Hi All,
I was on my way to one of my favorite haunts today (I love shopping at thrift stores with the passion of a thousand suns, but I digress) and during my travels I saw something that got me thinking. There was a line of three cars, each with a yellow plastic box on top of it, advertising a going out of business sale for a local furniture store.
I drove another block or so, and saw a kid on the street corner with one of those giant arrow signs advertising the same store closing. Another few hundred feet and there was a giant mouse dressed like Uncle Sam (times must be tough down at his place in Anaheim for him to have to take this gig) advertising, you guessed it, the same store closing.
I have driven down this street countless times over the years that I have lived in this community and I never knew that there was a furniture store there at all! They were going out FOR business, but only now, when they were going out of business.
This store has done with their business what some of us do with ours. They are only getting busy and getting the word out about their existence when it is too late to do any good. If they had been half as dedicated, aggressive or creative in promoting their business in days gone by, they might not be closing their doors now.
If they had done everything in their power to make sure that all of their prospects knew who they were, what they did and what the had to offer, that you could not get anywhere else, maybe this story would have a different ending. Maybe these folks would not be huddling over a table examining their "options" and trying to figure out what to do next.
How many of us know "someone" who spends their time bemoaning the sorry state of the market, mourning the easy days gone by when a sign in the yard was barely planted before the offers were flooding in. This selfsame "someone" won't consider walking their farm, "I don't knock on doors, that's just not me...", has fingers that will atrophy before they will be used to place a call to ask for business and won't consider "wasting all that time and energy on that Internet nonsense".
They won't go out FOR business. Not now, not ever. They won't attend a class that might offer a new idea to invigorate their business. They won't implement any old ideas, long proven by the test of time either. They will instead, much like the owners of the aforementioned store, blame the market, blame the public, blame everything they can think of except themselves.
And also like that ill-fated furniture store, They will keep their light under a bushel, until the candle goes out.
Take care all, help lots of people and have a wonderful day!
Tisza
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