GoodBuyGuys Blog

We used to operate a large audio visual rental equipment business here in the college town where we are located. The majority of our rentals were in small sound systems and we rented a lot of what came to be called “PA on a stick”.

This was made up of a couple of speakers mounted on tripods, a mixer/amplifer, a mic and stand, and a simple cable package. It was simple to set up, fit in the trunk of a car, and was a solid revenue producer for this division of our company.

Unfortunately, we had one set of speakers (JBL Eons) which used a different sized fitting for tripod mounting than every other speaker in the rental stock.

What a pain!

I can’t count the number of times an unhappy customer came back in after a rental complaining that the speaker would not fit the tripod.

Totally our fault. No matter how hard we tried, we never seemed to be able to match up these speakers with the only set of tripods we had that would fit. We had some adapters that would work but these seemed impossible to keep up with.

I have no idea why JBL decided to adopt a different standard than every other speaker maker on the planet, but we’ll save that discussion for another time.

OnStage Stands to the rescue.

OnStage now makes a speaker stand that has different sized diameters on opposite ends of the part of their speaker tripod that holds the speaker.

Got the wrong size? Just slip the tube out, flip it over and reinsert it into the lower tube. Problem solved.

We love the OnStage Stand line and have found it to be a great value. Hope you agree.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

I usually end a blog posting with an invitation for your to send us an interesting use for something we sell. I got a really good followup from a customer who buys gaffers tape from us.

This company uses the neon colored gaffers tape to label equipment cases in their stage equipment rental business.

A different color is used for each type of instrument case (e.g. neon green for drum cases, neon orange for keyboard cases, etc.) This allows for quick preparation of customers’ rental orders (they have hundreds of cases in their warehouse) and cuts the check in time when an order comes back to the shop for unpacking.

Colored Pro Gaffer gaffers tape can be written on with a Sharpie Marker, so additional information can be added to the label (e.g. exactly what is in the case, associated cases, etc.). Even further “quick identify” info can be added by using multiple stripes of one or more colors.

Gaffers tape is extremely durable and long lasting and can be removed cleanly from a case without leaving adhesive residue.

These guys keep the color red in reserve to mark incoming cases that might need to be repaired or put on the bench to be checked out for possible problems.

The colors are really handy on an event site as well, as no one else on a site that might involve a dozen or more vendors is likely to have labeling like theirs. Its quick and easy to instruct a stagehand to put all the cases with neon green and electric blue labels together. Best of all, a 60 yard roll of tape will make hundreds of labels.

Maybe you’ve got another useful labeling idea? Share it with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

I got an interesting call yesterday from a prospective customer with an extension cord problem. His company offers computer training courses all over the country by sending technicians to a local site and teaching the course in a hotel meeting room. The business is growing fast and they offer seminars all over the country.

One of the most complicated parts of this mobile classroom concept is actually setting up and wiring the computers so that every participant in the class has their own work station. He needed lots of outlets, even though his total power consumption was not all that high.
One of his classes was visited recently by the local fire marshall who threatened to shut the class down because the extension cord arrangement being used did not meet local codes.

He was inquiring about the potential suitability of the Electratrac MultiOutlet cable for this use. I could almost hear his sigh of relief when I assured him that these cables were exactly what he needed and that they would pass the fire marshall’s inspection regimen. They are UL approved, have high quality jackets and meet all codes for temporary wiring.
I suggested that the begin his setup with a 12 gauge cable. If he needs more outlets, he can reduce to a 14 gauge cable as he gets closer to the end of his outlet chain. That saves a little money and weight. Adding additional cables is clean and simple, because each Electratrac Cable has a handy outlet on its end.

If you try this, you will need to do some quick and simple math. Each computer, or other device, will show its power consumption on a tag on the back. You need to total this wattage and convert it to amps to make sure you don’t overload the circuit. Here’s a link to how to do the math.

Got a use for Electratrac Cables that might be of interest to our readers. Share it with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

It’s hard to imagine a more important customer service function than answering the phone. I have been trying to contact a couple of our suppliers (companies that we send thousands of dollars to on a regular basis) and I can’t get anyone to answer the phone. Voice mail followed by unreturned calls. Over and over again.

I’m not talking about customer service or sales calls. I am talking about calls from an existing customer to a supplier who spends millions trying to get us to buy and distribute their products.

I can understand the need to use voice mail and message taking when absolutely necessary, but it is difficult to imagine anything of more value to someone who sells a product or service than talking to your customer. After all, my calls are all about my desire to give your company money. What could be more important than that?

