Tag Archives: customers

People always react stupidly to life’s problems.

Posted on January 25, 2012 by
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This happens every single day, and it is time someone points it out.  You’ve probably done this, I’ve done this, and everyone you know usually does this…

 

 

 

 

Have you ever found yourself in these silly predicaments?

1. You hate your job, so you start looking at job ads and sending resumes to them
Wrong approach.

2. Your bank account is low, the bills are mounting, so you cut back on your cellular phone plan or lower your TV channel package.
Wrong approach.

3. Sales at work are dwindling, to get new customers, you lower your prices, put on a major SALE and advertise.
Wrong approach.

4. You had a major fight with a friend, your boss, your spouse, so you decide to go out drinking on Friday night to calm your nerves.
Wrong approach.

By now you’re probably wondering how all of these solutions to these types of problems are wrong.  See, told you, people always react stupidly to life’s problems. While all of those reactions seem like they help the situation, all they actually do, is contribute to the problem.

How can that be? You might say…

It always helps to take a particular situation, exaggerate the same “rule of thumb”, to see how the point remains the same. Let’s take a look at #5 now:

5. The titanic ship is sinking, so you grab a bucket and start bailing water.
Wrong approach.

AHA! Now you’re beginning to understand.  Our first instinct when life presents problems is to look for a quick, and easy solution.  That only works for a short time, and all it does is set you up to receive similar amount of problems in the future.

Let’s look at what your reactions just caused:

1. You start looking at job ads and sending resumes to them, you land a job, but now your new job has an entire different set of problems. You hate your co-workers, the job description doesn’t match what you had expected. Your boss is a jerk, and the company is about to be bankrupt next year.
This reaction created more problems.

2. You cut back on your cellular phone plan or lower your TV channel package.  However next month, you went over you cell phone minutes and got charged $35 extra which negated the savings you were expecting.  Since you had less channels on TV, you found yourself at the local video store paying to rent movies. You even bought a few DVD’s to tie you over. Nothing was on TV, so you went out with friends instead, it ended up costing you money.
This reaction created more problems.

3. To get new customers, you lower your prices, put on a major SALE and advertise.

While sales volume increases, your cost of goods sold (remember that term from accounting class?) has increased.  The cost of the advertising in addition to the lower sales price has basically caused you to break even.  Once you stop the sale, you find that your sales dwindle off, and you’re back to square one. All you did was waste time, energy, and effort into a short term solution that didn’t fix a darned thing.
This reaction caused more problems.

4. You decide to go out drinking on Friday night to calm your nerves.

This may have calmed your nerves, but next week you have a different fight, with the same person, about a different issue. What you’ve solved is nothing really. All you’ve done is put yourself in a situation where the same peril can happen to you again.
This reaction can cause more problems.

5. You begin bailing buckets of water on the titanic as it sinks, and you soon realize, all you did was exhaust yourself. The ship still sunk, but now your out of energy to survive in the cold water, and you perish.  You can’t save a sinking ship, so stop trying.
This reaction caused more problems.

If you’ve read this far, then you want real answers.

I will provide you some ideas, and I’d love to hear your own comments.  Whenever we come up with solutions, it is important to STOP. THINK. DISCOVER. PLAN. EXECUTE

Abbreviated that is S.T.D.P.E  (which isn’t a catchy word, so you’ll just have to get past it)

 

Here are better solutions to the previous 5 examples:

1. You hate your job.

CORRECT: Start talking to people in your industry. This is best done with strangers. People who don’t even know your name. This way you maintain confidentiality so it won’t get back to your current job. Your friends and family won’t judge you and scoff “oh look, John hates his job”.

Read newspapers, do research, network, get the information you need before making a decision on what to do, where to do it, and how to do it.

What’s that? You found out in an industry journal that some massive company is branching out into a new area that you have expertise in? Great.  Scope out the job. Read their history. Find someone that worked there BEFORE, who can talk about the place.

