Expressing Your View

Good Morning ,
During the political season, which is now underway, some business owners do a lot of stupid things that cost them customers and income, and I don’t want you to be one of them.
Many years ago I was at a chamber planning retreat waiting for dinner. I was outside on the deck when I got talking to my city councilman. He also had his own veterinary practice at the time. As we were talking, he said what I took as sound advice as I was just starting to get involved in politics. He told me that while in office, he had lost about half of his customer base, because of beating out his opponent and his voting record. Years later, after being out of office for a while, he had rebuilt up his customer base enough to sell it for a good sum and retire to a nice place south of here.
In the past I consulted with a service business that among other things put a well known but very controversial talk show host on their music on hold system. His attitude was, if they did not like his views then they didn’t have to do business with him. Guess what? He soon closed his business.
I was told, you have to make it as easy as possible for people to do business with you. Stay open longer hours so they can do business with you after they get off work, have multiple ways to contact you and ways to pay, be friendly, helpful and polite.
It’s hard enough in today’s environment to keep one’s doors open. We don’t need to give people an additional reason not to be a customer. That means keeping your views to yourself, unless they are an integral part of your business such as a political consultant.
So on your “on hold” system, play music or better yet promote your products and services. Use your company social media pages for promoting your business, NOT your views. That includes LinkedIn! LinkedIn is a business networking site; its purpose is to build and promote business and jobs.
If you want to promote your personal views to the world, do it in a personal blog or Facebook page that is not tied to your business.A very well known, successful marketing consultant has a personal/political blog under a different title instead of his name, because he does not want to lose clients with his views.
So before you post something, ask yourself, how many customer will I lose because of this, and is it worth it?
Till next time.