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Mark - The Shoe Dog Blog
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July 21, 2009 -- The Lehigh Outfitters organization has decided to start our own blog to help provide various product related information that may be helpful to our customers.
While I am pleased that Lehigh has requested for me to fill this role at this time, I am not a big fan of the decision to entitle this correspondence as “Ask the Expert”. I never have tended to like the terminology expert as it leads me to think of someone who may have an overly inflated opinion of oneself.
If any of you still watch the TV show Survivor as my wife and I do, you would have seen two people over its last two seasons that we just loved to route against because of what seemed to us as each having an enormously high opinion of himself.
One went by the name of Ace, while the other was called Coach, but also liked being known as The Dragon Slayer. I was not too keen with either name or either person, but here I am writing to you as the person in the “Ask the Expert” role.
Seeing that you may be cringing as you hear this phrase similarly to me, I thought that I should give you some background that likely influenced Lehigh to giving me this assignment.
I started brand new in the shoe business approximately 30 years ago in the Product Development department as a trainee. I found out shortly after I was hired that one of the tasks I was expected to do was generate shoe sketches to aid as part of the product development process.
Seeing that I had little artistic talent and lacked much in terms of a sense of style, it became apparent to me that my best fit within the department was to deal more with the nuts & bolts (specifications) of the shoes because I could relate to it much better. This was the first key step in the process for me.
A second key step in my development occurred about 10 years into my footwear career when I was moved to be right in the Lehigh offices where I could become that much closer to our office people, our field people, and you (our customers). Experiences over the last 20 years in this area helped me better understand what you had to contend with in your jobs and what you might be seeking in your footwear.
This has now led Lehigh to want me to be in this “Ask the Expert” role. I requested that it possibly be changed to something along the lines of “Ask the Shoe Geek” or “Ask the Shoe Nerd”, but was turned down regarding both.
Realizing that my company did not seem too pleased with projecting the image of a geek or a nerd (even if it might be accurate here), I tried to find some middle ground and see if they might consider me as a matchmaker.
I really liked the “Ask the Matchmaker” idea because I see my role is listening to what your specific needs & wants may be relating to your footwear and then try to come up my best suggestions from our product lines for your consideration.
The Matchmaker wording was shot down too and I was told that the “Ask the Expert” was to proceed as planned. However, please keep in mind that while I am the face of this column for the time being, you have more than just me working for you as I plan to tap assistance from other areas of Rocky Brands relating to different products as needed.
So, we will move onward with “Ask the Expert”, but please think of it whatever way works best for you.
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