The advent of e-commerce and online sales has been incredibly liberating for us at GoodBuyGuys.com. We’ve always tried to make sure that a customer got a live human being when they called to order gaffers tape or batteries, or when they called for product info. Our phone rings less and less often, even though our sales are increasing, so we have lots more time and resources to field every phone call without adding phone lines or employees. It is the most important customer service function anyone around here performs. It’s easy and it is a service that is rarely abused by customers or prospects. They don’t call unless an interaction with a human voice is really needed.

We have resisted adding hold music or, even worse, some sort of recorded message to bore you while you are put on hold. If a caller is left on hold for more than 45 sec. the phone starts making a really loud and annoying beeping sound.

Occasionally, you may get voice mail if all our incoming lines are busy, but we strive to return ALL calls within the hour. It’s something that really matters.

When we make decisions on adding new suppliers and expanding our relationship with exisiting ones, how they handle the telephone is a very big part of our decision making process.

Why more companies don’t take advantage of the decrease in demand that e-commerce puts on their human resources is a mystery to me. Having a human answer the phone is a great way to build business relationships in a way that online interactions will never replace. You miss an awful lot when you are unwilling to answer the phone.

Got an insight into good customer service? Share it with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

My Google News server delivered up this little tidbit earlier in the week.

A federal judge in Nashville yesterday sentenced Natalie Coker to 46 months in prison. Coker was the associate director of the V-A’s Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy in Murfreesboro.

Coker and her boss, Joseph Haymond, were arrested in November after investigators uncovered a scheme to get kickbacks from a company that was selling the red tape to the V-A at inflated prices. The tape is stamped with the word “security” and is intended to deter tampering.

Judge Robert Echols found that Coker personally received more than $115,000 in kickbacks from a company that was selling security tape to the VA at inflated prices.

While there is nothing funny about government corruption, you’ve got to admit that the notion of the Veterans Admninistration buying red tape is a little humorous, regardless of the price.

We do, however, sell red tape ourselves (gaffers tape, duct tape, spike tape, etc). We would be happy to sell it to you (or the government) at a fair price.

Seen a funny tape story that might make us laugh? Share it with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

I normally stay away from politics and controversy. Its enjoyable to write about our customers and comment on products and vendors, and that has been my focus.

However, today, there is an issue that I feel is worthy of discussion outside of my normal realm.

Net neutrality is under attack and if the big media and telco companies get their way, it will impact how we use the internet for generations to come. Net neutrality is the concept that any traffic on the net moves with the same priority and speed, regardless of who sends or receives it. These limitations on those who control the digital pipeline, preventing favorable treatment for some over others is basic to the explosive growth of the internet. Without it, we will quickly have a system of “haves” and “have nots” when it comes to how the internet handles your information requests.

Our company has been able to grow and prosper because, online, your orders, our web pages, your inquiries, etc. move at the same speed as data being transferred by the largest and most powerful companies in the country. We have been able to establish a niche for distributing our products and information and make good jobs for our employees because of net neutrality.

Now companies like Bell South and Comcast want to give priority to large companies that can pay more for access to the pipeline and, thus,  see their traffic move at a faster rates than the rest of us.

These are companies that have been given public monopolies in the past, as telephone and cable companies, with the promise that they would use this monopoly to build infrastructure so that everyone’s data would move faster. They have failed to honor their commitments to their customers and the communities they serve. Consequently, the United States has some of the slowest internet speeds in the developed world. If net neutrality is allowed to slip away from us, these same companies-the ones that have been given monopoly opportunities-will be able to decide who gets fast internet service and how it will be made available.

If you believe that innovation and grass roots growth can’t survive in a monopoly enviroment, let your representatives in Washington know how important you believe net neutrality is.

Got an opinion on this or some other important issue of the day? Let us know.

Periodically, I talk about our customers finding new uses for our products, and I always end the blog by asking you to let us know if you come across an interesting new use for something we sell. We get some great responses.

We’ll, now its my turn. Try and top this!

I took my daughter and her friends to the Carolina Renaissance Festival, near Charlotte, NC, on Saturday. Beautiful day. Huge Crowds. Great Event.

I’ve been a couple of times, and one of my favorite performers is Dextre Tripp. Dextre performs a really entertaining daredevil show and he is always coming up with something new. I’m not sure exactly what juggling chain saws has to do with the Renaissance, but histocial correctness is not what Dextre’s show is about.

Picture this. Dextre balanced at the top of teetering ladder (an major accomplishment in itself), in flames, with 200 exploding firecrackers duct taped to his chest. This guy is on fire, his chest is exploding, and he never loses his balance. It was one of the most amazing feats I had ever seen, and it could have never been accomplished without duct tape.

