Ed Bennett-Where are you?

I have a update from Jr to deluxe and emailed him a while back. I took
a long time for him to answer here is a portion of his email. think
the magazine review has buried him, it may take considerable time for
him to catch up.

---------------------------Email from Ed----------------------------
Sorry for the delay in shipping your order and the delay in responding to
your email. This year demand has far exceeded my ability to keep up. I'm
completely sold out of almost everything and am behind in production on just
about everything. I'm even having trouble keeping up with the email! I run
a very small business, a one man operation. I do all the work, machining
most of the parts from raw materials in the shop behind my house. There is
no hoard of Pacific Rim slaves pumping these things out by the millions.
Just one crazy guy working 18+ hour days. I take a great deal of pride in
my work and strive to deliver the best possible products at the lowest
possible price. Sometimes, during peak demand, it means that people have to
wait for their orders. Most people who buy from me understand this, some do
not. I wish I could take the time to give everyone an accurate shipping
date but it would keep me from getting work done in the shop. I apologize
for the delay and understand if you want to cancel the order.

PayPal orders placed on my web site are paid in advance so I give them top
priority. When continental US PayPal orders are shipped an email is usually
sent automatically which contains tracking information. A button is also
created in your PayPal account which allows you to track the shipment.
Credit card orders by phone or fax are charged at the time of shipment so
they are shipped after all PayPal orders are filled. Please let me know if
you have any questions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

BRuce

Peter De Smidt wrote:

> Last week I sent a PayPal payment to Ed Bennett for a TS-Aligner Jr.
> Deluxe. I've not recieved any confirmation from Ed that my payment
> was received. I've emailed him to no avail. Finally, I called both
> his 800 number and his direct line. The phone just rings. Does
> anyone know what's up?
>
> -Peter De Smidt

--
---

BRuce

maybe my business model is probably wrong also then. I tell people 2
things up front.

1st - If you can find EXACTLY what you want (size, shape, color) at a
retail store, buy it there. I can't match their price and long term you
will be just as happy with it. this doesn't apply to the few customers
that want a hand made item that looks like something they have seen.

2nd - this is going to take a long time, so if you are in a hurry,
modify your specs a little bit and see #1.

For what it is worth, I will wait and get the product I want when it is
ready. As others in this thread have said, it is not the only way to
align stuff.

I would like to know weather he is a month behind or a week behind but
for now I will not email him and let him work.

BRuce

Michael Baglio <mbaglio wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:56:37 -0500, BRuce <BRuce> quoted a letter from
> Ed Bennett on the problems he's having since his TS Aligner Jr. is so
> successful.
>
>
>>---------------------------Email from Ed----------------------------
>>Sorry for the delay in shipping your order and the delay in responding to
>>your email. This year demand has far exceeded my ability to keep up. I'm
>>completely sold out of almost everything and am behind in production on just
>>about everything. I'm even having trouble keeping up with the email! I run
>>a very small business, a one man operation. I do all the work, machining
>>most of the parts from raw materials in the shop behind my house.
>
>
> snip
>
>
>>Just one crazy guy working 18+ hour days. I take a great deal of pride in
>>my work and strive to deliver the best possible products at the lowest
>>possible price. Sometimes, during peak demand, it means that people have to
>>wait for their orders. Most people who buy from me understand this, some do
>>not. I wish I could take the time to give everyone an accurate shipping
>>date but it would keep me from getting work done in the shop. I apologize
>>for the delay and understand if you want to cancel the order.
>
>
> It seems to me this man wants it both ways: He wants _us_ to think of
> it as a real business, (and therefore believe him credible), while he
> maintains the luxury of treating it as a hobby that happens to make
> him money.
>
> Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
> has a _serious_ problem with his business model.
>
> If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
> produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
> couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
> phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.
>
> If this person's got so little business sense that he doens't
> understand the value of trouble-free ordering to a customer, he's
> going to lose his customer base.
>
> And all the great (and _free_) marketing publicity we give him here
> isn't going to save it.
>
> Of course, it may be that none of this is the point. Perhaps it's one
> of those "I'm going to make these and sell them as cheaply as I can
> and people will wait, because I'm not doing it any differently"
> things. In which case maybe his business model is perfect. ;>
>
> ...but he could still hire a couple of grandmas to answer the email,
> y'know?
>
> Michael
> "I don't make the things you want, I just make you want them." :)

--
---

BRuce

ok, my order just showed up tonight. Ordered 12/21 and it arrived
today. ~7 weeks, this should give some indication of the current
backlog. I ordered the upgrade from Jr to deluxe and an angle block.
the angle block is still on back order but that was not needed
immediately anyway.

BRuce

Peter De Smidt wrote:

> Last week I sent a PayPal payment to Ed Bennett for a TS-Aligner Jr.
> Deluxe. I've not recieved any confirmation from Ed that my payment
> was received. I've emailed him to no avail. Finally, I called both
> his 800 number and his direct line. The phone just rings. Does
> anyone know what's up?
>
> -Peter De Smidt

--
---

BRuce

Hi All,

Someone alerted me to this thread. To answer the subject question:
I'm right here. Always have been. Always will be! ;-) I should be
in the shop but it's probably not a bad idea to address some of these
issues to a broad audience. So, here goes...it's gonna be long.

BTW, I'm not picking on you Michael, it just seems like this
particular message has the questions that need answering.

Michael Baglio <mbaglio<NOSPAM>@nc.rr.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

<snip>

> All I said was the man outta get off a few bucks to put some grandma
> on the phone and the emails, y'know? _One._ Not "a staff," just one.

