Value

I have really been thinking about how we determine what a "value" is, or on the other hand, what makes something a good deal?  At a time when the entire world is topsy-turvy over Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals, it really makes me think. 

Added to this is a bit of information my son shared with me last week.  He told me that a large percentage of the "deals" for Black Friday were produced specifically for that day, so I'm curious if they are the same quality and attention to detail that you would get if you bought the same item produced in say - June.  There is part of me that really wonders about that, but I'm also a person who doesn't participate in the craziness of these shopping experiences either.  As my family and friends know, when I need something I will go out and buy it.  When someone tries to advertise to me, typically unless I just happen to need what is being advertised, I will talk myself out of the perceived need for the item.

So, given what I have said above, what is a "value" in my world?  I had to think about this for a while, but I have some really good examples for you.  First, there is the plumber that did work for us last week.  We bought a new stacked high efficiency washer and dryer about a year ago.  It fit into a VERY tight spot in our house.  It has already needed service twice, and then a couple of weeks ago it dumped water on the floor.  Because of all of this I decided that we would move the unit to the basement where it would be much easier to service.  In order to do that, we needed water supply and drainage hooked up in the basement, and as many of you know, I don't do plumbing work.  So, we found a person that seemed reasonable and was willing to work us in around the rest of the things that he had going on.  He came in and looked the work over and quoted us $500.  Again, for the work involved this seemed very reasonable.  The time came for him to do the work and he was on time and very positive throughout the project, and by the way, he did a superb job.  When he was all done he told us that he needed to return some things to Menard's and when he was done he would send us a bill.  The bill came in the mail and I opened it expecting to see $500.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a bill for $454.89.  In my world, that is a value.  Unasked for, not bartered for, just given because it is the right thing to do. 

I watched the complete reverse of this the other day on one of the "car/hot rod" shows.  The principals in the show were doing a complete restoration of a car for a customer and they had quoted $60,000 for the project.  At the end of the project, they were all happy with themselves when they told the customer that the price was $60,000.  Alright, they hit the number, but no big reason to be happy.  They had committed to that number.  Be under by a little bit, 500 or 750 dollars and the customer feels as though they got a bargain.  And just as a final note here, if you are in West Des Moines/Clive/Johnston and looking for plumbing work, or handyman services, a big positive shout out goes to Premiere Property Services in Clive.

Okay, example two.  Sara's birthday was this weekend and one of the things everyone wanted to do was go to the UpDown Lounge in the East Village.  I think I've mentioned this place to you before.  Vintage arcade and pinball machines, full service bar and honestly, geeks as far as the eye could see.  I was really at home in there.  Well, you talk about a value, when we got there they were running a "Buy One Get One" deal on tokens for the machines.  Ten dollars and we got eighty tokens!!!!  I will tell you with honesty, had there been a place that had done that when I was in college, I am pretty sure that I would have figured out how to take my entire paycheck in and I am relatively sure that graduation may have come with as a bit more of a challenge.  Anyway, that really seemed like a value to me.  Oh, and by the way Kansas City, I understand that UpDown is coming your way pretty soon, so be ready.

Finally today, I am going to turn this over a little bit.  Sometimes we don't see ourselves, in our roles as consumers, as having a value.  If you go to Google and ask "What is the lifetime value of a pizza customer", the first link that comes up is Putting the Service Profit Change to Work. This is a pretty good read overall, but it points out that a loyal, happy pizza customer can spend $8000 in a lifetime with a pizza place.  And that of course is an average.  Some families can spend a lot more than that.  But when you stop to buy that pizza, are you really treated like someone that will spend that kind of money there?  Typically we aren't, and typically we don't even think about it.  One of the things that I've tried to teach Andrew and Megan is to think of things at least by the year.  It isn't only $20 per month, it is $240 a year.  And we need to think of ourselves as the kind of consumers that will spend $8000 with a pizza place, or $1800 a year with our cable provider.  We are a value to the businesses that we support, and in turn they can truly provide us value at the same time.  I will spend my money with the UpDowns of the world and the Premiere Propertys -  the companies that see me as a lifetime customer and offer a value in recognition of that, even if it is only the first time that we've ever worked together.  It is fun doing business with people who think about it this way.

