An Accidental Business Lesson from a Dude Selling Rats from His Car
Rats! That's all my daughter wanted for her birthday - a pair of fancy male rats. Her dad and I had split the cage and supplies. She had found a breeder an hour away, and we were all set to go do the do.
We drove to the meeting place at the appointed time. We waited. And waited... for an hour. She called and messaged. Nothing. So we headed home, ratless. She was not pleased. What had been a much-anticipated day had become a major disappointment. She asked a valid question, "If you're doing something as a business, shouldn't you answer your phone? Shouldn't you keep your appointments?"
Indeed. About an hour later she got a message from him saying he was so sorry, he'd run out of minutes (?), and that if we'd come back, he'd give her three rats for the price of two. (At this point, aside from being irritated, I'm also still pondering how I'm PAYING to GET rats... don't people usually want to avoid rats???!)
Alrighty. We go back.
He shows up. He pulls up in his station wagon, pops the hatch, and produces a crate with about a dozen little rats - very cute... even to a dog person. He's apologetic about wasting our time earlier with his no-show. We pick out three cuties, he gives us the prices - and says we only need to pay for one. Buy one, get two free.
My irritation level plummets. I've got a happy birthday girl. We got a bit of a deal. We've got cute little fellas to play with. All is good.
How can this help you?
Learn from the Rat Man, no matter what business you're in. When I was first starting out as a freelance writer, I decided to do something that would really make a good impression on my clients. I committed to 100% on-time delivery (or early, even better!). On the odd occasion that I missed the deadline, I docked MYSELF 10% and let the client know the invoice had been adjusted.
Why? This accomplished two things: First, the client's irritation morphed into appreciation and respect for my integrity. Second, because it was ME feeling the pain of the problem, I was sure to fix it going forward.
We typically only fix problems when NOT fixing them becomes more painful than fixing them.
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