I do "pay" someone to answer the phone. It's not just a warm body, or
a "grandma" or a neighbor kid. I have someone with extensive
experience in woodworking and construction. And, Steve has also spent
many hours in the shop helping me make Aligners.

In reality, Steve is the owner of an independent business (shipping
and mailing services) that acts as a dealer for my products. He
handles all the phone sales. But, there are still some questions that
he can't easily answer. For example, the simple "When is my order
going to ship?" isn't really so simple. I can tell Steve how many
units are going to be done on a certain date, but someone has to check
the backlog (a combination of online and phone orders) to determine if
a particular person's unit is in that next batch. Now, I don't give
Steve access to all my online financial order processing stuff and he
doesn't give me access to all his phone order processing stuff. So,
we have to get together in order to answer such "simple" questions.
Every minute spent in such an activity is a minute that I'm not in the
shop making Aligners. It's a minute that has to be added to each of
the previous estimates generated in previous sessions with Steve. How
much time should I spend doing this?

By the way, you don't want a "grandma" answering the phone. Nothing
makes people more angry than to talk to someone who is completely
clueless.

> It's called common courtesy. You got a product people want, you outta
> make a way for them to contact you if you want to sell 'em.

There are ways for people to contact me. But, if they expect me to
spend all my time waiting by the phone for their call then they are
likely to be disappointed. They are also likely to be disappointed if
they think I have all day to play phone tag. I answer all the email I
get but keep in mind that I wade through more than 200 spam messages
per day. These are the ones that get through the spam filters.
Hundreds more get stuffed into the spam folder. That's the price of
having an email address that is advertised. Sometimes a person will
unknowingly make their message look like spam with common bogus
subject lines. I try to catch these but I'm not always successful.
Occasionally a message from "[email protected]" with the subject of
"Hi..." or "Important message for ejb" gets deleted when it's really
from some guy with a serious inquiry using his girlfriends email
account. Sorry.

When I sit down to read email, I'm pretty much deciding that the next
two or three hours are not going to be spent working in the shop.
That's how long it takes to just scan through all the mail and delete
the spam. Then I have to answer the real messages. Some are easy and
some require a lot of work. I almost never get through all of them
every day. Very often I skip messages which require more than the
most simple answers and end up spending huge portions of my weekends
getting caught up.

> His "cash flow", "debt load", and "manufacturing capacity" have
> nothing to do with it.

I hope that someday you have the opportunity to run a small business!

I really wish that I could have 1000 lbs of raw material arrive about
six weeks before an unanticipated jump in demand without having to pay
for it! I wish that I could afford to keep $10K worth of finished
goods in inventory at all times. I really wish that qualified hard
working individuals who need no training and can be trusted with my
tools and machinery would just show up on my doorstep ready to work
and not expect to be paid until after the finished goods are shipped.

In reality, the raw materials get ordered *after* the jump in demand
has occured. These orders have lead times, minimum quantities, and
require payment. Often the payment is due long before the finished
goods are ready to ship. I have also found it difficult to maintain a
large inventory of finished goods and make monthly payments for
utilities, labor, facilities, machinery, tooling, etc. Does anybody
out there want to tie up $10K of their own money in TS-Aligners? I
can guarantee that they will sell. I can't guarantee how long it will
take. And, you're not going to get a huge return on your money. I
don't want to borrow your money, thanks to a bad machine deal and the
economy I'm already up to my eyeballs in debt! No, I want you to pay
me for them. I hold the money and you hold the inventory. Deal?
Didn't think so.

Do you get the point? "Cash flow", "debt load", and "manufacturing
capacity" have everything to do with it. I don't have infinite
supplies of money. I have a lot of payments to make every month. I
don't get any free labor from anybody - especially not the highly
skilled. Even my labor doesn't come for free. I've found it
necessary to eat, clothe myself, and sleep under a roof.

> If you have enough business to generate the
> _need_ for a phone person, you've got enough business to hire one.

I've always had someone to answer the phone. In the early days (back
in 1991) I had the 800 number forwarded to my cell phone. When that
got to be too much I hired an answering service. But, it wasn't good
enough to have just a warm body answer the phone. It had to be
someone who understood the products enough to answer questions. So,
about eight years ago I started contracting dealers to do the job.
But, they don't answer the phone 24 hours per day. A lot of East
Coast people try to call "first thing in the morning" and are outraged
that nobody answers (or they get an answering machine). Well, 9:00am
Eastern Time is 7:00am Mountain Time (two hours before Steve opens).
West coast people who try to call after 4:00pm might also get
disappointed and think that we never answer the phone.

> What's the alternative-- what happened _here?_ Would you want a
> customer of _yours_ to have to go cruising a fricking _newsgroup_ to
> find _you?_

Nope. But there will always be people who think that every business
is a big business with unlimited funding, hoards of resources, and an
infinite supply of talented, skilled, qualified, motivated, and honest
workers. These people won't be satisfied with anything less than 24
hour per day service and instant in-stock delivery of everything all
the time. They have never run a business and will never understand
what it takes to do it well enough to survive the hard times that we
have been going through. They have a "labor mentality" complete with
the idea that business owners are all rich and greedy - always looking
for ways to cheat people and make more money.

