I enjoy reading Jay Goltz’ musings on business. Though his posts focus primarily on small businesses, I often think his insights are useful for businesses of any size – and for individuals’ careers, as well. Just read this recent post in the NYT where he opines about the 10 top internal reasons small businesses fail to grow, and I think they really boil down to 2. (It seems I have a propensity for looking at things and reducing them to core elements.)
One of his 10 reasons stands alone in my mind: he calls it “the customer attitude,” and proposes that any small business where employees don’t respect the customers and don’t care about making them happy is doomed. It may limp along, but it certainly won’t grow. I completely agree: I’ve written before about good and bad customer service – and I don’t think a negative attitude toward customers is “hide-able.” If employees think customers are generally difficult, crazy, dumb or irritating…it’s pretty obvious, and really off-putting.
