Tag Archives: business thinking

March 2, 2018 · 12:33 pm

Why I Had To Buy The Crackers

This Foodie Friday we have a tale from the aisles of my local Harris Teeter. For those of you unfamiliar with the chain, it operates over 230 stores and 14 fuel centers in seven states and the District of Columbia. They’re originally from North Carolina and their southern hospitality is the story I’d like to hold up to you (or y’all) today as a best practice for any of us in business.

I do my weekly shopping at the HT, generally on Thursdays (extra 5% discount for us old folks!). I was wandering around the deli section trying to find some crackers that were on sale. An HT employee, whose sole responsibility seemed to be to walk around and to look for confused customers, asked me if I was having trouble finding something. I told her I was and what the missing item was. She walked over to the department manager to inquire and he immediately stopped what he was doing, came over, and told me that he had some more of the items in the back. He encouraged me to keep shopping and return to the deli later while he would go get the items.

No more than 5 minutes later, as I was wandering down an adjacent aisle, up walks the manager, 4 boxes of crackers in hand, one of each flavor. Now, you might not remember this, but I’m fairly fanatical about not eating non-whole grains or sugar or simple carbs. Without looking, I took 2 boxes of the crackers from him, thanked him profusely, and carried on. After he had left, I read the labels. These were not generally the sort of crackers I’d buy. However, he had gone to such effort to get them for me that I felt an obligation to do so.

That, my friends, is the reciprocation tendency in action. That, as you may recall,  is the tendency to want to return the favor when someone helps us or gives us something. I gladly bought two boxes of crackers I’ll probably only serve to guests just because the customer service was so excellent. As an aside, it’s a cultural thing in the store. Someone is constantly available to help you and they do so willingly and immediately. The store also does ongoing customer service surveys.

I’ve written about it before and will continue to do so. Customer service is, by my reckoning, the single most important distinguishing factor for most businesses today. Customers expect convenience and speed when they interact with your company, along with a smile. In this case, I bought something I probably would not have as a way to reward that service. What can you be doing to get your customers to do the same?

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February 26, 2018 · 12:34 pm

New Greens, New Breaks

One of the first things you learn about writing is that you generally want to stick to writing “what you know.” That’s why things around here generally revolve around business, golf, and food. Sometimes those three things intersect (a bad food experience at an obviously failing snack bar on some golf course?) but generally I manage to get two of the three put together, and all the screeds have a business point to make.

Today, as is often the case on Mondays, something occurred to me on the golf course over the weekend. My home course replaced the greens last summer. We went from bent grass greens to Minverde Bermuda greens. I can hear your eyes rolling, but let me explain what that has meant and why it just might be meaningful to you and your business.

One thing with which many businesses are dealing, either directly or indirectly, is climate change. In the case of golf courses here in North Carolina, it’s meant that some strains of grass just can’t take the heat and clubs spend a lot of money trying to prevent them from dying. There are dead spots, root rot and massive fans that are installed near some greens which run up the power bill trying to cool down the grass that can’t take the heat. Our place lost parts of 5 greens two years ago. The takeaway is that you can believe or not believe in climate change but you can’t ignore the effects that whatever is going on is having. I don’t suspect you run a golf course, but you may stock seasonal items or have staffing needs that are weather-dependent and you can’t stick to the calendar as you once knew it.

That, however, isn’t my main point today. One of the other things that happened when they replaced the greens is that everything was different. The speed was different, the way the ball moved on the green was different, and the new greens were very hard, so you couldn’t land the ball where you used to because it would bounce and roll. The breaks (how the ball moved in response to the topography) were completely different, so all of the local knowledge you had was gone. I will tell you that it’s frustrating to have a putt you’ve made many times before suddenly not move as much as it once did. It is also difficult to train yourself to ignore the slope you know is there because you also know the ball isn’t moving the way it used to.

That sort of thing happens in your business. Things change and you can’t operate under your old belief system. I may believe the ball will move three feet left but on the new green, it barely moves. You may think to be on Main Street will assure you of foot traffic but when the new mall opens, your reality will be quite different. You need to do the best you can is reading the new terrain and adjust your thinking. Otherwise, you’re going to be missing the mark quite a bit, sort of like I did this weekend. New greens mean new breaks and that means a new look at everything you do. Make sense?

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February 21, 2018 · 12:57 pm

Making A Deal

If you spend any time in business, you end up in a negotiation of some sort. It might begin even before you start at a job as you negotiate your salary. More likely, it happens as you work on a deal and document that deal with a contract. You might think that the deal is done when you shake hands but my experience has been that the deal is never really done, even once you’ve both signed that contract.

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To me, the contract is a reference point, something to which the parties can turn if there is a change in circumstances or confusion about expectations. As with any relationship, business deals tend to be fluid, but if the partners work in good faith, any problem is solvable. You should also remember that contracts generally last beyond the actual deal itself (check those clauses in the “survival” section).

Because agreements and partnerships are long-term, the negotiations have to be viewed in that long-term context as well. The odds are that success in the negotiation is not immediate. I have had a contract take longer to get done and signed than the term sheet that documents the general business points. It’s not because the former is done by lawyers and the latter generally by business people either. It really has more to do with the fact that others are getting involved. I’ve found that negotiating success is inversely proportionate to the number of people involved – two people can get something done that ten can’t, even though those ten can be helpful in surfacing new approaches when things bog down.

You need a couple of things to negotiate well. First, you need to know your bottom line – the boundaries you are unwilling or unable to move beyond no matter what the other side offers. You must be willing to walk away if those boundaries are crossed. You also have to be realistic about where to draw those boundaries and let the other side know when they’re asking you to cross them and why. It’s no place for dogma. If you don’t have a real reason and just want to “win,” you’ll lose.

Second, you need a vision of what the possible end result might be. You need to consider solutions with an open mind. Finally, you need to sit on the same side of the table as the person with whom you’re negotiating. I don’t mean physically. I mean you need to convey a positive message – if we work together, we might find some solution that addresses all of our concerns. We are partners in solving a problem.

I’ve had deals fall through during negotiation but they’re the exception. I’ve also had partners not live up to the contracts they signed for various reasons. That’s more common and generally because they weren’t thinking long-term when they signed the deal. What’s your experience been?

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