My grade 4 teacher, God rest his soul, once said “an expert is an unknown drip under pressure,” something that has stuck with me to this day.
Let me break this down for you; Ex or “X” can be taken as a has-been or an unknown quantity, and “spurt” is of course a volume of liquid expelled under pressure, in this case, a drip. I really don’t know why this has remained in my consciousness for so long, except to define for me that a lot of “experts,” be they self-proclaimed or credentialed up the wazoo, have no. bloody. clue.
A key element that all truly knowledgeable individuals seem to possess is a keen basic sense. Most people refer to this as “common sense,” however since this isn’t that common, it’s been accepted into the vernacular as “basic sense” instead. This involves all those wonderful key elements like knowing to not piss off a very large bear, not walking into traffic, and not ignoring the occasional warnings that pop-up on system screens. Sadly, there are so many bogus pop-ups and screen garbage sent through malware, poisoned websites and other nefarious means that we have been largely de-sensitized to the legitimate warnings. So, how do you trust what is real and what is bogus?
In the same way, how do you find an “expert” that you can trust? How is that trust built? Since most people will self-proclaim they “know nothing about computers” how can they judge an individual or a company as competent?
I’ve come up with three criteria;
1) How long have they been in business? In the technology world, this speaks volumes.
2) Are they open and transparent with their advice, giving multiple angles and simple, valid reasons as to why one is superior to another – not just that one option costs less, for example.
3) Referrals, referrals, REFERRALS!
We are very proud of the reputation we have build in our long history, and this has resulted in fully 99% of our new business coming strictly from referrals. We wouldn’t have it any other way – we don’t tie our customers down with contracts, we -want- our customers to -want- to stay with us, so we’re darn well going to work to earn and keep your trust.
Let us work to earn -your- trust, and we will do our very best every single day to ensure you are not disappointed. If anything ever does come up that doesn’t meet with your expectations, we’ll do everything in our power to make it right.
That’s just good business. Working together towards common goals, and we always design our solutions with the customer’s best interests at heart. Our customers aren’t just dollar signs, in a lot of cases they have become friends – and indeed part of the Forest Family, who we will do our very best to never let down.
In the next blog, I will talk about the concept of partnering, and why it is so vital to success!
Take care,
Paul.
99% of our new business comes strictly from referrals