In Small Business it Works Both Ways
I sometimes think that many small business people are very short-sighted. They tend to forget that the people who are doing work for them today may well be their own clients at some point in the future.
An example of what I am suggesting happened this week. A friend who runs a small business here in town was having his carpets cleaned by a professional cleaner. The conversation turned to advertising and our friend mentioned that he had a website.
The carpet cleaner told our friend that he spent thousands of dollars each year on advertising and would like to talk to someone about having his own website. Our friend, as all good friends do, recommended us and the carpet cleaner asked our friend to get us to call him.
I called him next day and obviously caught him at work in someone’s house so he asked me to call him back after six that night. And I did call him back after six … and got his answering service.
I left a message and asked him to return my call.
Several days later I’m still waiting for that call.
Now if he couldn’t return a call how reliable is he to come and clean carpets at a pre-arranged time?
In small business you shouldn’t just be working to impress your clients, you should also be working to impress those who are working for you. You never know when those people could turn into prospective clients.
