Comments on: Show No Mercy

By: uglyblackjohn

uglyblackjohn — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:43:35 +0000

I had a band manager tell me that they never do anything for free because then that is was people will think their service is worth ($0).
Always charge – the amount of money and time spent trying to collect is up to you.

By: FreeMan

FreeMan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:10:25 +0000

@Ed – Yeah I have to add Gold Plating to my vocabulary. I think the way they explained it is exactly my point of view. Why spend more than one second trying to keep one instead of doing your best with the thousands you got. Most of the time the one who negotiates everything is a arsehole that can never be satisfied.

I get a lot of people negotiating with me and I usually say my number. They always tell me someone else is doing it for a cheaper price and I say the best business move is to go with them. Now they usually come back and accept my price but if I let them negotiate they would keep going down down down. Sooner or later you have to say this is what the service is worth and hold your ground.

By: ed

ed — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:56:36 +0000

When I was at Sprint, the first thing they told us during orientation was not to engage in “gold-plating” to appease customers. Their reasoning was it is poor business thinking to make nice trying attract/retain one customer when you supposed to be in business to attract/retain tens of thousands.

I never forgot that phrase “gold-plating” when I heard of it…

By: FreeMan

FreeMan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:42:44 +0000

@Freedom – I laugh because most of your so called intelligent people can understand the most complex things but they still fall prey to those who understand the tendencies of humans!

@UBJ – I agree the smartest companies seem to have you playing Monopoly all day while buying Big Macs while the lesser evolved companies think giving discounts will bring more people in. I often wonder why people don’t copy off of what seems to work for others but instead they invent crazy money back incentives that seem to cause them to lose money. How many banks give you 20 bucks to open a checking account but soon realize no one really keeps any money in there. The people with real money probably don’t give 2 ishs about 20 bucks.

Real estate owners just get a bad name because it’s part of food clothing and shelter. Those 3 essentials if cut back make people lose their stability. So I don’t know how you can be a good guy when you have LordShip over their life. I don’t know if anyone with Lord as their title is going to get a fair shake when it comes to protecting their money and investments.

By: uglyblackjohn

uglyblackjohn — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:52:15 +0000

The worst move many businesses made was in developing those “Miles” cards.
I used to work for a chain whose policy was to give away three to five free tabs to customers every night.
When they introduced the “Spend $100 get $5 back” policy – people started expecting the hook-up.

The first policy created an unexpected surprise for paying customer, the second created customers who were always looking for a hook-up.
The chain has since scaled back their rewards program.

As far as being a slumlord; My grandmother used to always say, “If you can’t pay one month, you can’t pay two.”.
And she was right.

By: Freedom

Freedom — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:11:31 +0000

Indeed they are LOL!

By: FreeMan

FreeMan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:07:05 +0000

@Freedom – Who cares what most people think just run the business. No one likes to pay for anything so since you are entering into business this is the lay of the land. This is why everyone hires customer service people who have to take the bullets on the phone because they know if they said I’m not budging Customers will get mad. So instead they tell a nice sounding person to tell you no deal so you can hate them instead. The people up top are crafty!

By: Freedom

Freedom — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:43:11 +0000

Thanks for sharing how you hire.

Hey, I’m not talking about being angry when I say being a B! It’s the perceived coldness that one puts on a person when ain’t playing around and mean business about what they’re doing or trying to do. No, I won’t get angry but I will let whomever know that I mean buisness in a tactful, but firm way.

By: FreeMan

FreeMan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:14:48 +0000

@Carl – I can concede to your point but even still you are looking for the person who can actually make the discount. In most businesses the person who has that power is not the cashier or your server so it is rare. I always call it the difference between a service and a business. A service is usually negotiable while most business on the retail level try to be set in stone, especially a corporate franchise.

I don’t mean it as the 100% rule but how about 85%!

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:12:25 +0000

@FreeMan, Re: your response to Freedom; I get your point as a general rule. But people often forget or just don’t know that nearly anything is negotiable. Especially in retail. Every store has some kind of un-advertised “manager’s special” or whatever they may call it. Which is some measure of discount that the store can give you if you ask for it. Trust me, I’ve actually done it on several occasions. The bottom line is, just ask the manager, not some cashier; although at times they can give you a discount too. The worst they can do is say no