QUICK RESEARCH REPORT ON BOAPHILE AND GREAT SUGGESTIONS I GOT ON FORUMS IN GENERAL.
(I gotta take a minute to answer this information i got. I've been trying to throw this together all morning before it gets stale and the week's started and... sorry if a bit disorganized...)
FREE ENTERPRISE AT WORK, BABIES!
(MAYBE EVERYONE ELSE ALREADY KNOWS THIS STUFF... but i doubt it?)
After seeing the private email solicitations happening to others, seeing the private email i'm getting in support of us AND Jeff, and the wildly escalating accusations I thought some research from independent sources was in order. WHY ALL THE COMMOTION?
Here's what I found. RE BOAPHILE: It looks like Jeff Ronne is basically a nice guy who's way into boas and cages and freinds and family and means well but is overloaded. It happens. I see complaints and resolutions regarding product and delays. I know a lot of people are starting to slip thru the cracks, and as a business man I think Jeff must care about that regardless, but still be overloaded. That's the best take i have. sometimes the reaction can make a person look guilty when he's not. Jeff didn't actually create the commotion, but for some reason the forums are the eventual way people reach him and seem to be his preferred method of communication.
We got defensive less with regard to being blown off than being called liars. I see that people see that... People also see the whole question/answer continuim (sp?) and why once a person gets bashed they continue to answer questions as though someone is interested in the answer, when they're really just inflammatory lead-ins to more commotion. Also people tend to expect you to ignore the obvious personal attacks and flames, as they do, and jusdt go on and share information... which is really cool.
I'm guessing, from the feedback I have, that Jeff himself would like to know for sure if multiple messages slipped thru the cracks that cost him money, but after all the noise he's afraid to go there. I'm happy to provide that information to him directly, and let him judge for himself. If he's the guy everybody says he is, he'll just say... "Oh crap, I don't know what happened but you did call and i just didn't get the messages. You didn't lie, I didn't lie." Or not, either way its totally cool. It is possible for the truth to be down the middle.
REGARDING THE CAGE BUSINESS QUESTIONS: Man, there's already COMPETITION OUT THERE, guys... this is why people want to protect the customers they have, because it sounds pretty thinly spread. Ask your friends at the reptile shows how's buz? The truth? Popular hobby but everybody wants in on a small basis and they may not set the world on fire but they nibble the market share.
Then what happens is people copy your stuff... which is good for the market when supply is a problem. I hadn't even considered anybody else's cages cause I'm not up on who's got what, didn't bother to call our previous vendor or others, just assumed his product line hadn't changed and sat around waiting for the one place I thought had what I wanted because I didn't have time for weeks after that to investigate options. (that's one reason current customers are so valuable... they won't go elsewhere if you help them) However, THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WILL MAKE ANY CAGE YOU WANT! Even in plastic. Amazing. Waterfalls all over the place, too... killer products out right now... even Chameleon Condo's... ThrowMama is thrilled! haha
... go away for a few months and the next time you're shopping the product you want is all over the place. You can get a company up and producing in months but the distribution is then the issue... and what's the real market? Back ordered companies in this business do not necessarily mean there's a great enough demand to justify a huge manufacturing effort... itj ust means there are backed up suppliers who produce on a smaller scale. I do think the big guys will go the way of plastic cages, though, and with whose design? Maybe one of the current producers, or maybe an improved design, more readily adaptable to multiple use!
KILLER FEEDBACK I GOT HERE!! - HOW TO KNOW WHO AND WHAT YOU'RE DEALING WITH
Ask their competition. Ask the other guys, hey what do you hear about XYZ's product, customer service, whatever? Now, mind you, everybody will prefer themselves, but if you hear the same thing from EVERYONE, both good and bad, it's probably pretty accurate. Everyone knows their competition best, because they hear the complaints and they also know the good things they're up against and they may as well tell you ahead of time and try to sell you while they're got your attention.
NEWSFLASH TO ME ABOUT FORUMS... Complaints about the forums, about which i admittedly know very little, have to do with a general discouragement of dissention. (Man, there are more people reading and emailing than posting, though, that's for SURE! what does that say about the range of the forum? I'm not entirely sure but i think ENCOURAGING wide view is good, and not something to be afraid of. Anyway, it's kind of like the democracy thing... a miniscule (spelling?) percentage of us actually vote but the rest are watching. But NOT as many as the hits would make you think... maybe 20-25% at most, because of the repeat hits, some people hitting every 10 minutes to see whazzzz upppp?)
