At Greenwich, the story centers on the mystery of longitude, or the challenge of determining a sailing ship’s exact location at sea. Historically, Latitude was calculated through the use of a sextant to triangulate the difference (north or south) between a ship’s location and the equator. Longitude, on the other hand, was calculated by a process the great explorers of the day called “dead-reckoning” (sailing jargon for “guess-work”).

Anyway, we enjoyed the exhibits at Greenwich—star-maps, telescopes, sextants, clocks, and other scientific instruments. But more to the point, we enjoyed the dramatic presentation skills of our tour guide: a young thespian, dressed in period costume. We all agreed his story of ship wrecks, prize money, and technical innovation made the otherwise boring tale of longitude come alive. This in turn made the actual exhibits all the more meaningful and compelling.

I believe there is a good lesson in the above anecdote; and it has to do with the value of telling the story behind our products and services when we market Glenair to new customers: We operate in an industry with a dozen or so smaller-scale suppliers of commercial and military-standard interconnect accessories. Many of these companies are limited in product offerings, quality of service, and speed of delivery. Others have limited manufacturing capacity, engineering resources and international presence. But when the potential new customer places a Glenair backshell side-by-side with a competitor’s product, what difference, if any, shows through?

The answer should be Glenair’s Quality of Service. We are the world’s largest and most experienced manufacturer of interconnect accessories. We have more manufacturing capacity, more engineering resources, more approvals, and more product offerings than anyone else in the business. We also have the credentials earned from thousands of successful applications, and a long history of meeting customer requirements with complete convenience in ordering, same-day product availability and world-class quality.

But clearly, a potential new customer can’t experience these differences just by comparing parts. They need help. They need to learn the difference between Glenair and the small-scale supplier in a way that makes the comparison meaningful and compelling. They need to hear the story.

So, take a lesson from our tour guide at Greenwich and help make an otherwise boring exhibit (the backshell) come alive: explain our company history, cite our reference accounts, describe our factory capabilities, extol our design expertise, and promote our same-day inventory. And by the way, don’t forget to introduce all the other interconnect products and solutions available from Glenair. It’s the kind of story most new customers are anxious to hear.