It’s encouraging seeing small-business owners taking their craft seriously in managing customer relations. The mistake many small-business owners make is taking things personal when concerns about aspects of their businesses are raised. Owners are not necessarily good managers of businesses. It makes sense sometimes, having someone else as a manager of the business than the owner being one. Considering challenges faced by many small-businesses, it is understandable that many owners are also managers of their businesses. However, such owners should also invest in skills to manage those businesses, learn about the importance of maintaining good reputation and humility, and taking every customer, including potential customers, seriously.

If small-business owners do not take themselves seriously, why should customers? Business owners are like captains of their armies. They should try to show zeal and interest always, and be energetic. No follower will be inspired by following a lethargic leader. Customers too, take the cue from the behaviour of small-business owners. By Nimroth Gwetsa, 31 March 2019.

One swallow doesn’t make a summer. But recently, and within the same period but different occasions, I contacted two small-business owners for a relatively small job that would have taken, at most, a month to complete. That job also had a potential for follow-up business as the first phase would have set the basis for the next. Just to clear things up, I’m not the kind to rip off small-business owners or squeeze them out of business considering my understanding of their situation as a small-business owner myself. I made it clear to them upfront that they should be free to apply their minds diligently on the work required and ensure their pricing does not prejudice them.

I contacted the first owner on, say a Wednesday, and that owner told me he was busy then and would like to visit my office after a week to assess the work required. He asked me to phone him again the following week to remind him to visit my office for the assessment. Though disappointed at his lack of zeal in wanting me to follow up with him to remind him to take my business, I felt I should oblige and remind him when the time comes and should use the opportunity to educate him about the need to take himself seriously if he wants his business to thrive.

A week passed and the guy did not show up. I called to remind him to come over for the assessment and quotation afterwards. He agreed and apologised for not honouring the initial appointment. Nevertheless, he never arrived. So, I moved on to the next guy.

Again, I do not know what it is about small-business owners and airtime or their transportation that these seem to be their plague. This one too failed to arrive on the agreed schedule and never bothered calling to explain his absence. I resisted the temptation to write him off but felt he too needed a lesson on customer relations and service management as my #CountryDuty. I called him and scheduled another appointment. This time, he still did not arrive on the scheduled date but at least took the trouble to phone, though at the last minute, to tell me of his inability to honour the appointment that day owing to his dental appointment, but asked for a postponement to the next day.

I obliged and true to his word, he arrived, though a few hours late, and completed his assessment. Then days went by. Days turned to a week, a week to a fortnight. Then I called asking for a quotation now that the assessment was completed. Instead of receiving the quotation, I was asked to approve his team’s arrival at my office to begin the work. I objected, obviously, to having his team onsite without first knowing the cost and duration of the effort.

After much haggling, I did get the quotation, but there was no work breakdown or bill of material, just the time and material billing rate I was asked to accept. Now there is one thing I would not do: accepting a times and material billing fee structure when I do not manage the project. I can understand this fee structure if the problem or nature of the challenges involved are unknown. But when work is so specific that even I could have done it as a DIY project if I had the time, and it is within one’s competence, I could not understand why I was not given other choices on the fee structure.

I then asked him to give me an option for a fixed fee, even if this excluded material but was for labour only. We could not agree. I could not even get him to send me a bill of material for the required work. In the end, he did not to take my calls and I accepted that doing business with him was not meant to be.

This experience, from the two business owners, is not my first. But this does not give me the right to generalise about small-business owners. However, it reminded me of the reasons many small-business owners are failing to gain traction in expanding their businesses. It feels as though they do not care about anything anyone says but what they feel and want.

Of course, these are their businesses. And no one should dictate to them about running them. But, it is foolhardy to be short-sighted and run the business unprofessionally in this globally connected era we are in, especially in affluent parts of Gauteng, one of South Africa’s financial hubs, where customers are generally sophisticated, choosy and do not easily part with their money. I do not mean that other areas can be ignored and that northern suburbs be treated differently from the rest. I mean, all areas should be treated with respect and it would be foolish to misbehave against customers who can easily exercise choice by going elsewhere. The law of supply and demand is not necessarily on the small-business owner side in northern suburbia. But it is a discussion for another day.

I know some would call for more understanding and patience towards the small-business owner. Indeed, on another day and another time, that would be the case, but it cannot always be a consideration. Ultimately, one has to pull oneself up by one’s boot straps, and to accept the world is and can be cruel. It’s one thing trying to overcome hopelessness when one has nothing, but another when an opportunity has been presented to one, and all that one needs to do is seize it and make the most of it. I believe the two small-business owners I met have been given the opportunity and both squandered it, at least from my side.

Whatever it becomes of them, I wish they would learn and become better managers of their businesses. And let this somewhat boring story inspire others too to take life seriously. We may not all have longer-term visions of our businesses, but let us run them with the view of leaving a legacy for our successors.

To those small-business owners doing their best and impressing their customers, keep doing it. Not only will you be enjoying your efforts, but will eventually be rewarded.

Do the right thing always and prosper.