Thank you tubegroover ...
Wisdom comes from experience ... and at my age, I've had LOT'S of experience. *lol*
Over the years, I've attended many sales and motivational seminars. One sales trainer said something at one of these sessions that I have never forgotten, and that was: "Money is nothing more than a scoreboard reflection of your service." In other words, do the right thing; put the customer first ... and the money will come.
For a time, I worked part time at an ultra-high end audio dealership who will go unnamed here. I swear, over time I saw the owner, who obviously thought he was in the audio business, and had no clue that he was in the people business, turn off so many potential customers, it was sickening.
This is a guy who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars setting up what I consider to be the most technically advanced audio store ever.
I kept telling him that people didn't come into the store to buy audio equipment ... they came in to better their enjoyment of music in their homes, and it was our job to help them get it. He thought it best to dazzle them with his engineering prowess and talk about slew rates, distortion levels, etc. until their eyes glazed over. At that point, they would just walk out the door.
He loved to make a point of talking down to the customer, and in general, just had a crappy attitude toward the customer. He referred to dedicated audiophiles like those of us who post here at Audiogon as "propeller heads."
Over time, he masterminded his way out of business. To this day, I don't think he has a clue what happened. In fact, I'll bet my bottom dollar that he blames the customers for putting him out of business. Go figure.
