Most people only get to see me in my day-to-day role as the entrepreneur behind a soon-to-be fifteen year old Internet Marketing company that has built web sites, email marketing programs and social networking strategies for businesses throughout the English-speaking world.
But there are a few other sides of me that are seldom seen. One of them is as a proud member of the Lucky Dog BBQ Team, the brainchild of dear friends Brad & Cindy Simmons.
This past weekend, we competed in the Kentucky State BBQ Championships at the Kentucky Crossroads Harvest Festival in Springfield, KY. It was a great opportunity to show of BBQ cooking skills as well as to get together with friends on the KCBS BBQ circuit that we hadn’t seen in some time, stay up late, get up ridiculously early, cook up some BBQ, drink some beer and generally have a great time.
And of course there’s the real reason for being there – to compete against 31 other BBQ terms from around the country for cash prizes and bragging rights. That some of the teams were former national, state and Jack Daniel’s champions attests to the quality of the competition.
We did pretty well overall, but my point here has to do with our entry in the “ribs” category. We cooked what we felt were our best ribs ever. A few of our neighboring teams concurred with our opinion.
When we got our scores, we finished 12th in ribs – a bit of a disappointment – and largely on a low score from one judge. And that is the point of this post. No matter what you do and how well you do it, there are people whose tastes and opinions will differ from yours.
That is not a negative reflection of them or your products, but a statement designed to recognize the variety of human nature.
No matter what kind of home comes out of your factory – no matter how high the quality – someone out there is going to have a different opinion.
I know you’ve heard it all before, but every one of us needs to focus on those who see the quality of our product. That goes for factory-built home manufacturers and every one in the supply line down to the customer as well as it applies to an Internet Marketing consultancy or a BBQ team.
When we focus on those who are impressed with our product, the stress of trying to please everyone vanishes and we can lead happier, wealthier and more productive lives.
See Thayer Long’s blog post today in Industry Voices for his take on what it will require to give the Manufactured Housing industry the place at America’s housing table that it has long deserved.