I neglected to address one issue that I saw in the thread yesterday and I wanted to clarify a few things. I don't take or process phone orders. The only time I'll end up on the phone with a customer is if he or she is a friend, or has a difficult question that someone else on the staff can't answer, or I do end up on the phone with those customers that are rude, crude, abusive, curse, or have no manners. I've instructed the two women that answer the phone, my mom who is in her eighties, and my wife, that if they encounter this kind of behavior to send these calls directly to me.
Usually the offending caller realizes the error of his ways, apologizes to me and my staff, and we carry on as if nothing happened. I realize that we all get frustrated and angry but most civilized people are embarrassed when the realize they've been harassing my 80 year old mother and calm down quickly. There are a handful of callers that are too arrogant or stubborn to back down and apologize. I explain to these people that, as this is still a free country, I reserve the right not to do business with them, and I send them packing. They go on my "list". I recognize some of the names in the latest thread as people on my "list". Of course it's easier to claim that I won't sell you a particular item then to admit that you were an ass and treated the female members of my staff badly. You don't really want to tell the whole story, just the part that fits the agenda your pushing. As to that agenda, for those new to this google group, you should know that it was founded but a competitor of Legacy's and his supporters. They illegally used our name and product descriptions to lure people searching the web for "Legacy Ornamental Mills" into the group in order to discredit Legacy and poach potential customers for a newly designed CNC routing system with a 4th axis designed and built by the founding member of this group. Cowardly and unethical behavior in my opinion. These are some of the people calling our behavior into question. They, in fact, are some of the most outspoken members of your group. By the way, that company no longer exists buts its supporters continue on with their agenda. To his credit Tim has tried to steer this group away from it's founding member purposes and transform it into a genuine legitimate support group for OM owners. I haven't pursued legal action or asked Google to dissolve this group yet and you all have Tim and Roger to thank for that. They've persuaded me that more good than harm is being done within the group but the past week has made me question the wisdom of that decision. If Legacy were guilty of everything these folks claim we are then we would have been out of business long ago but we are not. We are growing and developing new and better woodworking systems. Our products can be found in some of the finest companies in the world. We've shipped machines into every corner of the world and if you will take the time to do a little research you will find that we have very happy customers and they are making a lot of money. We are not perfect, I know that, but we spend an awful lot of time and money supporting our customers. In the 80's we pioneered the use of training project videos to teach people how to use our equipment. No other woodworking tool manufacturer in the world took the time or spent the money to produce this kind of training. An archive of these videos has been collected by Tim and one way we still support out customers is by allowing this "Legacy owned" material to be distributed freely. We now use YouTube to support our CNC customers. We currently have more than 300 training videos online covering topics from 3d model design, CAD/CAM software, machine setup, tooling, clamping, and G-Code. Less than 10% of the videos we have produced are sales videos describing our products. Over 18,000 subscriber to our YouTube channel turn to Legacy for help and guidance with their CNC questions every week because the manufactures of their CNC woodworking equipment are giving them NO after the sale support. This year we will produce another 60 to 70 new training/project videos for our customers and for the CNC woodworking world at large. We give every customer that purchases one of our CNC systems 2 days of FREE, hands on, factory training. We travel to cities all over the country producing hands on workshops where potential customers can come and "kick the tires" and get a first hand look at our products before they make their purchases. You have to have your head buried in the sand to be unaware of all of this. To make to the kind of uninformed statements found in the latest thread you have to have an agenda or willingly ignore the world around you. You are probably on my "no sale list". You are probably an arrogant soul determined to ignore reality and embrace a fantasy. A fantasy where you are a victim and not a boorish ass that embarrassed, bullied, and harassed the members of my staff and were then too arrogant to apologize. I'm sure that this response will generate more interesting comments from this agenda driven group and I didn't write it to convince them of the error of their ways. I only ask the other members of the group to do your own research and draw your own conclusions. I will issue this challenge to the whole group. When was the last time any of the contributors to this lastest thread posted any pictures of their woodwork? When was the last time they shared with the group some useful and helpful information about the operation or uses of their ornamental mills? When did they, they are the experts after all, produce a helpful training video and post it to YouTube or share it with the group? I know I haven't seen any of their actual work. One of these "experts" says he has business expertise and knows all about running a company, will he risk his own money and spend his own time building a parts business or producing training videos for the group or will he produce the next generation OM? No, I don't hear or see anything like that going on but I do hear their agenda loud and clear. Once again, I suggest that if this group is going to be of any real benefit to OM owners it's time to get the whole story and I repeat my former suggestion, it's time to clean house. Andy Anderson, Legacy Woodworking Machinery -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Legacy Ornamental Mills" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to legacy-ornamental-mills+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/legacy-ornamental-mills. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
