Young Entrepreneur Blog

Sometimes a business can make such basic mistakes that you really have to go right back to the beginner’s level to address them… today I am going to share with you a story that happened to me just a few hours ago, of how a major phone retailer made a rookie business mistake.

Back To Basics Business Lesson - Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

Biting off more than you can chew is a rookie mistake, but today I saw one of the UK’s leading mobile phone retailers making this error.

Here is what happened…

I was walking through town to get my lunch, and I passed a phone retailer that had a big sign outside with a man stood next to it in a suit… the sign was offering mobile broadband, but what really caught my eye was the fact that it was a non-contract based mobile broadband deal.

So I went inside and there were two members of staff and two customers…

But here is where the trouble started… both staff were dealing with the same customer.

This in itself is a rookie mistake… and despite me waiting more than 5 minutes, nobody even acknowledged me (rookie mistake #3).

So I went for lunch and returned 30 mins later. Again, the guy was stood next to the sign outside the shop (this was a mistake, as the sign was self explanitory, and when I asked him about the deal he pointed me inside towards the staff.

So again, I went in, and again, both staff were dealing with just one of the handful of customers.

I cheekily asked one of the staff if they worked here… to which she replied “yes, I am just a bit busy at the moment with this customer”, to which I replied, “Is your collegue also busy with the same customer?”, she replied “yes”.

I moved the cheekometer up a level by proclaiming that “it must be a very serious issue to need two staff”.

I got nothing more than a blank stare… the sort of empty look that gave me a glimpse of just why it may require two people to do one person’s job.

Anyway, back to the business lesson…

Don’t bite off more than you can chew, and certainly don’t spread your resources too thinly.

This retailer got greedy, and whilst I respect their initiatives, they couldn’t back it up.

Afterall, why was some guy stood outside holding a sign, when they were understaffed inside?

Why were two members of staff dealing with every customer?

And why drive more traffic into the store if the staff are not able to cope with it?

This is like paying for $2,000 of traffic, only to find that your checkout system doesn’t work, so you can’t take any orders.

I am not going to name and shame the retailer, it would afterall be pointless, as no doubt it would require two members of their team to read this blog post
Today they lost a customer, and I could have been a very lucrative customer as well.

Remember, don’t take on more than you can cope with.

Dean