September 26, 2007

I really don’t get people sometimes.

Two weeks ago I ordered an Indian meal from Tiffins.com.au. They have a service where they deliver Indian meals - one meat, one veg, one naan and a rice for $7 and free delivery. This is around the CBD.

It is SO easy. All you do is pay… there’s a set menu every day, they deliver it to the office, when you’re done they come and collect the containers and they clean them. How good is that? You barely have to think! All you have to do is pay online.

So when it got delivered a lot of people in my office were in a tizzy. It’s such a cool system, you would be too.

Anyway the receptionist says “Ok let’s all do a group order! Mat tell me all about i!”

So time comes to the present and I say “ok, let’s do the Tiffins order.”

And she said “no it’s too complicated.”

What… a single online payment is too complicated? What exactly did she propose, then? She went downstairs to an Indian takeaway, got the menu, we all wrote down our individual orders, paid our individual amounts, she went off back downstairs and did all the individual orders. This is while that Indian takeaway is in the middle of a lunch peak, mind you.

Why am I talking about this?

Because she left 50 minutes ago and I’m HUNGRY. Tiffins delivers by 12pm, mind you!

I’ve done quite a few jobs in my time. One of them was working at the National Australia Bank as a teller.

I really enjoyed the customer interaction part of the job. Many times I would go home and my face was sore just from smiling so much!

Because the branch was in the inner city, some of our most frequent visitors were those who had been dealing with addiction.

You always knew them straight away because their government payments got doled out to them in tiny amounts by State Trustees.

Some were friendly. Others were insane. What they all had in common was that they were completely under the spell of whatever was in their lives. (Heroin, for the most part.)

How much these people would have benefited from a drug treatment program.

I have a friend who had a severe addiction to Pot. I also remember one of the very first times he smoked it, I was there. Far out I regret not stopping him that day.

He went to re-hab but it was a horrible experience for him. He’s happy to be off the drugs - as you would be - but the centre was charity run and full of the absolute worst types of people. He witnessed some pretty horrible things.

Going to a place like The Watershed would have helped him massively. It was good for him to lose the drugs but he came back pretty edgy for a little while. I don’t know exactly what happened and what he saw as he only shared snippets with me.

The best thing is to go to a professional rehab program, where you can get off the drugs without having to get scarred for the rest of your life by something else! If you’re addicted or know someone else who is this is kind of thing would be good.

Hopefully some of the readers will be able to help out with this one.

Being single currently I was thinking about meeting women and how this relates to being in business.

I had a couple of thoughts but this could almost be a group writing project - I want to hear what you guys think.

1.) You don’t want to come across as too desperate. If you need a woman too much, or are earnestly seeking her approval, it’s a clear sign that you haven’t had much prior success. It’s the same with business : value the client, but contact them too much and they will resent you.

2.) Image counts. Women ‘aren’t visual’, they say. And then they step out into the real world and discover how life actually works. What I’m wearing, how recently I have shaved (either 1 hour before or 3 days before works nicely, nothing else), and how my hair is styled has made huge differences in my own life from one day to the next. Nearly all guys have natural disadvantages (I could use some cosmetic dental work) but if they let these define their package, they’re gone for all money. It’s the same with businesses : investing in your image creates an aura of professionalism. It could be the difference between a client choosing you over someone else.

 3.) Success breeds success. Women gravitate to those who are confident in themselves and in their ability to deal with females. They’ll also gravitate to the famous/powerful/rich people in a room. It’s the same with business. You don’t necessarily need to be successful but if you’re a financial adviser who’s driving an 82 Volvo you won’t exactly inspire confidence. The way you dress (for example :)) speaks volumes about how much success you are having, and in turn, how much confidence is already being placed in you by other customers.

4.) It takes all your money, time and emotional happiness. Ok, that was just for a laugh. Load me up with some of your ideas!