Skip to main content

An open letter to businesses everywhere.

I apologize. I am sorry for wasting your resources and time with my own selfish ambition. I don’t apologize for making my voice heard when mistreated by employees or when products don’t work as advertised, those are pretty realistic responses. What I do apologize for is taking advantage of “free” or “complimentary” items.

This apology covers my former practice of taking too many napkins, straws, free refills, ketchup packets and food I wasn’t really hungry for at the buffet. Though I paid for my meal and possibly some of the costs of more than the average human needs of “complimentary” items, the sunken costs are still yours to bear. I also apologize for herding my travel weary family through your bathrooms even though we didn’t make any purchases in your stores, gas stations or restaurants. I’ve wrongly considered these items and services to be entitlements.

I am now in your shoes, running a grass roots company with very few resources and employees. As the a sole provider of small niche industry books, training and other items in a family style industry, I know what it means to see money walk out the door. Red Bike Publishing is business to business and business to customer focused and provides the right products at the right time. When products work correctly, I get feedback. When the customer is not satisfied, I give refunds. Refunds are lost revenue and good reviews generate more revenue. It’s all part of doing good business.

What I struggle with is similar to your challenges, to comply with government regulations for the “privilege” of doing business. Some of these requirements are simple to understand.  There are also other implied tasks that take me outside of my business purpose and into the stay out of jail functions. As a sole employee company, I see how this takes time and that time is a huge expense. Like you, I try to protect my time by studying these expectations and overcoming the learning curve of what I might be missing. To the oversight organizations, this time is their entitlements and my expenses are sunken costs. So, I now have the clear understanding of what you go through with customer who have an entitlement mentality.

As I cope with such demands, I think of you struggling to meet similar and even more daunting requirements. You hire staffs who don’t add to the bottom line, but perform the increasingly important stay out of jail functions; ethics training, security training, employee relations training, licensing, taxes, and on and on. And on top of that, you have folks like me taking advantage of the honor system. I understand now that you are paying more than your share to meet expectations.

I resolve no longer to take advantage of your generosity. I’ll only take what I need based on the service I pay for. No longer will I grab handfuls of straws when I only need one, gobs of ketchup will now be reduced to the serving necessary for taste and I’ll at least buy some coffee during our travel convenience breaks.


Thanks for what you do to keep our economy going. I’ll continue to do my part to keep down your overhead.

Jeffrey W. Bennett, ISP is the owner of Red Bike Publishing. Jeff is an accomplished writer of non-fiction books, novels and periodicals. He also owns Red bike Publishing. Published books include: "Get Rich in a Niche-Insider's Guide to Self Publishing in a Specialized Industry" and "Commitment-A Novel". Jeff is an expert in security and has written many security books including: "Insider's Guide to Security Clearances" and "DoD Security Clearances and Contracts Guidebook". See Red Bike Publishing for print copies of: Army Leadership The Ranger Handbook The Army Physical Readiness Manual Drill and Ceremonies The ITAR The NISPOM

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Great Reason to Self-Publish Two

Market Your Way-More and more publishing companies rely on the author to market books. Just look at the latest book covers and see which is larger the author's name or the book title? It's the author who sells books. As a niche professional, you have a built in market and your efforts can easily reach them. You know what works, so go to it. Many people are put off by marketing as I was when I first began. When a niche author serving in an industry with peer-customers, the last thing you want to do is bombard them with sales. Your role is the be the expert and provide answers. Cold calling is also not necessarily the answer in niche marketing. If you've developed a blog, newsletter or social media following, then you have your customer database. Your marketing efforts flow as you provide advice and answers to those following your posts, comments and articles. Many authors teach, speak, volunteer or are otherwise active in their professions. It's hard to remain o...

Why authors might choose to work with a publisher instead of publishing themselves

  Why you might prefer to publish with another company instead of do it yourself. There are a lot of blog, newsletter, training and podcast information telling the good news about current publishing opportunities. Most tout the benefits of putting your own book on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). It is a great resource, but contrary to the popular discussion, it’s not the only option. It seems most information coming out seems to publisher shame anyone who does not “do it yourself”. It’s as if the expectation is to self publish and anyone who does not, is a publishing pariah. There are so many published articles describing benefits to putting your own content out though KDP, heck, even I do it. Most build entire businesses around the KDP instruction or consulting opportunities.   However, I’m more concerned with the author who just wants to write and publish their books without the hassle of the publishing business. The author who wants an outlet to make their book ava...

There, In The Jungle...an excerpt from Commitment-A Novel

     The sun painted streaks of pale blue and yellow through the morning sky. Birds were awake, singing to anyone appreciative enough to listen. The moon was full and bright as it still sat high in the western sky.      John listened intently. He was used to the sounds of the jungle, something he would actually miss. Gone were the distractions of machines. However, he prayed that they would soon be getting back to the plane that would take them back to their world–civilization.      Suddenly he was aware of something new–silence. The singing had abruptly stopped, but why? Birds go silent as a survival instinct, he thought. He listened more intently, as the ground would be soft, muffling any footsteps.      There! In the brush – a slight movement. He focused his eyes to one side of the dark, heavily vegetated area hoping to catch something in his peripherals. Behind about fifty yards, vines and branches moved...