Hotdog Story

This story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside.
He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers.
He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio.
He was so busy preparing and selling Hotdogs, so he never had time to watch the television.
But was very enthusiastic and was selling lots of hotdogs.
He was very courtesies with his customers and always kept their interest in his mind while selling his Hotdogs.
His customers liked his hotdogs very much and more and more of customers started visiting his store.
His sales and profit went up.
He bought better and bigger buns. He also ordered best possible sausages for the Hotdog.
This brought still more customers into his store.
He ordered more and more raw material and buns and used to sell more.
He recruited a few more supporting staff to serve more customers.
He had expanded his business to other parts of the town.
Over a period of time, he had set up more than twenty stores in the town and was very successful.
His Hotdogs have become a benchmark of quality and taste in the entire town.

He has become very successful and wealthy in that town.
He sent his son to a premier business school. After successful completion of the course, his son also joined his father.

Then something strange happened.
The son asked, “Dad, aren’t you aware of the recession that is coming our way?”
The father replied, “No, but tell me about it.”
The son said, “The international situation is terrible. The banks have fallen”.
”The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times.”
”We need to immediately resort to cost cutting. We may also start planning about reducing our staff”

The man thought that since his son had been to a business school, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV, he ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly.

So the next day onwards, the father cut down his raw material order and buns, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic in his business.
He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs.
He no longer focused on the quality of the raw material. He has started ordering inferior sausages. He also reduced the size of the buns, to save cost.

Very soon, customers realized the changes in the quality of Hotdogs from his stores.
Over a period of time, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stores.
And his sales started coming down rapidly, same with the profit.
He had to close down some of the stores, as it was no longer profitable to run those stores.
Over a very short period of time, he had to close down all remaining stores as well, and came back to the road side.

The father said to his son, “Son, you were right”.
“We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time.”


Moral:
It’s all in your MIND!
Most of the time, the danger may not come from outside, we only would have created it by our actions.
Do not confuse intelligence with good judgment.
Listen to your advisers but use your own judgment.

More importantly,
NEVER COMPROPMISE ON QUALITY…
NEVER LOSE YOUR FOCUS ON YOUR CUSTOMERS …

NB: I heard this story from a popular Tamil TV channel last month. I really liked this, as this is timely. When Swaathi and Shreya insisted on a new story, I just told this story to them, not sure whether they can understand this story! When I finished this story and asked them for the moral, the immediate answer from Shreya was “Never compromise on quality"!!. This is one of the favorite stories of Shreya now a days.

I learnt another moral after telling this story to them. "Do not under estimate kids and do not suspect the understanding abilities of them". Though this story is relevant for the bigger kids like us, try telling this story to your kids and see their response. You'll be amazed!!!