What's This Got To Do With Business Therapy?

"Nice site," a friend of my girlfriend said. "But I don't see what it has to do with business therapy."

It's a fair question. And not just because there is no such thing as an unfair question in business.

For example, question: Why are your batteries blowing up Mister Computer Maker? And what am I supposed to do with my laptop while you take six weeks to get me a new one?

Answer: None of your business. You'll get your replacement when we get around to it.

Response: Not good enough. Watch the customers get nervous that there's no difference between you and your competitor's exploding PCs.

Now the reality is, of the literally millions of batteries out there, maybe a dozen have actually blown up. You stand a better chance of winning an iPod at a carvnival midway game--sure it can happen, but the odds are not in your favor. But how seriously Dell and Apple "appear" to handle this "crisis" can affect both their stock price and their sales.

And there's the lesson in the battery recall--perception is so much reality in business that mentioning the idea that the risk level is acceptable would be the event that could turn this false crisis into a real one for the computer makers. (Did you hear what Apple said? They said it isn't a real problem! And I know a guy who knows a guy who lost his testicles and can't have kids now!)

Therefore they must accept the media designated seriousness (to us and our trucks) and replace all the batteries--which makes me, the customer, believe that there is a real danger. (Otherwise, why tell me to stop using the batteries immediately?)

And this leads to me, typing this on a known defective Apple right now, to be more upset about the four to six weeks I'm supposed to wait for a safe battery. And so what is Apple supposed to do? Piss off the media or me?

Since they are already spending millions on the recall, why not use it to improve public relations by including a free iTunes song or two for those of us affected? That would avert all the alleged and actual crisises implicit in this battery fiasco, and help tie me even more to their over-protected media store and format, while making me happy in the process.

So have I gone off on a tangent? Wasn't this post supposed to be about what all these other posts of comments on either my personal publishing situation or somebody else's business have to do with business therapy?

Yes.

Business therapy is the consulting I do with entrepreneurs and executives about the daily challenges they face: hiring and firing, selling a customer, getting away from a bad customer, raising money, talking to their bosses about what to do to make the business more efficient. In short, how best to get ahead of their competition (internal and external). And how do I do that? With analogies. Little stories.

This site are some of those stories. The idea is that you may find a relation between your daily job and the contents here--thereby giving you an idea of how to proceed. Or, if not, at least something interesting that didn't take too much time to read.

And as for the photo. It's from the sheep competition at the Dutchess County Fair this past weekend. Because all business is a competition, and sometimes, your ewe is just going to be unprepared for all the excitement, and you've got to deal with it.