There’s a tiny little shop in the tiny little village where I live.
And yes. Both the shop and the village, are both tiny and little. Because the admittedly twice-as-long-as-it-needs-to-be ‘tiny little’ descriptor somehow makes everything sound quainter.
Two months ago, the tiny little shop in the tiny little village where I live changed hands. The newbies bought a new counter, twiddled the food menu, twiddled the coffee menu, twiddled the opening hours, and moved the shelves and stock about a bit.
You know what they didn’t do though? They didn’t ask anybody, in the tiny little village, anything at all.
I know this because when any one of the 400 people in the tiny little village where I live ties their shoelace, sneezes, puts their bins out eight minutes early or spots a dragonfly – everybody knows.
Business communication is strange.
From tiny little shops, to big giant* businesses, lots of effort is invested in telling us what they’re up to, when asking us what we want is just as important. More so, sometimes. Especially because the 400 people in our tiny little village are so accessible and chatty.
But before we Wicker Man them (as we do with all undesirables that enter the village) I’ll first consider whether I’m any better at asking my own customers and clients what they want. Hmm.
*Extra unnecessary size descriptor. For consistency.