The Value of Genuine Expertise in a ‘Just Sell It’ World! - November 2025

I recently received a note from a fellow subscriber of our YouTube channel:

"Hearing your attitude on this really shows how much you care about your customers and how you handle business. You seem like a great business owner."

My Response:

We are trying hard in a very trying time. It is not only in our industry but many. As an equestrian, I have seen many good independent shops disappear and with them, sound advice and knowledge. Let me expand.

Formats like emails, text messages, and google searches do not truly include the nuances of situations. Any simple Google search, for example, is fraught with both unwanted advertising and irrelevant information.

And now, with the AI chucked in, fraught with erroneous information (we have had to correct Google several times about our business reputation alone as they kept tying in business behavior of "Audible", the Amazon book service to our own.

None of these methods come near the spontaneity of human conversation and interaction. Subtle clues or information in a conversation triggers questions and insights. A small fact may change the course of the reaction whereas a simple other small fact may change it again. It is this way with many trades.

What manufacturers are doing is replacing the knowledge base with what I call chicken marketing where customers are left to hunt and peck. Lowes and Home Depot are perfect examples of this whereas a real hardware store may suggest a better solution. It doesn't matter at their end how the product gets sold as long as they get paid, consumer be damned. The illusion of savings ignores the cost of errors but why care when it doesn't come out of their pocket? It becomes part of the trash and replace cycle. 

Years ago I sold a product line, which I had for years, come out with a new line which we could not get to perform properly.  When, at a major show, I addressed this issue with one of the owners and the response was: "I don't care what you think, just sell it."  I dropped the line.  This was not the type of company I wanted in my store.  "Just sell it has now become a motto of many companies. (Interestingly enough, within two years, that whole product line was revised but some of the reputational damage was done.  Years later, in the hands of one of their employees, we represent them again. It is a fine product line.)

It is up to the consumer how they wish to spend their money of course, but when a manufacturer begins to cut off knowledge for volume or simply doesn't care, well, that's where I draw the line.  It means, at least to me, that they don't care about their customers and likewise don't care about me. 

If they don't care about me, then it makes it very difficult for me to care about you. 

It is that simple.

-Lou