Glen Gould's day-10 vlog entry features informal conversation about running, small-business strategy, and daily routines. The speakers discuss targeting ideal clients, differentiating from competitors like dry cleaners, and marathon preparation while touching on Ash Wednesday, the New Hampshire primary, and Beyoncé's Super Bowl performance.
Chapters
Wednesday morning, 23 degrees. Wind chill's gotta have it way down below that. It is really cold. And, uh, got out here and got my run in. Grant wasn't feeling very well this morning, and I was already dressed, and so I thought about waiting for him till later in the day, but, uh, I kept my shoes on, and that was really instrumental in my getting out here and getting it done now. Because who knows what the day's gonna hold. I know I've got a busy day ahead of me and I know it's important that I get my run in. So I kept my shoes on. You know, we talked several times about the idea— I got a box here in front of me, gotta watch over— we talked several times about the importance of, you know, just the idea that getting your shoes on and you've won. Getting out the front door and you've won. Well, today was a great example of how keeping your shoes on, getting them on in the first place, and then keeping your shoes on made all the difference to me getting out for my run today. I think I'll go inside to stretch though. It's really cold.
Okay, so what I wanted to talk about was the idea that we've reached a point in our business, or at least partially, where our ideal clients— we have a lot of them that are in our service area. And that means that we're going to start picking up people who aren't ideally suited to the system we've built. And so the question is, do we accept that idea and embrace it? And do we target the second tier of ideal client, change what our ideal client is in order to continue to grow here? Or do we set up a system that almost is kind of like the velvet rope? We don't allow those people in and we just, unfortunately, we can't serve you right now, them. And try to grow in other areas because we have to keep growing, but our ideal client, we may have reached the saturation point. So it's a tough question for us right now because we're starting to get a lot of traction on social media, Yelp, and things like that, and we're attracting people who think they're coming to a dry cleaner, but we're not a dry cleaner, and we don't want to be a dry cleaner. We want to be the the advocate for the client to the dry cleaner. And we want to be the person that provides more time and more life for those people. So that's a question we have to ask ourselves. We were just sitting here talking about customer service, and we were talking about how Tammy had seen a video of a longtime flight attendant who had gone through, and they were asking her about memorable passengers. And she said that this one guy really stood out because she had gone through with the meal service and asked if he wanted chicken or fish, and she— and he said, "Nope, neither one. I just want some attention." And she said, "What?" "I just want a little attention." And the flight attendant said that doesn't everybody want a little attention? And everybody wants to be treated the same. And I disagree, because I believe everybody wants to be treated better than the next guy. I think they really think that— everyone thinks that they want to be treated as if they are special, as if they are the only one that gets that treatment. And the key to doing great customer service is finding a way to make everyone feel important and special, but treating everyone the exact same way. That's the true key. One of the biggest challenges I face every day is that we're just constantly on the go, and that means that things that really should be easy sometimes end up being difficult. I just spent an extra 5 or 6 minutes looking for a bag badge that I have to get into one of the facilities we serve, and it's just frustrating. I, I put it in the same place every day, but that one day that I don't makes it much harder. And that's the thing about routine, is that if you get into a good routine, it makes things much easier until you fall out of that routine, and then it makes it far more difficult. And so, um, just something that I'm working on, trying to be better about my routine. And trying to be a little more patient. It's a good challenge for me. Expanding on that idea of patience, I'm sitting here at a red light and ready to go, and, and I realized that, um, here I was frantically running around and my family's trying to help me, and, um, not only did I not even acknowledge their help, um, I was kind of short with them to begin with, or on top of that.
That's just not acceptable.
I'm gonna have to be better. So this is what it looks like when we load up all of our clothes.
Wednesday evening here on day 10 of 28 days. I'm sitting out on the back porch underneath the tent, just kind of taking in some quiet time, and I realized that a lot has happened today that I wasn't able to record. It's our busiest day of the week, really, when it comes to serving clients, getting ready for doing today, and then of course getting ready for tomorrow, our two busiest delivery days. And so not a whole lot of time to focus on the vlog, but a lot of time to just do a lot of work and serve a lot of people. But as I think about the day and think about some of the things that I didn't cover today, of course yesterday was Fat Tuesday, and that means today's Ash Wednesday. I'm not Catholic, but I do recognize those days, especially Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. I used to give something up for Lent. I used to jokingly give up an alcohol that maybe I didn't drink or something like that. Not to say that I don't drink, but I would always give up something that I wasn't drinking at the time. I don't think I'm going to do that this year. I think I'm really just going to try to focus on continuing this process and being successful in building my routine. I'm going to give up getting off my routine, perhaps. As far as other things that happened over the past 24 hours that I really haven't covered, the New Hampshire primary was yesterday. Apparently Donald Trump won on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders won on the Democrat side. I think it's a little too early for me to really judge what's going to happen there. When it comes time for us to vote here in Georgia, I will make an informed decision, and I hope that when it's time for you to vote, that you will do the same. I think that it's really important at this point that we find a direction for our country that is going to be more in line with what most of our country believes in. And I think that entrepreneurship and personal rights are very, very important for the success of our country. I think that people that don't have something to strive for really start to feel defeated and look for ways that aren't necessarily healthy for them to achieve the things they're hoping to achieve. So I'm hoping that we'll vote for self-awareness, self-ability, for the ability to chart our own course and our own destiny, and that we'll start to turn the corner for our country in that way. I'm very, very much a believer in small business and home-based business. It certainly helped us and our family. The other thing that continues to be a big topic of discussion is Beyoncé and the Super Bowl. Apparently that has really struck a nerve with a lot of people, and the more I look at it, the more I realize that it was pretty inflammatory, and I can understand why so many people are upset about it. I think that people need to recognize that These folks are entertainers and they're going to do anything they can to get our attention. And in order to continue to get your attention, you have to continue to go further and further. And speaking of going further and further, one that went the other direction was Lady Gaga. She surprised everyone with her rendition of the national anthem, expecting the typical Lady Gaga, and we just didn't get it. So that's kind of a good thing. So that kind of wraps it up for day 10 of 28 days. I'm kind of surprised it's gone this fast, just like today went so quickly. But I'm looking forward to the next 18 days. 18 days from the marathon. And, um, didn't get everything done today that we like to get done. Didn't get to the club, didn't get our walk in. We kind of knew that was going to happen because it is such a busy day. But looking forward to tomorrow and looking forward to continuing this process. That wraps it up for day 10, 28 days.
