Survival of the Service

From a corporate point of view, service trumps sales. While both are needed, it could be argued that service is worth more. In terms of direct impact to the bottom line, without service, that is people who can actually do something, real work that dare we say requires getting dirty, well there would simply be nothing left to sell. This point can be illustrated by referencing incidents of financial disaster. Times like the Great Depression, the .com implosion, the real estate bubble bursting, the Enron scam, etc., etc. At such times, service not sales proved to be very valuable. It is what you can do when you have nothing that means everything. In the “old days” bartering required real and tangible property to be exchanged.

“Service” however proved to be the trump card. Be it plowing a field, building a house, or any other sort of manual task which person A needed and person B could provide created opportunity. This basic transaction model whereby a service is exchanged for something else of value survives down to our day. The difference lies in value being placed on the service and not the item. At any given time, a person may lack “items” which are considered valuable in the marketplace. Or the value of the item has changed whereby even if you have something it isn’t “worth” anything. Take a first generation iPhone as an example. These drops in value can happen overnight, like with the release of a new model, or especially during times of recession. Real estate is certainly not exempt. As home prices exceed what the average worker can afford the inevitable bubble grows larger. At some point it will pop and prices will fall like a deck of cards. No material good is immune to depreciation. Like a heart attack it can happen suddenly and at any time. Yet, usually it is not without some indicator of the impending doom.

The moral of the story is that as we face critical times, full of financial anxiety, do not ever forget the power of “service”. The ability to actually do something, the possession of a real skill will perhaps be the only thing that “pays the bills” during truly tough times. It has happened before, no doubt it will happen again. A time where money is worthless and the only thing that counts is if we have learned how to “serve” instead of being “served”. It will be the humble willing workers that survive the tribulation. Before we either look down on, forget about, or even choose not be a so-called “lowly laborer” remember that without service, sales would have a whole lot of nothing to sell.