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Are You Forcing Customers Not to Do Business With You? by Victoria Ring

Last week I attended a new business group here in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I was very excited to meet other business people in the community and network with them. While at the meeting I met a lady who custom makes and designs her own jewelry. The thing that excited me the most was that I did not need to have my ears pierced to wear these earrings. Instead, the Jewelry Lady had designed her earrings as ear cuffs. Not only did they stay securely on my ear, but they did not cause pain like clip on earrings or magnets that I had worn in the past.

In fact, I was so excited about finding this lady and so impressed with her designs that I spent over $50 on earrings that evening. I also told her that I would be telling others about her jewelry and asked her when we could hookup and meet for lunch. Her reaction was: I am normally busy during the day. I will have to call you later. (However, she did not ask for my business card or a contact number.) This immediately told me she was a negative business person like many others I had met in the past. Whether she realized it or not, she was giving up an opportunity to increase her business.

But since I am the type of person that always gives people second and third chances I decided to try another approach. I told the lady that I had a credit card machine that I would be willing to give her without cost to process credit card orders when she attended shows. I explained that I paid $1,500 for the credit card machine several years ago but since I did not need it, I was willing to help her because I believed in her product. Did she see my generosity? Of course not. Like many unsuccessful business people, she was totally focused on herself; not the opportunity she was passing up. Instead, she immediately made an excuse and said: I do not know if the machine is compatible with my merchant bank so I will have to let you know. Did she ever let me know? Of course not. She did not even care enough to recognize my generosity and follow up to thank me for the offer. Instead, she simply ignored me.

For the ladys third and final chance I visited her website and placed an order for another $50 in jewelry. I immediately noticed that she only had PayPal as an option to pay online. I called her after placing the order and said that I felt uncomfortable using PayPal, but because I loved her products so much I was willing to take the risk. Never once did she thank me for making a purchase or loving her product. She just said she would check and make sure the order went through and confirmed it did. Not once did she apologize for the inconvenience I endured as a customer. Again, she showed me again that she was only focused on herself, not her customers; which is another bad business quality.

In a final attempt to help her sell her products I invited her to drop off my order at my house so I could finally talk to her for a few moments. She came to my home and here is how the conversation went:

Me: I love your product and I think it would be a perfect candidate for advertising on QVC. Why have you not submitted your jewelry to them?

Jewelry Lady: What would happen if I get too many orders and cannot fill them?

Me: Would that not be a wonderful thing to happen? I am sure if you had orders for $26 million you could find a way to fill the orders.

Jewelry Lady: Well, I talked to the ladies at the Chamber of Commerce and they told me I need to sell my jewelry to Nordstrom and Macys.

Notice how she quickly changed the subject instead of pursuing a possible lead. This is what many unsuccessful business people do when they push business away. Instead of coming up with an excuse, she needed to ask me what I knew about submitting products to QVC. This would have enabled her to pick my brain, learn something and then make a better decision once she had examined all angles of the issue. Hint: You should never make a decision until you have looked at all angles and exhausted all information about a topic. Shooting an idea in the foot before you get all the facts is not a wise way to run a company.

Me: Are the ladies at the Chamber of Commerce successful jewelry business owners?

Jewelry Lady: No. They belong to the Chamber of Commerce.

Me: My first word of advice is not to listen to people who are not successful.

Folks, this is another word of knowledge. Stop listening to people who are not successful. Seek out successful people and listen to them. And when you find successful people, do not waste their time arguing with them or give them excuses as to why you do not agree with them. LISTEN and digest the information. Even if you do not agree with everything they say, DO NOT voice your negative opinion. Listen, stay positive and take away the pieces of advice that will benefit you. When you argue or disagree with a person who is taking the time to give you their advice, you are slapping them in the face. This is exactly what the Jewelry Lady did to me.

Jewelry Lady: But what do you consider to be successful?

Note: This was a loaded question. Hundreds of people before her had asked me the same question and I knew she was going to try to trap me in order to make an excuse for her poor attitude. So I replied:

Me: Success is dependent upon your interpretation. Do you think you are successful?

