How we treat people at our business can affect how customers and our community sees us. The folks at F&R Auto Sales in Maine now have a great appreciation for the power of social media. How we treat the pizza man matters to those around us. Watch this video to see how a pizza deliver guy was demeaned, and treated shamelessly, by the “Great Folks” at F&R Auto Sales @FRautosales1. – Video has been made private

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2OUKtxfj-I&feature=youtu.be

[Video has been deleted from YouTube]

With the advent of video monitoring at our businesses, we need to watch what we say and what we do. This terrible misadventure was recorded, and shared, so that the whole world could see what mean really looks like. What we think of as “Nothing” could be the stone that smashes our business to pieces. I think Tony Brust said it best in the tweet below:

https://twitter.com/tonybrust/status/555787331911708673

We cannot afford to be STUPID as a business. In today’s world of fast moving news and social media, what we say can go around the world quickly. How we treat others can be shown to the rest of the world. And it can cause severe damage to our business.

So what can we learn from this poor business, and the resulting social media frenzy?

  1. We should believe that the whole world is watching us when we think they are not. There are so many cameras around that someone could actually record us at any moment.
  2. We need to treat others with respect. Even when others might be wrong, we still need to be charitable towards them.
  3. We need to understand that social media is driven by passion and the “World of STUPID”. Best piece of advice I got for social media: “Don’t do anything stupid”.
  4. We need to remember that everyone counts, even the pizza delivery guy. As a business, and as people, we cannot afford to be mean to others. We need to esteem others better than ourselves.
  5. We must not bully others PERIOD.

The damage has been done to F&R Auto Sales in Maine. The whole world has seen all the employees as uncaring. Would you like to buy a car from these people?

By the way, the boss at this business is totally responsible for allowing a “Bullying” atmosphere to exist. He may have fired others over this incident, but he needs to get FIRED himself.

So the moral of the story comes down to this, the Golden Rule, “Do onto others as you would want to have it done onto you“. F&R Auto Sales failed big time and it has, and will continue, to cost their business. It might even put them OUT of business. The out pouring of sediment against this business on social media is still going on. I wonder what Google results will look like in a few days? Maybe they will go first page for all the wrong reasons.

Let’s not run our businesses like these guys. Let’s have people rave about our business for all the right reasons. Let’s give them something GOOD to talk and tweet about.

So here’s to a great day of business for you. And please, don’t do anything stupid like these guys did. Be kind to others.