I can’t think for you, but some of you might be saying “Well, how could I possibly find someone that use to work there?”

Think about it. Resumes are posted online.  Websites like linkedin.com carry histories of where people use to work.  Old forum posts from 5 years back might have someone signing their name with a title of the company and then they are signing their name with their new signature.    If there is a will, there is a way, create your own ways.

People that no longer have any ties to companies they use to work have volumes of helpful information that could tell you whether or not it would be a great place for you to work. Heck, people even post publicly about it. “I use to work at XYZ” – they brag about it like credentials on the “About Us” page of a website.

Ask them how the company was doing before they left. Why did they leave? Are they sorry they left? Would they ever consider returning?

2. Your bank account is low, the bills are mounting.

Really? Is your financial situation going to greatly improve by lowering your cell phone bill or TV channel package to only save yourself $50 a month?  Is that the real issue here, you’re only short $50 and your life would be so much better saving that tiny bit of money?

“But it will help, at least right now” you say.

CORRECT: Come up with a long term plan of action FIRST.  Begin executing that longer plan to get you out of this long term problem.  When time permits, (and time always does permit) you can make small changes SECOND.

Obviously your income isn’t matching the expenses you want.  Most people will say “you want too much, you’re living outside of your means.”  While that is true, a better idea is to INCREASE your means.  Raise your income.  That’s better than just lessening the desires for things you want.

3. Sales at work are dwindling, to get new customers, you lower your prices, put on a major SALE and advertise.

Ask yourself first: Why are sales dwindling?  What is the real issue here?

Some people may say “well XYZ is taking our business”.  Well if you are selling the exact same products as XYZ and you lower your prices, don’t you think XYZ will take notice and lower theirs as well, until someone gives in?

CORRECT: Perhaps the product or service you are selling is the real issue.  Perhaps you need to find some products that are EXCLUSIVE to your store.  Maybe you can create a value added service that XYZ competitor doesn’t have.  This is the longer term solution that will help your business.

Customers don’t always shop on price. Often they will shop based on novelty, by recommendation, or perceived value (not just price).  Look and think outside of the box.  If you come up with some real creative ways to reach these customers that XYZ is unable (or unwilling) to copy, then you’ll have people clamoring for your product or service.

4. You had a major fight with a friend, your boss, your spouse, so you decide to go out drinking on Friday night to calm your nerves.

What happens the following Monday? Perhaps another major fight. What will be your solution? Next Friday go out drinking with friends again?

The question is why did the fight occur in the first place? The “details” of the fight isn’t the answer to this question either.

But why?  Who was tense? Who was intolerant. Look at the bigger picture. The details themselves are trivial. Problems happen all the time, that’s normal, and everyone knows that.. But for a fight to erupt means:

CORRECT: Someone is stressed.  Maybe someone simply has a bad personality defect.  Can something be done to lower that person’s stress load, so they are less likely to be so tense?  In the case of a personality defect, you can’t change the person, so maybe it is time to get away from them.

5. The titanic is sinking

CORRECT: Grab a life jacket, and get off the boat as safe as your best options permit. Did I really need to say this?

–

People always react stupidly to life’s problems.

You don’t need to react stupidly.

Think before you act. Plan ahead for a longer term solution and get the process rolling FIRST.

When you get time (and you will get time) you can do some short term solutions SECOND.

This is the key to avoiding reoccurring pitfalls and traps in life. It will hinder similar problems plaguing you in the future.

Your comments?  I hope you have some. I’ve given you plenty of food for thought here.

Other people want to hear what YOU have to say too.

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Customers who owe money and get offensive about it.

Posted on May 29, 2008 by
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Today I had a little verbal altercation with a customer.

Our normal policy is to give 30 days on our invoices, and after that they become past due, and the customer risks having their account suspended.

This particular customer has been with us for 8 years, so we let him go to the 60 day mark.  At that point we contacted him about the arrears, and he told us that the person who pays the bills is gone until next month, and that payment would be made then.

