August 29, 2013 · 10:25 am

Getting Pinned

Credit card

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A friend had her pocket picked last night. Yes, I’m being literal – they got her wallet and immediately ran to a couple of stores to buy electronics which are easily turned into cash on the street. Fortunately she noticed her wallet missing not long afterwards and so was able to block the credit cards relatively soon.  Still, thousands of dollars of goods were charged – they were few in number but big in price.

As someone who used to supervise a fairly large online sports store, I’m well aware that it’s usually the merchant who bears the brunt of these fraudulent purchases.  Most of the time, the onus is on the retail outlet to verify that the card is being used by the rightful owner or the outlet will eat the cost of the goods refunded to the consumer.  Because of that, there are a lot of electronic countermeasures taken during online checkout to be sure that the card is real by both merchants and card issuers. You may even have experienced some of them while traveling, especially if you’ve gone out of the country (banks don’t like it when the card is suddenly being used overseas!).

What strikes me as odd, however, is that it’s far easier to commit fraud in the real world than it is online.  Think about your last experience charging something with a credit card.  The cashier may not have even looked at the card to see if the sex of the user matches the name on the card.  They might not have verified the signature.  Neither of those, by the way, is much of a deterrent.  Maybe you swiped the card at a gas pump which then asked for your zip code.  As in my friend’s case, if they have the entire wallet, there is probably something in there identifying the correct zip so that doesn’t work either.

Contrast that with a bank debit card.  You must have a PIN to use the card.  Forget the pin and there is no way to get cash or make a purchase.  Does anyone think it’s odd that when the bank is on the line (as with a debit card) for the money there is a fairly secure (ok, very secure except for the idiots who write the PIN on the card) check but it’s not there when someone else is liable?

It seems like a pretty simple fix and it can save billions.  Like many things in business, you shake your head and wonder why no one is taking the time to do it.  You agree?

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August 28, 2013 · 8:32 am

Having A Dream

Today is the 50th anniversary of the “I Have A Dream speech Dr. King gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  I began to write about him and my memories and then I realized I had already done so in 2009.  In reading it again, the thoughts seem appropriate to today as well so here is it once more, albeit slightly edited.

I’m old enough to remember Dr. Martin Luther King and while he didn’t light the fire of the civil rights movement in the US (I’d say Rosa Parks is that hero), he certainly brought the fire to life and tended it well until his assassination (and I remember that as well – how horrible a day it was!).

Martin Luther King, Jr.

What inspired me, a young (then) white kid was his notion of bringing a dream to reality. OK, the words and delivery were pretty inspirational too, even when you read them off a page. Yesterday the Inauguration Committee had a concert on the very place where Dr. King gave his “I Have A Dream” speech to celebrate, nearly 46 years later, a big piece of that speech coming to reality. One can’t help but wonder what Dr.King would have felt and said – he certainly should still be alive – he’d just be turning 80.

Robert Kennedy said “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”  I think that’s great business advice as well, even if George Bernard Shaw had the notion before Bobby.  Mark Twain wrote that “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

So today, I celebrate Dr. King’s dreaming of a better world and making it happen.  Tomorrow, we can watch it become real.  What are you dreaming of?  Can it be real?  Why not?  Or better – why not!!

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August 27, 2013 · 9:55 am

Take The Money And Run

TunesDay, and what better theme for a business-related post than the Steve Miller Band‘s Take The Money And Run?  Steve Miller is an interesting cat.  Unlike most rock stars, he’s always been the kind of guy you couldn’t identify in a lineup.  You can probably picture most of the other big-name artists of the 70’s and 80’s.  He might be a little harder to visualize.  The list of musicians who have come though his band over the years – Boz Scaggs being the most notable – include members of Journey, Santana, and others.  The band came out of the Bay Area music scene in the late 60’s and is still with us today.

His song about Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue is about two kids who decide to rob a house, possibly killing the owner in the process.  They evade the law and get away singing “Go on, take the money and run.”  The story is in complete contrast to the light music – let’s listen and see:

There is a business point here.  Too many businesses think as do Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue.  They’re not particularly concerned with what’s right, only with themselves.  They practice the Golden Rule: he who has the gold rules, and once they extract it from their victims, they’re gone.  That tactic worked once for these kids and it won’t work much more often for a business.  One bad customer experience can haunt a company forever (just ask United Airlines about guitars).  An American Express survey found a couple of years ago that people tell an average of nine people about good experiences, and nearly twice as many (16 people) about poor ones.

You don’t need to take the money and run as a business.  That same survey found a large majority of people (70 percent) are willing to spend an average of 13 percent more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service.  In other words, your customers will GIVE you the money if you do right by them, and they’ll keep coming back.

While it makes for a clever little tune, taking the money and running is a bad business idea.  You agree?

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