The Era of Incentivized Expansionism

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“If you’re going to fight, fight like you’re the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s Ark. And brother, it’s starting to rain. — on a t-shirt being sold by a Bangkok street vendor”

Jake Needham, And Brother It’s Starting to Rain

Having been a small business owner now for twenty years I can tell you for a fact that the customer is not always right. That old quote is one of the biggest fallacies that exist when it comes to running a business.

Now don’t get me wrong, the customer definitely carries some significant weight for every business, however it’s always up to the business owner to assess that customer’s weight in order to determine whether or not that customer is worthy of engaging in a business transaction either temporarily, or for an ongoing basis.

Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself Brandon, what exactly do you mean?

First of all, if you’re a business owner, or more specifically a small business owner, you want to develop a great relationship with your customers, as well as other businesses that you might deal with. This should go without saying, but the relationship between a small business and their customer base is of vital importance because that relationship is one that allows the business to provide a quality product, or service, to that customer on a consistent basis so that the business owner is profitable. This is important so that they can remain solvent and the customer can always walk away happy and fulfilled with the product and/or service that they paid for.

However, what about those circumstances that occur when the customer proves to be difficult to deal with? Additionally, what if the customer proves to be so difficult that they cost the business more money, time, and energy than they are worth? Believe me this happens from time to time and in these circumstances the customer can surely demonstrate why they aren’t always right, or correct, in the midst of a business transaction.

In this scenario it’s probably better for the business owner to choose to do limited business with such a customer, or to simply walk away from the customer altogether. The same thing can be said with business to business relationships as well.

A good example of this would be like that time we all heard the story of the Christian baker that chose not to bake the cake for the gay couple that wanted to get married. In this case the business owner made the decision not to compromise on their faith and bake the cake although they still offered to assist the couple in finding another alternative so that they could get their cake. This ultimately resulted in the customer suing the business and resorting to using lawfare to force that business to run their business the way they (the customer) believed it should be run.

You see this is a perfect example of why the customer isn’t always right. If you say Brandon had they just gone ahead with baking the cake then they wouldn’t have had to endure a lawsuit, right?

You may, or may not be correct, but that’s a cowardice option to consider. I mean slow down and think about this. What would it say about any of us who practice our faith whether that be Christianity, Judaism, or Buddhism that would encounter a customer that had some request that was in direct conflict with our faith and belief system, yet we chose to cave and do what was demanded of us by a hostile customer?

In addition to this if you are a self-proclaimed freedom loving American the media would focus on the so-called freedom of the customers in this example, but what about the freedoms of the business owner? How much money, time, sacrifice, and energy did the customer that was wanting to force the baker to bake the cake