How to deal with unexpected closings

As a small business owner myself and I’m sure everything agrees that the one of the toughest decision of all to close or not to close when a crisis arises?. Well I’ve been coaching one of my clients lately about it so I want to share it with all of you. Please tell me if it is valuable for you.

Every business needs to close but tell your customer as early as possible in as many ways as possible. Some business owners think that if they close and don’t say anything the customer will just come back again. You customers don’t rely on you no matter how great, unique or popular you might be. Once you waste your customers time and see your closed when your hours say you should be open they get frustrated and angry. I have to say rightfully so because you wasted their time. If you find ways to tell them they may be disappointed but more than likely they will be understanding. Remember they get sick and have emergencies as well they don’t expect you to be perfect they expect you to be reliable. Closing here and there is understandable with proper planning and responsibility. HOWEVER expecting them to guess when you are going to be open or why you are closed is not only wrong you deserve to lose the Customer because you don’t care about them you only care about you.

Invest In people not panes of glass

Apple used to be my favorite company until I got the perfect device then it scared the shit out of me. I have had every Apple device from the iPod up until I got the retina iPad it was too perfect. From that point I began to focus on putting down my iPod touch , iPhone and I sold the iPad. I realized these devices as entertaining as they were consuming me I wasn’t consuming them. What I thought was ten minutes was an hour. That’s when it dawned on me these devices are so good I was losing my time staying connected to them. I was texting when I needed to be talking. Just because it was faster , easier and/or smoother I didn’t realize all the emotion in my communication was gone. Nobody could hear my laughter when I typed out LOL. Hearing laughter, frustration, anger even a simple sigh is huge. We don’t even realize how important it is until it is all gone then we are left with this tremendous feeling of emptiness and we don’t know why. We don’t know why because these devices are so entertaining so engrossing so embedded that we lose sight of the fact the devices are ripping away our humanity and our real connection to each other. Apple is selling 5 million iPhone 5 and three million iPad mini in opening weekends and we think it’s coolest thing ever. When are we going to start asking what is the real cost of those devices and all those apps ? If you ask me it’s the most expensive cost of all those moments in your life you are wasting at a pane of glass instead of the people and moments that once they are gone are gone forever and then we are filled with the regret of what we missed while on that great device.

Writing Settings ‹ The other Titlow is a damn fine writer too — WordPress

Writing Settings ‹ The other Titlow is a damn fine writer too — WordPress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

Do you know what Yahoo’s problem is?

Yahoo has become as bad as America Online was in the end. They are just as outdated, clunky , hard to use , even harder to access the stuff you need like mail because it is so bloated. They have been so focus on the 64 bad acquisitions they made so they don’t have to focus on one thing they need to be. Making the user experience much better. The more they have tried to make money the worse they treat their users. Half of me thinks they are going to be the ones dumb enough to buy RIMM for Blackberry . If they do I promise it’ll be AOL /Time Warner part 2 of the dumbest mergers ever. Why AOL never asked their users about that merger is what did them in. There is a huge difference between getting your users to buy into a concept and your shareholders. Remember this Yahoo users are more important than any shareholder. Your users dictate profits shareholders do not at all. You have seemed to forgotten this simple point. I just hope you remember it before some stupid bankers gives you the great idea to buy RIMM.

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The best time to pray 2 god is while your untangling your headphones believe me it speeds up the process- said by Tom Titlow Jr on June 27th 2012

Sign , sign everywhere a sign

Blocking out the scenery , breaking my mind– Tesla (the band not the car)

One of the first things I do in working with small businesses is look at their signage. I apply this simple rule ” if I Tom your detail oriented business consultant can’t see or understand fully you sign how can you expect your customers to see you?” The problem with signs I experience is two fold. First people put up signs but then forget they are there. Things like dirt , lights going out, cracks, some type of growth in front of your signs(trees or brush etc)

I can here you now Tom that’s not me. I can bet you it is. First do you keep your street facing sign lit 24 hours a day? You absolutely should!!!! The people passing by your business when you are not open are just as important as when you are. As a matter of fact I say it’s more important because everybody has their sign on when they are open. As your potential client I’d say that chaos of competition for my attention is insane. Like I stated at the top”break my mind” When you closed and maybe just maybe your potential client drives by and you sign is lit and your competition is not. Our eyes pick out signs so much better at night than during the day having your sign lit WELL is a no brainer.
If you tell me that lame excuse I don’t want my lights when I not open I’d go through the roof. I am very much like Steve Jobs when it come to my passion about the little details.If your were one of my privileged clients I’d say do you shut down website when your closed? then keep the damn lights on. Note I didn’t say keep your open sign on. Sooner or later one client of yours is going to say these magic words and this always happens” I was driving by late and I thought I’d stop in and check you out. Next I’m going to save you some money….

Do you realize that nobody ever talks about how much Steve Jobs empowered the customer

I think the biggest thing Steve Jobs did was show people how important they were. For the first time ever he put the customer at the center of everything he did. Steve jobs keynotes weren’t about product introductions as much as they were the future instructional guide to new products. Have you ever wondered why every other CEO in technology sounds like a babbling idiot where 15 years ago the same conversation was an exciting display of computing power. See every other CEO put the machine, technology or whatever he wanted ahead of you the customer and said if you want a,b, and c capability you have to buy this to get it. Everybody dominated the customer mostly out of confusing them. Other CEOs would stand and still do saying mines faster, better, cheaper and they never ever tell us why those things are important to us. Steve Jobs always startedvwith the ultimate customer question . How to does having a b and c capability how does that change your life for the better? . It was never about the device instead it was ONLY it always how it could change you life if you used it. One great Steve gift he never said to the customer you need to buy this for these reasons. Instead he started with this what we have , this why it makes sense and here’s how to use it.

Think about this very powerful point — what happened to the instruction booklet.? Yes you remember that book that when you paid for your technology taught you HOW to use it. Usually written very bad but without it we could even answer these simple questions without it. How does it turn on, how to I put the batteries in right, and the best one that all devices from your VCR, cordless phones , alarm clocks and microwaves and don’t. Forget the Walkman even need this answered– How do I set this stupid clock anyway? . It was your role to figure it out for yourself and that was an extremely frustrating process . People hated the idea of the time it would take to learn how to use these great capabilities . This exactly why the tablet computer was around for years and a complete failure until the iPad showed up. The more complex the technology the longer it took to learn. Apple will never be beat for one reason that no matter what happens the customer is always the center of attention in every single thing they do. Technology was made for geeks not humans until Steve showed back up in 1997. Even though I never met my hero I could absolutely hear him ” We need to make this so simple and so intuitive the customers will forget they even need an instruction booklet. ” Here’s where you can truly see how extremely important your confidence is to Apple and this is how Steve turned the tables on his competition. Remember what would happen at Christmas with one instruction manual was missing. It was complete and utter disappointment till you found it. And yet I’ve never heard one person ever say this to me “where the instructions ?”when opening an Apple product. When you have created something so easy to use people don’t expect instructions or need them you have accomplished a miracle. You’ve given people the time back they had lost in the past. The power of the customers time ,confidence and trust that is generated to just start using the device instead of having to take time to learn how to by reading a book is enormous . How long did it take you to learn about you Sony discman versus your iPod or your old cellphone versus the iPhone and the most time consuming of all PC versus a Mac.
To think that my $700 iPad didn’t need any instructions to use is astounding. Can you do the same thing with a pc ? Nope and its Not even close.