Better Business
If you own a business, you want to do better business. There is no tried and true way to do this, but there are some business models that you can follow. You have to find out what works, what doesn’t work, and what no one else has thought of. That’s not very easy, as you may know, but if you do your homework you can come up with some unique ideas to keep things ticking over. It’s not even a talent in most cases; it’s a matter of diligence and perseverance.
Doing better business means doing better business than anyone else in town. That statement may be obvious, but some many people over look that simple point. You have study the competition and do better. Doing just as well or offering the same service won’t make you a huge success. You have to give more, and when you do, you get more in return. If you see what they are doing and improve upon it, you are going to pull in the customers. If you only on par with them, customers may not know which way to go, and you’ll split the crowd instead of luring them in.
I know a man who had a great business in a great spot. I worked for him for a while, but I soon knew that he wasn’t going to last long. For what he was doing, he had a better business than anyone else. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was his mouth. Though he had a good business model and there were a lot of people coming in the door, he soon drove them away until he had to go out of business. What could he have done to have a better business? He could have kept his mouth shut.
This man had a habit of airing his somewhat ridiculous and very pompous views on just about everything to the customers in his store. One by one he offended his customers. At one point, all of the people who worked with my dad at a very large company all decided not to shop in his store. Why? It was because he offended them with one of his comments about unions. He lost five hundred customers in one day because of his mouth. So much for a better business, right?
He slowly alienated almost everyone who came in, and I could do nothing but stand there and shake my head. I knew his days were numbered long before he did. He thought that relating with his customers was a way to have a better business. What he didn’t realize was that his choice of subject matter was always wrong. If you want a better business, keep in touch with your customers, but by all means, lay off the gossip, the political agendas, and stop telling dirty jokes!
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