Thought Alex g might have wanted to have some input on the comments being made on his brushes ! But he hasn't so I'm assuming he's moved on from here and feels his work is done with us guys
Morning Colin (and all other posters)
I have read every single one of these posts as they have been posted and have my thoughts on many of them
So, I have not moved on!
These days I try and keep my posts to a minimum as I do not want to appear to be ‘steering’ or ‘directing’ commentary or to get in way of free opinions (both good and bad).
I have learned that just because a vociferous poster has a strong opinion does not always mean it matches my opinion/experience or the majority of our client base - however they still have a right to their opinion and do not need a 'manufacturer' telling them they are wrong!
Brushes are such a personal experience and for every person that hates a brush another will attest it is their favourite and ‘go to’ brush. So when a strong negative (or positive) is expressed my job is to then weigh that against other comments received from customers on the same brushes and assess the overall response to a product – exactly as I have done with some of the posts in this thread.
I have in the past listened too much to one or two ‘knowledgeable posters’ and brought out brush variants that were commercially not viable as so few people bought them. I have learned lessons as to whom or what to listen to.
I have also had to change some brushes and bristles over the years as certain types of material have become unavailable with the changing chemicals market – this is frustrating when you have a favourite bristle density or feel. However, this is out of our control and we just have to work around this.
I do review feedback though at all times and many customers communicate directly with us – when their feedback matches my thinking and private testing then I will often make some tweaks and still have about 10-20 clients who actively test brushes for us.
I also still maintain a large window cleaning company and clean windows myself. This means I am well placed to have real world experience with which of our brushes works best for which type of work. Doesn’t mean we know everything, but it does mean we still have access to a large amount of on-glass current experience.
If I had unlimited warehouse space, then I probably would sell at least another 10-12 variants of our brushes – which may please a few more potential or past customers. However overall, it would probably not increase our brush sale levels so it is not worth getting more warehouse space just for this. It would also reduce profitability as we would be manufacturing more types in smaller quantities which would increase unit production costs. Production costs have been under a lot of inflationary pressures in the last two years – we have managed to shield the end buyer from most of this, but increasing variants would not help.
The other reason I do not post too often is that once I start typing I do not know when to stop and it results in a very long post such as this one!
Hope everyone has a good day out on the glass - although down here in Cornwall it is very wet and miserable