I'm not in the business of instant gratification and probably never
will be. These people will have to settle for the mass produced "made
in China" items sold by the big mail order dealers (who actually do
fit their "labor mentality" much more closely). The people who want a
high quality product which is engineered to work as advertised and
made by skilled hands might just have to wait if they manage to place
their order during peak demand. I'm not going to compromise quality
so that I can ship junk products and make a buck from people who
demand instant gratification. I would rather not do business than to
sink to that level. And, I've done the outsourcing thing and won't do
it again. It's expensive and there is no motivation for quality.

There's more to say but I'll stop here. I'm late for getting back to
the shop.

Thanks,
Ed Bennett
[email protected]

Peter,

Thanks for letting me know about this.

Ed.



Peter De Smidt <usenet@_spam_desmidt.net> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On 29 Jan 2004 18:12:46 -0800, [email protected] (Ed Bennett) wrote:
>
> This is not a big deal, but if I hadn't have gotten a reply to my
> email when I did, over a week-and-a-half after I sent the email, I
> would have cancelled the PayPal order, if that's possible.
>
> I did try calling, twice on your 800 line, and twice on your direct
> line. I called during your normal business hours. The attempts were
> spaced hours apart. All four times the phone just rang, and
> rang...They were not picked up by either a person or an answering
> machine. This lack of response made me worry that I had spent a
> significant part of my limited woodworking budget on a product no
> longer being made. Moreover it brought up worries about what would
> happen if I have a question about using your product, assuming that I
> would recieve your product. Your website says something along the
> lines of: Most PayPal orders are shipped next day. If this changes,
> the website should be changed, or, at the least, you should have an
> informative message on an answering machine. That's just my opinion,
> of course.
>
> -Peter De Smidt

Hopefully, nothing bad has happened to Mr. Bennett. If it's just that
he's busy, then I'm not very sympathetic. He should then say so on
his website. At the moment he says that most PayPal orders ship the
next day. If I knew up front that it might take 3 weeks to get his
product, I wouldn't mind. But that fact is that now I don't even know
if he's still in business. What happens if I have a question down the
road? Will he be too busy to talk to me? I agree with the poster that
said that Mr. Bennett should pay someone a minimal amount to keep up
with answer emails. If he's so busy, he should be able to afford to
do so.

-Peter De Smidt

I think the last part of your post was correct. I've seen Ed's work and I
make things like this myself. He is offering them at a very good price.

"Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com>" <mbaglio<NOSPAM> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:56:37 -0500, BRuce <BRuce> quoted a letter from
> Ed Bennett on the problems he's having since his TS Aligner Jr. is so
> successful.
>
> >---------------------------Email from Ed----------------------------
> >Sorry for the delay in shipping your order and the delay in responding to
> >your email. This year demand has far exceeded my ability to keep up.
I'm
> >completely sold out of almost everything and am behind in production on
just
> >about everything. I'm even having trouble keeping up with the email! I
run
> >a very small business, a one man operation. I do all the work, machining
> >most of the parts from raw materials in the shop behind my house.
>
> snip
>
> >Just one crazy guy working 18+ hour days. I take a great deal of pride
in
> >my work and strive to deliver the best possible products at the lowest
> >possible price. Sometimes, during peak demand, it means that people have
to
> >wait for their orders. Most people who buy from me understand this, some
do
> >not. I wish I could take the time to give everyone an accurate shipping
> >date but it would keep me from getting work done in the shop. I
apologize
> >for the delay and understand if you want to cancel the order.
>
> It seems to me this man wants it both ways: He wants _us_ to think of
> it as a real business, (and therefore believe him credible), while he
> maintains the luxury of treating it as a hobby that happens to make
> him money.
>
> Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
> has a _serious_ problem with his business model.
>
> If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
> produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
> couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
> phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.
>
> If this person's got so little business sense that he doens't
> understand the value of trouble-free ordering to a customer, he's
> going to lose his customer base.
>
> And all the great (and _free_) marketing publicity we give him here
> isn't going to save it.
>
> Of course, it may be that none of this is the point. Perhaps it's one
> of those "I'm going to make these and sell them as cheaply as I can
> and people will wait, because I'm not doing it any differently"
> things. In which case maybe his business model is perfect. ;>
>
> ...but he could still hire a couple of grandmas to answer the email,
> y'know?
>
> Michael
> "I don't make the things you want, I just make you want them." :)

Peter De Smidt wrote:

> Hopefully, nothing bad has happened to Mr. Bennett. If it's just that
> he's busy, then I'm not very sympathetic. He should then say so on
> his website. At the moment he says that most PayPal orders ship the
> next day. If I knew up front that it might take 3 weeks to get his
> product, I wouldn't mind. But that fact is that now I don't even know
> if he's still in business. What happens if I have a question down the
> road? Will he be too busy to talk to me? I agree with the poster that
> said that Mr. Bennett should pay someone a minimal amount to keep up
> with answer emails. If he's so busy, he should be able to afford to
> do so.
>
> -Peter De Smidt

IIRC, Ed's operation is a one man thing and he also participates in the
woodworking shows. There was a show in Indianapolis this weekend.
Perhaps he's out of town?

--
Jack Novak
Buffalo, NY - USA
(Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

"Michael Baglio
>
> What's the alternative-- what happened _here?_ Would you want a
> customer of _yours_ to have to go cruising a fricking _newsgroup_ to
> find _you?_
>
> Michael

You know Michael, you seem to be the only one disturbed by Eds problem.
Everyone else, especially those who have been around here for years,
understands and is not the least bothered by it.
...lew...

