RE: iSeries Weekly Update-content

The cost of doing business with the little guys is much higher than with the
big guys.  That's not a slam; it's a fact.  When you have a worldwide
clientele, travel expense and time away from the office is a killer, and you
just don't dashing off to The Land Down Under for every sales call (even
though you'll be tempted).

The big guys might hold my head underwater during price negotiations but
they'll run with it when it's installed.  The little guy will whine about
price, I'll give him a discount, and then he'll lean on me anyway for lots
of free, off-the-books support.

While the sales cycle might be longer at with a big guy, much of that time
is often consumed by big guy internals.  With the little guy, you've gotta
give everybody---including Mom, the kids, and the dog sitter---a custom
demo.

The little guy is much more likely to stay with you longer, I think, because
(in most cases) it's too hard on them to be changing things every few years.
It's not the little guys outsourcing, either!

I appreciate every single one of my customers.  For the little guys, I try
to provide services than others don't.  For the big guys, I try to keep the
transaction simple while following up promptly (relatively speaking) on
their requests.

Everybody have their new domain names with "i5" in them?

Regards,
Reeve Fritchman
Ayers Rock Software LLC
4915 S. West Shore Boulevard
Tampa, Florida 33611-3329
(813) 831-8574 (voice)
(813) 832-6391 (fax)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Barber
> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 7:50 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: iSeries Weekly Update-content
> 
> Oh, I know all about those "little guys"... I been doing
> business with them for the last 20 years. They have sent
> three kids all the way through college. They are the "lost"
> accounts I refer to.
> 
> They remain IBM customers no matter how badly IBM treats them.
> 
> The "only" small accounts I ever lost, were from going out
> of business. I have never lost to another hardware supplier,
> even back when there "were" other hardware suppliers.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Jim Franz wrote:
> 
> 
> > well - the one customer i'm thinking of makes a hdw purchase every
> > 5 years or so, and so far I can count about $400-500k in purchases over
> > 20 years. Multiply that by the tens of thousands of small companies
> > who buy occasionally.
> 
> 
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