Yesterday, my stomach rumbling happily, I strolled into an excellent (if expensive) fish and chip joint near me called Fishminster. (Why the odd name? They belong to Pieminster, a highly successful pie makers that started up in Bedminster in Bristol).
I was really looking forward to that crispy batter, those glorious chips. There was no other customer. Just the guy behind the counter chatting to a friend.
I stood there. He ignored me. I left.
He ruined my afternoon, the lazy prick. I will never go there again. That’s not just one sale lost. It’s years of sales. I would guess about £5,000.
***
Very perceptive observations in the Financial Times by Luke Johnson – the man who made Pizza Express and Strada so successful. The great divide between competence and uselessness is not between public and private sectors. It’s between large and small.
He speaks of the “airless coffins” in which middle managers are confined. People to whom risk-taking is totally alien. They focus on “cost-cutting, out-sourcing and automation”.
This instantly reminded me of my experiences this week in getting my passport delivered. I paid £20 extra for this to get it delivered. The Pisspot Office managed to find a delivery firm I never heard of called DX.
But it’s even more bloody useless than the others (hard). I believe they’ve a new website that expresses their corporate vision called www.wedon’tgiveaflyingfuck.com.
I had to spend an extra £23 on a taxi to their depot because instead of delivering to my office as agreed they delivered it to Bristol – where the doorbell doesn’t ring.
I think they have an About Us section on their website that reads “Proudly automated. If you can find out how to talk to a live human here you get a prize”.
***
When you read this I’ll be on my way to New York – moderately happy because I’ve already sold 18 out of 40 seats for EADIM next year, which will be at the start of October.
Yesterday when I went to get the train tickets to Heathrow, suddenly a familiar voice spoke next to me. It was my daughter Martina Topley-Bird, the celebrated chanteuse – now working mostly with Massive Attack.
She had this astounding Vivien Westwood thing on. Was it a coat? Was it a dress? Was it a plan? I don’t know. but I guarantee there’s nothing like it anywhere else in Bristol, where it turns out she’s teaching music.
Hear her at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_pkWUNCv0k
Drayton,
Dan Kennedy is mentioned on another post and he regularly emphasises the importance of both properly training AND monitoring staff to cut down on costly blunders. In his September newsletter there's an example of someone ordering a highly customised coffee at Starbucks that came to $9.00 and the staff member saying “Wow, that's expensive”. Not quite as bad as your fish and chip example but still…
Thanks for the post…and the lessons in seminar marketing. If people are paying attention, you've just handed out some extraordinarily valuable tips. Hate to mention Dan Kennedy again on your blog but he recently turned down two highly paid copy assignments because “the clients have left themselves too little time to market their seminars”. In my own, painful at times, experience, way too many people totally underestimate what's involved in getting people to a live event (but you know that, of course).
Kevin Francis
Fishminster or Pissminster? I had a similar experience with an upmarket estate agency some years ago. I went in as a cash buyer and was ignored by a the braying Sloane who seemed more interested in recounting to her friend on the phone how she had taken a young guards officer for a canter at the weekend than make an easy sale. I walked out, and as is fairly common in Kensington, found a moist dog shit. Having firmly squelched my shoe in it I returned to pick up their free house magazine, discreetly dragging my soiled shoe on the light cream carpet. I left happy.