You won't be sorry for waiting. I have the TS Aligner Jr. It is a great
tool. One of these days, I want to order a set of precision angle blocks
from Ed. (I did get a 45 degree block when I got the TS Jr.)

Grant



Peter De Smidt wrote:

> Ed emailed me tonight. He's a few weeks behind but he says that he's
> catching up fast. I certainly don't mind waiting as long as I know
> what's going on.
>
> -Peter

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 11:26:19 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com> wrote:
>> His "cash flow", "debt load", and "manufacturing capacity" have
>> nothing to do with it.

>Sorry Michael, but it has EVERYTHING to do with it. Especially the cash
>flow.
snip
>I will concede that an answering machine may be a good idea, but since
>neither you nor I knows how many calls a day Ed gets, we cannot assume he
>needs to hire someone. I think you have big corporate ideas that are far
>different that tiny shop marketing.

No, I have a lot of experience with very small companies. What I
don't have, apparently, (since KB pointed it out), is nearly enough
experience posting my opinion without sounding like an asshole.

I apologize.

Michael

Ed emailed me tonight. He's a few weeks behind but he says that he's
catching up fast. I certainly don't mind waiting as long as I know
what's going on.

-Peter

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 00:16:36 GMT, "mttt" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
>"Peter De Smidt" <usenet@_spam_desmidt.net> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>>
>>
>> Hopefully, nothing bad has happened to Mr. Bennett. If it's just that
>> he's busy, then I'm not very sympathetic. He should then say so on
>> his website. At the moment he says that most PayPal orders ship the
>> next day. If I knew up front that it might take 3 weeks to get his
>
>Fair!
>Setting expectations up-front is a golden rule.

Glad you finally get the picture on what's really important here.
I'll have to check the time stamps, but for now I'll assume this was
posted _after_ you made the smarty-pantsed remark to me about the MBA.

Michael

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 04:59:19 GMT, Michael Baglio
<mbaglio<NOSPAM>@nc.rr.com> wrote:

>I just got jerky-kneed when I saw one of your customers looking for
>you _here._ Sorry I came off as a poopy-head.
>
>Michael

Michael,
I don't think you were a "poopy-head." I felt and still feel the same
way as you did. A customer who sent money and has not received a
product in a reasonable amount of time should not have to what amounts
to opening a window and yelling out to find out what's going on.

Yes, there are a lot of problems running a small business especially
if it has a growth spurt. But, at some point one has to decide if
they're running a business or a hobby.

Something as simple as preparing a standardized response to "where is
my aligner" queries would be helpful. Hit reply, paste in the
response, and hit send is a lot better than hand typing or no reply at
all. Business loans are an accepted way of handling cash flow
problems.

It would serve Ed well to contact his local Small Business
Administration people for advice. Many SBAs have a roster of
volunteer retired business people who will help analyze problems and
develop strategies.

