Monday, October 3, 2016

Is Lack of Knowledge Costing Your Business?

I am a really big fan of trying to educate my prospective customers. My efforts include videos, audio recordings, blog posts and articles, and of course keeping my frequently asked questions up to date. I am of the opinion that being an authority in your niche involves staying ahead of potential future frequently asked questions as well as updating previous questions. Therefore I have tried very hard to put together a great resource and that’s what makes what I’m about to say sting so much.

Is what your prospects don’t know or don’t care to learn costing your business? Probably! When you deal with the public you must understand that some people are resistant to learning new things! These type of people either don’t believe they have time, don’t feel it necessary to make the time or they just flat out don’t care to learn something new. They probably wonder why they should bother reading answers to your frequently asked questions when they can simply ask you. Come on now, don’t make me think and for God’s sake don’t make me read.

I know it sounds funny but I’m serious, and that’s probably why it’s so funny. Those of you laughing at this know exactly what I’m talking about.

The reason I’m highlighting this topic is because I believe a prospect’s lack of knowledge recently cost me business. I recently went through the normal motions of what I do to get a custom coin order which is create artwork and do requested artwork changes prior to any form of commitment from the prospect. Stupid business model, right?!

Anyway, we are right on the verge (at least I think we are) of getting this order when this prospect drops a bombshell on me. The prospect asks, is the dragon (see below) on the reverse side going to be 3D. My response is no! You see, there is not enough detail to make that specific design element into high relief 3D metal.

non-3d-dragon

The amount of detail or lack thereof for that specific design element has nothing to do with me. Using this specific dragon was their choice, even though I tried to get them onto a more detailed dragon (see below) from the beginning with my initial design.

3D Dragon

Needless to say I have NOT heard back from them after I said their dragon would not be 3D. I don’t ever say things like this to discourage people. I always set out to be honest and forthright with my prospects and customers but in this case being honest didn’t seem to serve me very well. I believe this is something that every business owner experiences and can be summed up by another lesson learned. It’s just really difficult to pay bills with lessons learned.


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