With the seemingly endless number of products and services in any service industry, I know how hard it is to tell the difference of one over another.  That’s why it’s particularly frustrating looking at this problem from the other (vendor’s) side.  From my perspective, it’s easy to see that some of my competitors spend a lot of money on the marketing side of the business and a minimal amount on operations and service quality.  To see a prospect go with a competitor based mostly on marketing tactics truly breaks my heart.  Particularly when I know we would have done a much better job.

So I frequently debate with myself on whether to proceed as we have been or to take money we use to invest in operations and spend more on marketing.  As someone who is very quality-conscious, this puts a pretty significant weight on me.  We don’t neglect either, but I’d really prefer to continue with reinvestment into better processes.  It would be nice if prospects would do a little more information-gathering before making decisions.  My hunch is that if they spent more time at it, they would see the long-term value of the higher price…and Tailor Decks would get the business.  I can’t assume that they’ll do that however, and will continue to reinvest the best way we know how.