After 20 years, I finally got a visit from a Diamond rep.
Heck, I understood why they had never visited. A three and half hour drive over the mountains, and then a three and half hour drive back -- or even further in this case to the next store.
Tim e-mailed me he was coming, and said, "I've always wanted to visit Southwest Oregon."
Well, that stopped me. I wondered if he knew just how bloody big eastern Oregon is, and....well....how far it was from S.E. Or.
"Ummmm.....you realize that Bend is in Eastern Oregon, right? Toward the Central part of the state?"
"Oh...right... Well, after visiting your store, I'm heading south to Klamath Falls and Grants Pass and on to Ashland and then to North Bend."
I thought to myself, I hope he realizes that's a mammoth drive.
Anyway, he showed up right on time on Tuesday. And I gave him an extensive tour of my store.
I'm very proud of my store, and I don't get a chance to show it to people who have seen lots of other stores and can give me an appraisal.
Diamond has a feature on their website called, "From the Road," where they do a short interview with the owner and show six pictures of each profiled store. ( I'm not sure if the feature is available to guests.) One of the questions was, "How big is the store?" and when I told him it was 1000 sq. ft., he said, "NO.....that can't be right. Wow. You really have packed in the merchandise...."
I bought some pizza slices from Pizza Mondo for me and Cameron and Tim, and we had a nice long talk. He said is wife had been jealous that he was coming to Bend, because she had heard good things about it. "But since she just got back from Jamaica, I didn't feel too sorry for her..."
Tim had analyzed my orders, and had a list of suggestions. Plus product that was on Sale. I ordered some stuff, because I think this rep program is important. Diamond really needs some people out there on the ground to observe what's happening....
Turns out, he was going to stay overnight in Klamath Falls before he continued his trip.
Anyway, it was a pleasant visit and I think he was impressed. "People ask me all the time what my favorite stores are, and I have a new one to add to my list."
Awwww. I bet he says that to all the stores.
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8 comments:
what else did the rep say?
Mostly stuff I already knew.
He said there were about 12 reps when Diamond consolidated Capital into it's grip, and there are 3 reps for the whole country now.
Portland is a "literate" city with great comic shops.
He said, he thought maybe 500 shops did what I did, which is carry indies and have extensive graphic novel stock. Another 1500 were average type shops, and another 500 were smaller shops. (Something like that -- I'm doing this from memory.)
What info are you looking for?
hmm. It will be interesting. I am on the list for this evening. We likewise have never been visited by a rep.
Brett
Heroes Haven
Roseburg, OR
anything that is worth mentioning. Portland is literate... that's rich!
I just got all kind of little confirmations as to what I thought was going on.
At first I was surprised that so little was new, but when I think about it, I pretty much soak up most of the available info online.
Other than a few personal observations, not much Tim could tell me, I suppose.
"Awwww. I bet he says that to all the stores."
I bet he does too.
I just realized I screwed up my little anecdote. He said he always wanted to visit "southwest Oregon" not "southeast Oregon" which is why it gave me pause.
Have corrected the story....
I'm glad that they did "On the Road" for Oregon. It was refreshing. He stayed about 2 hours. I hope to see all of our shops shown in the next few months but who knows how long it takes. Tim was a nice guy and he enjoyed my store. 3.5 hour drive? Crikey, that's focused.
Shannon Mudge
DragonVine Inc.
Springfield, Oregon
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