Got a kind of interesting call last week...a fellow who ran a tai chi club and wondered why I didn't carry this particular brand of Tai Chi swords in stock. Actually I DO carry that brand, but not those particular swords...they are expensive niche market things, there are 4 different models, each in a different length of blade. For a guy who was awfully fussy about his tools, he didn't seem to know what he wanted! We discussed balance, customizing, and all sorts of pie in the sky ideas. Several emails back and forth, a lot of ideas and plans. His last words to me were "don't bring them in on my account, I found a store near to me which carries them." So those two hours making emails are like, totally gone from my life!
A day later, I get a call in my shop from a nice fellow who co-incidentely enough has begun studying Tai Chi. We had met a couple of years ago, and talked sword making, which I do. This fellow is in the trade as a millwright, and so we can talk "technical". He waxed lyrical on how wonderful the sport is, and how you can't get a proper TaiChi sword, and so he decided to try to make them. I asked him who his Sifu was, and guess what? Same guy who was wasting my time last week! Seems the Sifu is getting this fellow to look into making his swords for him. So the guy naturally asks the only person he knows who actually MAKES the things. Great, a collaboration.
So I chat with him for a bit, while my employees have downed tools, and talking and joking amongst themselves so as to not interrupt my phone call (clean up your work stations ya bums!) and the subject of money comes up. Seems his Sifu doesn't like the imported swords, and wants to have a sword specific to his club. Students will be required to purchase that sword. (you know, mine will be 500 bucks, the imports will be 100 bucks eh?) So I asked this nice millwright fellow how much he thought his employers would charge for tooling and such to make the swords, it cost ME about 4 grand. He was hoping to use mine! Ahhhh....it is becoming clear. He doesn't have the money. His Sifu doesn't have the money, but he wants a custom sword.
I am to "invest" 4 to 5 thousand bucks in machine tool costs to make swords which "might" be good enough for a TaiChi club to pick up. The slightest little problem in balance, fit, finish, or any other whim on his part would leave me with a pile of "rejected", and therefore unsaleable swords. You know, this happened to me once before! A Mr. David Cvet did much the same thing to me a few years ago, and then dropped me over an imagined defect. This would be different how?
Hey the story isn't over yet....stay tuned!
3 comments:
Let me get this straight. You seem to be saying that you think there should be at least a forty percent chance that you won't lose more than, say, seventy percent of what you've invested in chasing a deal with somebody who has butterflies in his brain-box. Do I have that about right? Sounds unreasonable to me. /me chortles
Could be a marketing ploy. My brother makes kaleidoscopes (sp?) which he sells to the art stores in town. Sometimes when I'm out shopping I'll go in there and ask the proprietor if he has any of those particular kaleidoscopes, which increases the likelihood that he'll buy my brother's work.
I think it is a ploy to get a free sample custom sword....
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