{"id":2346,"date":"2009-09-08T15:03:17","date_gmt":"2009-09-08T15:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=2346"},"modified":"2009-09-08T15:03:17","modified_gmt":"2009-09-08T15:03:17","slug":"marketing-stuck-on-stoopid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/marketing-stuck-on-stoopid\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing Stuck On Stoopid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend I took a long day trip for kicks.<\/p>\n

Nothing exciting happened (which was kinda the point).<\/p>\n

But I did see one whopper of a dumb business mistake. <\/p>\n

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

Here’s what happened:<\/p>\n

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… <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

WE DO NOT ACCEPT CREDIT OR DEBIT CARDS<\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Stop!” I said.<\/p>\n

“What’s wrong?”<\/p>\n

“Your sign says you don’t take plastic.”<\/p>\n

“No problem, there’s an ATM across the street.”<\/p>\n

OK now, here’s where the fun began:<\/p>\n

I live in a small (really small) town myself and get this whole cash only thing. Heck, even the business<\/em> center in my town is cash only. <\/p>\n

So that blunder is not that big a crime in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n

Dumb?<\/p>\n

Yes.<\/p>\n

A marketing crime?<\/p>\n

Not so much.<\/p>\n

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

I wonder how much business their competition gets from this?<\/p>\n

I bet they have a hearty laugh every time they see a customer walking from the other place, debit card in hand.<\/p>\n

Oh well, that’s life in the little city.<\/p>\n

But I admit, it did get me thinking about my own marketing. <\/p>\n

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<\/em>) mistake.<\/p>\n

Not a bad habit to get into, is it?<\/p>\n

And it’s so easy, even an espresso shop can do it.<\/p>\n

Ben Settle<\/p>\n

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

<\/p>\n

www.CrackerjackSelling.com\/blunders<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-sales-marketing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t