5 Ways you will fuck up your shop in 2009

I though about making a post on new year’s resolutions, but then got the idea from another blog to come up with a ‘prediction’ of your business fuck ups for the upcoming year.  It is actually based on my own experiences, so you probably aren’t immune either.

1. Have your equipment break down. When was the last time you cleaned the fins if your coolers?  Not just the filters, but deep down in the fins as well?  All of the manuals tell you do do it regularly, and working with flour only makes them dirtier than usual.  Preventative maintenance.
2. Focus marketing on brand names and not benefit to the customer. We all know what grande is, same goes for Stanislaus Saporito, but how about your customers?  Is reading “We use Grande!” going to be more effective than “When you are hungry, we will satisfy you”.  When you write advertising copy that focuses on things the customer isn’t really interesting, they tend to tune out.  Focusing on the benefits of your food to the customer, you throw the ball into their court, and create a need and at the same time a solution to that need.
3. Sell shit nobody wants. The Hula Burger, The Dominator, New Coke, and the Edsel.  If you have 100 pizzas on the menu, you have 90 too many.  Stocking too many toppings becomes a health hazard if you aren’t moving the product, and the only make single serving cans of a few products.  You might love that re fried bean sauce, but if you have to fight a living carpet to get to it (I have seen it done, not in any shop I was related to, but I have seen it done), then you have all together too many products in your store.
4. Lose your data. You upgrade your software with something incompatible.  You have a fire.  Lightning throws a surge through your power grid.  A customer drops 18 Oz of soda on your server.  Mice eat your machine.  How long will it take you to re-build that customer database?  How many regulars will be unhappy they have to go through the process again?  How much lost time and labor cost?  10,000 addresses x 30 seconds each x $7.50/hour…
5. Don’t track your marketing. Because really, faith-based marketing is the way to go. By all means, don’t measure your d-mail returns or marketing expenses.  Sector Analysis?  What is that?  The Make-a-Wish foundation model is all the rage these days.

Bonus:

Play ‘at’ your business instead of playing for keeps. So you are breaking even, or have the positive cash flow to weather a few bad months.  Quit bitching about a poor economy, poor health, or poor mileage.  If you spent that time getting fliers out door to door, you would see results almost instantly.

Hide behind your perfectionism. Because if one pizza is off, the world will know it and no one will ever buy your food again. Unless you completed it from the dough ball to the box you shouldn’t show it to anyone or even consider making a penny off of it. A misplaced pepperoni might – just might! – wreck your entire year.

Cling to hope. As Tyler Durden says It’s only after we’ve lost everything, that we are free to do anything. Lately I feel like I walk around with a little voice in my skull chanting This sucks, it is all so screwed up, everything is so screwed up, what are we going to do. Hope is not a strategy.  Hope is a commodity.

Thanks Andy W. for the inspiration for this post!