I went to the local 7/11 this morning. Bought some "breakfast-like substances." Purchase came to $4.03.
I gave the clerk a ten dollar bill. He took three pennies out of the little tray and put it and my ten dollars in the register.
[Story in a story]
Now, I thought to myself, "Hey, if I buy something for $1.03 and give the guy a dollar, I bet he takes 3 pennies off that tray."
That's an "easy" 3 percent return on my money. Hey, I was going to buy that thing
anyway.
Then I thought, "What is the maximum number of pennies he'd take out in order NOT to have to make change.
Because,
after all, that's what this is really about. The clerk isn't "being nice," he's making his job easier. At least that's what I think.
So what determines how much one takes out of the tray? I suppose there are several factors:
- How much is already in the tray. Clerk probably doesn't want to "shoot his wad" in one transaction.
- The clerk's disposition.
- How many pennies you are short. I doubt a clerk would take $1 on a $1.07 purchase and "fill in the rest" with his penny tray
supply.
This is how I think, people.
All that went through my head in that 15-second transaction.
[/Story in a story]
The clerk gave me seven dollars: one five and two ones.
He gave me the wrong change. Now, another very short sideline: I did think, "Hey, I just got $4.03 worth of stuff for $3. That's pretty good."
But
it's wrong.
Of course, I handed a dollar bill back to him. He was very appreciative. He may not have realized what happened until the end of the day, when he reconciled his drawer and
came up short.
That's just a small example of what integrity is. C.S. Lewis said it: "Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching."
Of course, in this case, the clerk was watching, but he was not really paying attention.
And I could have gone on my merry way $1.03 richer. Doesn't sound like a lot, but as Yogi Berra might say, "It all adds up."
(What he really said: "Baseball's 90 percent mental - the other half is physical.")
The point is this: Integrity in life matters. It's who you are. It's
your honesty and morality all bunched into one package. It's your reputation. It's how people think of you.
It's how you think about yourself IF you really think long and hard about WHO you are.
It's what you stand for. It's how your momma WANTS to think about you.
And all of that carries over to your business.
Be honest. Do the right thing. Earn people's trust.
When something goes haywire, own it. Admit your fault. Fix it. Go the extra mile and really earn the
business.
It's not a failure to admit and resolve a mistake.
I can give you countless
examples (because I've made a lot of mistakes -- I'm "experienced") of how owning a mistake earns you more business than just never making a mistake in the first place.
(I actually "tested" this in real-life when I was a retail
store manager eons ago. It works like gangbusters. Admittedly, making mistakes on purpose to achieve an end result is not very ethical, but it proves my point about making mistakes and fixing them *sometimes* gets you more honey than bears. Or bees. However that saying goes.)
