S & M cost cuts may cost more than they save.

A tale of two pubs (not something that happens every weekend!).

Friday night, my wife and I popped to 'The Griffin' in Caversham for a bite to eat. Nothing fancy. Just decent pub food & a quick drink. By 6:30pm, the place was packed. The staff have been there for ages (we know many by name), service is consistently great, it's a community hub (loads of friendly faces). Well done Greene King

Saturday night, I met with old rowing friends at another pub, just up the road from 'The Griffin'. It was (at best) half full, there's always new staff, and it was OK. And it's hard to see how they make a decent profit.

Why do I mention this? UK economic lethargy is seeing many businesses forget that humans buy from humans. They order their plans on cost terms without calculating the upside of human connection. It's how we end up with 'digital only' services, a push to majority self service in retail, AI chat bots that can leave us frustrated.

My focus is B2B marketing and sales. Right now, B2B buyers are ultra cautious. When they do spend decent sums, they want to know that they can trust a vendor to make them look fantastic in front of their colleagues. While most B2B buying processes may be 'without human contact', pulling the trigger is easier when buyers have confidence in and connection to human expertise that they can trust. So avoid easy to make / hard to live with cost cuts in this area. They may cost more than they save.