SO HERE'S THE UNFAIR THING AND THE DAMAGE DONE BY THE COMMOTION TO THE GUY YOU THINK YOU'RE DEFENDING: So a person posts a gripe. The defenses start , attacking the griper. Then the ensuing flaming serve to make the "gripee" look bad, when in reality, maybe it's just a mistake to begin with and the reason for the overreaction has nothing to do with the parties involved. The complainer gets defensive, defends HIMSELF a little more, it looks like more of an attack, more flames, behind the scenes scrambling, posts deleted, stragegy changed...
HERE'S WHAT I LEARNED. IT'S NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS. A person is not responsible for the quality of their defenders! They think they're helping, so what can u do?
WOW, it's all so not worth the effort for individuals mostly but good to throw u[p red flags and educate people about the system and what it is NOT good for. THEN, THE UNFAIR THING in a FAIR FORUM is that ... ok... somebody wants to check out boaphile... they do a search... here's ALL THIS COMMOTION. They probably won't read the defenses because now it's lost in there somewhere, or incomplete because it's been so diverted, and they'll probably read either just the first couple of pages or the big stuff... and they'll see all the other commotion and think... man, this is bad news. NOT NECESSARILY SO. Maybe the boaphile is not the bad news. maybe the bad news was generated by the forum. DID THAT SOUND LIKE DEFENDING JEFF? Well, in the history of things this will get lost in the forum and unfortunately, a person may not see the eventual result, but just the commotion batted about by people OTHER than those involved, which IS unfair to the company at that point. And if they go about it wrong, they actually make him look BAD. When in reality, other defenders (or detractors) want nothing to do with this fray that's created and they are discouraged from even participating. Interesting. Moreover, BY CREATING THE COMMOTION YOU ACTUALLY DRAW OUT MORE NEGATIVE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PERSON YOU'RE DEFENDING INTO THE PUBLIC ARENA. Wow. Now that's not cool. I don't like that we got drawn into that. After a couple of posts I wasn't even talkin to Jeff, and there was NO WAY for an understanding. You can tell a negative spiral when the agreeable points are ignored and the flames are fanned... and you can see what's up there. But it's still negative overall.
HERE'S THE GREAT THING: The people who are hogging the posts are not the majority view necessarily.
HERE'S THE BETTER THING: people see through most of this and judge pretty clearly what's going on. Hence their SILENCE unless occasionally they need help with something or want to help someone else with information... they really just ignore all the rest, which results in the ultimate BEST RESULT... no EFFECTIVENESS for those just wanting to squeek and cause problems. BUT WHO SUFFERS THEN? The forum itself, who would like to attract quality advertisers who may not see as many registrations and as wide a range of posts as they'd like for their product, but rather the same people returning multiple times to squeek.
AND, GET THIS! ANOTHER MESSAGE... AMAZING... HERE'S THE WAY TO TEST THE FORUMS (and at this moment this board is specifically NOT the forum i'm referring to... nor does it matter in this case, but here's what i'm told... TRY IT):
Remember a complaint. Then a while later after everybody's forgotten it, go back and search (maybe even a year). I'm told that negative inquiries/comments/complaints disappear. the whole thread will just be POOF gone. Then if you look to see who's advertising you might just find THE COMPANY IS NOW AN ADVERTISER. Interesting information. Now, being new I would assume, hey if they let the post stay now, why delete it later? 'CAUSE THEY BUILD UP!!!
MORE GREAT INFO!!! HERE'S A TEST OF THE TEST: You're thinking... well yeah but they're old and maybe they're all deleted from that time frame. NO. Keep track of the time and you'll see the benign or positive stuff is still there from that exact time frame, with only very minor negatives allowed to remain.
I guess it would stand to reason, why would someone advertise somewhere they have complaints? So forums want NOT to hurt advertisers, understandably, but just keep in mind that the search may be misleading, in whatever direction the forum is more "aware" and vigilant.
FREE ENTERPRISE, THOUGH. THATS OK. If people get good stuff out of it, they're entitled to do things their way cause they make it possible.
Overall, the biggest point i got from this was that there are people who routinely watch the forums, can tell you about all the players' agendas, histories, strong points, agendas, expertises, etc and have NEVER POSTED. And when they do I'll bet they'll have some really good stuff to share, so it's too bad.
NO WAY I would've retained all that so there ya go.
OK... I GOTTA GET TO WORK!!! AND PLEEEEEASE, even though I'm not a regular participant I totally appreciate feedback but it would be great if everybody could see what everybody thinks honestly. And I'm actually sorry if Jeff got inundated with negatives that didn't necessarily apply,if this is just circumstances carried away. But, dude, we really did try to call you and if you wanna know for sure I'll showya.
WHAT A GORGEOUS DAY!!!
'> It really could have gotten ugly here. This was shaping up to become Flame War 2002. <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':0'> Overall....