Well Said

Ed Bennett wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Someone alerted me to this thread. To answer the subject question:
> I'm right here. Always have been. Always will be! ;-) I should be
> in the shop but it's probably not a bad idea to address some of these
> issues to a broad audience. So, here goes...it's gonna be long.
>
> BTW, I'm not picking on you Michael, it just seems like this
> particular message has the questions that need answering.
>
> Michael Baglio <mbaglio<NOSPAM>@nc.rr.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
> <snip>
>
>>All I said was the man outta get off a few bucks to put some grandma
>>on the phone and the emails, y'know? _One._ Not "a staff," just one.
>
>
> I do "pay" someone to answer the phone. It's not just a warm body, or
> a "grandma" or a neighbor kid. I have someone with extensive
> experience in woodworking and construction. And, Steve has also spent
> many hours in the shop helping me make Aligners.
>
> In reality, Steve is the owner of an independent business (shipping
> and mailing services) that acts as a dealer for my products. He
> handles all the phone sales. But, there are still some questions that
> he can't easily answer. For example, the simple "When is my order
> going to ship?" isn't really so simple. I can tell Steve how many
> units are going to be done on a certain date, but someone has to check
> the backlog (a combination of online and phone orders) to determine if
> a particular person's unit is in that next batch. Now, I don't give
> Steve access to all my online financial order processing stuff and he
> doesn't give me access to all his phone order processing stuff. So,
> we have to get together in order to answer such "simple" questions.
> Every minute spent in such an activity is a minute that I'm not in the
> shop making Aligners. It's a minute that has to be added to each of
> the previous estimates generated in previous sessions with Steve. How
> much time should I spend doing this?
>
> By the way, you don't want a "grandma" answering the phone. Nothing
> makes people more angry than to talk to someone who is completely
> clueless.
>
>
>>It's called common courtesy. You got a product people want, you outta
>>make a way for them to contact you if you want to sell 'em.
>
>
> There are ways for people to contact me. But, if they expect me to
> spend all my time waiting by the phone for their call then they are
> likely to be disappointed. They are also likely to be disappointed if
> they think I have all day to play phone tag. I answer all the email I
> get but keep in mind that I wade through more than 200 spam messages
> per day. These are the ones that get through the spam filters.
> Hundreds more get stuffed into the spam folder. That's the price of
> having an email address that is advertised. Sometimes a person will
> unknowingly make their message look like spam with common bogus
> subject lines. I try to catch these but I'm not always successful.
> Occasionally a message from "[email protected]" with the subject of
> "Hi..." or "Important message for ejb" gets deleted when it's really
> from some guy with a serious inquiry using his girlfriends email
> account. Sorry.
>
> When I sit down to read email, I'm pretty much deciding that the next
> two or three hours are not going to be spent working in the shop.
> That's how long it takes to just scan through all the mail and delete
> the spam. Then I have to answer the real messages. Some are easy and
> some require a lot of work. I almost never get through all of them
> every day. Very often I skip messages which require more than the
> most simple answers and end up spending huge portions of my weekends
> getting caught up.
>
>
>>His "cash flow", "debt load", and "manufacturing capacity" have
>>nothing to do with it.
>
>
> I hope that someday you have the opportunity to run a small business!
>
> I really wish that I could have 1000 lbs of raw material arrive about
> six weeks before an unanticipated jump in demand without having to pay
> for it! I wish that I could afford to keep $10K worth of finished
> goods in inventory at all times. I really wish that qualified hard
> working individuals who need no training and can be trusted with my
> tools and machinery would just show up on my doorstep ready to work
> and not expect to be paid until after the finished goods are shipped.
>
> In reality, the raw materials get ordered *after* the jump in demand
> has occured. These orders have lead times, minimum quantities, and
> require payment. Often the payment is due long before the finished
> goods are ready to ship. I have also found it difficult to maintain a
> large inventory of finished goods and make monthly payments for
> utilities, labor, facilities, machinery, tooling, etc. Does anybody
> out there want to tie up $10K of their own money in TS-Aligners? I
> can guarantee that they will sell. I can't guarantee how long it will
> take. And, you're not going to get a huge return on your money. I
> don't want to borrow your money, thanks to a bad machine deal and the
> economy I'm already up to my eyeballs in debt! No, I want you to pay
> me for them. I hold the money and you hold the inventory. Deal?
> Didn't think so.
>
> Do you get the point? "Cash flow", "debt load", and "manufacturing
> capacity" have everything to do with it. I don't have infinite
> supplies of money. I have a lot of payments to make every month. I
> don't get any free labor from anybody - especially not the highly
> skilled. Even my labor doesn't come for free. I've found it
> necessary to eat, clothe myself, and sleep under a roof.
>
>
>>If you have enough business to generate the
>>_need_ for a phone person, you've got enough business to hire one.
>
>
> I've always had someone to answer the phone. In the early days (back
> in 1991) I had the 800 number forwarded to my cell phone. When that
> got to be too much I hired an answering service. But, it wasn't good
> enough to have just a warm body answer the phone. It had to be
> someone who understood the products enough to answer questions. So,
> about eight years ago I started contracting dealers to do the job.
> But, they don't answer the phone 24 hours per day. A lot of East
> Coast people try to call "first thing in the morning" and are outraged
> that nobody answers (or they get an answering machine). Well, 9:00am
> Eastern Time is 7:00am Mountain Time (two hours before Steve opens).
> West coast people who try to call after 4:00pm might also get
> disappointed and think that we never answer the phone.
>
>
>>What's the alternative-- what happened _here?_ Would you want a
>>customer of _yours_ to have to go cruising a fricking _newsgroup_ to
>>find _you?_
>
>
> Nope. But there will always be people who think that every business
> is a big business with unlimited funding, hoards of resources, and an
> infinite supply of talented, skilled, qualified, motivated, and honest
> workers. These people won't be satisfied with anything less than 24
> hour per day service and instant in-stock delivery of everything all
> the time. They have never run a business and will never understand
> what it takes to do it well enough to survive the hard times that we
> have been going through. They have a "labor mentality" complete with
> the idea that business owners are all rich and greedy - always looking
> for ways to cheat people and make more money.
>
> I'm not in the business of instant gratification and probably never
> will be. These people will have to settle for the mass produced "made
> in China" items sold by the big mail order dealers (who actually do
> fit their "labor mentality" much more closely). The people who want a
> high quality product which is engineered to work as advertised and
> made by skilled hands might just have to wait if they manage to place
> their order during peak demand. I'm not going to compromise quality
> so that I can ship junk products and make a buck from people who
> demand instant gratification. I would rather not do business than to
> sink to that level. And, I've done the outsourcing thing and won't do
> it again. It's expensive and there is no motivation for quality.
>
> There's more to say but I'll stop here. I'm late for getting back to
> the shop.
>
> Thanks,
> Ed Bennett
> [email protected]

"Ed Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>, Michael Baglio
wrote:
> > On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:56:37 -0500, BRuce <BRuce> quoted a letter from
>
> > It seems to me this man wants it both ways: He wants _us_ to think of
> > it as a real business, (and therefore believe him credible), while he
> > maintains the luxury of treating it as a hobby that happens to make
> > him money.
> >
> > Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
> > has a _serious_ problem with his business model.
> >
> > If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
> > produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
> > couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
> > phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.
> >
> > If this person's got so little business sense that he doens't
> > understand the value of trouble-free ordering to a customer, he's
> > going to lose his customer base.
>
> Wrong, I think. You haven't looked at the market in sufficient depth.
>
>> Should he expand; buy a CNC mill and lathe for $100k (each)?

He's got the mill. It's a Haas.

> He simply can't go out and pick up a high
> school grad and teach them to use the machinery; there isn't time and
> there isn't a future in it for the HS grad.

Yes, considerable training and, unless the kid plans to move to China, your
right, no future.
>
> He should get an answering machine and a retired teacher to bounce the
> orders that he can't fulfill in a timely fashion though.

That sounds like a good plan.

"Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com>" <mbaglio<NOSPAM> wrote in message


> It's been pointed out to me that my OP came off as arrogant.
> They were right, I was wrong. I apologize for my tone. It _was_
> pretty ugly.

