Don’t you want my business?

A couple of recent encounters make me think that some businesses don’t really want my business.

First example… Most Sunday mornings, I head to breakfast with a friend. Generally, we try out a new breakfast spot each week. I’ve always thought we should be doing restaurant reviews, but we are rarely that organized. Recently, we tried a little diner near one of the local universities. It’s the kind of place that offers a good deal on their breakfasts in addition to having cheap pitchers of beer at night. This particular morning, I had a hankering for French toast and eggs. They offered pancakes and eggs but when I asked if I could have French toast rather than pancakes, the waitress simply said “no substitutions”.

The restaurant wasn’t exactly busy (there were only one or two other tables) so it shouldn’t have been much trouble for the kitchen to make the substitution. Since I couldn’t have the French toast and eggs I was craving, for which I would have paid $7.99, I switched to the breakfast special at $4.99. Perhaps they had their rationale, but this was a sizable financial mistake on their part. The $3.00 difference is price is not a huge amount of money, but why not seize the opportunity to take more money rather than less? Most businesses, small or large, would jump at the opportunity to increase their revenue by 60%, especially when there is very little cost attached.

The second example relates to a landscaper I called for an estimate on fixing my lawn. I had received a flyer from the company, which was based in a small town outside the city were I live. Rather than look at my lawn to determine what needed to be done, he simply assumed that I had a problem with grubs which would require new sod, the cost of which was $3,000. As much as I would like to have a beautiful new lawn, a $3,000 investment was significantly more than I was willing to pay. Most other estimates were in the hundreds of dollars and all the other companies had came to take a look before committing their estimate to paper.

I wondered if his approach was simply to weed out the small jobs that were too far away. If that was the case though, why had he had spend good money to drop flyers in my neighborhood, and why did the flyers advertise low prices? It seemed like a waste of marketing funds or a lack of focus in their approach to building their business. Either way, this company lost the opportunity to earn my business.

One of the great beauties of a small business is that it can be more flexible than larger businesses, moving more quickly to meet customer needs. However, many small businesses simply do, without much thought about the bigger picture. A little strategic thinking about simple things — that serve the interests of the customers and place a minimum burden on the company — could help their business grow, both in the short and long term.