Feedback – Lesson Learned

Industry Award winners Conrad Leduc, Parker Lopez and Jeremy “Taco” Patterson discuss the mistakes they’ve made and how the lesson changed their approach.

“My biggest mistake was matching attitude with a bad client. I’m an emotional person and when you only get one to two bad clients a year, you don’t end up with a lot of experience dealing with negative people. I can’t say I’ve been completely calm when someone is angry, usually over something they don’t understand while we try to explain. Nowadays, things are different when it comes to a client who doesn’t want to listen to a professional opinion. If they simply don’t want to listen and let us be the professionals we are, we politely excuse ourselves from their job.” Conrad Leduc, Sudbury Car Audio, Sudbury, Ontario

“In the past, I made the mistake of giving a timeframe for a project. I learned not to promise a time because you never know what you might run into—especially while working on vehicles.” Parker Lopez, Car Stereo One, Toledo, Ohio

“I made the mistake of giving a customer an appointment date and not actually putting the appointment onto our schedule, resulting in a double-booking situation. I’ve battled ADD all my life, but I hate the way ADD medications make me feel. This results in mistakes of this nature happening occasionally. We usually have some fail-safes in place, but sometimes I just have to face the customer and my team and own the mistake, and then do what I can do to make it right with everyone involved. That can be a delicate balance between my customer, and my team, who need to know they can trust me. From this, I have learned to try my very best to stay focused and, if anything, try to overcompensate by making multiple notes for myself of anything that I have to return to and follow up on.” Jeremy “Taco” Patterson, Speakerbox Autosound and Accessories, Huntsville, Ala.