For the grand finale, Dextre invites the audience to pelt him with water balloons to put out the flames while he is still balanced on the ladder.

Now that’s entertainment!

The Renaissance Festival runs through the end of November. If you live anywhere near Charlotte, its a great way to spend the day.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

I took my family to see The Lion King last night at Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh, NC. What a terrific show! Memorial Auditorium has been a great customer of ours for a long time and they are having terrific success with their Broadway Series.

We have been a supplier for both touring companies of The Lion King for a number of years and we enjoy working with their great crews. I had been to the show in New York a couple of years ago and was anxious to see how it would adapt to a road production. Since the music, props, puppets and costumes translate well into touring halls, the bulk of the show travels well. Some of the large set pieces have been reduced in size, but that really doesn’t reduce the impact of this huge production.

Our friends Mark Colvin and Chris McKay, Lion King property masters, use gaffers tape, friction tape and other products they get from us to keep the puppets and props in the show in working order. They really have their hands full and do a great job. This show is stunning in its beauty and its complexity.

While I’m on the subject of Broadway touring shows, what’s up with the way they price tickets these days. The face value of the tickets were a reasonable (when you consider the cost of a production like this) $65.00 each, but by the time the got into my hands, they cost $76.00 each. Why so many additional added on service charges, handling fees, mystery charges, etc.? I can’t think of any other industry that prices their product this way. How about just charging an honest price and simplifying this ridiculous surcharge system!

Got an opinion about the cost of seeing a good show? Let us know about it.

It’s been a long time since I did any concert or special event lighting, but I still follow the industry pretty closely. I came across a really odd innovation yesterday and before I knew it my imagination got away from me.

Take a look at this. The dmx phone from Digital Light Solutions is a lighting controller interface that will let you use a common cordless telephone to remotely control a dmx enabled stage lighting system. The manufacturer promotes the device as a simple and effective remote focus tool, as, at least in theory, the telephone can also store multiple cues.

It’s a little hard to follow the logic of spending $500.00 so that you can then use a $29.99 cordless phone from Radio Shack to focus and control a lighting system without being tethered by a cable. Especially when simple DMX controllers can be purchased for a couple hundred bucks. I guess that the wireless capability would be nice, that is if you were willing to put up with the laughter of everyone else on the crew. “LD,  phone home!”

Here’s what really got me thinking about this package.

My cordless phone at home constantly scans for unused frequencies in the range allocated by the FCC for telephones. This is so I can have some privacy from neighbors whose phones might use the same frequency.

I have tickets for The Lion King this weekend. If they had the dmx phone interface in their lighting system, could I fire up my phone, scan to find the frequency their system was set to, and take over control of the show? Now that would be cool.

Got a cool idea to share? Let us know.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies

We are finally seeing some headway on the acquisition of Duracell by Proctor & Gamble (see my Sept. 20th post). The sale of the Duracell brand (along with the rest of the Gillette-owned family of products) has led to a lot of confusion for us and meant that our battery shelves have been essentially empty for the last couple of weeks.

Shipments have begun arriving again, and we are hopeful of catching up on a huge stack of backorders by week’s end. We appreciate the patience of lots of loyal customers and hope that we can get back to our “same day shipping” policy on most of our orders. Backorders are problems for everybody.

Duracell was named to the 84th position in Business Week’s list of Best Global Brands last year. They had 2005 sales of $3.57 billion dollars and it looks like the are continuing to gain market share from competitors like Energizer.

The acquisition of Gillette and all its brands was a $57 billion dollar deal and its hard to say how ProCell may fare in an acqusition like this.

Some see it as a great step.

“This merger is going to create the greatest consumer products company in the world,” said billionaire investor Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway is Gillette’s largest shareholder with 96 million shares, or about 9 percent of the company.

We’re not so sure. A specialty brand like ProCell may not fit in well with a company that is focused on consumer brands. ProCell, as you may know, is not packaged for retail sales and is intended for distribution to end users in the industrial, medical and electronics industries. After spending a lot of effort in promoting the brand to these industries, Duracell, under Gillette’s ownership, dropped most of these efforts, reduced their sales staff, and scaled back promotion of the brand.

Initially, it looks like P&G may scale back even further. They appear to have replaced all the folks at Gillette who handled the nuts and bolts process of getting ProCell batteries to distributors and they have had great difficulty in keeping product in the pipeline. Industry reports indicate that as many as 6000 jobs may have been cut in the implementation of this acquisition. Who know how many of these cuts will impact ProCell?

I am hopeful that things will get back on track and Proctor & Gamble will realize what great customer loyalty ProCell has. Its a brand worth a lot more attention than they have given it so far.

Got an opinion about this mega-merger? Let us know.