anthonybarthel

I never realized the huge consequences of our buying so much of everything from overseas manufacturers until a few things happened within a week. I call this the week I found out imports were bad. 

Now I'm no idiot. I've known for a while that it's bad that we no longer have a manufacturing base in the USA. But the greater and truly wide-spread consequences of why imports are bad didn't hit me this hard until this week. Two things happened this week that really drove the point home. I bought a vending machine company and I was at a wedding. 

First the vending machine company. The previous owner has been showing me the routes for the company so I can make sure my customers' machines are filled with candy and other treats to enjoy on their break time. Most of these machines are placed in employee break rooms. But at a number of places, the previous owner of the vending company told me that "this used to be a great customer, but they've had to cut back." 

For example, one of my customers manufactures low-flow toilets. They have two large buildings that used to employ hundreds of people working three shifts a day. Now only a few work in the main building and two work in the back building. Why? A Chinese competitor paying slave wages to people who are willing to accept crappy working conditions and a nation (theirs) that is willing to allow companies to pollute its air and waters for the sake of cheaper toilets has taken away jobs of your friends and neighbors. Those guys overseas have no regard for others' intellectual property rights and will sacrifice the health and safety of their fellow countrymen for something cheaper. 

They make cheap Chinese knock-offs of the toilets this company has made for years and people, American people, are willing to accept the cheaper imitation of the American product, likely not even knowing that it's a rip-off of a US design. Sure, the toilet people could drag the whole thing through the courts but they likely won't be able to afford the lawsuit anyway. Soon two huge empty buildings will stand with a "For Sale" sign on them where once toilets started their journey to all corners of the USA. 

But the real culprit is the American buyer who will sacrifice hundreds of jobs for the sake of saving $50 on an asset that will last for decades. For a few dollars a year of the life of this product we Americans are willing to throw our fellow countrymen under the bus. That's just sad. 

Think about all the people whose lives are affected by this so-called savings. There's me, the vending machine guy. There's me, the innkeeper as these employees are no longer able to take their wives on trips since they lost their job. There's the guy who delivered their uniforms, the guy who picks-up the toilets and ships them to customers. The toilet company also has to have a maintenance person, an accountant, a secretary, and other support staff. They had to buy boxes for the toilets and someone had to print the instruction manuals. Someone was probably in charge of advertising these toilets. There were people at whose machine shop they made those bolts to hold the toilets to the floor, there was the palate manufacturer on which the toilets were placed once they were ready for new homes. 

Also, the workers would likely go and buy lunch at local eateries or even bring their lunches from home with lunch pails full of things that were purchased from local markets. They would buy gasoline, tires, oil and oil filters for their vehicles. They would buy their vehicles, for that matter. I didn't mention that the local tire shop, also a customer of mine, is similarly having a lousy year and some of their guys are out job hunting. 

That $50 less for something like a toilet or that inexpensive pair of pants you have to pull down to sit on the toilet or even the magazine you read while sitting there are all factors in why your neighbor can't find a job. 

Furthermore there is another huge loss, and this is what I found out at the wedding. One of my groomsmen is planning to leave the area after the wedding and seek employment in "the big city." Now this has been going on since the industrial revolution, but he has worked in a number of local places and has found that more and more of those "local places" are simply disappearing. 

Folks, your children, for whom you have worked so hard so they could have a better life, are now faced with the fact that they won't have a better life. They may or may not have gone to college, but all are faced with the fact that employers aren't putting want ads in the papers. Heck, there aren't even papers to put the want ads in any longer. 

The American dream is turning into a fantasy. 

It used to be that someone could work at a manufacturing job all their life and rely on a solid pension and an excellent health plan. But they also filled out a time card printed in the USA or punched a time clock manufactured in the USA. They filled out reports typed-up by American secretaries who handed them to American accountants and filed them with American bosses. All these people bought cars, went on vacations, bought shirts, pants and even toilets. They took vacations, ate at restaurants and had cocktails with you. While we might have thought that slapping hub caps on Chevrolets or putting low-flow toilets together was a boring job, it's certainly better than spending years looking for anything only to wind-up doing something you totally hate for wages that won't even pay your rent all while hoping that the government safety net is there for you if you or your family get sick. 

Yes, those manufacturing jobs used to help keep health care costs down too because more of us had insurance so when we went to the doctor's office someone backed us up and paid that bill rather than letting it lapse and go to collections. The doctor also has bills to pay and if that doctor has 10 patients and only five pay, the bill the other five get is going to be significantly higher because the doctor has to pay their bills somehow. They have electricity, an administrator, nurses, x-ray bills, insurance, shots, cotton swabs and uniforms. 

Here I sit banging this drivel away at my Chinese-made keyboard while staring into my Chinese-made monitor and saving my baloney on a Chinese-made hard drive. Oh, sure the computer says it was designed in California but it sure as heck wasn't built here. They used to be - Apple used to have a factory in Fremont that was a former auto assembly line but it's not there any longer. I'm not singling-out Apple, they're just like everybody else. 

Unfortunately, many everybody elses don't have jobs because all those other everybody elses thought it was better to buy that $7 imported shirt rather than the $15 USA made shirt or they're sitting on their Levis that are no longer made in San Francisco. But those cheap Dockers have a much higher cost than the $42 you would have paid. Sure those Dockers are only $29.99 at WalMart, so what? Now you have more money to spend, right? Wrong. 

You now have to help subsidize the people who can't find a job. You have to subsidize the doctor bills for those who can't find a job. You will be paying higher taxes because the government has fewer people from which to collect taxes but more people to subsidize until they find a job. Those $29.99 Dockers might really be costing you significantly more than the $42 they cost when they were made in San Francisco. 

So what do we all do? 

Share this blog. Tell everybody you know to ask the stores they go to to at least give us a choice of whether to support the Chinese or our neighbors. And if you can only get eight pots and pans for $250 instead of 22 maybe that's not such a bad deal considering that the folks putting handles on those pots are likely going to need uniforms, cars, candy bars and whatever other thing you're selling or involved with and when they have jobs, you have a job. So you might not be able to buy as many pots and pans, but at least you'll still have a job so you can buy some. You don't need three TVs when one will do just fine. I have three iPods but, honestly, even one is a luxury. 

We've all heard "buy American" but I have one more thing to say to convince you. Remember WWII? Probably not, unless you're older. I had to read about it, I wasn't even a glimmer in my daddy's eye yet. During WWII we simply out-manufactured everybody else and kicked their asses. Ford's River Rouge plant was called the "Arsenal of Democracy." When it came time to win the war we built whatever it took, bought from one another, saved a lot and simply put our collective shoulders to the grind stone. 

Now we're getting spanked all over the world. Idiots wearing their bed sheets as clothing and living in caves are making us look like monkeys. Maybe it's time to take those bastards and dunk their toweled craniums in an American-made low flow toilet. Maybe it's time we stood at the border and said "no, thank you" to shiploads of cheap knock-offs of the stuff we invented. Maybe it's time a toaster cost $40 instead of $19 because someone we know is putting them together. Or someone we know is delivering their uniforms, or putting the bottled water bottle in the break room. 

Maybe, if enough of us just said the same thing with the same voice instead of arguing for or against Obama or whether we're "right" or "left" we might not all be "unemployed." Because, pretty soon, Uncle Sam's going to also go apply for unemployment and I'm not really sure if he'll get his application approved or not without some proof that those millions of people hanging on to his coat tails have some sort of hope that they can simply feed their families. 

Buy American or just put your money in the bank until you can. Seriously, it's your livelihood that's at stake and that of your children. If you want them to have a better life, give them the opportunity to do so by making sure they can afford that better life and that someone will be there to sell it to them. 

The art of gift giving is really an incredible thing. Gift giving goes back for centuries as a way to just tell people that you appreciate or love them. A gift with no strings attached is incredible and shows others how much you care.

Recently a couple made a special trip up here to offer me a gift that, in my opinion, was a total insult on so many levels. It was a CD by a friend of mine. Now I know my friend has a new CD out and I've been meaning to go buy a box of them so I can sell them in our gift shop here at the Featherbed Railroad. So why was I insulted? It was a pirated copy. 

Stealing music is wrong, period. I don't care how easy it is, that "everybody does it," or that it's rampant. It's wrong. It steals from a number of people and, in this case, it steals from someone I know who is not getting rich on CD sales. He's just a cool local guy with a lot of talent and three CDs. We sell two of these, we will sell this third one when I can get down to see him. 

It's $10 to buy one of his CDs, which supports his talent and efforts. It's the equivalent of four overpriced coffees at that big coffee chain. Yet it rewards his talents and efforts. This is true if you support that band that's your favorite or the local guy down the street. $10 isn't much to ask, so when you steal out of an artist's pocket, it's a slap in the face to that artist 

Gift giving is an art and I was honored that someone thought of us and knew that we would love to have this wonderful musical journey down the tracks. But to steal out of a friends pocket and have that as a gift is beyond an insult to me, whether that's the pocket of a friend of mine or someone who makes millions of dollars a year on music. 

Clearlake, California is a city that has a little bit of Rodney Dangerfield syndrome. While it's one of several cities on the shores of Clear Lake, this little city of some 16,000 people has a rather poor reputation. Even among the locals, it's looked down upon and that's by people who live in cities that are often looked down upon by those in areas like San Francisco, Santa Rosa and Sacramento. 

But it's time to reevaluate good ol' Clearlake because it would appear that there's a bit of pride stirring in their blood and it's starting to rub off on the city itself. This past Saturday a group of local citizens got together with supplies donated by the local hardware store and repainted a building that is owned by the impoverished city government. The city's plans were to raze the building, which is occupied by a hair salon at present, but financial woes actually prevented that from happening so the building became an eyesore. 

Why the local government is competing with private business is another matter and not relevant to this blog, which is about customer service and social networking. Back to community pride. 

These local citizens took it upon themselves to spend their weekend sanding and painting and just doing the things a good landlord would do to make their building something to be proud of. This sets a very good standard for the rest of the community and shows what can happen with free-thinking people take hold of a situation. Free-thinking people are always a better solution to anything than those who work in government, but this is also not a political blog. 

That being said, the local city council in Clearlake actually voted to turn down and prevent this assistance. No, seriously. Clearlake's council actually held a vote and told these citizens to take their good intentions and go home. Forget the free paint, hours of sanding and the fact that every day they have to look at a blighted building that might even be a symbol of the city itself while a local business suffers in a building that looked terrible. 

Fortunately, using social media and traditional media plus the fact that today is election day in Clearlake combined to create a situation where such a wonderful job could take place. The power of social and traditional media can move mountains and even get a really, really bad decision by local government reversed so that a community doesn't look blighted. 

But I say take this one step further. 

Might I suggest asking local artists to display their wares in the windows? 

Having locally-generated art would further the beautification of the property while also showing off the talent that lives in the neighborhood. We're all aware of how today's economic climate has been difficult for retail businesses and landlords alike and using otherwise "dead" window space to show off a community's collective talent might be a good temporary use of this space. 

Since this is a common and timely problem throughout the US, such a creative use of these windows would definitely be newsworthy and the community would be able to get some mileage out of such a creative use, drawing tourism to the area. Since tourism is our major product up here, this would solve another problem. 

There's no reason to stop with just this building, either. Having a community effort to place the beautiful artwork created locally in otherwise-unused windows would make everything look better while, again, being something "the media" would absolutely eat up. 

I would think there would be a big draw from tourists to a community that beautified itself with art while creatively overcoming a problem every community has - retail space that's presently unoccupied. This might also make these otherwise-unoccupied buildings look better to prospective tenants, thereby helping real estate agents. 

Using traditional and social media there would be great power in keeping people updated on which local artists are in which windows. A creative blog with integration of Google Maps would be a great way to create interest and promote such a community-wide effort. 

Since our economy is presently in the lemon business we might as well make up a big ol' batch of lemonade and open a community-wide stand. And with the power of social media, we could tell the world just how delicious this lemonade is. Not a bad thing for a tourism-driven economy like Clearlake. 

Read More:

Clean Up Story on Lake Co News. 

I recently was contacted by someone asking me to do their web site. They provide a high-quality service and have for some time. But they were lamenting the fact that giving their guests an excellent experience didn't seem to account for as much as it used to. This is due to Facebook and the Internet, in my opinion. 

Today we are constantly being bombarded by people on Facebook commenting on this and that and updating what kind of grapefruit they ate at breakfast or whether they should buy single-ply or two-ply bathroom paper. But they're also updating us on where they went on vacation while they're still on vacation, making us want to emulate that experience. 

I firmly believe a human can only take so much mental input at any given time. If your friends went to Hawaii and are constantly hitting you with pictures and stories about how wonderful it is while they're still there, you're going to want to go there. 

So the fact that my prospective customer is only on the web with a static web site isn't good enough any longer. Now they're going to have to update their site with something relevant. A blog works, as does a free account on Facebook. Heck, we just set-up an account called Featherbed Guest where our guests can leave comments on Facebook right from the confuser in the dining room. We’ve also set-up a Facebook account for Oktoberfest (happening October 2) and have generated quite a bit of activity even though it’s months away. 

One of the comments I hear is that “it’s difficult to spend all that time on Facebook.” Honestly, by avoiding all the games and such it only takes moments to update one’s status and the rewards are plentiful. 

For example, if your business is having a sale you can invite your customers and prospects to join you - this is a reminder that you’re having an event and they’re agreeing to come creates a “buy in” for those customers. It takes me less than a minute to create one of these events and I can do it right from my smart phone. 

New products in your store, new credentials for your name and even a new paint color on the walls are reasons to update your status. If people can talk about their grapefruit, you can talk about things in your business. 

Recently on Facebook NorCal Moto & Speed updated their status with a new sunglasses shipment. By coincidence, I had just sat on mine and was going to go shopping on line. Instead, I went to NorCal Moto & Speed and spent close to $100 that day on a variety of things including some new sunglasses. That moment Mark spent on Facebook resulted in at least one customer coming in and making a purchase and all it cost him was a few moments of his time. 

If you’re lamenting fewer customers through the door this means you’ve got more time on your hands and that time is always well spent on marketing your business or service. 

And the prospect who wanted a new web site? They’ve now got a Facebook account (free) as their web site was just fine, they simply needed to remind people that it was there. 

This past weekend I went to a steam engine festival. I love this festival because of all the cacophony of machinery, smells and people. It's terrific. Unfortunately, I don't think many people agree with me based on this year's attendance. But maybe it's not the festival itself. 

The festival and the entire organization are run by a bunch of "old gearheads." These are my favorite people because I can sit and chat for hours about all sorts of machinery and such and they can show me all manner of fun things about said machinery. Hooray for old gearheads, I'm getting closer to being one of them every day. 

Unfortunately for these guys, the world is presently run by young nerds. Disagree? How about over 300,000,000 Facebook users? How about Google slowly replacing things like libraries, yellow pages and even newspapers in our lives. Having an iPhone trumps having anything else in the palm of your hand except the palm of your sweetie's hand. 

But it's not that we're more interested in this digital stuff than the old gearhead stuff. No. The problem is that we're just inundated by it. Party invitations come electronically now, not in the local newspaper. You don't necessarily plan your weekend by what's in the community calendar, you've been pressed for this and that cool event by a combination of Facebook posts, Tweets and e-mails. And these old guys have none of those things. So we forget that they're there. 

So the reason, in my opinion, that the attendance absolutely sucked for this event wasn't any lack of interest in it. It was that they weren't in our faces for months ahead of time to remind us of how cool their place was. So all the places that did this got the attention the old gearheads deserved. And I'm sure lots and lots of people would rather show their kids these old clanking behemoths as they spewed steam and smells into the cleanest air in California. 

They really did a spectacular job, too. They steamed up all manner of steam donkeys, locomotives, a steam shovel, two cranes and even an old Case tractor. The show was wonderful with all sorts of antique machinery huffing and puffing and showing how things used to be before one button could cut down half a forest worth of trees. There were a few of the grumpy old guys and some cheerful new guys too, who didn't even complain when I pulled the lever on a steam whistle, notifying the world that it was noon. 

Transitionary times are difficult for everybody. The old guys probably think Facebook is where the police keep pictures of the bad guys, but millions of us have become regular addicts. So somebody needs to help them. My part on this is to show them this little article on marketing. 

Incidentally, some proof in my pudding is the Skunk Train. Despite The Economy the Skunk Train had a very good season. The reason for the season? Jason Robert Pinoli, who spends as much time in the realm of social media as I do and keeps the Skunk Train in front of us all. Obviously there are other reasons, too, but that's a factor. So thankfully there are "youngsters" who are willing to take old gearheads' wonderful projects and remind their followers that they're here. 

