CowDoc🐮

This is me. Also applies when they say the words "factory farming" or "organic is better"

Crushed. Lonesome River Band with Ronnie Bowman and Dan Tyminski was the best. This was a time they got together after the LRB days youtu.be/UnNOZZQ3GQU?si…

I can just imagine my dad's response if someone had suggested that he pay $2500 for me to play travel baseball, practice at ballfields 20 or 30 miles away, spend nearly every weekend in hotels traveling to tournaments, missing church, his Saturdays off, and putting the rest of the family's activities on hold. He would've asked if you'd lost your d@%n mind

@CigsMake Right, little league games at park a couple of miles away, on a team that played 12 games/year, with equipment that was handed down, not a $2500 travel team that plays 50 games a year, most which require “travel”, fancy equipment, swag, and a walk up song.

A 30-year-old in 1980 owned a house like this working at the local factory. Married six years with three kids. Weekends meant Little League games. Both sets of grandparents lived within five miles. The kids would attend the same high school he did and grow up with the children of his own friends. This is a dying concept

@naelbis Its crazy the number of HVAC businesses that have been bought by PE since covid. (And vet clinics). I don't think that helps. The plumbers and electrician that are left in our area are busy with all the new houses flooding the area

@mooodoc Customer service died with COVID. HVAC businesses either won't answer or never respond for basic service calls. Plumbers and Electricians take a week or more to show up. Appliance repair might as well not exist. Equipment and car dealers only do the bare minimum. It sucks.

In the past 6 months, I've had multiple incidences when I've contacted vendors or dealers about purchasing equipment or a pickup for the business. At the time of contact, I've already researched, made my product decision and figured out the finances. I pretty much outlined this in each inquiry. All I need is their best price and willingness to make the product available. In every case, I've gotten a response days/ week later, promise of a quote that never came and others with no response. I don't wait on them. I give them a reasonable time to respond then I move on; sorry for you, sale lost. Any of ya'll experiencing this more than usual? I've never had multiple experiences of nobody wanting my money this often

I'll move on fairly quickly. I'm a little bit of a curmudgeon, I don't get too excited about the "hot" brand of anything. If I'm inquiring about something that fits that description, if they don't respond I take that to mean they really don't want my business. There's usually an "up and comer" that is scrambling and will work for it

@mooodoc It’s funny you bring this up. I’ve seen the same within the last three years with my business and I thought it was me just being impatient, but it appears to be a plague of some sort so I’ve narrowed my circle of business associates fairly small.

Yep. That and dealing with the older relatives that think the old, rotten, poorly constructed barn is a shrine that can't be torn down; but they aren't willing to pony up the $150K it'd take to restore it to its original poorly constructed glory🙄(and I'm saying this as a sentimental old fool)

If there’s a silver lining to a shot barn accidentally burning down, it’s that fugging people quit telling me “Don’t take that thing down. I’ll be down one of these days to get some barn wood.” Been hearing that for years…

I'd love to hear the conversation between Chuck and St. Peter: St. Peter🙄(in full-blown fanboy voice): " Dude! Remember that time on Walker, Texas Ranger when you round house kicked that bad guy and knocked the gun outta his hand right before he was gonna shoot that nice lady. That was so coool!" Chuck: "Which time?"

Sad. A fixture in movies and TV from my childhood

Yeah, from a small business perspective its hard to keep up with those website messages. Those have a lot lower conversion to a sale vs a phone call. But I wish my tire guy would utilize an online platform. I always feel sorta bad when I walk in his busy shop and pull him away from stuff to give me quotes😬

@mooodoc My local tire shop has a form on their web site to request a quote. input make, model & year, & a text box for specific need. Got an autoreply that it would be reviewed . then nothing. So I guess I'm going to Costco or TireRack. Why do they even have the form?

@b2analog Yeah, from the business perspective we get that too. Maybe that dampens their enthusiasm for helping customers. It's sorta self perpetuating, customers find its easier to just do everything without human contact

In my industry (appliance repair) people do this too. They call, have me do all the research, look up all the data including part numbers, check warranty or not, all the various things we need to know to help them ... and then they buy a knockoff part from Amazon. We still offer our time and services for free, but there is a cost. Not sure if that is what is happening in your case as you seem pretty sure you already know what you want/need, but it's not as cut and dried in all industries.

@Marmstrong415 @untappedgrowth Oh man; I forgot about the contrast between my previous insurance man of 30 years vs the guy that replaced him 😡

@mooodoc @untappedgrowth YES, my last was trying to get a quote on a complete farm insurance change.

@MarkD629 Good to know! I need a guy;I'll get ahold of you before I start next time

@mooodoc Next time you need a truck reach out to me. I do commercial sales and would be happy to help you.

@flyinfarmer68 And to your point, me walking into the local affiliate dealer and engaging a salesperson did move it along

@mooodoc Fair point.

Was writing a grant to fund the purchase of a cattle handling system. Contacted the regional distributor of the system in liked the best because the local vendor didn't have much of a presence. He gave e contact info for local vendor. I had about a 72 hour deadline I had to meet. Messaged the vendor, so response. Called him, asked for a quote and told him what I needed it for. Sure, no problem, he'd get it it right to me. 3 months later, still haven't heard from him. With my deadline getting closer, I Contacted the local dealer for my 2nd favorite system. She had a detailed quote with a couple options in my inbox within 3 hours. Guess who gets to sell me a cattle handling system?

@RealMrBean99 I thought that was probably the issue! With the pickup deal, I got ahold of a salesman my age😅

@mooodoc As someone who does sales training, I can tell you the hardest, and I mean damn near impossible, thing to teach the under 35 generation is to pick up the phone & call a customer or potential customer Hot lead, warm lead, cold call, so many have the same fear. I blame the screens

Started trying to purchase an expensive digital radiography system for the practice in late October. Contacted the vendor assigned for my area. No response for a week. Contacted the distributor, no response. Texted my colleague, he gave me the contact info for the regional distributor rep when he bought his system. Contacted him and got the process started. He had to loop the local vendor in. Took weeks to move it along, 2 months to get system in. Waited another month for final paperwork, still waiting on resolution of an insurance question 4 months later

@flyinfarmer68 Yep, I get that. Its just that auto dealers tout their "online buying experience", spend a fortune on site maintenance and can't execute

@mooodoc Just a thought here - a lot harder to ignore an in-person interaction. I'm guessing some businesses get a fair amount of AI 'auto generated' quote requests. Might be kind of difficult to sort out the real vs fake ones.

I found a specific pickup on a dealer site, made contact online. Got a form response from the internet team: yes, it was available, make an appointment to check it out. Responded that I knew that was the truck i wanted but dealer was 3 hours away. I told them I'd gladly make the trip if they'd give me a quote. I was ready to go. Responded that they'd have a salesman contact me. After 48 hours, no response, I contacted an affiliated dealer nearby, they were able to get the truck. Internet sales person contacts me a day or 2 later asking if I had been contacted by sales staff. I replied that I hadn't heard a thing, I'd already worked a deal somewhere else🤷🏽‍♂️

@mooodoc Your right Doc…I wanted a new tractor and researched and decided what I wanted and called local dealer I have bought from before and a week later salesman called….I told him I appreciated the call (I didn’t) but had already bought a tractor

@Gusagain16 I don't do anything without giving myself an out if they don't deliver in a reasonable time frame. Hate that feeling

@mooodoc As a mechanical subcontractor I have had several vendors not return a RFQ in a timely fashion. Worse yet Give them the order then they ghost you.

@dogwoodblooms Dang. That looks nasty

Sweet Lord above… Bless South Carolina’s heart. 🤣