Are you running a business or a lemonade stand?
The difference is in whether your first priority is the dollars you collect or the products and services you exchange for them. A subtle difference, but a revealing one, in terms of “give and ye shall receive.” Lemonade stand owners take first, give later (maybe).
Signs your running a lemonade stand:
- You have a sign that says “cash only” beside the register, effectively ignoring the reality of the paying-with-plastic 21st century and inconveniencing your customers because of it.
- You try to promote a feel-good, take-it-slow philosophy that gives you an excuse for disorganized, slow service at the expense of your customers’ limited lunch hour.
- You comfortably use the term “fee”, a euphemism for “overhead expenses that I’m not willing to accept on my customers’ behalf.”
- You charge for photocopies, faxes, emails and transactions, because you haven’t realized or accepted that your customers are already paying you for them.
- You get paid per visit, so you over-book your waiting room to ensure your daily billings are maximized, and thereby waste your customers’ time while they wait for you. (Luckily, such an instance gave me the time to write this post.)
- You think creating “barriers to exit” and entrapping your customers in convoluted pricing schemes are still accepted practices.
One day, these silly ideas (and their practitioners) will be as dead as the dinosaurs. I look forward to that day, when the only lemonade stands left are the ones run by our kids.
