{"id":147,"date":"2015-12-13T15:18:01","date_gmt":"2015-12-13T15:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/?p=147"},"modified":"2015-12-13T15:23:41","modified_gmt":"2015-12-13T15:23:41","slug":"friends-dont-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/2015\/12\/13\/friends-dont-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends Don’t Ask…"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few words about the world of retail…<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite my background as a research scientist, I have a fair amount of retail experience, having worked in a retail music store 1964-1971, and later as a music store owner 1998-2014. \u00a0It is this experience that leads me to repeat what another retailer told me once:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFriend don\u2019t ask friends for discounts.<\/strong>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What this means is pretty simple: If your friends own businesses, you want them to succeed. \u00a0For their businesses to succeed, they must make a profit. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most small retailers pride themselves on establishing relationships with customers. \u00a0They want you to like them; to enjoy dealing with them. They want you to feel welcome and important to them…because you are.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you value a small business friend, don\u2019t ask for a special price. Instead, be sure to proclaim your support: insist on paying the regular price. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Profit\u00a0margins in the music business\u00a0can be remarkably small. The monies needed to pay rent, utilities, insurance, advertising, employees, and a gazillion other overhead expenses must all come from the markup. \u00a0If a small business incurs $100 a day in such expenses, it doesn\u2019t mean it has to sell $100 a day to break even. \u00a0It means that it must bring in $100 per day beyond its cost of goods sold<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Only profit permits growth if there\u2019s anything left after expenses. If, though, store owners wish to eat or put gasoline in their cars, such expenses,\u00a0too, must come from profit, which can seriously restrict growth…or eating.<\/span><\/p>\n

So remember, when you\u2019re asking a friend to sell something to you for wholesale price, you\u2019re not only not helping at all<\/em> with your friend’s expenses, you\u2019re costing that friend\u00a0<\/em>time and money directly from his pocket. \u00a0If your friend\u00a0gives you a great discount, remember that he didn\u2019t have to pay less for the item–on the contrary, you\u2019ve reduced his return on investment in a manner similar to asking a friend to withdraw money from an interest-bearing account to provide you with an interest-free loan.<\/span><\/p>\n

So support your friendly local storekeepers. \u00a0They know who you are and appreciate your business. Whatever\u00a0little bit extra you may pay to them not only keeps them in business but feeds on their families.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember: \u00a0Friends don\u2019t ask friends for discounts.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few words about the world of retail… Despite my background as a research scientist, I have a fair amount of retail experience, having worked in a retail music store 1964-1971, and later as a music store owner 1998-2014. \u00a0It is this experience that leads me to repeat what another retailer told me once: \u201cFriend … Continue reading Friends Don’t Ask…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}