And you openly admitted it. I have to respect you for that.
Thanks,
Ed

Let me second that........... I'm sure he had no way to anticipate the
volume of extra orders that would be generated by the magazine article.
Maybe he didn't even know about the article until after it ran??? Mark

But maybe he COULD do something the email backlog

Ed Clarke wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, Michael Baglio wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:56:37 -0500, BRuce <BRuce> quoted a letter from
>
>
>
>>It seems to me this man wants it both ways: He wants _us_ to think of
>>it as a real business, (and therefore believe him credible), while he
>>maintains the luxury of treating it as a hobby that happens to make
>>him money.
>>
>>Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
>>has a _serious_ problem with his business model.
>>
>>If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
>>produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
>>couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
>>phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.
>>
>>If this person's got so little business sense that he doens't
>>understand the value of trouble-free ordering to a customer, he's
>>going to lose his customer base.
>
>
> Wrong, I think. You haven't looked at the market in sufficient depth.
>
> I bought one of the TS/Jr units a couple of years ago. It doesn't get
> worn out and it does the job in a completely satisfactory manner. I
> plan on passing this on to my daughter when I die - and after she learns
> to walk and talk and is at least tall enough to see over the top of the
> table saw.
>
> Ed has a perfectly satisfied customer who's probably never going to buy
> another thing from him. The market is very small and his production is
> sufficient to saturate it. He's running along producing a few per day or
> a few per week, and then BAM! Hundreds of orders pour in overnight.
>
> Should he expand; buy a CNC mill and lathe for $100k (each)? I think
> not. This is a temporary bump in demand that will soon go away - there
> just isn't the continuing market for it. Furthermore, this is a hugely
> labor intensive product. He simply can't go out and pick up a high
> school grad and teach them to use the machinery; there isn't time and
> there isn't a future in it for the HS grad.
>
> He should get an answering machine and a retired teacher to bounce the
> orders that he can't fulfill in a timely fashion though.

"Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com>" <mbaglio<NOSPAM> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 00:16:36 GMT, "mttt" <[email protected]>
> >Fair!
> >Setting expectations up-front is a golden rule.
>
> Glad you finally get the picture on what's really important here.
> I'll have to check the time stamps, but for now I'll assume this was
> posted _after_ you made the smarty-pantsed remark to me about the MBA.

Yes.

No - you wanted Ed to hire someone to "man" the phone/emails.
I'm saying Ed needs to update the Web site, auto-responder (phone-messages,
whatever) to let people know that he's behind on fulfillment. And tell them
when the expected ship date would be.

I don't think we discussed it - but I'd guess you and I are in complete
agreement that once an order is taken, it's of paramount importance to keep
your customers informed of progress. I hate ordering into Black Holes.
"FonCentral.com" was my last black-hole experience.

Michael Baglio wrote:
>Man, I musta touched a noive. :)


I think maybe it's your over sized pants that scared
everyone. At least that's what I was thinking.

UA100

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 23:16:32 GMT, "mttt" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>"Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com>" <mbaglio<NOSPAM> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...

>> Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
>> has a _serious_ problem with his business model.
>>
>> If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
>> produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
>> couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
>> phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.
>
>C'mon - you sure you don't have an MBA? The MBA's here think the exact same
>way - hire for the spikes and then lay them off as soon as demand slacks.

Are you serious? This is your response to me saying the guy ought to
hire a _phone_ person? What's with all this "the spikes" and "demand
slack" stuff? We're talking about a farking PHONE person here.

I'm thinking; you're "in business" you reeeely outta have someone on
the phone. That's _all_ I said.

Man, I musta touched a noive. :)

Michael

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 19:15:26 GMT, Michael Baglio
<mbaglio<NOSPAM>@nc.rr.com> wrote:

>Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
>has a _serious_ problem with his business model.

Ever hear of a Litco Alpha 4 battery charger? <G>

Barry

On 29 Jan 2004 18:12:46 -0800, [email protected] (Ed Bennett) wrote:

>
>I do "pay" someone to answer the phone. It's not just a warm body, or
>a "grandma" or a neighbor kid. I have someone with extensive
>experience in woodworking and construction. And, Steve has also spent
>many hours in the shop helping me make Aligners.
>

This is not a big deal, but if I hadn't have gotten a reply to my
email when I did, over a week-and-a-half after I sent the email, I
would have cancelled the PayPal order, if that's possible.

I did try calling, twice on your 800 line, and twice on your direct
line. I called during your normal business hours. The attempts were
spaced hours apart. All four times the phone just rang, and
rang...They were not picked up by either a person or an answering
machine. This lack of response made me worry that I had spent a
significant part of my limited woodworking budget on a product no
longer being made. Moreover it brought up worries about what would
happen if I have a question about using your product, assuming that I
would recieve your product. Your website says something along the
lines of: Most PayPal orders are shipped next day. If this changes,
the website should be changed, or, at the least, you should have an
informative message on an answering machine. That's just my opinion,
of course.

-Peter De Smidt

"Peter De Smidt" <usenet@_spam_desmidt.net> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> Hopefully, nothing bad has happened to Mr. Bennett. If it's just that
> he's busy, then I'm not very sympathetic. He should then say so on
> his website. At the moment he says that most PayPal orders ship the
> next day. If I knew up front that it might take 3 weeks to get his

Fair!
Setting expectations up-front is a golden rule.

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 00:25:55 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>> If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
>> produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
>> couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
>> phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.