We patiently wait a month, and then 9 days after the person was to return, we send them an email reminder about the amount due. We also mention that we’ve been patient to this point, but we cannot wait any longer.

Well that’s it, the customer is now pissed off.  They tell us that if we are not interested in doing business with them, that they’ll find someone else who will.

I have only two questions:

#1 What business will they be going to that does not expect to collect payments on invoices that are 3 months old?  Are we the only one that thinks that a customer should pay a 3 month old invoice?

#2 Are we out of line for wanting to collect payment and being upfront on it when its 3 months old? Are we the only one in the industry who does that?  I figure that if we cater to our customers, and give them what they want, isn’t it fair to expect a payment in return?

Do I have this all wrong? As a business, are we suppose to give to our customers, whatever they want for free?  Or are we suppose to ask “pretty please, with sugar on top, can you pay your 3 month past due invoice?”

Why must we beg for money that is owed to us?

I understand that sometimes people fall on hard times, or they have employees that have temporarily left the office, but this is not the case here. They were a month overdue the first time, we said nothing. Then they were 2 months overdue, and they said “wait another month until the person returns”. I did that too..

Now its the 3rd month, and we’re asking for payment, and we get back “If you are no longer interested in our business, we’ll find someone else who is..”

What kind of pig headed comment is that to make? I cannot stand customers who owe money and get offensive about it.

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BAD Buffet Tricks and Secrets: How to get rich while making customer sick.

Posted on May 26, 2008 by
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Oh this is a favourite one for me…

How to get rich, while making customers sick. “BAD Buffet Tricks and Secrets”. It could be a book that would probably fly off the shelves. Well actually, maybe a lot of buffet owners already know these things, so it would be nothing new to them.

What I can’t understand, is why buffet food in cheap divey places is allowed to be surved. The ingredients were fine before they were prepared. It’s not like there was a chicken walking around somewhere that had a bad taste disease before it got shipped off to the restaurant, was it?  Was the tomato spoiled when it was picked off the plant?

How is it that they can take these ingredients, do what they do to them (over cook them, poorly season them, let them sit for 6 or 8 hours steady, etc) and totally ruin the food?

The buffet kitchen must be a garbage factory. Good food comes in the shipping/receiving door, it’s processed, and turned into foul, cheap tasting food, riddled with toxins and bacteria and served, all for the low price of $12 for dinner.

So I’m going to poke a little fun here, but you will have to wonder if any of these suggestions are actually true?

HOW TO GET RICH WHILE MAKING CUSTOMERS SICK

This is a satire comedy routine for entertainment only..
DO NOT FOLLOW ANY OF THESE SUGGESTIONS!

Suggestions for the restaurant owner who wants to run a buffet for profit and doesn’t care about making his customers sick.

1. Any food that you have at home that is expiring or spoiling, bag it up and bring it to the buffet restaurant. You can come up with a dish that someone will eat.

2. Advertise a 500 menu item buffet table. Remember! salt is 1 item, pepper is 1 item, sugar is an item, water is an item, coffee is an item, creamers are an item, sweetener packets are an item, what’s that 7 items so far? Ketchup is an item, on, and on, and on…  This way you can fool people into thinking you have a lot of food items, meanwhile all you have is 50% condiments, and 50% food.

3. Keeping food from getting dried out after sitting for 6 to 8 hours isn’t easy. Those heat lamps cause the moisture to evaporate. Sure, you could probably just frequently cook fresh food, enough to meet the demand and frequently replace old food with new, but why go through all that work?  Warm up everything just before lunch hour, and let it sit all day long until 9am.  Add water, LOTS of water. Infact, if you’re worried that you’re watering down the dishes too much, just add more spice, and more water. Water and spice all day.. Everytime the food looks old and dry, throw more watery sauce on it. That will keep it mystery of how old the food is…

4. Instead of option 3, of over-liquifying and manually re-hydrating your dried out old food.. You could simply undercook it!  Cook the food 1/2 way, and eventhough the lunch crowd will probably get sick, they are paying a cheaper price anyway.  This way the food can sit for 5 hours under the lights, and by dinner, hopefully the food will be fully cooked. Remember, if you purposely undercook the food, by the time dinner rolls around, not only will the food be cooked at 120 degrees by the heat lamps, it will also not look dried out! This way the higher paying dinner crowd will get what they are paying for..

