If You Ever Mowed Your Lawn And Found A Car…

…YOU might be a redneck.

Good ‘ol Jeff Foxworthy. That bit’s pretty old, but it seems like every time he trots it out, or someone repeats some that they remember, I hear a new one.

You know the funniest part? We here at Extensitech may be in the heart of Florida (a different flavor of “the south”, but the south nonetheless), but we’re not exactly salt of the earth farmers. Nevertheless, the funniest “you might be a redneck” jokes are the ones that sound familiar, where I go, “Wow, I guess I’m a bit of a redneck!” It’s even funnier when it hits home and I find out I’m laughing at myself!

Know what’s even more fun? I have some friends that, if you met them, you might think Jeff Foxworthy had, too. (I’m not outing them, or insulting them. As Mr. Foxworthy once put it, a redneck is just someone who is “gloriously unsophisticated”.) Still, when I trade these zingers with those friends, I see the same hilarious shock of recognition on their faces, too!

So why do I bring this up? I’ve been thinking a lot about what we at Extensitech do for our clients, and how surprisingly hard it is to explain it to the people that need us most. Like my dyed-in-the-wool, gloriously unsophisticated friends, it sometimes surprises them to hear a familiar tale, and go, “Wow, maybe I need Extensitech!”

So I thought maybe I’d try out Mr. Foxworthy’s technique. As with him and his “gloriously unsophisticated” friends, I’m not trying to insult anyone. Business is tough sometimes, and it’s often borderline comical the gyrations all businesses, and business owners, will go through (and occasionally, have to go through) to get the job done. Nothing wrong with that get-it-done (Git R Done) mentality. Sometimes, though, we need a little levity to remind us that we’ve hung on a little too long to a “gloriously unsophisticated” way of doing things.

Let’s “Git Er Done”

So here goes. Feel free to read these in the cadence of “you might be a redneck” jokes (we highly recommend using the accent too), and see if any of this rings a bell…

If you have a marvel of modern computing on your desk, and you still need a calculator sitting next to it…YOU might need Extensitech
Do you have to type “999” when you really mean zero? Have you ever typed “blank” into a space that was already blank? Or have you ever had to create dummy invoice on the computer, or a dummy contact… or a “dummy” anything? If you lie to your computer because it just wouldn’t understand…YOU might need Extensitech
If you’re typing something that was printed out of a computer into your computer…YOU might need Extensitech
If you need a three-ring binder on your desk…YOU might need Extensitech…For that matter, if you still own a three ring binder… or a fax machine, or a pager, or a typewriter…YOU really need Extensitech
Do you have to take notes on scraps of paper just to keep up with what’s going on in your company, or remember the things you need to do? If your whole day can be screwed up because you forgot to read a post-it note…YOU might need Extensitech
Are your relationships with your best customers really relationships with your best salespeople? Have those salespeople gone from being the main point of contact to being the ONLY point of contact, because no one else knows what’s going on with your customers? If you’re worried that your best salesperson could leave the company and take all her clients with her, because only she knows what’s going on with with them…YOU might need Extensitech
If you have to enter new orders here… and here… and here…YOU might need Extensitech
If you ever, ever, ever have to sort out paper that was printed in your office, and it’s not because of a printer malfunction….YOU might need Extensitech
If you have more spreadsheets than you have customers…YOU might need Extensitech
If there’s a question that comes up often, with only one right answer, but only you know the answer so everyone keeps asking you…YOU might need Extensitech
“Hey, do you have John Smith’s phone number?” If your best talent spends part of the day as a human phone book…YOU might need Extensitech
If it takes you more than ten minutes to figure out what commissions are due at the end of the month…YOU might need Extensitech
If you have a “gut feel” about who your best customer is, or what you best-selling product is…YOU might need Extensitech
If you ever have to scroll through a list, running your finger along the screen like a first-grade reader, trying to find what you’re looking for…YOU might need Extensitech
If you have to enter people’s names last name first, and you’re not in Asia…YOU might need Extensitech
If you have to type someone’s full name, or their address (or anything, for that matter) more than twice to get your job done…YOU might need Extensitech…and if you have to type it into more than one machine, you need us even more!
“Okay, so first type in the customer number here, then double-click this icon and scroll until you see the customer number. Click on that, then find the product they’re ordering and scroll over until you see a price. Double click that, highlight it and copy it. Now close that window, go to the shared drive and find that product…” If your job sounds like a cheat code for your xBox….YOU might need Extensitech
If your customer asks where his shipment is, and you put him on hold to go out the warehouse….YOU might need Extensitech
If you have to have a customer call back tomorrow to get any help, because someone’s out sick…YOU might need Extensitech
If you have even a single employee who sits at the computer all day, and a description of their job doesn’t include the word “decide”…YOU might need Extensitech
If you own more than one filing cabinet that you need something out of more than once a week…YOU might need Extensitech
If technology is an interruption to your job, and not a partner in getting your job done…YOU might need Extensitech
If, on a daily basis, you use one or more excel spreadsheets, a Word Document, an e-mail client and a calendaring tool to do your job…YOU might need Extensitech

Any of this sound familiar? Heck, maybe now that you’ve got the hang of this, you’re ready to add your own you might need Extensitech “jokes”. (Let me put that in quotes, and reassure you that I’m keeping my day job.)

I’ll be honest, just writing this I came up with a few that hit close to home even for Extensitech! Like any other small business, we’ll always have room for improvement. Also, like any other small business, we’re sometimes too busy chopping down trees to sharpen the saw. (Or, as we say here in Florida, “Sometimes when you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s hard to remember that you’re here to drain the pond.”) We have our own solution, and we’re constantly improving it, ditching one “gloriously unsophisticated” process after another, so we can do things well, and do them efficiently, rather than just Git R Done.

(We call our customized xBase solution “AYB” or “All Your Base (are belong to us)”… Yes, we’re geeks.)

So, maybe you just realized that YOU might need Extensitech. Or maybe you’re already a client, and you just realized there’s more we can do for you. Regardless, if any of this struck a chord, call us!