Friday, August 14, 2009

Pigs Get Fed, and Hogs Get Slaughtered

Intro

"Pigs Get Fed and Hogs Get Slaughtered." -- Joe "Hollywood" Sutter

It's been bandied about more and more. Some get it right and some get it wrong. My husband, Joe "Hollywood" Sutter, coined this saying way back in 2001. And it has finally made it's way to Washington, as we recently heard a Senator on the news, mis use it, when he said, "Pigs get slaughtered."


Human: Man or Animal?

Joe is a tremendous philanthropist and has great faith in the ultimate goodness of the human soul. He contends that every man is basically good kind and sharing. I think Joe is on a personal quest to find that goodness in every man. He seems to find every potential charity case in the entire area, each of which he attempts to convert into his own proteges.

I on the other hand, look at Maslow and agree with his hierarchy of needs. Then contended that man is basically selfish. I follow dictums, such as "only the rich can afford to have morals". I hear Nickelbacks, If Everyone Cared and just wish. These are just Utopian ideals whose only place in the real world is as a dream.

He and I debate this from time to time, as I hold that the human animal is basically selfish. I have often teased him, that he has "SUCKER" tattooed across his forehead in flashing neon red for every con-artist in the world to see. We do some rental properties, and Joe is not allowed to screen applicants. We would go broke; every time he picks them, it ends up costing us money.

So we have come to a truce, with his charity cases. He can employ them and give them honest work, but he is not to extend them credit or get us in a situation where any of them owe us money. Joe is great at creating a project for these charity cases to get them back on their feet. But Joe is a natural project manager. He is one of those folks that never needed any formal training, he just does it. People get coordinated. Stuff gets organized and things get done. That is probably why, he gets crushed when his protege's fall off course. Because he has the vision and sees the potential in everybody.

Mentoring

During the course of mentoring a mechanic on selling cars on the side. Joe was advising his protege on pricing. He stated, you can't price the vehicle too high, because that's what the "A" dealerships with warranties do and you can't support that price. Neither can you price it too low, as you will lose money.

His protege mechanic, did not listen and priced the vehicle at the top end, $5000. It should have been priced at $3800. Had the vehicle been priced at $3800, the mechanic would have received many offers between $3000 and $3500 and would have been able to sell it around $3500.

He ended breaking even, up only getting $2850 for the vehicle. He did not even make back the time he had invested in repairs in the vehicle.

What Happened?

The result was that the educated buyers, immediately saw that the vehicle was over priced and he lost them for good. He had NO real buyers on the vehicle. He would not advertise a lower price. So someone that was a fast talker, finally worked him down over a period of a couple of weeks, until he sold it far under undervalue.

Joe analyzed the entire situation with his "protege" mechanic. He found, if the mechanic had been satisfied with getting some profit, instead of being a hog and trying to take every last penny, he would have made a fair profit. It's ok to make a profit, just don't gouge everybody.

From this experience Joe coined the saying, "Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered." He told me the Lord taught him it is OK to make a profit, you have to eat. But to gouge enormous profits every time is greedy and unreasonable. He has repeated this philosophy to others time and time again. He even has me saying it. I've quoted my husband in letters to my Congressmen and Senators in Washington. Now we are hearing them attempt to use the quote with the media and on TV.

It's amazing, how little things you do, can find themselves into the world at large.

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Armada Business Consulting, Inc.

Armada Business Consulting, Inc specializes in excellence in execution for Technical Project Management and LEAN implementations. For more information contact Trish at trish_sutter@yahoo.com.

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