Keeping Up Appearances
If you follow dog shows in the US, you likely watched some part of the AKC All Breed Show last week. It was a chance to see and learn about purebred dogs. And most of them look as if they just came out of the salon. The salon look is hard for most small business owners to keep up for any amount of time. We tend to look more like the dogs after a run in the muddy and wet field!
When we had Canine Splash, we wore swim trunk shorts and logo t-shirts. T Inevitably, a shower was given to us by a wet dog. And retrieving all the hair out of the filters almost always resulted in some level of wetness. It was all part of the experience and if we were not willing to appear like owners of pools for dogs, that would not have been well received by our clients, well, their human parents who paid for their splash experience.
Recently, I have been noticing colleagues in many different industries writing, blogging, posting about personal adventures on their business sites. We made a conscious decision never to do that as we acknowledged many of our dog swimmers were breaking their parent’s budget. It would not be fair to include anything we were a part of that was not sensitive to the budgets of our clients.
Bicycling across Europe seems to be a common adventure right now, especially for Professors or those in Academia. Then we have the other worldly trips which clearly state money is no object. I truly wonder if these folks ever consider their clients. As a client of some of them, I do not like to see that type of personal adventure on the business writings of the firm. I am there to understand new products, new services, etc. not to see how many miles Amsterdam is from Paris. As a small business owner, be in tune with your clients. Save the adventures for your personal followers. We always found that approach to be the kindest for all.
If you are traveling for business, if you landed a new project in a new location, please post about those. It is exciting to see businesses we spend money at expand. We are happy for them. Posting a photo of you and your spouse hiking across France for a month, not so much. You start to wonder, are they charging too much for their services to cover these adventures and am I funding them?
Next time you decide to write about or post photos in front of Notre Dame, consider not posting on your business sites, unless business has brought you there. If that is the case, most of us will want to come work for you!
Be well.
