Outside of the fact that, after looking it up, it seemed that all a privilege was, was a special right enjoyed by people who had advantages that other’s didn’t (even through hard work, circumstances, etc) I was still sort of baffled by the insight. I understood what he meant after all, at least I thought he did. I think what he was trying to say was that having customers was the result of being good and honest in business. I can get behind that myself, but even still it seemed to nag at me, but why?

I think what made it so uncomfortable to me was the fact that it was called a privilege. To me, a privilege is something that implies that a person deserves something. I’m not sure if a person or business ever deserves customers. It sounds too possessive that way. To say you deserve another person seems to indicate that you own them in some small way. I didn’t really like the feel of it when it was said that way.

Instead, I’d like to point out that our view of things is that having customers is an honor. I can’t think of a better thing to glorify or appreciate than getting to work for a person when you know that you are making their business better and you believe in the work you are doing. When you call it a privilege, you strip all the appreciation out of it. Better to put it on a pedestal and assume that the customer is the best thing on the earth, than to think that you actually deserve it.

Don’t get me wrong, I like John Jantsch and I subscribe to his newsletter and read his blog, but on this one, I think he was either repeating something that Shankman had said, or taking a poorly worded sound bite and really just turning it into something that sounded only slightly less selfish. If you really think that you have the privilege of having customers, then you’ve really lost the passion of wanting to work with them.

Of course, that’s what he might have meant. Likewise, his criticism (if it was one) may have been off-point. I guess that’s the trouble with Twitter

If you know me, then you know that I have an incessant need to make things perfect before I am happy with letting them be seen by the world. It’s a blessing and a curse of course, because while perfectionism is an ambitious trait, it also means that I can sometimes spend too long on a project when it could be out there instead getting the appropriate feedback to make it better. I know this about myself, so I’ve decided to release the website as-is for the time being and just let it happen.

This isn’t to say that the website is bad or broken, it’s not. It went through a couple of revisions already and I’m pretty happy with the overall look and feel. There are some extra bits that I need to follow up on, like form validation and error processing, but those things don’t necessarily keep the website from functioning properly. They’re just nice to have. Believe me, your site will have them before I let it go live.

Creating our own website was a lot like the mechanic who still has that car up on blocks in their own yard, while they’re busy fixing everybody else’s. Sure, I could spend all my time working on our own site making it perfect, but the more time I spent on it, the less time I had to work on other people’s sites, and your sites of course are more important than ours in the long run.

My point here, is that sometimes you have to recognize your shortcomings in order to let your best qualities shine. I’ll always have something that I want to do with our own site to make it better. It’s more important though, that I focus on making YOUR site the best it can be. You have our word that we’ll always be focused on that first.

That being said, we welcome you to visit our site and check it out, and let us know what you think, and please feel free to submit a quote if you need a website built. That’s what we’re here for after all!

Thanks,
Christopher Morris
Spring Hill Sites