Have a great week.

Slumber

I have been traveling back and forth to Marshalltown for the last few weeks.  If you haven't made this drive in a while, or if you have never done it, I would really recommend it.  There are some absolutely beautiful rolling hills and valleys between here and there.  Making this drive is the thing that really got me thinking this week.

In the past I've talked about Spring and the way that the land comes to life.  It is a great time of the year, but this time of the year is equally awe inspiring.  In the last couple of months, the world of agriculture has been absolutely frenetic.  The level of activity has been amazing.  The season has always been this way, but with the size of the equipment in use today, it seems as though giants have taken over the state of Iowa.  Even more so if you are out at night, as much of this equipment can light up football field size patches in the fields.

I remember being in Mixed Choir in High School. When I was a freshman, I sat next to Mark Cavin, a Senior.  We had way too much fun in there, which I am sure Tom Stewart, our director would agree with.  Anyway, one day, Mark came in and sat down, obviously upset about something.  After I pushed him a little, he told me that he had been doing field work the night before, may have fallen asleep for just a moment, made a turn too wide and caught a fence. Now he was going to have to spend a bunch of time that weekend fixing fence.

This is the same way that our agricultural community goes at field work in the fall today - 100% until it is done. The other thing that I remember in those days was that only about half of the students would be in class since they were busy with their families in the fields.  It gave us "townies" a little time off as well as the teachers saw no reason to teach for only half of us.  There were a lot of study periods and movies during that couple of weeks.

Experiencing fall and the beginning of winter fill my thoughts right now.  It is almost like watching a giant recline, taking a big breath and going to sleep.  A big long slumber ... one that will last until next Spring when the whole cycle begins again.  I know there are a bunch of things that still go on, maintenance, planning, buying for the upcoming season, and of course taking care of livestock, but it still seems to me like the whole agricultural world takes a bit of a deep breath and begins a bit of a slumber.  This year, that slumber is a bit more profound as the harvest seems to have been so strong.  Everything settles in to rest in order to come alive again when it awakens. Next time you are out and about, take a look and let me know if you see what I'm seeing.

Okay, let's turn to the Toybox.  There hasn't been much slumbering out there, in fact there has been a lot going on, and I haven't yet told you about the equipment addition that I made earlier this year.  I added a wide belt sander, capable of sanding sixteen inches in a pass, 32" by flipping the piece around.  I am really not sure how I ever got by without it.  I seem to turn to it all of the time now that I have it.

Additionally, I had made the mistake earlier this year of getting rid of my truck.  After a change in employment, I found myself without easy access to a truck.  That was completely unacceptable.  So, in the last month, I fixed that by adding a 2013 F-150 to the family's fleet.  Now we are back in the position of having a vehicle for everyone, no matter how many directions we are going.  And when I need to haul something ... I can.  This is important.

Also coming together at the Toybox is a project that I've been working on for a while.  I have been forming (sounds artistic, doesn't it?) a dining room table out of recycled heart pine and walnut.  The heart pine came from a mill in Peculiar, MO that reclaims old lumber from mills and warehouses and reworks them into usable sizes.  The walnut was wood that my father had milled out of trees in the Sigourney area and they have been with me since we sold mom's house back in the late 80's.  So these things are coming together to form what I think is going to be an absolutely beautiful table, and at this point, I am very happy to announce that I think that it will actually be finished and in place for Thanksgiving which was the request of the person that I am building it for.  I have included some pictures of the pieces as they begin to come together.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can get it all done and in place for the feast at Thanksgiving.

