I have this theory, which I haven't heard proposed anywhere else, that you build your business on the folks who like you, who want you, who want your product and are willing to pay the price you put on it.
You don't build your business on those who just want more and more, and pay less and less, and who will go elsewhere if you don't satisfy them.
Build your business on the first group, even if it's smaller, and you've built something solid.
Build your business on the second group, and you'll be in constant misery.
Sell to the people who want to buy from you, and don't sell to the people who don't.
Let them go. Some will come back. Most won't.
So -- on to the bigger picture, say you're a town like Bend, and you're hoping to entice business to come to Bend.
Who do you want?
The people who WANT to come here?
Or the people who you have to bribe with fire sales and tax concessions and no-interest loans?
I'm telling you, it may be a slower process (sometimes slower is good) but the first type of business is the one you want, not the second type of business.
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4 comments:
I came to Bend for a base-camp, it was an excellent place, as not too far from PDX or SEA, of SFX.
But like everything else, the Bend of pre-1980's is not the Bend today.
Today's Bend is run down carney like the famed board-walk of NYC aka coney-island. The natural beauty of Bend being long destroyed by commercial interests. People who don't know any better are still sold Bend, but that is their problem. The Bend that I discovered in the 1960's is long gone, and only a non-recoverable dream.
I might eventually return to Bend, but now like HBM I don't like the weather, I don't like the cold, Bend is ok June-October, the rest of the time its better to be other places.
Long ago everything was about 'lifestyle', but I think that the 'Bend lifestyle' has been over-sold by the whores at COTA/COVA/CORA, of course I was sold on Bend long before the whores took over city-hall. I guess that was the turning point, when you have to WHORE your child, you know something is wrong with a community.
The old like dunc can die just find in Bend, and find their resting place, for the young, they will go where there is opportunity for a better life.
Smart people just have their biz in Bend cuz its where they want to live.
If your biz is dependent upon Bend residents, then your essentially going to sell shit.
This is why you see phone-call ctr's, and mail-order fulfillment.
If your doing retail god-forbid in Bend, then your essentially a carney man, playing the PT-BARNUM with tourists, come to Bend for what?
I think your so far into the retail forest dunc you don't see the trees.
Most retail folk in Bend are not successful, yet there are many guys with 10-20 people firms doing 'game-software' doing quite well, and their biz is in Bend for ONLY one reason, its where they want to live.
Only idiots come to Bend and open a retail biz, to see their life savings go down the fucking rat-hole.
Most entrepreneurs in Bend, already know how to make money, they just want a decent place to live.
Of course 'decent place to live', was true 40 years ago, but the Bend of today is neither decent, moral, clean, or safe. It's nothing more than a rat-trap for homers grifters.
In your case dunc, yes your a life long retailer and you don't know any better and is what you do, but most people would not want to subject their life to life-time min-wage and such poverty.
Perhaps your comic fantasy, writing world keeps your heart alive, but I think for most people, sitting in a retail shop all their life in Bend, would bring about suicide. :)
Retail is harder in Bend. But it's hard everywhere.
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