5. Don’t buy fresh food from restaurant suppliers. Instead, you can buy food from the discount produce rack at the grocery store.  Look for dented cans, even if they do not have labels.  While you’re at it, put on some ripped clothes and get food from the food bank. Just because you’re a restaurant owner, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t save every last penny you can.. Besides, the customers aren’t looking into the kitchen, so they don’t know where your food comes from..

6. Buy as much pre-packaged food as you can. For instance, fool customers into thinking you’ve prepared nice dishes. Your spaghetti sauce can come out of a big bulk Ragu can. Make lots of kraft dinner and melt some mozerella cheese food product (not real cheese, the kind that has an edible wax additive) all over it, to give the appearance that its just like momma use to make.

7. Those wasteful customers! Watch out when you clean plates with food on it. The 5 year old kid who drooled all over his deep fried chicken leg but didn’t eat it… Go ahead and bring that plate back into the kitchen. 30 seconds in the deep fryer, and it can be put back out again.

8. Put things out on the buffet that you KNOW no one will eat. Stale shrimp with the shell still on is a good one. Make sure you put lots of icky sauce cuz no one will want to peel the shrimp skin off because of the sauce mess.  Put out octopus, whole.. squid with the ink sacks still in them. Any type of seafood that mainstream people do not eat. Then advertise “Seafood buffet $19.99″. When people show up expecting crab, mussels, peeled shrimp and lobster, you can snicker as you give them other “things” that come out of the ocean that are prepared horribly.  Imagine, tuna is seafood — who cares that it came in a can and you shaped into a boneless filet with some garnish on it, these customers do not know anything.

9. Salad bar!  Do you know that one regular bottle of salad dressing with extra water, vinegar, salt, and pepper can yield 18 bottles of the same salad dressing without sacrificing taste?

10. As the owner of a buffet restaurant, you must understand, this is a WAR. You know the customers are showing up to prove to you that they can eat 3X the amount they pay. When they pay $12, they expect to eat $36 worth of food. I know some people might try to tell you that on average it does work out, because some people eat LOTS, but some people eat hardly anything..

Don’t listen to reason this way.. Instead, you do your job of serving substandard product and see how many people you can charge this way before you run out of customers. If you are lucky, some people will even come back two or three times after forgetting about their gastroinstestinal illnesses.

P.S. You’ll have to buy the book, if you want to read things like:

a) How to deep fry foods in cooking oil that is more than 2 years old and never filtered. How fish, chicken, potatoes and more can be deep fried in one vat, and the extra dormant flavor just makes everything taste great.

b) How 80% of everything you serve should be breaded, then battered, then floured, then deep fried. Serving chicken balls? The chicken piece can be the size of a dime, but you can end up with a tennis ball sized ball! By the time they realize what happened, it will be too late.

c) How to serve 37 different types of cheap potatoes with only 2 meat products 

d) How dog and cat food can be made to work for you and your restaurant’s bottom line

e) How stray animals found out in the rear of the restaurant can be useful.

f) How hot dogs and spam can be popular alternatives to the other junk you’re serving

g) How to shave a roast so thinly that people can almost see through the meat! How to turn one 10 pound roast into over 2,500 servings!

Look, don’t get mad at the author for this article. I’ve eaten at so many substandard places over the years, that some of them truly do use this tactics to save a buck. The worst part is, that the public allows it to happen and the health authorities are very lazy at fixing them. They hand out warning after warning, but very little gets done, and I bet there are bribes out there everyday.

