What goes around comes around. This saying is more prophetic than I thought. Murphy’s Law cooked to perfection, and seasoned lightly with a hint of vengeance.
It’s old news around here that my business suffered a disastrous fire last June. We rebuilt, reopened and revamped our entire operation. It’s kind of like cleaning house with a flame-thrower – expensive and inefficient – but effective.
It took us a few months to build our business back to the pre-fire level, but we are finally there or very close at least. During our journey towards normal, we learned many different things about competition and how they viewed and discussed our business dilemma while we were down. Let’s just say very few of them took the high road.
Two businesses in particular really threw us under the bus without consideration as to who the bus driver was, and where the bus driver’s loyalty was. I mention this for an important reason, because it’s real easy to ‘jump on the bandwagon’ and take joyous pleasure from the nuance of a catchy tune/rumor, but it’s wise to realize that most rock bands break up pretty quick.
After the fire many of our regular customers were forced to obtain parts and services from other providers within our community. Rumors are like soccer hooligans. It’s hard to explain what really got them started, and even harder to control them after inciting the event at hand. Well, the rumor-mill was firing on all cylinders here.
Our customer base was confused as to where to get the services they needed. All of our pre-fire vendors were screaming for payment for pre-fire purchases. Notice that I refer to them as pre-fire vendors. Our finances were being drained like a rusty bucket with three holes in the bottom. We lost two long-term employees.
City, county and various state agencies were running wide-eyed asking for things that I could not provide. Insurance agents were poking around with the finest sharpened pencils known to man. My wife was in tears every day. Even the family dog had to have emergency surgery after a vicious attack by other dogs (she was defending our honor I’m sure). Plus the normal stress of day-to-day life.
As if all of that is not enough to deal with, add-on goading phone calls from your competition with questions like, “Hey can you guys work in an oil change, ah man, sorry I just remembered, you guys got toasted,” followed by a hasty ‘click’ on the phone line. Or some of our long-term customers visiting our competition, and coming back to me with stories about them giggling, or exclaiming ‘it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.’ Really? Really.
But we did take the high road. We never once made an open rebuttal to anything said by the competition or rumored to have been said by our competition for fear of adding more fuel to the fire. Let me tell you, that was a hard thing to do, given my pseudo-psychotic state of mind.
We endured in spite of it all, and I honestly think we earned a new found respect within our community for having handled things in such a professional manner. I must admit, my inner salesman wanted so badly to do some mud-slinging, serious drinking, or just harmful things in general to anything at random. Such as punching a wall, for example.
So what happened? Our biggest competitor for service and repair burned six months later. Can’t make this stuff up. One of our parts store competitors closed up shop, and it was a huge old-time national name. Gone. And as I write this, I got a call from another long time service competitor telling me they were closing up shop as well. Sweet Mary and Mother of all things. Karma? You bet. Watch your mouth or you might need to guide your foot into it.
I never make things up for the sake of an article. Real life is far more dramatic, poignant and unbelievable. Two of the three wanted me to buy them out. Imagine that. Here I am, totally devastated, then, renewed with a vigor for this business like a jack rabbit in a cage, held for two years sequestered from the hares. Now you want me to bail you out given your five-month advantage and slander? Well, I felt for you guys for about two minutes, but still feel for your employees far more. Some of whom I’ve hired out of the kindness of my heart.
This business is not easy. The rewards are slow coming. A hat trick or trifecta is unheard of. Run your car, run your water, run your dogs, run your business, or run amuck. Just be careful about running your mouth. Unforeseen consequences are waiting for you, and karma will gladly deliver them.
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