Sunday, October 7, 2012

Time to put on our big-boy pants

This is just a short explanatory note for the benefit of any radio station executives or deputy opposition leaders out there who might be struggling in their understanding of the world.

Let us imagine you run a business, say, a cake shop. A lot of people buy cakes from your cake shop, but at some point they start to go off your cake shop a bit. You might wonder why, but then the customers who don't want to buy cakes from your cake shop tell you why - it is because the plumbing in your cake shop has gone wrong and as a consequence your cake shop is constantly permeated by the foul smell of sewage.

Now you of course employ a plumber to look after your plumbing, but the service which your plumber has been providing is now of a very poor standard - in fact, the service he is providing is causing you to - take careful note here - lose customers. And your customers are telling you that this is the case, which is actually quite nice of them, because otherwise you might be losing them without knowing why, which would be unfortunate.

And so you call your plumber and you say, "Sorry, your plumbing service is not achieving what we want it to achieve, and it's damaging our business - we will not be requiring your plumbing service anymore, we're getting a different plumber."

OR perhaps you think, to hell with customers who can't stand a little stench - they're not our customer base anyway, we're going to stick with our plumber because we like him, and the really loyal, valuable customers will stick with us and keep buying our cakes.

Either way, that's your decision to make - you are in full possession of all the facts. Your plumber is causing people to avoid your cake shop, and you have to decide whether keeping your plumber or dismissing your plumber is best for your business. So this is what you do.

NOW...



Imagine that your plumber is actually a radio station, and instead of providing plumbing services, it is providing advertising, and instead of the smell in your shop, what your customers are complaining about is the content broadcast on that radio station, which is causing them to avoid your shop. Meaning - again, follow this very very closely - the service which is being provided to your business is losing you customers.

You have a decision to make, again - but again, isn't it nice that your customers kept you informed so you could make business decisions in possession of all the facts? Now YOU, as a business owner, are able to make an educated choice about whether the business lost due to the service being provided to you is worth the benefits of that service. All is in order.

Now, please...imagine that VERY hard, and then take a bit of a look in the mirror.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, when you put it that way...

shellity said...

You're so nice.

Gillian King said...

It's more like the cake shop stocks cakes from a number of suppliers. Now that the cake suppliers have been told about the stinky plumbing, they're withdrawing their cakes from Stinky Shop and continuing to sell in the hundreds of other bright and beautiful cake shops around our fair land.

Needless to say, the cake suppliers are very glad to be warned about the stink - after all they don't want their cakes contaminated. What if someone bought a batch of Mrs Worthy's lamingtons from the Stinky Shop and decided they tasted bad and told their friends not to buy Mrs Worthy's lamingtons any more?

All's well in the world. Mrs Worthy's lamingtons continue to sell well and the Stinky Shop continues to host visits from its incompetent but matey plumber. A few rusted-on customers continue to visit, even though the shelves are depleted because they've been hypnotised into thinking all cake shops are stinky and bereft of content.

Mandy said...

As well as making me laugh out loud (literaly) this is spot on. Thanks for breaking it down into small, manageable chunks, complete with crumbs :)

Mandy said...

ps. *literally.

I'm not American, that was a typo!

Anonymous said...

More like a bus load of passers by who don't buy your cakes storm the building, complain about the smell, demand the plumber be sacked before losing interest and getting back on the bus.

Leaving your store pretty much back where it was just with your customers thinking 'you poor buggers, let me buy a cake'

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