Dear John,
On the one hand, I'd prefer to stay out of these types of threads because, well......this is the ugly side of AZB. The bickering, the name calling, the slandering of peoples character, man, it just ain't pretty.
On the other hand, if somebody doesn't say what needs to be said, this crap will go on forever.
I've stated in the past that I don't dislike you so maybe you will view this as something other than just another attack. Trust me, it's not meant to be.
I have never felt that you have attacked me and don't see this as one now. There is a HUGE difference between the way you carry on a DISCUSSION and the way Craig does it. This "crap" will go on forever as long as people like Craig pretend to be experts by making "expert sounding" statements as if he is an insider in the industry. I bet you know WAY more about the industry than Craig does yet he will make statements that are not true just to seem as if he knows all and give more "credibility" to his points.
I know that you are on a mission to change the perception of how the import cues are viewed/received. I also know that with the introduction of the Evolution series of Fury cues, that task becomes much greater since the retail price point for that series is $1,000/1,300. That's quite a jump from the avg. import and it's your job to prove to the buying public that these cues are every bit worth the money. You're going to have your hands full.
Well I guess I am. Why is that? Well it's because my own perception was changed through hands-on experience. All you repair guys only see a small percentage of cues that are sold.
I used to rant to my boss at Sterling all the time, I *****ed about EVERY little thing I found wrong with the cues. He told me that if I really felt that we had a huge quality problem then I should go through the data, and go through the cues that we had on the return shelf and list all the problems and reasons the cues were returned and then get the factory to do something about it.
So, for a week I pored over four year's worth of sales data and wrote down every cue that was returned, why it was returned, and what the resolution was. I found that less than 1% of cues we sold got returned for warpage. Less than 1% got returned for defects not related to warpage. Overall our return rate is less than 2% of cues sold and do you want to know the number one reason that cues come back to us? Wrong weight. That's right, people get the cue and it's too heavy or too light for them and they send it back for another one. Furthermore I tracked the people who returned cues to see if they returned the replacement and less than 1% of those people had secondary issues.
So KJ I had to eat some major crow. I was ranting about "my reputation" is on the line with these cues and you know what.....while I was busy doing that the factory was getting better and better and the cues got good.
You all sell our Fury cues. Walk out to your warehouse and grab some Furys and review them. Tell us all from your perspective whether they are good or not or worth the money we are asking for them or not.
Altering peoples perception is not going to happen over-nite and will be significantly delayed by you arguing with people on this site, particularly CMs. Not only does it throw a bad light on you, but also the company that you represent. People aren't going to be made to accept your point of view if you keep trying to ram it down their throats.
I am not ramming anything down anyone's throat. Craig Rittel makes blanket statements that are completely untrue and I correct them. I am not trying to do anything, I am doing it. Craig says that Chinese cue makers use non-thermostatic glue (such a thing does not exist) and you don't correct him. No one does. You are a cue maker and you let such a gaff slide. Should I? Craig says that the glue that the Chinese use will fail at prolonged temperatures of 80 degrees and you don't correct him. So am I supposed to let that statement stand unchallenged?
If I said something blatantly untrue about Seyberts Billiard Supply would you not correct me?
You've stated many times in the past that the best method you had for convincing people of the quality of your cases, cues or whatever is to put the product in the buyer's hands and let him/her decide for themselves. I agree, that's one of the best selling tools a salesman could have. Ultimately, the buyer will decide.
Absolutely and I do that every chance I get. However here on the net I can't do that. When someone like Craig Rittel lies about our cues then I can't take one off the eack and pass it around to all the readers and say judge for yourself. If I could I would. Because that would easily negate half of the lies he tells.
I don't expect that the Evolution series will be a hit right out of the box and neither should you.
I don't expect them to do anything other than raise the bar for Fury. Which they have done admirably since we introduced them a year ago.
The stigma associated with the imports is too great, particularly at that price point. However, as these cues slowly get out into the world and if the quality is where it needs to be, then the cues will start to sell themselves.
Of course, this is nothing we don't already know. And they are starting to sell themselves. I haven't been on a crusade to sell Fury cues on this forum. If you really and truly look at what I write then you will see that my comments are about life in general and giving the facts in response to semi-bigoted assumption. Did you know that Kao Kao has $10,000,000 in wood that is turned and graded and dated many times before being used in cues? Did you know that they have hundreds of thousands of shaft hanging in racks in the same manner that Tim Scruggs and other high end cue makers do it? I didn't until I went there and saw it with my own eyes.
The perception will change by the reality of the product and not by you force-feeding it. Any efforts you make now by arguing with people is only hurting and delaying that acceptance. Let the process happen naturally and it will be much stronger.
And this perception won't be reinforced by people like Craig Rittel who says to us on this forum that the Chinese use inferior materials and lousy techniques? When someone like him presents himself as an expert and he then uses that pulpit to lie about what he knows then it serves only to further entrench the perception that Chinese cues suck. I am deeply disappointed that not one single cue maker on this forum at the very least called out Craig's "non-thermostatic glue" comment.
In the beginning, you made some interesting points, in any of the 3 threads pertaining to this subject. But they always end with combative attitudes on both sides. Every point you make on the 'positive' mysteriously goes negative and you've got to start all over again with yet another cleverly disguised thread.
Now you are being unfair. For one thing I have only started one thread pertaining to cue quality in the history of my time on this board and it's the recent one where I ask cue makers to contribute to a list of what makes a good cue. You can do a search on "all threads started by John Barton" and "all threads started by JB Cases" and see this for yourself. Do the same thing for the username "Manwon" and you will easily see that your comments above are better applied to him than me.
I'm not trying to scold you John, but rather to get you to see the reality.
If these cues are to sell, they are going to have to sell themselves. You've done your part, now get them into the hands of the buyers and let those buyers be your ever increasing sales force. Am I making any sense to you?
Of course you are trying to scold me.
I disagree with your premise that the cues, any cues, sell themselves. Do you think Seyberts would do so well with Predators if Predator wasn't relentlessly marketing them?
The reality is that on forums like these anyone can come on here and pretend to be an expert like Craig Rittel does. He repairs a few cues a year and then feels like he knows the whole cue industry and can make ludicrous statements that are in fact, slanderous. So if someone like me, who does know the facts, does not stand up to someone like him then he gets away with unfairly influencing the readers.
You are making perfect sense KJ but I think that you underestimate grossly the power of this medium to reach people. Whatever Craig Rittel says here stays here forever unless he or someone else takes it down. So that means that today, next week, a year from now people can still read his comments and if nothing stands against them then they stand as truth for many people. But if I or someone else contradicts him then at least the readers know that there are two sides and they can elect to believe one or the other OR better still go and find corraboration and base their buying decision on that.
So, yeah, if Craig Rittel and others can use the forum to spread misinformation then I can use it to counter them with facts. You do agree that facts are better than speculation and misdirection I hope?
