Let me ask you a question:  why are companies in business? Or better yet, what is the purpose of a business?  To make money! And, sadly that is why so many companies get it wrong.

It doesn’t really matter what line of business a company is in, but anyone that is totally focused on making money will soon be out of money!  As Peter Drucker  once said, the purpose of a business is to create a customer.

I am not detracting from net-flow-through, from the art and science  of managing the P&L.  By focusing on solely making money, companies lose focus and truly don’t see the forest for the trees. It can’t always be about cutting costs to the bone, increasing prices to the point of gouging the marketplace and, it has to be about more than that.

Here’s an example near and dear to my heart!  I think that we can all agree that banks for the most part are gouging their customers. From ATM fees, to all sorts of other banking fees, whether online or not, we all know that banks are in it for the money and they are raking it in!  Yet, at most banks, you can never find a pen to fill out your deposit slip, or if you do find one it’s usually on a chain. At the amount of money that they’re making, wouldn’t it be more sensitive and customer oriented to simply give pens away? Through economies of scale and large volume ordering, one can get decent pens for 1-2 pennies each - so wouldn’t it make a great advertising strategy to have the bank name and website address on the pens?  But no, banks will typically not do that; they’d rather spend 1000 times more in all sorts of campaigns whereby one would get $100.00 for opening an account with a certain branch, etc. instead of having their customers and visitors feel appreciated.

Anyway, as I always say: There are two things you can do! Either you do it or you don’t!

At Your Service,
Aurelian