What I've Learned - The Big Comeback

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been working Watch Town adjacent for the better part of 20 years now. And as is tradition with this outlet, from time to time I like to reflect on just what I've learned on this little journey.

1. There will always be someone smarter, faster, and better than you.

This is true on every side of the business - manufacturing, marketing, sales, and the Fourth and Fifth Estates. Recently mighty retail empires have contracted to the point of near collapse, and the former aspiring have taken the field. And once mighty journalists representing once mightier print and digital outlets are now starting to dust off their CVs. Some have found their way to brands where new positions in marketing departments have been created just for them! Let's hope they last. 

And now we get ready for the big payback!

2. Thought the SIHH was snotty? Watches and Wonders served up an even colder cup of coffee to several loyal, consistent attendees from the press corps in the parlor game better known as "High School Was The Best Time of My Life, and Now I Get To Relive it!". Needless to say, it is clear that certain media outlets will never be seeing the inside of the Palexpo because certain newly minted brand representatives are carrying the sorts of grudges that would give Prom Queen First Runners Up a hernia.

3. A Sale is a sale not when the watches arrive at the retail outlet, but when they leave said outlet on the wrist of a paying customer. It is great to see the enthusiasm of the brand and of the retail partner. And in a perfect world, all of those watches would leave through the front door at close to full retail. In the real world, high volume typically equals thinner margins. It's great that the export numbers are up, in the end it means very little in terms of actual sales.

4. "My friend" still means "You &*$king asshole!"

And I will close this as I often do with a thought about the impermanence and malleability of those who live and work in Watch Town, as first shared by George C. Scott as General George Patton -

"For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph - a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."