>With your insight into the man's business I'm surprised that they don't give
>you the MBA you deserve for your skills you posess. You know his cash flow
>and his debt load as well as his manufacturing capacity just fom email of
>others.
snip...
>I bet he'd love to see the new business model you send him.

Jesus, Ed, apparently, I offended you. Sorry you're upset, but I
gotta stick with this one.

All I said was the man outta get off a few bucks to put some grandma
on the phone and the emails, y'know? _One._ Not "a staff," just one.

It's called common courtesy. You got a product people want, you outta
make a way for them to contact you if you want to sell 'em.

His "cash flow", "debt load", and "manufacturing capacity" have
nothing to do with it. If you have enough business to generate the
_need_ for a phone person, you've got enough business to hire one.

What's the alternative-- what happened _here?_ Would you want a
customer of _yours_ to have to go cruising a fricking _newsgroup_ to
find _you?_

Michael

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:56:37 -0500, BRuce <BRuce> quoted a letter from
Ed Bennett on the problems he's having since his TS Aligner Jr. is so
successful.

>---------------------------Email from Ed----------------------------
>Sorry for the delay in shipping your order and the delay in responding to
>your email. This year demand has far exceeded my ability to keep up. I'm
>completely sold out of almost everything and am behind in production on just
>about everything. I'm even having trouble keeping up with the email! I run
>a very small business, a one man operation. I do all the work, machining
>most of the parts from raw materials in the shop behind my house.

snip

>Just one crazy guy working 18+ hour days. I take a great deal of pride in
>my work and strive to deliver the best possible products at the lowest
>possible price. Sometimes, during peak demand, it means that people have to
>wait for their orders. Most people who buy from me understand this, some do
>not. I wish I could take the time to give everyone an accurate shipping
>date but it would keep me from getting work done in the shop. I apologize
>for the delay and understand if you want to cancel the order.

It seems to me this man wants it both ways: He wants _us_ to think of
it as a real business, (and therefore believe him credible), while he
maintains the luxury of treating it as a hobby that happens to make
him money.

Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
has a _serious_ problem with his business model.

If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.

If this person's got so little business sense that he doens't
understand the value of trouble-free ordering to a customer, he's
going to lose his customer base.

And all the great (and _free_) marketing publicity we give him here
isn't going to save it.

Of course, it may be that none of this is the point. Perhaps it's one
of those "I'm going to make these and sell them as cheaply as I can
and people will wait, because I'm not doing it any differently"
things. In which case maybe his business model is perfect. ;>

...but he could still hire a couple of grandmas to answer the email,
y'know?

Michael
"I don't make the things you want, I just make you want them." :)

"Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com>" <mbaglio<NOSPAM> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
>
> Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
> has a _serious_ problem with his business model.
>
> If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
> produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
> couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
> phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.

C'mon - you sure you don't have an MBA? The MBA's here think the exact same
way - hire for the spikes and then lay them off as soon as demand slacks.

Ask an appropriate small business owner what their number one problem is,
and they'll tell you: staff.

Ed's the CEO and he's making a decision.
Time will tell whether he's chosen wisely.

Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> It seems to me this man wants it both ways: He wants _us_ to think of
> it as a real business, (and therefore believe him credible), while he
> maintains the luxury of treating it as a hobby that happens to make
> him money.
>
> Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
> has a _serious_ problem with his business model.
>
> If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
> produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
> couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
> phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.

>
> ...but he could still hire a couple of grandmas to answer the email,
> y'know?


With your insight into the man's business I'm surprised that they don't give
you the MBA you deserve for your skills you posess. You know his cash flow
and his debt load as well as his manufacturing capacity just fom email of
others.

You know the peaks and valleys of his business so please suggest the hours
of operation his office staff (the grandmas) should maintain. Be sure to
let him know how much more to charge since a couple of Grandmas will cost
him $20 an hour plus workman's comp and payroll taxes, unemployment taxes,
and a whole bunch of other laws that come into effect when you have an
employee.

I bet he'd love to see the new business model you send him.
Ed
[email protected]
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome

"Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com>" <mbaglio<NOSPAM> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Are you serious? This is your response to me saying the guy ought to
> hire a _phone_ person? What's with all this "the spikes" and "demand
> slack" stuff? We're talking about a farking PHONE person here.

Yeah, I know... But it cuts both ways. If the caller says "I wanna Farquart
Model 100!", no problem. If the caller says "I got a 1983 Ferdinan model IV
that my brother sneaked home from Brazil. Will a Farquart 100 work or do I
need the special 25mm adapter plate? And do I use Grade 8 bolts or will my
Craftsman QuickStrip work?"

That's a different phone person altogether.
I admit I have no idea on how many of first type of phone calls come in.


> I'm thinking; you're "in business" you reeeely outta have someone on
> the phone. That's _all_ I said.

Ok! :)

>
> Man, I musta touched a noive. :)

Impossible - all of mine have been removed. Marriage scraped them away a
long time ago.

"Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com>" <mbaglio<NOSPAM> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> What's with all this "the spikes" and "demand
> slack" stuff? We're talking about a farking PHONE person here.
>

That's different. They're not real people.

On 29 Jan 2004 18:12:46 -0800, [email protected] (Ed Bennett) wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>Someone alerted me to this thread. To answer the subject question:
>I'm right here. Always have been. Always will be! ;-)
...
>BTW, I'm not picking on you Michael, it just seems like this
>particular message has the questions that need answering.

snip of description of challenges of running a small business...

