What’s one “boring” thing you did in your business that ended up making a big difference?

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This was a while back but the idea is still solid. I made accurate notes from each and every sales call I did. Nothing extensive, just a quick capturing of the essence of the conversation. I'd try to take note of any phrases or buzzwords they used too. When following up it was quickly apparent that my remembering the last chat was a big help in turning them into a customer. Very unsexy but easy to do

Unsure if this is boring, but it was pretty easy at least. We're in e-commerce and sell a niche product. One time we had a little extra business capital to throw at new inventory, so we decided to gamble on the most random design, something we would never invest in if not for the surplus. It ended up being our best seller within the year it was released. We expanded and scaled into it with different color options and now it accounts for more than 40% of our total revenue. No research, no effort, just a random choice made on a whim.

No. I'm sharing a sexy one. I used to work at a bar back in college. Real redneck/hick type of place. We didn't get a ton of business, but the owner did occasionally come up with some brilliant ideas. A good one was when he went around to all of the neighboring restaurants like Chili's, Friday's, and especially Hooters, and made a deal that any bartender/server who came to our bar after their work shift got their 2nd drink for free. That idea brought in a much younger crowd that drank a lot and tipped well. And it had the added bonus of bringing in everyone who wanted to see the plethora of Hooters girls that became regulars. His best idea ever though was male stripper night. He hired a handful of those Chippendale-type strippers to work as bartenders for a few hours. Free entry to women, no male customers were allowed in while these guys were working. The place was PACKED with women, obviously. The bartenders didn't even strip. I think they just worked without shirts on. After a couple hours, the stripper/bartenders left and the owner allowed men to come in. I believe he charged them an entry of like $10. There was a line around the block of dudes just waiting to get in to chat up all these ladies who had just spent the last few hours fawning over strippers. We made a lot of money that night.

We're a professional services company. The last page of our proposal used to list a "proposed retainer. At this time, approximately 70% of clients tried to negotiate the retainer price. When we removed the word "proposed," the number of clients who tried to negotiate was reduced by half.

It's not exactly a boring thing but tedious for sure.. that's talking to customers who left us, following up with them on what went wrong. Gave real insights which I dont think a blog or article can ever tell you. It actually made us work on our flaws and know where we missed out and try not to repeat... making a big difference in our pov. This is a very interesting question btw :)

We started adding more notes to each customer order, switch to a system that adds an order number to each email. That order number gets added to anything relating to that order. Also stated adding general notes to the customer's folder. EI: This customer always asks for XYZ style. Or this customer needs extra followups because they are forgetful. Or always call a few hours after sending an email, as they don't check their email regularly. Now when the customer says "do it the same way as last year" any team member can look back at what we did, read the old email chain if necessary, and it leads to a lot less simple questions needing to be asked. Customer satisfaction has went up quite a bit just by taking notes. We get a lot of compliments on how "we just know that they need" or "you have such a great memory for the details". Nope, we just write all down.