andymays
09-14-2012, 09:23 AM
This is a real long speech but the excerpt is about the Customer.
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http://www.racingfuture.com/content/speech-remember-david-willmot
Excerpt:
During the first month that I was CEO, I had a meeting with about eight or ten of our biggest gamblers. During our discussion, I used the word “fan,” and talked about our “fans.” And one of these guys looked at me and said, “Don’t insult me.” I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He said, “I am not a fan of anything that you or your rich friends do around here. And don’t call me a "patron" either, because I’m not a patron. Those are people who give money voluntarily, like for the arts. Philanthropically, I am not a patron. I am a gambler. I am your customer and I want to be treated with the respect that a paying customer deserves.”
Since that day, we have never used the terms fan or patron around our company. It is customer. Since that day, everything we have done to turn our business around, and to resurrect horse racing in the province of Ontario, has been customer driven.
One of the difficulties in this industry, and I say this as a horseman myself, is that there has been too much focus on the supply side. This is the side of the business that provides the product, the horses to the tracks, and includes breeders, trainers, and backstretch employees – and I spent years on the backstretch. But there is a demand-side of the business also. The customer, bettor, gambler – who provides the capital; those purses that enable the rest of it to make sense.
Over the years, the thinking in this industry – certainly among management of tracks across North America – has been driven by this supply side. Everything has been, “What can be done for the horsemen. How can we fix up the backstretch? Let’s do whatever the horsemen want. If they want more racing, then we should have more racing, even if that means smaller fields.”
But if you sit down with the gamblers, it is pretty simple what they want. They want field size, they want pool size, and they want low takeout. Frankly, they don’t care if a horse is by Mr. Prospector or Santa Claus. The truth of the matter is, racing is a gambling business 99.8 percent of the time and a sport the other point-two percent. Granted, it’s a sport for a lot of those people who supply the product, but for the industry to work, we have to take care of the customer. I think for decades we have not.
For the whole speech click on the link. http://www.racingfuture.com/content/speech-remember-david-willmot
====================
http://www.racingfuture.com/content/speech-remember-david-willmot
Excerpt:
During the first month that I was CEO, I had a meeting with about eight or ten of our biggest gamblers. During our discussion, I used the word “fan,” and talked about our “fans.” And one of these guys looked at me and said, “Don’t insult me.” I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He said, “I am not a fan of anything that you or your rich friends do around here. And don’t call me a "patron" either, because I’m not a patron. Those are people who give money voluntarily, like for the arts. Philanthropically, I am not a patron. I am a gambler. I am your customer and I want to be treated with the respect that a paying customer deserves.”
Since that day, we have never used the terms fan or patron around our company. It is customer. Since that day, everything we have done to turn our business around, and to resurrect horse racing in the province of Ontario, has been customer driven.
One of the difficulties in this industry, and I say this as a horseman myself, is that there has been too much focus on the supply side. This is the side of the business that provides the product, the horses to the tracks, and includes breeders, trainers, and backstretch employees – and I spent years on the backstretch. But there is a demand-side of the business also. The customer, bettor, gambler – who provides the capital; those purses that enable the rest of it to make sense.
Over the years, the thinking in this industry – certainly among management of tracks across North America – has been driven by this supply side. Everything has been, “What can be done for the horsemen. How can we fix up the backstretch? Let’s do whatever the horsemen want. If they want more racing, then we should have more racing, even if that means smaller fields.”
But if you sit down with the gamblers, it is pretty simple what they want. They want field size, they want pool size, and they want low takeout. Frankly, they don’t care if a horse is by Mr. Prospector or Santa Claus. The truth of the matter is, racing is a gambling business 99.8 percent of the time and a sport the other point-two percent. Granted, it’s a sport for a lot of those people who supply the product, but for the industry to work, we have to take care of the customer. I think for decades we have not.
For the whole speech click on the link. http://www.racingfuture.com/content/speech-remember-david-willmot