Greetings, friends!
And, might I add, thank you for patience with my extended absences from this virtual paradise this past year as I stood by my wife as we worked through a series of surgeries, pain management, physical therapy and other related (and ineffective) tortures. She had her most recent (and hopefully last!) surgery this morning. Keep her in your thoughts!
That being said, to those of you wondering what that salty car ad spoof has to do with our neat little corner of the business world?
One word, folks.
Arrogance.
While that ad was neither created nor sanctioned by The Grande Tres, it certainly rings true, no?
Arrogance, and its siblings laziness, stupidity, et al.
Causes of death on the once admirable and innovative American automotive industry's death certificate.
AND current diagnoses of our own beloved profession.
How long have we acted like our consumers had no other choice?
How long have we jacked up prices and maybe cut services...for the sake of the bottom line?
Have we tried to swap in those crappy Asian slave labor caskets in the place of our own countrymen's handiwork, and not adjusted the price to accurately represent our cost and a reasonable profit margin? All in the vain hope that the consumer won't notice? Or perhaps we think that they're not smart enough to notice....
In short...is our industry the next to do the Walk of Shame and have to get in line with the failed and disgraced to beg for our futures? Because of our arrogance?
Will the next ad spoof feature a hearse/casket coach/Eternal Edsel or whatever we call 'em these days? With the headline beginning "You didn't buy our shitty caskets..."
A bad economy is already taking its toll on our margins...factor in arrogance, bad management, and you've got yourself a one way ticket to the bank...hat in hand...head down...asking for a bit of charity.
And we'll deserve it. Too many of us are still operating like it's 1979 and discounters are a blissful 15 years away from being any sort of appreciable threat, consumers were still fairly loyal and had not begun the tectonic shift away from their relational buying habits to transactional buying habits...
Do you get it yet?
Are you still firmly esconced in the sand, Mr. Ostrich?
Do you see your possible future?
And what are you going to do about it?
Let me know...I want to know who wants to live and who wants to be the punchline of some late night talk show host's joke...
Dan
PS - Oh yeah...I'm as irritated as I sound!
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