Green Gables: The Demise of a Great Sioux City Eatery, Why It Failed, and Why Large Chain Restaurants Can Fail as Well (A Customer’s Point of View)
Green Gables, Sioux City, Iowa ___________________________ “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton __________________ Given that this blog is about branding, albeit my personal brand, I have been thinking a lot about businesses, both small and large, that fail, some of them longstanding pillars of their communities. As a customer, I am aghast at how obvious their downfalls seemed to me, that, perhaps, they were listening to the wrong experts, instead of customers. Downfalls start small. Companies begin shaving away slivers of their products and hope that customers won’t notice, but I can say with confidence that we do notice when a company tries to pull a fast one and then tries to spin it as something positive. For example, the Dial Corporation took a 5-ounce bar of soap and morphed it into 4 ounces by carving out a “convenient” curve, maki...