Forrest Gump Was Right – Stupid Is What Stupid Does

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I want to share three examples of sheer stupidity.

Is the tail wagging the dog or is the dog wagging the tail?

This week I had an eye opening experience that made me feel so stupid that I am compelled to write about it so that you can learn from my mistakes. If you had five customers come into your store and ask for a specific product, would you go out and buy it? YOU BET YOU WOULD. We would pat ourselves on the back for being attentive and listening to our customers by jumping on a trend as early as possible.

We all love to say that we enjoy listening and reacting to our customers. That’s what we call good customer service. Now let’s update that experience into the social media world by writing an article in your newsletter, blog or Facebook. The article you write is about a new product that you just got in. It might not even be an original article by you. You could just offer a link to an article about the product. Now what if your customers responded to your article or link about this new product and asked if you had the product in stock or where they could buy it? Would you think you might have a hot product? Of course you would. What if a hundred customers wrote to you and told you how great it was and expressed an interest to buy it? How excited would you be? How stupid do you think you would feel if you realized you never responded to even one inquiry? Pretty dumb!

I was interviewing a new marketing company that analyzed the data on my website. They even could tell me how many people read an article and passed it on to friends and colleagues. They asked me how dramatically my business changed since April. I was puzzled and didn’t know what they were referring to. They then informed me that the traffic and buzz surrounding 2 of my articles in the month of April generated an additional 67,000 views of these articles. Shame on me for not knowing that, shame on me for not responding to that interest and shame on me for not offering the type of products my readers were interested in.

Can this happen to you? Yes and it’s happening every day because we are getting feedback from our customers in ways we never had. The customers didn’t call or write and say they wanted it, but they expressed interest by sharing with their friends what I wrote. It happens because we add a link that we don’t totally read and we don’t have the time to read or understand all of the analyses available. The lesson to be learned is to monitor the increase in traffic to your site, blog or any social media component. It could change the direction of your business.

Don Quixote lives.

State and federal governments need money; there is no question about that. Jobs and the unemployment rate are the single biggest domestic issues our country is facing. Small businesses generate more jobs than any other part of the economy. Retailing is one of the biggest components of small business. Having said that, how stupid can the governments, both state and federal, be that online merchants can sell products across state lines without having to charge a sales tax. That gives an online merchant a 5, 6 or 7 percent advantage over the local business. That hurts the local business and it’s an unfair advantage, and the state is losing out on all of that revenue. THIS MUST CHANGE! 

I feel like Don Quixote fighting windmills when I mention this to politicians who say “I would never raise taxes.” Don’t you get it? You’re not raising taxes-- you’re just enforcing the taxes that already exist. There will be more to come on this.

It’s more than money.

Being in the retail business we have an advantage in hiring and staffing our businesses. That advantage is our ability to hire people who like what we sell. People who work in jewelry stores like jewelry. People who work in clothing stores like clothing. People who work in car dealerships like cars. The common denominator is they are there for more than the weekly paycheck.

The son of a friend of mine was looking to change jobs. His approach in changing jobs was not the same as most of us. He didn’t send out resumes or respond to ads. He sent out a few strategic letters on ways those companies could increase their revenues and profits. Three letters went out and they all responded. They all invited him to their company to explore his idea. Two of those companies made him offers that are truly beyond the comprehension of the average person – myself included. Granted this person is brilliant with two pristine degrees from the finest colleges in the world. His approach applies to every employee we have.

If we could only teach, train or create the mindset for our employees that this young man adopted which was people will pay for great ideas. I was working in a downtown and this merchant was bragging about this one employee who said “I have an idea how we could rearrange the store and do more business.” The owner liked the idea and told him to go for it which meant he had to work extra hours after the store was closed. The owner didn’t care because he believed in the idea. The bottom line was that employee needed to earn more money and he did it in a creative way.