--- hersefan@comcast.net wrote:
> For my two cents, Bruce Gordon makes some great
> points.
Mike, I think he's mentally stuck, and needs some kind of jolt. Off the cuff here, advertising and marketing is communication -- I wrote a three-part definition of advertising 10 years ago that can knock the socks off any ad/pr/marketing exec -- I'll dig it up and post it -- but whatever points you give to Gordon for his points can only mean you can feel him because you know. Gordon's potential customers don't know, and the irony of Gordon yammering about hand-builders' passion is that these same potential customers understand passion more than Gordon seems to imply; but they aren't gonna buy anything if all he can say is "cuz I'm passionate about what I do -- moreso than them Asians making Rivs and Surlys." Goodbye Bruce. On the other hand, Grant Petersen didn't know much about hand-built passion until me and Joe Bell & Co. taught him. Mostly me. He thinks he's successfully earned his degree in custom frame maestroism but, like Gordon, he's runnin' the same LP to too few listeners. Both need pummeling in the ring from some realists. Gordon's "factory tour" satire on automation merits one 70s-era issue in "Mad Magazine," not forever on his web site; Petersen's convoluted putz-witticisms ever-inserted in his "Rivendell Reader" lullabyes are the too-worn groove in his record. Neither persuades me to buy anyting from them.
Even if Bruce is the worst marketer on the
> planet (maybe he is?) it does not matter.
How can you say "it does not matter'" if his lamentation reads like business dissolution or bancruptcy?
Bruce's
> products are out there - he has put them in the
> public eye at a variety of bike shows. Yet the
> competition he mentions continues to sell lots of
> product, and he is struggling. It is an indictment
> of the publics lack of understanding that is
> starving Bruce for orders - folks should be knocking
> his doors down.
It's infantile to write of "indicting" the public when
the problem is Bruce Gordon's responsibility. Re-read
my last paragraph below about "honorable and
blood-sucking rivals."
> You can certanly say that Bruce is either right or
> wrong or in the middle on how he runs his business.
> But I certainly can't deny that he has a good point
> to make in his frustration at the number of folks
> out there who "don't get it" - and one of the
> reasons is because of the "marketers" manipulation
> of peoples perceptions.
In a related post, over on framebuilders land, I think, someone wrote of big companies and their "specious" claims about their product's virtues, and reasoned they play in the gray areas of truth out of desparation to make the sale. So name names, call it like you see it, understand your rights and responsibilities in business, but keep in mind that when you call one out on a count of speciousness, be prepared to call out all. Here's two suggestions for Bruce Gordon and other alledgedly needy framebuilders: Find a place like University of Wisconsin's Fluno Center and get with it, and/or, to all those framebuilders who've talked about forming a business union or guild, they ought to do it for the foremost purpose of hiring a legislative analyst to see about upholding their rights as businesspersons in the U.S. and their respective states -- I'm talking about $249 Surlys and Fify-dollar frames -- is everything kosher with the law? Is something amiss? I don't know how the players at the NAHBS would draw straws to hire someone; my first thought is to contact Mary Burke and ask her.
Joe Starck
Madison, Wisconsin
> -------------- Original message --------------
> From: Joe Starck <josephbstarck@yahoo.com>
>
> > Don Wilson began a post with:
> >
> > "Let me start by saying my bonafides regarding
> bike
> > making and market are zero..."
> >
> > And then the rest of what Wilson wrote about
> selling
> > bicycles -- to rich people -- is an embarrassment
> to
> > humanity.
> >
> > Bruce Gordon wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > "...Most of my business for the last 16 years has
> been
> > making more utilitarian TIG welded touring frames
> and
> > racks. But even those TIGed bike sales have
> dropped
> > from 60 to 70 bikes a year to 25 last year. Is it
> > because my stuff is lousy?? I don't think so. I
> > think I make pretty good, reasonably priced
> touring
> > stuff. What has happened is that the business has
> > been taken over by what I call "Marketers". People
>
> > who have discovered that "Why make it yourself if
> you
> > can have it made overseas for a lot less?"....What
> has
> > hurt my business the most are the Rivendells,
> Surlys,
> > Somas,Kogswells, etc. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE
> > QUALITY OF THEIR PRODUCTS!!!!! When Rivendell
> started
> > - they were only going to be made in USA, then,
> maybe
> > some made in Japan, then, OK maybe some from
> Taiwan.
> > It is a slippery slope, and there is NO chairlift
> back
> > to the top of the mountain. For me in California,
> I
> > cannot compete with a $249 wholesale Surly Touring
>
> > frame...If we want to have the passionate, small,
> > innovative builders - we have to start buying from
>
> > them. We need to buy from the people who are
> > passionate about building them, NOT just from the
> > passionate people who Market them. I doubt
> > that the factory workers in Taiwan, or China, etc.
> are
> > passionate about bikes like you are."
> >
> > Gordon mentions Rivendell and Surly twice as
> market
> > rivals. Bruce Gordon Cycles should fold, or find
> > internal genius to compete, or find genius-help to
>
> > compete. If Bruce Gordon Cycles has the right
> stuff,
> > and if Gordon and/or a potential consultant sized
> up
> > Bruce Gordon Cycles as worthy of the market, then
> > Bruce Gordon Cycles takes its best shot: THAT is
> > capitalism, no matter the number of honorable --
> or
> > bloodsucking -- rivals.
> >
> > Joe Starck
> > Madison, Wisconsin
> >
> >
> >
> >
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