No soup for you!

I don't know how many small business owners there are that listen to the show or are going to read this blog, but I wanted to share a little thought with everyone that I think is pretty universal. We are living in a time where things are hard. Businesses are struggling and trying to find new ways to bring in new customers and keep their old faithfuls. At least most are.

I wanted to talk about businesses making horrible decisions that adversely effect them in regards to how they treat their customers. And I've had a couple of instances within the past 2 weeks or so that makes me think to myself, "What the heck are you thinking! Nice way to shoot yourself in the foot".

To start off with, yesterday Ryan and I went to lunch at a local deli, where after being told we couldn't sit at the table we wanted to because there were only two of us, the waitress also told Ryan that the sandwich he had requested "wasn't really their best and that you should really get something else." You would think that if they really couldn't make a Cuban sandwich well, they would take it off the menu instead of telling their customers who request one not to order it. What if he was on a strict Cuban sandwich diet? All of this resulted in Ryan telling me as we exited that he would never eat there again.

Another place that I reluctantly frequent is a sub shop here in town where I think that the owner/sandwich maker is the Florida version of the soup Nazi from Seinfeld. I once asked him to put mayonnaise on a turkey sandwich but was then informed that doing so would "ruin the sandwich". Let me start off by saying that at the time, I had had probably about 2537 (ballpark figure)turkey sandwiches in my life, both with and with out mayo so to explain to me that the sandwich, which I'm going to be eating is going to be ruined with a little white sauce is possible the most asinine thing I've ever heard. But it's not out of character for this guy. He has also told someone else we know that he will not toast a sandwich because that is not how they were meant to be made and literally refused to do it.

The thing is that the point of owning a business is to make money and support yourself and employees. Driving customers away because of your pride or your lack of people skills isn't really the best way to make it. And I think the saddest thing about it is that these places are aren't bad. The food really is good. It's just too bad that these places bring the struggle onto themselves.

This has been an installment of "Just Put Mayonnaise On It You Sandwich Making Freak" by Josh