Sure, the success of business ventures is more likely when you have done your homework. However, when there can be such power contained in small changes, it might behove us to turn over some small stones before we charge into something big.
Take the cafe across the road, Mud Ducks. The idea to put up a bench outside with stools to enable customers to dine and view the river is a sensational idea - I also like the placing of "easy chairs" outside. In two small, and relatively inexpensive, changes you have diners contemplating that the cafe would be a nice place given its proximity to the river - which could be lost if customers were confined to indoor dining. And who knows, this may translate into the cafe being an evening destination in the future?
Big ups to Tim and the team.
And as consumers we tend to become loyal to those businesses that we frequent which make the effort to do the little things well. Knowing your customers' names is a classic way to do something small which has a big payback.
As soon as you use someone's name the interaction becomes personal and moves up the scale from a simple contact to a relationship and you are much more likely to make a sale and retain that person as a client.
This is the case if you are a sole business owner or managing an international conglomerate - a note to those of you working for petrol companies, if you put the "service" back into service stations you will get more customers.
For all the forced smiles and eco friendliness of their marketing budgets I still go out of my way to purchase fuel from petrol stations where someone comes out on the forecourt - I've even got favourites out of town.
I will close with a comment about this weekend's big sporting event. Although I have worried about the rise of Australian rugby for three years now, I hope the ABs can put aside the occasion and play to their strengths. The team who win will be the ones who execute "the basics" best. This concept is universal.
