Monthly Archive for April, 2011

Last week as we were coming upon Easter, I received a barrage of emails from different retailers touting all of their sales and trying to entice me into their stores. I actually received one that really caught my eye and was going to make it a point to get to that store. The subject line indicated that on Friday, they would have a coupon for 50% off of your entire purchase. This was actually exciting to me as I have never seen this particular retailer offer such a generous promotion and I really like their products (albeit they are overpriced in my mind). I made a mental note to click the link later in the day and get my coupon.  I also made a list of what I was going to purchase there.

Later that evening when I had a moment to breathe, I logged back into my email account to retrieve my golden ticket as it were, but instead of my golden ticket, I received a royal goose egg. There just happened to be a second email from this retailer explaining how they had gotten carried away and they really meant to give coupons for 50% off of one item only (with exclusions of course). Naturally, I was bummed.

I imagine that there were a lot of people that were really bummed or perhaps even infuriated by this second email. It may be just me, but I think this retailer may have made a tactical error. Of course mistakes happen and maybe this one was just really too big not be corrected. But, what if they had just let their customers take advantage of their error? I really don’t think it would have put them out of business. It might have really paid off for them. The PR alone may have been worth it.

In case you are wondering, I never did pay a visit to that store last week. Again, it may be just me, but I doubt it.

I was recently reminded of a story told by Samuel T. Whitman. In this account he acquaints us with a story that began when he was just boy.

Once on his family’s homestead there was a saw mill. The saw mill had left the valley in which they resided, but it left behind random pieces of equipment. One day as Samuel was exploring the property he came across a fallers wedge. A faller’s wedge is used to help fell a tree; it is inserted in a cut made by a saw and then struck with a sledge hammer to widen the cut. Samuel happened to be late for dinner, so he leaned the fallers wedge against a young walnut tree. He figured he would take it to the shed after dinner or perhaps the next time he walked by. Unfortunately, this merely became a good intention. The fallers wedge was never moved and eventually it grew into the tree and healed over.

Many years later when Samuel was now the owner of the homestead a fierce winter storm came across this valley. Typically this type of storm would not have hurt the now large walnut tree, but to Samuel’s dismay he went out that night to find that one of the three major limbs had split away from the trunk and had crashed to the ground. This so unbalanced the remainder of the top that it, too, split apart and went down.

The next morning Samuel went out to mourn the loss of his tree. What he found magnified his loss. In the clear morning hours he could now see why he lost the magnificent tree; the forgotten fallers wedge. The wedge that had grown into the tree had prevented the tree’s fibers from growing together completely, leaving the tree weak and vulnerable.

There are two valuable lessons we can learn from this story. First, what we may put off today can have serious consequences in the future. Secondly, forgotten wedges may seem to heal, but left to fester they can be fatal.

Good intentions we may have include security enhancements, product upgrades, bettering relationships with our clients, the list could go on and on. Putting any of these off can have serious consequences on the success of your business.

What about forgotten wedges? Do you have anything that may be slowly festering? Could it be customer complaints that have gone unresolved or just plain ignored? What about hiring non marketing asset employees? It may be those seemingly innocent white lies that are told to seal a deal. Again, the list could go on and on.

So, before your storm hits, take stock and turn those good intentions into actions and extract any forgotten wedges before it is too late. Or, you may be saying TIMBER to your falling business!