Last weekend I took a long day trip for kicks.

Nothing exciting happened (which was kinda the point).

But I did see one whopper of a dumb business mistake.

In fact, if you were to look up the definition of “big dumb stupid business mistake” you’d probably see a picture of the place I saw this blunder take place.

Here’s what happened:

I was in this small, “jerk-water” town in the middle of the woods (in northern California) and wanted a juice so I headed into this dinky little espresso joint. While the lady was getting the drink, I glanced down and saw the handwritten sign…

“Stop!” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Your sign says you don’t take plastic.”

“No problem, there’s an ATM across the street.”

OK now, here’s where the fun began:

I live in a small (really small) town myself and get this whole cash only thing. Heck, even the business center in my town is cash only.

So that blunder is not that big a crime in the grand scheme of things.

Dumb?

Yes.

A marketing crime?

Not so much.

No, the problem was, there was another place, CLOSER to that ATM, to get espresso. Which meant, this espresso joint was cheerfully sending good business across the street to an ATM machine that’s closer to their competition.

I wonder how much business their competition gets from this?

I bet they have a hearty laugh every time they see a customer walking from the other place, debit card in hand.

Oh well, that’s life in the little city.

But I admit, it did get me thinking about my own marketing.

In fact, afterwards I even did a quick run down of my own operations to make sure I wasn’t making a similar (embarrassingly obvious) mistake.

Not a bad habit to get into, is it?

And it’s so easy, even an espresso shop can do it.

Ben Settle

P.S. For 8 REALLY painful sales and marketing mistakes (including some doozies I’ve made) and how to avoid them, check out the free podcast I have up at: