Do People Like You? Your Business May Be Suffering

This is one of the basic fundamentals in business. You can have the best prices, the most convenient location and have the most knowledgeable technicians around, but if people don’t like you it doesn’t really matter that much. Its possible that the only thing holding your business back… is you. There are many reasons why a customer wont like a business owner, here are a few common ones.

Geek Speak – You probably know more about computers than anyone else you know but while you were working on your computer skills you may have neglected your social skills.
Have you ever had anyone else make you feel dumb? This is what happens when you bamboozle people with geek speak which can also appear condescending. Something to always keep in mind is that people aren’t dumb if they don’t know much about computers, because if you get talking to them you might find that they are a master of something else like fixing cars (which I know little about).

Being In a Bad Mood – You may be having trouble with money, business may not be going well or you may have had a fight with your significant other that morning. Don’t bring your bad mood to work.
Bad moods can lead to attitude “well its YOUR fault that you goto porn sites and download every installer under the sun!” or even you totally snapping. If you snap, you’ll probably never see that client again.

You Smell Funny – Just like the smelly kid in high school, people simply don’t want to be near someone who looks like they haven’t bathed in a week. Unfortunately this is quite common in the computer industry. In a past post about qualifications I wrote:

What does matter much more than any qualifications when you are dealing with the public is how you look. You may be unqualified and on your first day as a freelancer but if you look the part, they will think you are a pro. I personally go to jobs with neat short hair, tightly trimmed beard (I don’t shave it totally off because I look too young), collared work shirt, work pants and dress shoes. If I combine that with my technicians bag of goodies then I really look like I know what I am doing.

The way you look (and smell) matters. Look like the professional you are.

Being Burnt Out – Sometimes, no matter how good or bad business is going, we get burnt out and need a break. If you aren’t excited about your business, how can you possibly make your staff excited about it?

Some of you may be thinking that you couldn’t possibly go on holidays because of the work load. There is never a good time to go on holidays but when you do, you’ll find that you will lose very few customers.

This year I went traveling around the world for two months and when I returned I had a pleasant surprise which I wrote about:

When I returned I had alot of messages left on the answering machine by clients. 95% of the messages were the clients asking me give them a call when I return and 5% were ‘clickers’ who hung up after hearing the message. I knew I would lose some clients from traveling because they found another tech in the mean time. I promptly returned the calls for all clients who left a message and to my surprise they all waited for me to return to fix their problems, they didn’t find someone else. More surprisingly some of these calls came just days after I left so some clients had been waiting for two months.

Take a break when you need it, It’ll do a world of good for you and your business.

People like being around people they like and if you can make them feel good or make things easier for them (such as setting Windows updates to automatically update) they’ll love you for it.

So ask yourself, do you speak technobabble? in a bad mood or smell funny? or just burnt out? If so, do something about it because it can be you thats holding your business back.