Buy Local

As you all know, I am an Iowa boy, born and raised. At this point, unless something drastically changes, I will probably die that way.  So, over the course of my lifetime I have watched a lot of changes throughout this state and the Midwest.  I have watched family farms get big; I have watched little old farmsteads fall to the plow - the land brought back into production, and I have watched unfounded attacks on these farms when companies attack them for being "factory farms" (yes Chipotle, I am talking to you).  But one thing I've watched and thought the most about over the years is the demise of the small town and the businesses that should be and could be thriving there.

I know that a lot of people blame the loss of business in small-town Iowa on large mass merchants coming into and taking business from older established businesses.  I really am not sure that I fully agree with that.  I will give you a couple of examples, one from years ago and one from very recently.

Many years ago, I sold lumber for a living in Des Moines.  At the time, I had a family member selling the same product in my hometown.  In fact, there were times that I would order product for min and he would pick it up, haul it to Sigourney and resell it.  Good for the American free enterprise system.  But, there was a Saturday that I happened to be home and I was sitting in his lumberyard talking (and probably drinking coffee) while he was invoicing customers.  I remember looking at an invoice that he was completing and being shocked by the fact that he was thirty to forty percent higher on the exact product that I was selling in Des Moines.  When I asked about it, he smiled and explained to me that Des Moines was 90 miles away.  Interestingly enough, a couple of years later when my Grandmother bought product for a new garage, it all came on a truck out of the Southside Payless store in Des Moines.  Even with the dollar per mile delivery fee, the local Sigourney yard wasn't willing to match the price.

So, now let's jump forward forty years.  I was in a smaller Iowa community this week, not as small as Sigourney, just not as large as Des Moines.  I've been working on cutting boards at the Toybox that I am donating to YESS (Youth and Emergency Shelter Services) for one of their fund-raisers, and needed small rubber feet to.  I remembered this just as I was passing a True Value hardware store.  Needless to say, I swung in to find what I needed.   I found what I needed - they had one on the peg. I probably would have bought two just to have an extra, but one would be enough.  I took the $3.00 item to the register and was told that I couldn't use my debit card since the actual purchase was under $10.00.  I have to wonder how many times that day that happened.  Since, I wasn't able to purchase what I wanted there, I ended up in Des Moines, at a large hardware store, buying it (and two extras since they had them) for a dollar less than I would have paid in the small community.

So what? You might ask.  I really wonder if the demise of the downtown retail areas in small communities in Iowa is because of large retailers, or because of short sightedness?  If you ever spend time in Maine, you will find that the natives there are fiercely loyal to the local merchants and not only do they not not like large chains coming in from the outside, but choose to refuse to spend their money in those box stores.  Again, I wonder what the difference is?  Is it that Mainers have taken these outsiders on directly when they entered their communities?  Rather than hoping that people would be loyal to the local merchants, have they done the right thing and made sure that there was a reason to shop locally?

When we were worked for Payless in Des Moines and new competitor opened in town, we put together a plan to show that we would never be beaten on basic items.  We matched or beat everything that this new retailer advertised, and we did not lose market share.  We gave up a little profitability, but we never lost our share of the local market.  Then, when our corporate structure told us that we couldn't do that, the minute we quit fighting, we started losing.  People went to check the new place out, and then stayed for selection and price.  We were never going to have selection, but at least we still had them on price.  The Japanese say that business is war, and I really think they may be right. The sad thing is that some of the people in our smaller communities don't understand this, or don't believe it's real.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving has become Small Business Saturday, an opportunity for people to re-discover their local small businesses. There will be a lot of promotion geared to that day all across the country. While it is great to ask customers to focus on the small businesses that live in their neighborhoods during that promotion, it is just as important ... no, it is more important for those same small businesses to consistently focus on their customers and how they shop and what makes it easy for them to buy locally, just as the big chain stores do.

Quit giving our downtowns away.  Stand up, fight, and win.