Jewelry Lady: Well, I would like to have more orders.

Me: Then first of all I would suggest that you get away from PayPal. People will place more orders through your website if you have a real merchant account.

Jewelry Lady: But I already have a merchant account through my bank. Most of my customers call me with their orders anyway because they do not like using PayPal.

Me: Then why are you not using it and why are you not listening to your customers?

Jewelry Lady: Because I do not know how to set it up.

Me: You mean to tell me that your bank (who makes money off every transaction you process) will not set up your merchant account for you?

Jewelry Lady: I do not know; but my web host does not understand how to do it.

Note: Do you see that every time I made a suggestion this lady comes back with a negative comment? How often do you do the same thing? If you can recognize yourself doing the same thing when people try to do business with you, then you can understand how you are forcing people not to do business with you; which is the title of this article. Let us continue:

Me: Why do you not switch to another web host? I can recommend my host who not only will set up your merchant account but will install a shopping cart and promote your ecommerce website.

Jewelry Lady: But I am under contract with my current host.

Me: So? How much are you paying?

Jewelry Lady: $16.95 per month.

Me: Would it not be worth $16.95 per month to get more orders? If you charge $26.00 for each set of earrings, only one order would pay for the web hosting that you are losing. Is this not enough to constitute a change?

Jewelry Lady: I do not think I can do it right now.

At this point I gave up. I was getting tired out trying to stay positive when this lady was filled with nothing but negativity. So, I quickly ended the conversation by saying: I have several other appointments this afternoon (as I walked to the door to let her out). My last words, as she walked out the door were: Please call me if you want my help. She said she would and left. However, you know as well as I do that she will never call me. Also, I doubt that she realizes it or not, but I will never order anything from her again. My excitement over her product has been beaten to a pulp simply because she spent more time slapping me down for every positive comment I made. If she would have only taken her eyes off herself and concentrated on her customer she would have kept me as a customer for a long period of time. Also, I would have gone out of my way to recommend her to 100s of potential new customers.

Analyzing the Situation

If I did not care about you as a business owner I would not be writing this article. However, it is so sad but I see this same type of behavior over and over again; which is why I am writing this article to help you. Out of some strange human nature, people who are unsuccessful in business will turn away help as well as potential customers by focusing their eyes on themselves and making up negative responses to positive comments. Then, these same people will look around and say: Why can I not make any money? I am doing everything I know how to do. Their answer is clear but they cannot see the obvious because they have focused their eyes on themselves and no one else.

Back in the middle 1990s when I was publishing a monthly newsletter called The GrapeVine I barely was making ends meet financially. I was bringing in about $5,000 a month in subscriptions and advertising but I was spending about $3,000 a month in printing and postage. Since I was working about 80 hours a week, by the time I broke down all the overhead costs and averaged out my time, I discovered that I was making about 25 cents per hour. This is when I began to ask myself: What am I doing wrong? At this point is when I began growing. I began growing because I stopped blaming everyone else, took my eyes off myself, blamed myself for the current problems and began looking to my customers for answers.

I wish back then I would have had someone come to me and say, Victoria, I would like to help you grow your business. I believe in your newspaper and I think you have the best newspaper on the market. Do you have any idea how quickly I would have jumped at the chance to listen (and absorb) every word this person had to tell me? Especially since the advice was coming from someone who was already successful in business and the advice was free? Do you think I would have even considered pushing them away or making up negative excuses to slap them in the face like the Jewelry Lady did? I do not think so. In fact, I know I would have never done what the Jewelry Lady did which further proves that the Jewelry Lady will never be successful unless she makes some major changes.

But after I became successful in a variety of businesses, I now try to reach out and help others who were in my same position I used to be in. It never ceases to amaze me how many people just like the Jewelry Lady exist. In fact, it is very rare that people take advantage of my knowledge and desire to help them. Perhaps this article will help you to start thinking in the right direction and changing your current attitude.

Moral of the Story

The next time you are upset because you are not making any money with your business, the first person you should be blaming is yourself. Find out how you are forcing customers not to do business with you and once you find the answer, do something about it.

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