Especially for SME’s – 23: Time.

19 January 2022

SME 1: This fixing the time for meeting customers, I have done in my SME! Because we have to have a work life balance too.

SME 2: Also me!

SME 3: Now that my unit is in bad straits, I relaxed it a few months ago!

Mr. Lowe: If you have done this only when you are in trouble, you agree you should not do this! But why don’t you do this relaxation just for your God, your external customers? Had you done that, you would have pro-actively seen to it your unit just does not get into problems at all.

SME 3: Not only that, but I had fixed up timings for customers meeting me! It was only from 10 am to 12 noon every day and I had asked my secretary to strictly enforce this.

Mr. Lowe: Suppose you do the exact opposite: Customers including the old and the prospective customers can meet you at any time, your doors are always open for them. It is like keeping your door open for God at all times! Will God, particularly customers now-a-days, wait for you at your door? He will go to any other door- may be one of your competitor’s- that is open! Those days when customers used to wait are gone, probably never to return. If your doors are always open, it implies that you are prepared to surrender the most valuable resource of yours namely Time at his feet. And you know, total surrender works!

Please understand that the time spent with your external customers is the real investment into your future as time is the most critical and important resource that you have. What other things you can be busy with when God wants to meet you?

SME 2: I am implementing this immediately. What is the second situation when we have to say no to a customer?

Mr. Lowe: When a customer negotiates a price with you, you may have to say no!

SME 1: yes, I do that because I know he cannot go to anyone else either because the time is short or because there is no competition to me! That is good entrepreneurship, is it not?

Mr. Lowe 1: We have already discussed the case where we recommended not to exploit your customer when he is in time-tension. Let us take the case of no competition. Competition is like a brake to any business, that is why we say competition must be present in our own interest. Else we are driving a vehicle, our unit, without brake! It is headed for a crash.

SME 2: What is wrong in charging excessively when there is no competition? It makes business sense to make hay while the Sun shines. If we don’t make money when there is no competition, when will we? We need a cushion to absorb the shock when the competition crops up-which we know will happen sooner than later.

Mr. Lowe: What you say is true but yet I recommend a restraint in quoting your price even in a non- competitive situation.

SME 1: But why? It does not make business sense. ………..contd.