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Something I read, and I felt like passing on:
Way back in the stone-ages of 2005, by Internet reckoning, I was a-stroll in the pleasantly packed dealer's room at that year's Anthrocon convention. I meandered the tables and took in the delights as anyone and everyone was wont to do when lo and behold, I found a penny in front of a dealer's table.Posted at http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/809696/
I plucked it up and offered it to the artist whose table I found it in front of. A simple gesture, lightened all the more with a jovial "Your table dropped a penny!"
The table's owner looked me in the eye with a sardonic expression and retorted rather snarkily, "Yeah, what am I supposed to do with that?" She then turned to putter around in her materials, ignoring me. Quite perturbed at the snub, I shrugged, pocketed the penny, glanced down at her nametag and moved on.
Without intending to, I committed that artist's name to memory. That artist's name and that chance instant of negatively open snub from them have become inextricably intertwined in my memory to the point that, upon seeing the artist at every Anthrocon since, I have made it a point to simply overlook her table and not observe her (admittedly lovely) artistic wares.
Suppose I was the type to tell my friends (who regard my social savvy quite highly) not to go to this artist because her first impression face to face was offensive? Fortunately I'm more professional than to take a chance encounter as a merit of someone's personality to hold others to.
Yet I still remember that snub, and I refuse to peruse their table by choice.
I have done the Dealer's Den in my first two ACs in '01 and '02, so I know the drill. But as businessfurs, we have an obligation to have a positive business savvy when on the show floor, and to be amicable to potential customers whenever they come to our tables. Because if we don't, then situations like the one I've just related are likely to happen. Customers can and will make decisions like the kind I have if you don't speak to them as more than either walking wallets or short-bus rejects. This convention, let's try to keep a little business savvy. It'll do you, and them, a world of good..and ensure you get return customers in the future.
-- Dingo / Niko
