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This quote landed in one of my email accounts today. Had a smile on my face after reading while reflecting on some of the posts/replies made here in Letterville this week.
"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else." Sam Walton
Relative to all of us wouldn’t you agree? Doesn’t really matter if you sell a Ford Focus or a Jaguar XK type. Or if you sell mobile/modular homes or 7,500sqft+ multi-acre estates. Still applicable if you sell a quickly made ground chuck hamburger with fries or Kobe steak with grilled Portobello mushrooms, do you agree? I think it still applies even if you sell coroplast signs and banners or extravagant themed environments. Customers come from all ethnic, social, political, religious, financial, etc. backgrounds. One of the common components shared by each and every one is the fact they played a part in making someone’s paycheck happen. By chance, was it yours or a valid competitor?
I’m also reminded that I’m not currently a match for every potential customer just as not every potential customer is currently a match for me. Wisdom, experience, and discernment can go a long way in quickly vetting and establishing a McDonalds budget with a Morton’s Steakhouse appetite. If it’s not going to match, it’s not going to match. Still being interested in a potential customer’s success, I may suggest directions to McDonalds or other avenues and directives that will appropriately match the “need”, maybe even some of the “wants”, within the “budget”. Perhaps someday said person will lose the moniker of “potential customer” and cross over to become a “client”.
If you don’t tend to and care for the field in times of drought, they will not be equipped to take full advantage of the rain when it does happen. It will rain; is your field prepared?
-------------------- Bob Gilliland InKnowVative Communications Harrisburg PA, USA
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself." Benjamin Franklin Posts: 642 | From: Harrisburg, PA, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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"Luck is when preparation meets opportunity" - I don't know who said that or even if it fits this thread, but I thought it carried a good idea.
Bob is in a situation now where he is practicing what he has been preaching for a number of years.
Certainly, we are not going to get all the customers out there, but hopefully the ones that want the quality of work we produce. Over the years we have lost some along the way, only to have them resurface some time later.
One thing we do try to achieve is to treat each client with respect...whether they deserve it or not. There are tremendous folks in our world, and there are jerks...and at some time each will need signs and find themselves at our door. I sell images...I'm not in the judging business.
Now, Bob would probably be in a better position to tell you whether we are successful in our approach to customers or not since he has spent some time here. Just don't listen to him when he starts to talk about organization and how to install signs correctly.
-------------------- Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas chapmanstudio@sbcglobal.net Posts: 6306 | From: Temple, Texas, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Always liked this one from Henry Ford since I first heard it:
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."
I think of this often when I hear of features that some desire for in "their" software and then scoff at some of the things that are actually present. Its also a good chuckle when a requested feature is already present (and was for the past two or three versions).
For those that have been around a while, remember the grief heaped on Steve and Barb when changing to the current bulletin board software. Anybody care to go back to "old" board today?
-------------------- Bob Gilliland InKnowVative Communications Harrisburg PA, USA
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself." Benjamin Franklin Posts: 642 | From: Harrisburg, PA, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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That Dave... always says the Wright stuff... LOL!
One of my new favorites... "Coffee's for closers!"
-------------------- Bruce Bowers
DrCAS Custom Lettering and Design Saint Cloud, Minnesota
"Things work out best for the people who make the best of the way things work out." - Art Linkletter Posts: 6451 | From: Saint Cloud, Minnesota | Registered: Jun 1999
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Anybody care to go back to "old" board today? 
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