Category: Sponsorships

Don’t Shop Us, It’s Stupid

Here’s a predicament and a story. First the predicament:

We get calls from satisfied customers who’ve done business with us for years. They know our quality, they know they will be treated with respect, and receive fair pricing. They know how we work. BUT, they shop us anyway. Hey that’s fine, go get pricing from our competitors. I’ll be the first to tell you that I may not always have the cheapest price. But don’t say I didn’t warn you…a cheaper price means a cheaper product! You’ve also got to deal with someone who likely doesn’t give a crap if your product looks good or if it’s done on time.

So in an effort to save a buck, they take an inadvertent risk and go with the “other guy.” A word of caution: If it appears to be a company larger than us, they have less of an incentive to care about you. If they print t-shirts in their garage, chances are their quality is going to be poor. If the price is cheaper, it’s too good to be true.

This kind of predicament happens way too frequently.

So now the story:

I get a call from a customer who orders from us consistently. He needs a favor. He needs us to RUSH an order for him, the item is something we priced out for him weeks ago. He comes clean, {I’ve included my commentary}:

“I know I priced this out with you guys a while back, but I went into this other place and they gave me a cheaper price {they also schmoozed you and gave you the ‘ol song and dance about how we suck}. I should have known it was too good to be true {so the lower price over powered your common sense}. But we were reselling these items so we needed the cheapest price {because you wanted to make the highest margin possible}. When I picked up the product it looked like $#!+ and there’s no way I can sell it now {hate to say it, but I knew this would happen}. Can you help me out?”

Are we going to help this guy out? Sure, but we only do this kind of thing once. Learn a lesson from this guy. Now he’s just looking to break-even! His margin just went to the idiot who screwed him over. Don’t cheap out, don’t trust a salesman. We don’t sell here at Hillsports, we’re merely facilitators.

The Hurricane Halos

Now that’s one good lookin’ team!

How We Work

When we show up for work in the morning we follow this five-step plan:

1. Go, make something happen.
2. Do work you’re proud of.
3. Treat people with respect.
4. Make big promises and keep them.
5. Ship it out the door.
(When in doubt, see #1)

We’re in it for the long haul. Companies can decide to work with their customers to expand the pie – so both sides benefit – or they can negotiate to have the other side lose. Winning by punishing the customer isn’t a particularly long-lasting or satisfying game plan.

Almost all of the business we receive comes from word-of-mouth (Their is power in the referral). Many customers come to us because they were not treated fairly by our competition. Unfortunately, in our industry there exists many short-sighted transactional mindsets where the lifetime value of a customer is not factored into the equation.

Another reason customers like us: We certainly do not delight in high-pressure sales. We don’t like it, so why would our customers? How could anyone think this could be a winning sales tactic?

Plain and simple: We follow-up and help you get what you need when you need it.

We’re a unique business in that we provide services that everyone actually needs. As a result we get a lot of requests for sponsorships and donations. We can’t give to everyone, so we decided to put 100% of our marketing budget back into our customers. It’s simple reciprocity and it just makes sense for us in the long run. We believe if we take care of our customers in this way, we’ll be a successful organization.