For those of you who recognize the significance of the "title" of this LJ page... this post falls under that category.
In fact, many of the posts in this blog will probably have some tie-in the quote that is attributed to Einstein (but not confirmed as his!).. which is one of the reasons I chose it as a title. :D (I wanted to use the "people are like slinkys" one... but decided against it.)
Anyhoo, what is it about some business owners that just don't get it? The other day I was getting a quote from a maid service for a one-time cleaning of our house. I wanted to surprise my wife by having some of the more cleaning-intensive areas of the house done by a pro while my wife was away at a church retreat.
So, with coupon in hand, I contact the company, and begin discussions. Finally, at some point, I am told that my little town is not in their cleaning area, and they probably won't be able to help me. Now understand, they do service the town just south of mine... only 7 miles from my house to Main street in that town.
7 miles. Even my gas-guzzling SUV will do that on less than a half-gallon of gas (at current local prices... call it $1.50). Heck, they can get from any point in the next town to my house on less than 1 gallon. So I told the lady I'd be willing to pay $5 or so for that extra gallon of gas. Seemed reasonable to me. Since the only difference between my house and one in the serviced town was about one gallon of gas and 5 minutes or so of driving, I figured we could wrangle a deal.
Boy, was I mistaken. The lady told me she'd have to talk to the owner, and call me back the next day. Call me back she did, and told me that they would only come to my house if I bought a cleaning package over twice as expensive as what I was planning. That was the only way they could "justify" the extra distance!
Justify? I was willing to assuage their increased cost directly, and they want to dig me for $70 more just to come 7 miles?
That business person threw away perfectly good money. It made absolutely no business sense to refuse my business when I was offering to offset the only business cost that differentiated me from a customer who would have been able to acquire their services based on their more southerly location.
Sometimes you gotta wonder about the Universe.
In fact, many of the posts in this blog will probably have some tie-in the quote that is attributed to Einstein (but not confirmed as his!).. which is one of the reasons I chose it as a title. :D (I wanted to use the "people are like slinkys" one... but decided against it.)
Anyhoo, what is it about some business owners that just don't get it? The other day I was getting a quote from a maid service for a one-time cleaning of our house. I wanted to surprise my wife by having some of the more cleaning-intensive areas of the house done by a pro while my wife was away at a church retreat.
So, with coupon in hand, I contact the company, and begin discussions. Finally, at some point, I am told that my little town is not in their cleaning area, and they probably won't be able to help me. Now understand, they do service the town just south of mine... only 7 miles from my house to Main street in that town.
7 miles. Even my gas-guzzling SUV will do that on less than a half-gallon of gas (at current local prices... call it $1.50). Heck, they can get from any point in the next town to my house on less than 1 gallon. So I told the lady I'd be willing to pay $5 or so for that extra gallon of gas. Seemed reasonable to me. Since the only difference between my house and one in the serviced town was about one gallon of gas and 5 minutes or so of driving, I figured we could wrangle a deal.
Boy, was I mistaken. The lady told me she'd have to talk to the owner, and call me back the next day. Call me back she did, and told me that they would only come to my house if I bought a cleaning package over twice as expensive as what I was planning. That was the only way they could "justify" the extra distance!
Justify? I was willing to assuage their increased cost directly, and they want to dig me for $70 more just to come 7 miles?
That business person threw away perfectly good money. It made absolutely no business sense to refuse my business when I was offering to offset the only business cost that differentiated me from a customer who would have been able to acquire their services based on their more southerly location.
Sometimes you gotta wonder about the Universe.
Categories: id10t
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