If you eat at a restaurant, and within 2 to 4 hours you feel sick, you’re probably the victim of food intoxification or food infection. This is why I applaud www.foodsafe.ca for coming up with a real plan to fix these problems from occurring.

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Padding drink bills at a Pub / Bar / Tavern.

Posted on May 25, 2008 by
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Oh yes, it happens more often than you think.

(First of all, why the heck do we have so many names for a Pub, Bar, Tavern, anyway?)

Scenario 1

So you’re out for the night at your local bar, and your waitress comes by and asks you if you want another beer. You’re there for 4 hours, and get ready to leave. Your waitress presents a bill to you and your wife, showing that 17 drinks were ordered, and you owe $85 plus taxes = $91.02, plus tip it would be $100

You wonder how you both could put away $100 worth of drinks, and you scan the bill. Wait a minute! There’s a vodka/ginger ale on here. We don’t drink that. Oh says the waitress and says yes, I rang it in by accident, it should have been (insert whatever you and your wife were drinking).

You pay the bill, scratch your heads in wonder as you leave, realizing you’re not even that buzzed, how could you both drink so much without realizing it?

Answer: Sit by the cash register POS terminal. Watch how fast she tells the bartender 8 different drinks that need to be made, and she frantically flips in/out of table screens adding 1 drink per person. It’s chaotic there. She’s in a hurry, you see her making errors and fixing them as fast as she makes them. It soon dawns on you.. how many times does she ring in your brand of beer, and accidentally charges you for it, eventhough someone else in the bar is drinking it too?  Ahh.. they are all drunk anyway she thinks. I usually get it right most of the time..

So in fact you might have other people’s drink orders on your tab, and they might have some of yours on theirs..

Scenario 2

You walk up to the bar and ask for a Pepsi. The bartender tells you its $3.35 and you hand him $5 and tell him to keep the change. He pours you the pepsi, hits the cash button on the register, the drawer pops open and he sticks the $5 in while you watch.  Wait a minute, he didn’t ring that in did he? Well, its no skin off your back, you just walk away. Yes he’s cheating the owner, but that’s not your problem. How many times is this guy doing it? Is this why drinks are so expensive? The bartender is skimming the profits.

Scenario 3

You order a fancy mixed drink like a Pina Colada. By the time they run it through the blender, add all the fancy garnishes, etc.. What happened to that 1oz of booze that was suppose to be in it? Oh well, she won’t notice they say. So they serve you a virgin drink (no alcohol) which means your are liable to drink it fast, and order more drinks since they are not having an effect on you.  This is why many times experienced drinkers will ask for their booze and their soda pop to be brought in 2 glasses, so they can see the booze and mix it themselves.

Scenario 3

You walk up to the waitress, plunk down $5 and say whatever that guy is drinking, I’ll buy the next one. She nods, and gives the guy his next drink. He’s 1/2 way through the drink, and you say “hey, did she mention I bought you that one?” Nope, instead, she charged him on his tab, pocketed your $5, and said nothing to no one..

Scenario 4

The bartender’s bar gun has a counter in the back room that increments everytime they push a button for the bar rye, vodka, rum, etc. He knows this, and he knows that the owner will check the bar gun counter along with the cash register summary to see if they match.

Instead, the bartender brings in his own bottle of rum and sits it nearby. When someone orders rum, and they are paying cash, he pours the rum out of his own bottle, and makes change. This way he turns his $30 bottle of rum into $150 and there is no way to trace it.

———

As you can quickly see, there are many ways to cheat the customers by overcharging them, not giving them their proper amount of alcohol, and ways to skim money from the bar’s profits resulting in higher drink costs.

They know that many of the patrons are intoxicated so a greedy bar manager can take advantage of people this way, and they will rarely know it. The only thing that suffers at the end of the day is the customer’s wallet.

Be careful and mindful about what is happening at your local pub / bar / tavern. You might be surprised when you see what is happening right infront of you.

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