Ed,
It's been pointed out to me that my OP came off as arrogant.
They were right, I was wrong. I apologize for my tone. It _was_
pretty ugly.

Where we differ, I think, is that I (who _have_ run a small business
for most of my life), believe that having a person who is knowledgable
about the business manning the phones, (the first and most important
line of communication with the public), is as integral a part of the
cost of doing business as the cost of a roof over my head and food for
my kids.

I believe that if I can't afford that, then I must adjust my pricing
to reflect it's cost.

When I said that "cash flow, etc" had nothing to do with it, it was
from that viewpoint: that certain items _must_ be factored into the
retail price of a product, and for me a phone person is that
important.

Since you mentioned several attempts at filling that need, I suspect
you feel pretty much the same way, and would like to improve the
situation if you could. If so;

You mentioned Steve's hours. Couldn't that be handled by a recording
during his "off" times, indicating to callers when the appropriate
time is to call? I don't know, but it seems like it would help people
understand precisely that you're _not_ a big multinationalconglomerate
and have a small staff appropriate to the size of your company.

Finally, I get a real sense from everyone here that you're one of the
few people left who believes so much in his product that you're
putting in an ungodly amount of your own hours on the making of it.
And, congrats, you're selling them pretty much about as quickly as you
can make them, so how much is it costing you for _you_ to be doing the
front-line communication? Again, I really do know about the pains of
growing small businesses, and one of the lessons I learned was that
every minute I put in doing things like answering phones and (really)
cleaning the bathrooms was time I wasn't putting into getting more
business and filling orders for the business I had.

Everybody gets to run his business the way he sees fit, and I'm _all_
for you being hugely successful. I see things a bit differently than
you, I guess, vive la differance.

I just got jerky-kneed when I saw one of your customers looking for
you _here._ Sorry I came off as a poopy-head.

Michael

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 05:48:12 GMT, Michael Baglio
<mbaglio<NOSPAM>@nc.rr.com> brought forth from the murky depths:

>On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 23:16:32 GMT, "mttt" <[email protected]>
-snip-
>Are you serious? This is your response to me saying the guy ought to
>hire a _phone_ person? What's with all this "the spikes" and "demand
>slack" stuff? We're talking about a farking PHONE person here.
>
>I'm thinking; you're "in business" you reeeely outta have someone on
>the phone. That's _all_ I said.
>
>Man, I musta touched a noive. :)

I believe you can buy a thicker skin on *b*y, Michael.
I hear they ship the next day...if the temp is in the
office that day. ;)


----------------------------------------------
CAUTION: Driver Legally B l o n d (e)
http://www.diversify.com Web Database Development
=======================================================

In article <[email protected]>, Michael Baglio wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:56:37 -0500, BRuce <BRuce> quoted a letter from

> It seems to me this man wants it both ways: He wants _us_ to think of
> it as a real business, (and therefore believe him credible), while he
> maintains the luxury of treating it as a hobby that happens to make
> him money.
>
> Marketing's my profession and I'm no MBA, but I'm pretty sure this man
> has a _serious_ problem with his business model.
>
> If I were making something that was selling out as fast as I could
> produce it, I think I'd get off of a few precious dollars and hire a
> couple of high schoolers or retired neighbors to answer email and the
> phone. You know, the things that BRING IN THE MONEY.
>
> If this person's got so little business sense that he doens't
> understand the value of trouble-free ordering to a customer, he's
> going to lose his customer base.

Wrong, I think. You haven't looked at the market in sufficient depth.

I bought one of the TS/Jr units a couple of years ago. It doesn't get
worn out and it does the job in a completely satisfactory manner. I
plan on passing this on to my daughter when I die - and after she learns
to walk and talk and is at least tall enough to see over the top of the
table saw.

Ed has a perfectly satisfied customer who's probably never going to buy
another thing from him. The market is very small and his production is
sufficient to saturate it. He's running along producing a few per day or
a few per week, and then BAM! Hundreds of orders pour in overnight.

Should he expand; buy a CNC mill and lathe for $100k (each)? I think
not. This is a temporary bump in demand that will soon go away - there
just isn't the continuing market for it. Furthermore, this is a hugely
labor intensive product. He simply can't go out and pick up a high
school grad and teach them to use the machinery; there isn't time and
there isn't a future in it for the HS grad.

He should get an answering machine and a retired teacher to bounce the
orders that he can't fulfill in a timely fashion though.

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 10:20:08 GMT, Unisaw A100 <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Michael Baglio wrote:
>>Man, I musta touched a noive. :)
>
>
>I think maybe it's your over sized pants that scared
>everyone. At least that's what I was thinking.

Fair enough. Point taken.

Michael

Michael Baglio @nc.rr.com> wrote:
> His "cash flow", "debt load", and "manufacturing capacity" have
> nothing to do with it. If you have enough business to generate the
> _need_ for a phone person, you've got enough business to hire one.

> Michael

Sorry Michael, but it has EVERYTHING to do with it. Especially the cash
flor. The business plan for a big corporation is far from that of a one man
shop. Evidently you have little or no experience with them or you would
understand. I've had my own small business as well as helped start a couple
of others. Hiring that first person is a BIG decision and is much more
costly that you may think.

I will concede that an answering machine may be a good idea, but since
neither you nor I knows how many calls a day Ed gets, we cannot assume he
needs to hire someone. I think you have big corporate ideas that are far
different that tiny shop marketing.

--
Ed
[email protected]
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome