Somewhere, in some industrial city, or on the outskirts thereof, sits a factory making automobile tires. There is a management team working there that, not long ago, made the decision to sell the tires that were not quite up to snuff. They were not bad enough to scrap, but they knew they were not up to the proper standards that had been set by the company. They would simply lower the price and tell their distributers to put them on sale.
Enter – Zobostic Corwin. An average, unsuspecting chump who just happens to be in need of a new set of tires. Now, consider for a moment, ZC has been around the block. He wasn’t born yesterday. Fact is, he’s been around the block so much that now he needs new tires.
With a desire to support local business, he goes to a local tire distributer. He also knows that due to the age of his car, it would be silly to put top-of-the-line tires on it. So he stays away from the lower priced tires and selects what he hopes is a good, decent tire that won’t drive him to the poor house. (Which isn’t that much of a drive, but why go there?)
Yes, you saw this coming from miles away. He buys the tires on sale. He drives home all happy because his horse now has new shoes. Now comes the part of the story were that peaky tire defect shows up. After his car has sat overnight, the simple weight of the vehicle causes flat spots in the tires. He discovers it the next time he gets in the car and drives down the road. Ka-thump, Ka-thump, Ka-thump for about a mile, until the flat spots are gone.
Here’s the part the management team back at the factory didn’t think about. Now they have rid themselves of the low-quality tires but their reputation has developed a slow leak. Each time I share this story, the leak gets a little bigger. Potential new customers are being drained from their pool of possibilities.
What
to me is a simple annoyance, will grow into a nail-sized hole in their bottom
line. Sort of like a flat spot on their
earnings statement. Ka-thump, Ka-thump,
Ka-thump.
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