Is your business easy to buy from? Does the customer have to think and struggle to figure out what to do next? How fast do you answer the question, “What are the next steps?” Forget your business, what about you personally? Are you easy or hard to work with? Are you complex and mysterious or do you make it easy for people to understand you?
I shop at basically one grocery store. I eat lunch there often and almost every day I do a bit of shopping there, too. I usually pick up some things for dinner. They recently changed their grocery bags. This new version has a handle that breaks easily versus the old sturdy-handled bag. It’s a quick lesson to learn, the fact that the handle gives up quickly. After the first couple of broken items, you know to carry it from the bottom. I was walking back to the office from lunch with two awkwardly filled bags each cradled in my arm like they were babies. As I fumbled along I thought, “This is a lot of work.” In fact, it’s so much work that after a few visits, I noticed I wasn’t buying as much. Not necessarily on purpose, but I was consciously not purchasing anything heavy.
I visited a restaurant a week ago. There were so many choices that all sounded delicious that the ordering process took forever. It was unintentionally the longest dinner in recent memory. So long that I left thinking, “I’ll never go back and probably eat at home for the foreseeable future.” Too many choices, and it’s harder to reach a decision fast.
As a business that provides a service as one of its products, I fall into the same trap – being hard to buy from. Successful businesses are easy to buy from. The choices are obvious and what you get is well documented. The process of buying is smooth and easy and you are on your way, enjoying your purchase, fast. As you evaluate your professional and personal processes, it’s important to consider how easy you are to work with. Easy always has a tendency to translate to frequent.