Yesterday I returned to the hearty city of Melbourne to go to the US consulate.
As I sat there waiting for my 1:15pm appointment, I started to count through the enormous number of business lessons that were peppered through the whole experience.
For your perusal:
1. They held the ‘frame’ the ENTIRE time. I booked in with them. I travelled to them. I turned up four minutes early, they said to come back in four minutes. They make the rules, we follow.
2. They ‘created’ radical inaccessibility. I booked an appointment in October, and couldn’t get in until February. Now, when I arrived, it wasn’t even busy. In fact, mostly empty. I’d imagine appointment cancel rate is very low.
3. They are the ONLY business that can still really take your phone away.I’m cool with this, but the two teenage kids with blue hair were ON FIRE about it in the waiting room.
4. They ‘punish’ the buyer if they screw up. If the photo you give them is wrong, go home. If you fill out the form wrong, go home. If you use the wrong pen… you get the point. It means you pay an enormous amount of attention as a buyer. Makes their life easier.
5. They could name their price. By ‘cornering’ the market, they basically could do what they want. They could have charged 10 x more, and nobody could complain.
6. They created a ‘walled garden’. Once I walked in, security had US embassy emblems on them. Flags everywhere. It’s like the outside world disappeared. US heroes up on the wall. There’s a TV playing a constantly repeating video featuring the 52 states. Painfully boring, but effective mind control.
7. They understood ‘what’s next?’ in sales – There was a big sign – “Book your next trip to the United States now!”. They knew the drill. They got a customer, then offered something else (or at least planted the seed)
8. They had rules, language and regulations. At the end a formal guy made me raise my hand and solemnly swear about some forms. Did it mean anything over and above a signature? Maybe. But it certainly created a feeling of legitimacy and authority.
9. They were just friendly enough. The security guy who escorted me from the bottom was cool. The lady behind the first counter had a laugh at my joke. They held just enough humanity to not feel cold.
10. They did NOT have a flash setup. The decor was old. The chairs rickety. And everything was faily analog. They knew they could solve a problem for me, so they didn’t have to ‘dress things up.’
You could probably spend a three month period bringing some of this into the right small business with great success.
Especially the ‘frame.’ In a world of ‘free’ everything, and people who will DM you twenty times on LinkedIn and email you a million times to try and help, the ‘villainous’ nature of the US consulate was surprisingly refreshing and magnetic.
John
