Spend Time in the Store
The assumption that the Big Boss is aloof is a common one. It’s a good reminder to, as Seth Godin puts it, “spend some time in the store.”
It seems more important to please the boss, go to meetings and keep the numbers on track than it is to fix what might not feel broken.
Spend some time in the store.
Visit your own website to get work done the way a customer would.
Answer the tech phone calls for a few hours.
And figure out how to turn the user experience into a metric that’s as easy to measure as how much money you made last month.
- Seth Godin
Panera Bread CEO Ron Shaich built a top-10 fast-casual restaurant business by being in the store. Presence and Pioneers tells the story of one such day. Shaich watched a customer buy a croissant, add roasted turkey and cheese, and eat it. At that moment, he realized that croissants were a platform for sandwiches, not his ultimate product.
Au Bon Pain was born because it’s CEO spent time in the store.
Image by Walter Bantz
ENDNOTES
1. Insulation from the user experience. Seth’s Blog
