Bad Business

Years ago when I worked for a trade association, the powers-that-be (?) insisted that the annual meeting begin with a prayer. This might have been harmless except for the fact that the prayer was never non-denominational - the prayer-giver always invoked the name of Jesus Christ.

I always complained about this, not because I'm not Christian, but because it was ignorant. We were not a Christian organization - why assume everyone else was? It was pretty simple to conclude that not everyone in the room believed in JC, much less in God, and to throw this prayer in their face was just plain bad business.

With this as a backdrop, over the past few years I've paid particular attention to businesses that show their religious and/or political colors. Of course, it's OK for a private business to do that, but it is also relentlessly dumb to offend potential customers.

My best contemporary example of this has to be those businesses who insist on showing Fox TV in their public areas. First, let's agree on what Fox TV is - a conservative, Republican-leaning broadcast network. Everyone knows this. Fox is to 'fair and balanced' journalism as 'The Beverly Hillbillies' is to a fair and balanced depiction of life in Beverly Hills.

So if a business has Fox on their TVs, one can safely assume they are conservative, Republican-leaning folks. That's fine, but that also tacitly means they don't care to have non-conformists as customers. At least that's what it means to me, and I'm happy to oblige them. It's crazy. Just put the TV on the Food Network or some other benign channel, and I won't think twice about patronizing your business.

Take this weekend, in which I spent time in a corporate tent at a golf outing. The Golf Channel was on every TV but one - which was on Fox. Now, I'm certain I was around a bunch of Republican-leaning folks, but to assume all of the clients there were of the same political/conservative bent is dumb. If people want the news, the can go somewhere else, or use their smart phones.

I don't know, maybe I'm making too much of this, but I think there is a lesson here for businesses: Don't assume everyone else believes the same things that you do.