As usual, my post for www.tching.com this month will be a more extensive coverage of a topic I touch on here as a prelude.  This month it has to do with letting passion for your product or craft override simple and basic politeness.

If anyone is passionate about product, it’s yours truly.   So when a new vendor came into my store unannounced and told me I could not submit a second order without doing things exactly  to their specifications, I was a little..well..shocked…considering the first order had quickly sold through and people loved it.    If anyone respects wanting their product to be seen at its’ best, we do, but when the product leaves your hands and the money has been exchanged…you own it.  In this case, we had taken the time to source the product, tested it via samples, been  set up as a customer and, during that entire process, absolutely no requirements on preparation or equipment were so much as hinted at.

That aside, there would have been a more polite way to handle the situation.   So, after spending time attempting to ameliorate the situation with the rep and, when that got nowhere, the national sales manager, I now have an email in to the owner of the company, explaining in detail what happened and asking for a solution or common grounds meeting place.  If this elicits nothing or the same type of response–as great as this product is–there is no way to do business in a professional manner with a company run this way.

However, it has made me re-examine my own passion for product and whether or not we are as polite as we should be about the customer’s decisions on how to use or prepare what they buy from us.   My mentor used to say that, once she gave a gift, she had no right to input in what was done with it.  I can’t imagine a bakery vendor telling a store owner they had to display the wares on silver trays with silver framed placards describing the delicacy or they could not reorder.

Bottomline: there’s passion…and then there’s arrogance.  One is a virtue, the other is not.    May we have the discernment to know which is which.  I’m preaching to me.    Passionate…but politely so.