Value

A prospective guest recently asked me to confirm that the prices on our web site were for two people for two nights. As I informed him that the rates were in fact for two people but only one night, his disbelief was palpable. Days later, an eventual guest asked me to verify that the posted prices were for one person for one night. When I shared the good news, his delight was commensurate with the disappointment of the earlier caller. This dichotomy in value perception is as common as it is confounding. That our web site clearly explains what our rates encompass is grist for another blog, so more on that later.
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Assigning a dollar figure to an inimitable experience, as opposed to a commoditized one, is a confounding assignment indeed. When a guest reserves a room at Evins Mill, the outlay is for more than square footage - and a good thing too as our rooms do not command much space. But how do you quantify drifting to sleep to the sound of a babbling creek, the aroma of a real wood burning fireplace, the taste of a freshly prepared meal, the singular ambiance of a lodge built of hand hewn logs and poplar floors, or the natural wonder of a cascading waterfall?
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At another level, how do you monetize the exacting attention to detail that only an owner-operated enterprise can muster, the knowledge that said enterprise is the unexampled creation of a locally owned and operated business rather than the formulaic progeny of a remote corporation, or the genuine manner with which a staff member welcomes a guest – an authenticity spawned by a sense of ownership only an owner-operated venture can fully nurture? Such attributes are priceless for some and trifling to others. As the market appropriates fluctuating values on all these inputs and many more, the spectrum of value perception is perplexingly broad.
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While we anchor our rates to reality, tethering them to cost and competition alike, our prices in the end reflect not only the value which the market assigns to the Evins Mill experience, but also the value we assign to it. Here’s to the hope that our values continue to resonate in the marketplace.

Reset

A few mornings ago, a commentator on National Public Radio noted he preferred to view our current economic crisis as a "reset" rather than a recession. It should be duly noted that said commentator still has a job. But while the dozen employees of Evins Mill whom I've recently laid off or whose hours I've drastically truncated might see our economic plight differently, there is something to this notion of a reset. The Inn has certainly reset itself - and in earnest.

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From 2001 to 2007, business grew at an average annual rate of 10% - not sexy like an internet start-up but gratifyingly predictable, solid and steady. Small as our business is, the Inn could never afford to grow profligate in its spending, but I see now that we had become sloppy. Projecting a 20% drop in revenue for 2009, we drafted an austere budget to match the times. That projection may be sanguine but even so, we're managing to budget and then some - at February's end, expenses were 15% less than at the same point last year. So while revenue is notably down, our bottom line is a little bit better. And as that news will come as cold comfort to folks who once counted on working a shift, or to those who once sold us abundant wares and services, as a business owner, it does carry a modicum of reassurance.

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So I have multiple and conflicting feelings about this so-called reset. One, I'm despondent that folks who once earned a fair day's wage with us now have less or no work. Two, I'm encouraged to realize there was enough lard to shed and so help us weather the storm. Three, I'm slightly embarrassed for not managing our expenses more tightly all along. And four, I'm painfully aware that our streamlining contributes further to the economic malaise.

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That happier days will return is not in doubt. It's just with so many families and organizations simultaneously pressing that reset button, it may take longer than we like. However elongated, the Inn has internalized a lesson from this crisis, the first such downturn it has weathered in its fifteen year history. It will be better off for it - as will hopefully all of us.

R.I.P.

I just spoke with a guest of the Inn who described himself as an "industrial anthropologist," someone who studies the birth, evolution and demise of industries, or something along these lines. He was fascinated by the story of our gristmill - its inception, history and current function. I later waxed nostalgically, and then a little sadly, about our mill, when I realized that a part of its story is one of industrial emasculation.

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Edgar Evins built the mill in 1939 - four floors of water powered machinery, grinders, cogs, gears, shafts, wheels, conveyor belts and more - all working in unison to generate tangible products - in this case corn and flour. From the few accounts I've gathered, it was an impressive operation - and one that only ran for about five years. Though modern by earlier milling standards, other emerging technologies apparently rendered this form of milling dated, if not obsolete. So the mill faced an inexorable extinction, though its ultimate fate was arrested until recently - at first by Edgar's son, U.S. Congressman Joe L. Evins, who revivified operations in the 1960s.
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The Congressman wasn't pursuing profit but was simply attempting to keep a slice of Tennessee history alive. He disassembled some of the machinery on the first floor to make space for a quaint country store, a noticeable declension from its earlier and grander purpose. The next industrial declension, and one of a more rigorous nature, occurred in 1991, when my father Bill Cochran, Sr. converted the upper two floors into the conference center it is today. Most of what remained of the original mill was on its first floor, where two flour grinders and a corn grinder forlornly stood. Only the corn grinder functioned.
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For the next fifteen or so years, our family and later our business would run the mill and grind some corn, not for profit or even in a spirit of preservation, but for kicks, either for our own or those of our guests. The penultimate step on the mill's road to industrial perdition was the conversion in 2006 of its first floor from what little still remained there to a game hall with billiards, table tennis and dart boards. While the flour grinders were moved to the front entrance for its adornment, the corn grinder was sequestered in the dark and dank basement and hooked up as a life-line to the main shaft so it could still grind a little corn now and then.
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It was like an unwanted hand-me-down piece of furniture, banished to make room for more current and trendier styles. Though the corn grinder remained viable for two more years, its operation there was punctuated by neglect and chronic mechanical failure. When the foundation for the main water wheel cracked in 2008, the grinder ground its last bit of grist, as milling operations, such as they were, halted until a future repair. That task will likely be postponed for years due to its cost and uncertain economic conditions. So a building born in an industrial era and once pulsating with powerful machinery, has been wholly neutered and transformed - to a place of more leisurely pursuits.