3 Stupid Business Tricks to Avoid

If you were ever up late over the last 20 years you may be familiar with the segment “stupid human tricks” on the old Late Night with David Letterman Show. Well I have a few stupid business tricks that I have come across in the last few weeks that no one reading this should ever emulate.

1. Dealing with a Broken Website – This sounds really ridiculous, but I have heard more than once recently that businesses are just dealing with websites that quite simply stink to high heaven. One is a comedy club with a new, shiny website that customers can’t figure out how to order tickets and displays shows are “sold out” when they are not (talk about bad for business.) When calling the club for help (defeating the purpose of online self service) the chap who answered nonchalantly acknowledged the site problems and share that the shows were NOT sold out. These geniuses actually charge a $7 convenience fee per ticket to order them online. Sorry there is nothing convenient about a broken website – and hello is this 1999? Newsflash – online shopping is a way of life now not a convenience.

2. Sorry We Don’t Know the Password – I recently was looking for a place to meet with a client and called a location of a NATIONAL SMOOTHIE CHAIN to ask if they offer free Wifi. The answer was YES however the gal who answered the phone added “But we don’t know the password.” Seriously? If there is no password to access the WiFi then game over. But why on earth hasn’t someone called the Internet service provider or the maker of the router for support. Even better why not just get a new Wifi router for $50? Stupid.

3. Too Busy to Be Effective – Social media sites are great to share updated daily information about your business. Unfortunately, some small businesses still DON’T see it as a way to be more efficient. I observed one café actually answering 10 back-to-back phone calls in five minutes responding to “Soup of Day” questions from customers. I had to ask the gal answering the phone why they were not posting daily soups on Facebook or Twitter. Her response “We are too busy here to do that.” Really? I am at this place every other Wednesday at 8 -11 am and they have about 12 customers total in that timeframe. And in the multiple times that they answer the phone they could have posted the three daily soups of the day. I’m sure the gal answering the phone had spent probably 20 minutes already that morning posting to her personal social media!

What are your stupid business tricks? I hope you can all say you don’t have any. If you are not sure do some soul searching to make sure that you are not the star of your own stupid business trick segment on a daily basis.