And if you had a lousy season, maybe its time to see if your nieces or nephews will help you. 

BTW, there is a great article in Business Week on why your advertising isn't working. 

This little rant is about customer service, how to and how not to. 

Today I had to go to our local town to get a few things in advance of Wild West Days. Wild West Days is a lot of fun and is celebrated in an old western town with covered sidewalks and the like. It's neat. All I needed was a pen on a leash, that's it. 

I went to the local office supply store where I rarely find anything I want in search of this pen on a leash. You know, like the pens they have in banks. I'd steal one of those, but they're on a leash. While I was at the office supply store wandering the aisles, a couple of gents walked in and, after finally distracting the clerk from her computer, asked if they did business cards. 

She immediately turned around and rummaged through a card file, taking quite a bit of time. Finally she told the gentlemen about a business card order that's been pending since January. This is June, that's six months. Yikes. She wrote down the name and number of a good provider in the area and sent them on their merry way. 

My issue with this is that she didn't acknowledge them after their question or tell them that she had a solution for them. Instead, she just sought out the solution. I would have asked if she had an answer - it seemed so rude that she hadn't acknowledged the question. 

Nobody likes to be ignored. The solution, in my opinion, would have been to greet the gentlemen at the door when they came in since the cash register and computer are right there. I had already been wandering the aisles for some time looking for my pen on a leash. No luck, by the way. 

In fact, I wanted to see how long it would be before she asked if I needed anything and I walked around looking at the mediocre inventory illuminated by poor lighting. Finally, another customer came in and wandered and went up to the counter and asked for help. She politely obliged and when she was done with telling him what he wanted wasn't in stock, I interrupted her beeline back to the computer to ask about what I came in for. They, of course, didn't have that, either. 

I guess the biggest moral of this story is this. Our local office supply store stinks. The service is usually mediocre, though not always. The inventory is always mediocre. All it would take is someone with some marketing skills or a solid name, like Staples, to come up and that store would be closed within a month. 

They have done nothing to earn my loyalty or admiration so I would immediately shop at the new place. I'm sure others would, too. 

Large chain stores have the advantage of having huge advertising budgets and beautiful stores. As a small business the greatest thing we can offer is outstanding customer service. That's tough for the big boys to do because they have such a giant volume of employees to handle. What should our local office supply store do? 

First and foremost, they should put some sort of request list there. If you see that lots of folks are asking for pens on leashes, then you should stock those. 

Secondly, everybody should be greeted with a smile and a hello when they come in. Any small business that doesn't treat each customer like the valuable asset that they are is just asking to be put out of business by someone else. 

Just posted a review of the 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution - what a fun car! You can read the review on the Curbside. While it's the stuff video games are made of, it's also...wait, don't read the summary - read the review!

By the way Ginger's feeling even better still and is now spending more time planning her next escape. While I'm not giving her a lot of credit, I do hope that the car situation taught her a lesson. We shall see. 

Gingee Ginge is doing about the same today. She mostly spends her day crashed out on our bed, in her recliner (don't all dogs need a recliner?) and, today, out in the sun on an absolutely beautiful day. 

The weather was positively perfect today so Ginger took advantage of it by sunning herself on the back porch. She even got a bit curious about the work I did in the herb garden and came to sniff around. 

Of course she was very excited when I cut up a beautiful Maple Farm ham because she knows that I'll always share with my girls. Man, that's some good ham. 

Anyhow, she's doing okay today but still has a bit of a limp when she hobbles around. 

Yesterday we spent the morning with Paul Katzeff of the Thanksgiving Coffee Company in Fort Bragg. The folks at Thanksgiving's motto is "Not Just A Cup of Coffee, but a Just Cup of Coffee." They see coffee as a medium for doing good and have done very well. 

After three hours of touring their plant and tasting all sorts of wonderful coffees, we've decided on a specific blend for the Featherbed Railroad (our Bed & Breakfast) and will soon be taking delivery on our special brew. 

In addition, we're also going to switch our coffee brewing methods to French presses instead of the typical drip method. French pressing gives the coffee a much better flavor and is also a unique experience for the guests. 

I'm hoping folks like this new method of brewing their own coffee and can learn some of the special things that went into the beans getting to their table. All our coffee will be Fair Trade and sustainably grown. In addition, it will be organic, of course.