All,
I'm beginning to think that I will be closing up the retail P.I. audio group end of the business.
I have been thinking about this for some time due to family health issues. They are not life threatening for me, but are related to physical limitations imposed by my arthritis and spinal problems. There are just some days that I can not do the physical work of slamming 125lb+ pieces of materials around in the shop.
There are other issues that are not cogent here and do not relate to me directly.
In addition to this, I have had spinal pain and severe cramping resulting from my near fatal accident in 2012. I was out of business for over 6 months then and worked as hard as I could to get back in the swing of things. Recently arthritis has been extremely active in my hands and it makes fine work hard, if not near impossible in some instances.
Times have changed and I'm just tired.
Due to a recent development I have decided to step back and consider what my future is.
My gut tells me to bag the whole thing, but personal finances dictate that I not do that. Gotta eat and pay the bills.
Plans at this time dictate that I step back and let reason and prayer guide me.
Admittedly, I have never been the fastest guy in the business, but have done my best to meet commitments and unfortunately occasionally failed to meet them due to limitations not of my choice, but reality is driving my efforts.
I recently had a situation arise that is shaping my future. There are some "clients" that cannot be accommodated, no matter what my best efforts can be or are. Reality is not a consideration. I hate shippers.
I still have return rate of ~ 0.3%. I am proud of this and building to this standard is time and effort consuming.
So, I will be scaling back, doing contract and custom work. I will be serving my existing client (and friend
base), so all is not lost. You all mean too much to me!
Prices will necessarily rise... they've been too damned cheap for way too long. Unfortunately, no matter how hard an old guy like me works to satisfy individuals (paying or not) it is never good enough.
Time for the AUDIBLE DIFFERENCE to come to being.
Thank all of you for the business, kind words and appreciation that has come to me over that last 9 years.