and you are one of them. You are not the exception to the rule and you probably never will be. (You may be if you spend more on customer service than you do on marketing and you pay at least 10 per cent over the market in wages. If you think I am harsh, consider this: 90 per cent of North American firms view customer experience as important or critical and 80 per cent of firms would like to use customer experience as a form of differentiation. [Forrester’s: The State of Customer Experience 2010.] If these are their plans then they are not there today, right? You don’t own your brand – your customers do. (The idea of brand management is therefore an anachronism). At best you are a custodian, and custodians act very differently to owners. If you don’t manage your data you don’t manage a business, you are playing shop. You can’t have your cake and eat it. (You want to pay minimum wage, and you want great staff. You want the government to butt out of your business with less red tape, and you want government protection when the overseas competition arrive.) Online is not going away. Ever. Embrace it or… The landlord won’t reduce your rent because you are struggling, they will reduce your rent if there is a business case for them (not you.) They don’t run your business and they don’t have equity in your business. No amount of marketing, PR, differentiation, service, et al will ever beat quality or competence. There is no substitute for products that work as intended and services that deliver what is promised. (You really can’t fool all the people all the time – especially now.) The fact that you don’t like customers shows. Customers know what you really think and feel and you kid yourself if you think otherwise. Sales incentives don’t incentivise your staff if every other aspect of the job sucks – including the way you treat them and the conditions they work under. Unless you are doing something different every year, then 10 years’ experience is really only one year’s experience 10 time over. Stop selling and help your customer buy. Yes, even if it means losing the sale today and pointing them to a competitor or alternative. Right, or wrong – doesn’t really matter, as long as it forced you to think about your business. Have fun… Dennis @ Ganador Customer Acquisition, Retention & Engagement by turning your Organisational IP into Marketing IQ.