Let's Review. . . . .
Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:30 pm
This is my fifth itinerary. We are in a challenging economy. You, my esteemed customers, are likely staring hard at your household finances with spouses and SO's staring equally hard at the choices confronting you in the coming year. So I must reach in deep with some good old Hard Sell, but be alert to exactly what I am selling.
I am selling mental/spiritual health counseling this year, using our old VWs as a bridge to what matters. Should you decide to put your VW projects on-hold or even liquidate them as you tighten your belts, you will find that the financial monster keeps coming after you anyway. Your average VW will buy you at best, three to six months of liquidity. The emotional and longterm investment cost of this liquidity will be far greater.
I have seen many many people lose yet some more of their joy recently, just worn down by the wolves scratching and sniffing at the door. When you shut down your creative outlets and your projects, you shut down another reason to wake up in the morning. These air-cooled VWs have some sort of spirit that brings the day to you. They also have a simplicity that beckons you to simplify your lives, your complicated over-committed lives. Because they actually serve a purpose (transportation), they can be utilized to help you get through the day, the only transportation device in your driveway or on the street that is actually appreciating. They serve to help you exercise your ingenuity and skills and for those so blessed, your artistic talents. Give up the damn cable bill long before you give up your VW.
I will be sharing the pain with you this year. I am not going to raise my prices. The cost of fuel is my worst expense, but I plan to improve efficiency as my "pay raise" this year. I also plan to stretch more in my acceptance of your hospitality. I have had many lifelong resistances that are being sorely tested by people who are rebuilding my essential trust.
This year's itinerary is also going to find me challenging you in ever more insidious ways. I plan on being less polite, less accomodating, and far less agreeable to your plans for what needs to be done. You SHALL allow me to test drive right after the valve adjustment or whatever is required to get a non-runner running, and you SHALL then endure my opinions on what will best utilize my time and your goals. We will go through our winter PM correspondences as per usual and we will plan upon what parts you need in advance, but we will not necessarily do the jobs that those parts dictate we should do, if in my opinion, our time is best spent pursuing other avenues. What I will promise you, is that you WILL successfully install the parts later and your car will thank you.
I would enjoy more spouse/SO involvement, I would like for all of us to find more ethnic representation in IAC air-cooled VW owners so I can chat it up with people about the issues of the day. This is going to be a potentially exciting year for this country, and I'd love to wade in it with you while you battle valve adjustments and breaker point gaps.
We have a core group of IAC members whose need for my talents is diminishing rapidly. This is as it should be, it is my pleasure to render myself irrelevant and obsolete. But, if any old timer IAC customers have no need for my services any more because you are perfectly able to take care of your own VW, please find referrals and send them my way. Poach off theSamba as you interact over there and find posters who are getting lost in the advice.
The itinerary is slated to begin in mid-to-late May and run through the end of October. I grossed $15,856.00 last year. I want to pull in no less this coming year, but I need a better net. DO I EVER! Settle down.
Colin
I am selling mental/spiritual health counseling this year, using our old VWs as a bridge to what matters. Should you decide to put your VW projects on-hold or even liquidate them as you tighten your belts, you will find that the financial monster keeps coming after you anyway. Your average VW will buy you at best, three to six months of liquidity. The emotional and longterm investment cost of this liquidity will be far greater.
I have seen many many people lose yet some more of their joy recently, just worn down by the wolves scratching and sniffing at the door. When you shut down your creative outlets and your projects, you shut down another reason to wake up in the morning. These air-cooled VWs have some sort of spirit that brings the day to you. They also have a simplicity that beckons you to simplify your lives, your complicated over-committed lives. Because they actually serve a purpose (transportation), they can be utilized to help you get through the day, the only transportation device in your driveway or on the street that is actually appreciating. They serve to help you exercise your ingenuity and skills and for those so blessed, your artistic talents. Give up the damn cable bill long before you give up your VW.
I will be sharing the pain with you this year. I am not going to raise my prices. The cost of fuel is my worst expense, but I plan to improve efficiency as my "pay raise" this year. I also plan to stretch more in my acceptance of your hospitality. I have had many lifelong resistances that are being sorely tested by people who are rebuilding my essential trust.
This year's itinerary is also going to find me challenging you in ever more insidious ways. I plan on being less polite, less accomodating, and far less agreeable to your plans for what needs to be done. You SHALL allow me to test drive right after the valve adjustment or whatever is required to get a non-runner running, and you SHALL then endure my opinions on what will best utilize my time and your goals. We will go through our winter PM correspondences as per usual and we will plan upon what parts you need in advance, but we will not necessarily do the jobs that those parts dictate we should do, if in my opinion, our time is best spent pursuing other avenues. What I will promise you, is that you WILL successfully install the parts later and your car will thank you.
I would enjoy more spouse/SO involvement, I would like for all of us to find more ethnic representation in IAC air-cooled VW owners so I can chat it up with people about the issues of the day. This is going to be a potentially exciting year for this country, and I'd love to wade in it with you while you battle valve adjustments and breaker point gaps.
We have a core group of IAC members whose need for my talents is diminishing rapidly. This is as it should be, it is my pleasure to render myself irrelevant and obsolete. But, if any old timer IAC customers have no need for my services any more because you are perfectly able to take care of your own VW, please find referrals and send them my way. Poach off theSamba as you interact over there and find posters who are getting lost in the advice.
The itinerary is slated to begin in mid-to-late May and run through the end of October. I grossed $15,856.00 last year. I want to pull in no less this coming year, but I need a better net. DO I EVER! Settle down.
Colin