I’m pretty interested in business management, even though I don’t run any businesses myself.
But that hasn’t stopped me from giving free advice consultancy to friends who run businesses. I should start charging for my consulting services someday, perhaps when I have more credibility. Give my friends some credit - some of them actually take heed to some of my wacko ideas despite my lack of credibility (other than the fact that I read business books, and that I have method in my madness).
And not surprisingly (to me), they are doing quite fine. I’d like to think that they’d be doing much better if they were willing to try out my more extreme ideas, but well, maybe it’s just my lack in persuasion skills.
Or perhaps I should just pass them a copy of Alpha Dogs.
Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business can become a Leader of the Pack
by Donna Fenn
In Alpha Dogs, you read about how different types of seemingly ordinary and mundane small businesses like a bicycle shop, an ice cream parlour, or a sock company overcome great odds using seemingly insane methods to survive, and even thrive.
My favourite example is the bicycle shop, Zane’s Cycles, which uses seemingly unreasonably good customer service to fight against the likes of Wal-Mart and thrive.
A customer had saved for months to buy her husband an expensive Trek bicycle as a surprise. She brought the husband to the shop window of Zane’s Cycles, where the bicycle, with balloons and a “Happy Valentine’s Day, Bob” sign, was supposed to be displayed. But the Zane’s Cycles employee forgot. Needless to say, the customer was humiliated, and didn’t have a very happy Valentine’s Day.
Then here’s how they responded at Zane’s Cycles:
Ciocci, [the employee] who had simply forgotten about the bike, was mortified. He immediately began fretting over the long-term ramifications of his mistake and calculating the probably cost to the business. Zane and his store manager, Tom Girard, sprang into action. Girard drove the bicycle to the customer’s house and told her that the store would absorb the $200 balance. Then Zane called Cilantro’s, a coffee shop in nearby Guilford, and arranged for a catered lunch to be delivered to the customer and her co-workers. Lastly, he gave the couple a gift certificate - with no spending limit specified - for dinner at Quattro’s, an upscale Italian restaurant in Guilford.
Because the customer didn’t expect such a response from Zane’s, while she ordinarily would have become a sworn enemy of Zane’s, she was turned into a huge evangelist for them.
Check out this book if running a small business interests you. Not all the chapters/case studies will be relevant, but Alpha Dogs will certainly inspire you push unexplored limits of the business.
