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So my business has me dealing with a lot of "mom and pop"-type small local businesses. And while most of them are fine, there's a certain breed of shop owner . . .
There are people who will whine all day about how their business is crumbling, how those scary internet brokers are taking "their" sales, how everyone who isn't like them is doing business unethically . . . yet when you confront them about a practice that makes NO sense for the consumer, they hold fast to their way of thinking.
What makes me even more angry is how they sometimes cloak their whiney, I'm-entitled-to-sales attitude as thinking about what makes sense for the customer. They don't actually ask if what they offer is REALLY what anyone wants, they just start off by ASSUMING that what they offer is wanted, and then they explain how all those new-fangled internet types have mislead customers into no longer wanting it.
So they're stealing YOUR sales, is it? Tell me, what's your marketing budget??
It's always the ones that spend basically nothing on marketing that think they DESERVE sales.
It just pisses me off. They prefer to hold onto practices that DRIVE AWAY customers and then moan about the state of their business. When you ask them about it it's always "I can't . . . " or "We can't . . . " But I grew up in this industry, and I know that they perfectly well could, they just never have. Increased internet competition has exposed which parts of their business dilute the value of their product, but customers were supposed to be LOYAL to them, right?
It's always the curveballs that get you. Going into this I thought I was ready to embrace all the different angles from which the world shits directly into your mouth, but the thing that degrades my spirit the most is seeing this sad-sack mentality from fellow business owners. I'd love to be pissed because these people were just too cutthroat, cutting me out and leaving me in the dust . . . but it's the rampant entitlement attitude, the air of working in a "dying" industry, and the sense that they have just given up the fight . . . just bums me out.
Anyway, that's my little rant. I posted it here because ranting makes me feel like a failure. Back to work.
Also - I have NEVER been more convinced of MJ's advice to always keep learning. The market waits for no man. You have to stay flexible, agile, versatile, knowledgable. Otherwise you wind up like these people - walking skeletons.
There are people who will whine all day about how their business is crumbling, how those scary internet brokers are taking "their" sales, how everyone who isn't like them is doing business unethically . . . yet when you confront them about a practice that makes NO sense for the consumer, they hold fast to their way of thinking.
What makes me even more angry is how they sometimes cloak their whiney, I'm-entitled-to-sales attitude as thinking about what makes sense for the customer. They don't actually ask if what they offer is REALLY what anyone wants, they just start off by ASSUMING that what they offer is wanted, and then they explain how all those new-fangled internet types have mislead customers into no longer wanting it.
So they're stealing YOUR sales, is it? Tell me, what's your marketing budget??
It's always the ones that spend basically nothing on marketing that think they DESERVE sales.
It just pisses me off. They prefer to hold onto practices that DRIVE AWAY customers and then moan about the state of their business. When you ask them about it it's always "I can't . . . " or "We can't . . . " But I grew up in this industry, and I know that they perfectly well could, they just never have. Increased internet competition has exposed which parts of their business dilute the value of their product, but customers were supposed to be LOYAL to them, right?
It's always the curveballs that get you. Going into this I thought I was ready to embrace all the different angles from which the world shits directly into your mouth, but the thing that degrades my spirit the most is seeing this sad-sack mentality from fellow business owners. I'd love to be pissed because these people were just too cutthroat, cutting me out and leaving me in the dust . . . but it's the rampant entitlement attitude, the air of working in a "dying" industry, and the sense that they have just given up the fight . . . just bums me out.
Anyway, that's my little rant. I posted it here because ranting makes me feel like a failure. Back to work.
Also - I have NEVER been more convinced of MJ's advice to always keep learning. The market waits for no man. You have to stay flexible, agile, versatile, knowledgable. Otherwise you wind up like these people - walking skeletons.
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