Re: In praise of Cottage Industry

Huzzah!! Huzzah!
Kudos to you David and anyone else with the gumption to 
keep at it! Having dealt with the burdens of running a small
business (though, yes, in my case the SBA did acknowledge
that we were a little larger than a hobby (not by much))

Customer is first, last, always. If you've happy customers...
the rest follows. 

Sorry to have taken up bandwith in this preachy manner,
but I feel strongly that too many companies have lost track
of getting and keeping long term relationship with customers.

Oops, just fell off soapbox. Well, now back to more important
things

Thanks for the listen....err, read.
Thanks
Pat Connaughton
e-mail - ptconn@earthlink.net
homepage - www.home.earthlink.net/~ptconn
ICQ # 2535086
"He who knows not how to dissemble knows not
how to reign"
Tiberius, Emperator and Princips of Rome

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David L. Dunn - DLD Productions 
  To: gzg-l@scotch.csua.berkeley.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 8:43 AM
  Subject: Re: In praise of Cottage Industry

  I wholehearted agree that GW is in it for the money, and not the
hobby.	When I first started my "company", I was told by SCORE, (a
branch of the SBA) that what I have isn't a business, it's a hobby! Just
because I don't pull in $30,000 a month, or even a year in sales!  I
bust my hind every day. Not Monday thru Friday, everyday, to keep my
orders up, and my stock moving, and new ideas flowing.	I don't know,
but it sure feels like a business.  When the bottom fell out of the
model making aspect of the movie industry, I was left with, "what do I
do now?"  I'm in it for the hobby folks. I take great pride in the work
I produce, and even more when I make a sale, and ship it! I'm not afraid
of expansion, because I will have control of the pulse.  I do all of the
work myself. Everything. R&D, casting, trimming, box art, advertising,
shipping, and I still have time for doing web site design.  I cannot
comprehend how a "company" can do business without photos, or something
for someone to look at.  I'm not going to "buy sight unseen".  I
wouldn't expect my customers to either. Yeah, I might be a "Cottage
Industry", or a guy in a garage that was turned into a shop, but I can
also create a web site with photos and color and form. [even tho I
stumbled thru all of it! :o  ]	And I have had no training on web
design.  It's not hard. If I can do it......so can others.....if they
want and care to.  Digital cameras are the way to go by far! We have a
scanner, but it takes so long to scan, when all I have to do is click
the camera and remove the disk and TaDa! Photo. It's real simple! 
  What I'm trying to say is that I wish that more companies would care
more about the customer than, "How many sales we can do in a month".
After all, it's the customer that makes that sale. And without them,
there is no sale. It's the GW mentality that brings gives the Gaming
Market a bad rap.  People get burnt by GW's switch-o-change-o of rules
and therefore doesn't have the want to "try" a new company (GZG). I
guess I'm a little torqued at GW.....wonder why....(hundreds of dollars
wasted because of this rulez change or that...grrrrrr) 
  "Up With Cottage Industries, Down with the suits!" 
  <sorry for the rant! It struck a nerve> 
  -- 
  David L. Dunn 
  DLD Productions 
  "Striving to Make Your Gaming Real" 
  http://zippnet.net/~dldproductions/ 
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~