flow, communicating better with warehouses and carriers, or rebalancing workloads for our support team. Whatever the issue, we at Genesis are humble enough to own it—and flexible enough to change it.
We’re honored by the relationships we’ve built with our customers and suppliers, and we never take their loyalty for granted. Every day, we strive to improve. We never assume we’re entitled to their business. For us, each day is an opportunity to learn, grow, and get better.
So, are we afraid of failure?
Not at all. Failure is our friend.
