"Like It Never Happened..."

Having been out of town on business on the appointed day, I wasn’t able to fetch my car until this afternoon.

While I was happy to have it back, I wasn’t quite sure how I would feel. Would I feel like I was driving a flawed automobile, unable to get past the fact that it had been damaged, even if only in a minor way? No matter how well the work was done, would I be able to tell? Would my guilt and disappointment tinge the experience of owning and driving it?

All of that apprehension disappeared instantly. The folks at Parker’s Classic Auto Works did an absolutely flawless job of restoration, and I’m very, very grateful for their skill, craftsmanship and attention to detail. On top of that, it was simply a perfect day — 72 degrees, pure sunshine — custom-made for this kind of reunion:

 

Baby, we is gonna get re-uh-quainted real fast.

A Few More Minutes With...My Son Andrew

Impressions of Japan

In late-June, my son Andrew travelled to Ishidoriya, Japan with four other students and a chaperone as part of a sister-city cultural exhange. It was a significant honor for him, and the source of over six months of excitement and anticipation; among other things, Andrew loves to travel and has a deep interest in learning about, and experiencing, other cultures.

(from left; Tsuneaki, Yuta, Cory and Andrew)

He calls his two week stay with a host family in Japan “one of the best experiences of my life.” He and I sat down recently to recount that experience. Below, in .mp3 format, are excerpts of that conversation:

Reassessing My Pride, And Joy

I try very hard not to be one of those people who wishes his or her life away, but today was one of those days I had circled on my calendar with a thick, thick marker and, then, for weeks silently bemoaned at how far away it seemed.

First, for a moment, let me drop all the tongue-in-cheek pretense about “the blonde” and “my mistress.” The damage done to my automobile was difficult for me to accept, made many orders of magnitude worse by its timing, as I was forced to sit by and watch most of the summer drain away under deep blue skies. The season for a highly impractical, vanity convertible, like many other things, is very short here in Vermont and each warm, cloudless day and evening is precious.

I know it’s just a car. But it is my one indulgence, and a source of joy, relaxation and pride in a life woefully short of those kinds of moments. The loss of its use, if only for six or seven weeks, left me feeling confined and distracted. And in a state of denial, as well. I kept the car under a cover — a cover that had previously served to keep it clean and unblemished now kept the offending damage out of sight, if not entirely out-of-mind.

Today, at last, was the day I brought the car to the body shop — whose motto, by the way, is “like it never happened.”

They had better damn well mean it.

They told me it will be ready next Tuesday, September 18 — a day that has earned its own thick circle on the calendar.

When the car was damaged, a friend sent me a sympathy card, and suggested that, like Abraham being called upon to “let go” of his beloved son Isaac, perhaps I would only truly enjoy the car if I was able to “let go” of it as well.

He has a point. Much of my pride in the car arose from silly little things like using it sparingly, never driving it in the rain, obsessing over its condition and cleanliness, and bragging about how few miles I put on it each season.

The damage, though soon repaired, is a reminder not to put her — or “it” — or anything else on a pedestal and to stop hoarding or rationing the things in life that give myself and others pure joy.

I miss her already.

For the Customer and the Marketer, Scarcity is King

My wife always has the most interesting “customer service” experiences.

This weekend, she visited the local farmers’ market. Now, in this part of the country, farmers’ markets are an emerging feature of a minor economic and marketing revolution: perceived superiority in quality, convenience, flexibility and intimacy between merchant and customer. In other words, an alternative to mass-market, one-size-fits-all industrialized economics. Sounds reasonable, right?

Unfortunately, since marketing and economics are social sciences, they are subject on whatever scale — small, or large — to the quirks of human behavior. As a result, the things we dislike about impersonal, mass-market economics easily and often show up when dealing with the “little guy” as well.

So:

A little old lady who makes homemade dog biscuits has a booth at the local farmer’s market. She sells her biscuits six for one dollar. So far, so good.

My wife, who on occasion can be reasonably frugal, wants to buy some biscuits but doesn’t want to be stuck with them if our notoriously fussy beagle doesn’t like them. She offers the little old lady a deal: will she sell her three biscuits for fifty cents?

Absolutely not, says the old lady. The biscuits are sold six for a dollar.

After some discussion, she remains intractable on this point — she has to have a dollar for six biscuits. She loses the sale.

Our little old lady could have sold my wife three biscuits for seventy cents, earning (1) a per-biscuit profit margin forty percent higher than usual; and (2) an enthusiastic, satisfied customer who would, in all likelihood, return next week.

So what’s the lesson for marketers and congregants of the church of the customer? In today’s marketplace, where a customer can get virtually anything in any configuration for any taste, preference, fashion or budget, scarcity is king.

Smart marketers realize they’re not really in the business of selling dog biscuits (which are only a commodity, easily and cheaply duplicated); they’re in the business of selling scarcity — in this case and others, it’s flexibility or a custom solution or personalized value.

An unwillingness or inability to offer flexibility is a huge liability. “One size fits all” is a commodity and companies who sell only commodities are increasingly becoming roadkill.

Sell us something scarce with that commodity — personal attention, creativity, flexibility, a solution that meets our needs (not your production/volume/sales imperatives) — and you’ll acquire a loyal, high-volume customer.

Creativity and Education

If you care about how and what your children, or any children, are learning, if you care about how your children, or any children, are prepared to thrive — spiritually and intellectually as well as economically — in a changing world, watch this thought-provoking, humor-laden presentation by Sir Ken Robinson: