• Feature Article: Confessing My 10 Year Love Affair
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Feature Article:

 

My love affair has given me countless hours of pleasure. Sometimes late at night. Sometimes early in the morning. I've even snuck away in the middle of the day for a steamy rendezvous. There have been many, many days I've experienced it twice in one day. 

 

My love affair makes me lose all track of time. I'm obsessed by it. I think about it when I can't be there. It's one of the first things I think about every morning and sometimes I just can't go to sleep without it. It's the source of much of my creativity. My greatest fear in life is the very scary thought of someday having to chose between my love affair and my family.

 

I remember the day my wife discovered my affair. I was late for dinner...again. But this time, she decided to track me down. When she knocked on the door, my heart sank. I knew right then and there that I was going to have to confess and face the music.

 

"Are you ever going to get out of the shower?" she asked impatiently.

 

"Yeah, in a minute," I replied, trying to hide my guilt.

 

"Well, dinner's ready and we're hungry," was her not-too-pleased response. "The kids and I are starting without you."

So, I quickly got out of the shower, dried off, and ate dinner while my family teased me about my love affair with the shower.

 

Technically, my love affair is with my Speakman Anystream shower head. It is simply the best shower head ever invented. I've experienced dozens of different shower heads in my life, from the crappy plastic Wal-mart types to those gigantic round ones that simulate a "gentle rain". Nothing compares my classic Speakman. 

Why do I love it so much?

It is so simple and so dependable I almost can't even describe it. It puts out the perfect stream of water every single time. Sure, it's adjustable, but I never adjust it. It's perfect just the way it is. It is made of solid brass and it weighs as much as my dog.

It's completely elegant in its simplicity. It doesn't tout a laundry list of bells and whistles. It just works. It's the Mac of the shower world. And it's the Mac-daddy of my world. It is one of only 6 things that I would risk my life to save if my house was burning down (the other 5 are living creatures).

 

My love affair started the same place many love affairs do: in a hotel room in another city. I can't remember the city or the hotel. I just remember falling in love with the shower head so fast and so intensely that I immediately located one when I returned to Columbus. It cost about four times as much as any shower head I had ever purchased before. I didn't care. I was in love. Price didn't matter.

 

Are you you that good at what you do?

 

Is your core product so totally awesome that it causes your customers to fall madly, deeply passionately in love with it? 

 

Is your product so well designed, and so well built that it would be almost impossible to break or break down?

 

Is your core product so good that it doesn't require any bells & whistles to convince someone of its worth?

 

If YOU are your core product, can you answer these questions the way you should? Are you bringing your best to your boss, your team, your clients, your customers, every day -- creating long-lasting value and inspiring intense loyalty? Or could your "core product" use some improvement?

 

If you struggled with any of these questions, then you probably need to take a good, long look at yourself or your product. Or at the very least, take a good, long shower with a Speakman showerhead. I can't promise anything, but I have had most of my most important "aha moments" of the past ten years under it's magical, mystical influence.