When Business Ain't Great
In attending meetup groups and business mixers, you meet a lot of people. I'm fortunate enough to meet the kinds of people who have upped and started their own small businesses, whether they're full-time or just a hobby on the side. I learn a lot from these people.
The tone of these conversations is generally extremely positive, but sometimes, you will meet someone who is complaining about how tough it is out there. It might be the purveyor of a used bookstore talking about how people are just reading everything on their Kindles these days, so for their shop, business is suffering.
When I encounter this kind of conversation, I have a question that I like to ask: "Over the course of the past year, what have you learned from your customers, and what are you doing differently now as a result of that feedback?"
It's a selfish question. I don't offer it in order to send a subtle message to the person I'm talking to. (I'm not the guy who should be giving advice about how to run a business.) I offer the question because it changes the tone of the conversation from a gripe session to something structured from which I might be able to learn something. If the person offers a story about customer feedback that changed the way they ran their business, there could be a great takeaway for me in that.
And if they don't have an answer to the question, then it brings about an end to the conversation. Just as well...if that's the case, then I'm not convinced they've earned the right to complain.
The tone of these conversations is generally extremely positive, but sometimes, you will meet someone who is complaining about how tough it is out there. It might be the purveyor of a used bookstore talking about how people are just reading everything on their Kindles these days, so for their shop, business is suffering.
When I encounter this kind of conversation, I have a question that I like to ask: "Over the course of the past year, what have you learned from your customers, and what are you doing differently now as a result of that feedback?"
It's a selfish question. I don't offer it in order to send a subtle message to the person I'm talking to. (I'm not the guy who should be giving advice about how to run a business.) I offer the question because it changes the tone of the conversation from a gripe session to something structured from which I might be able to learn something. If the person offers a story about customer feedback that changed the way they ran their business, there could be a great takeaway for me in that.
And if they don't have an answer to the question, then it brings about an end to the conversation. Just as well...if that's the case, then I'm not convinced they've earned the right to complain.