Have you ever thought to yourself, “I love this salad, but I bet it would be even better with a different dressing or maybe not so much dressing.”? Quite often I grab a salad for lunch or at some point during the day and although the salad is composed of primarily the same components (lettuce, bell pepper, celery, cucumber) I try to switch up the dressing to keep things interesting, or at least as interesting as it can be, it is just a salad. Today the dressing just isn’t doing it for me so I started thinking, this is sort of like a company. If one part of the company is failing to do its job, does the whole company suffer?
Often I feel like companies are trying to do so much with one part of their business that they lose sight of another. Too much sales, not enough service. Too much quantity, not enough quality. Too much traffic, not enough traffic management (yes, I’m talking to you Chicago Traffic Management Authority. Why are we paying you, seriously). Maybe I’m just being picky and wanting the best of all worlds.
It’s no secret that we are a society of busy individuals, each one with attention deficit disorder, trying to do a dozen things at once, in the shortest amount of time possible, and for the least expense. However, every so often it is essential to stop and take a look around, assess what’s working and what’s not, for your own benefit if not that of your clients and customers. If you are a small company that prides itself on personal attention and customer service, why would you try to sell yourself as a large corporation? In my experience, the companies/stores/restaurants that keep me coming back are those that aren’t trying to sell themselves as something else just to say they can. You don’t go to McDonald’s for Thai food do you? While I appreciate innovation and creativity, sometimes you just have to go with what works - romaine lettuce, caesar dressing, croutons, and a nice big smile and “thank you”.
