Clerks

"It's possible that he thinks his job is to be a clerk, to keep people from stealing things, to type letters into a computer and to read the results out loud as he stands at the cash register. If that's the case, this store, like all stores staffed by clerks who are taught to be merely clerks, is doomed." This is from Seth Godin's blog. It leads me to think of Kevin Smith's Clerks movies. The clerks don't actually work. They annoy customers and other employees.

I think many businesses have clerks. No on-boarding. No training. No one shadowing or mentoring or coaching them. That results in a loss of money. And if you are trying to build a company to last, it will likely result in a disruption in culture.

You want empowered employees who take initiative and maybe treat the company likes it is their own. They make better decisions that way.

Take care of the employees and they will take care of the customers.

In another blog, Seth writes, "If you embrace special orders, you're doing something difficult, scarce and worth seeking out. If you handle them begrudgingly, you're likely to undo the very goodwill you sought to create."

Special orders don't scale but they can increase the lifetime value of the customer - and if done really well, increase word of mouth.