I told you about my trip to Greece
Every restaurant in Greece used to end your meal with a complimentary fruit platter.
Fresh watermelon. Perfect oranges. A small gesture that made you feel like family.
Then someone discovered the American restaurant playbook:
“Why give away fruit (even though watermelons cost €1) when you can charge €12 for dessert?”
So they killed the tradition.
Now Greek restaurants are just like everywhere else. Except tourists eat at their hotels and vacation homes before going out.
The restaurants saved €1 per table.
But ended up losing everything that made them special.
This is the disease killing businesses everywhere:
𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗲’𝘀 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁.
I see it constantly:
The financial services company outsourcing customer service to imbeciles because “it saves money.”
The consultant who switches to cookie cutter templates (that do or do not come close to matching the client situation) because “that’s more efficient.”
The manufacturer who replaces quality components with cheaper alternatives because “customers won’t notice.”
They read some PE firm’s cost-cutting manual or ChatGPT’s “10 ways to improve margins” and start hacking away at exactly what made customers choose them.
Here’s what they don’t understand:
Those Greek restaurants had an unfair advantage — abundant, cheap, incredible fruit and a tradition of generous hospitality.
Instead of leveraging it, they buried it.
Now they’re competing on the same terms as every Olive Garden and Applebee’s.
Except without the marketing budget.
The playbook you’re following — whose is it?
The competitor who went bankrupt?
The MBA who never ran a business?
The AI that averaged together every failed strategy?
Your weird thing your best customers love about you IS your competitive advantage.
The thing you do that “doesn’t scale.”
The tradition that “costs too much.”
The personal touch that “takes too long.”
That’s not inefficiency.
That’s your moat.
Every time you cut it to be more like everyone else, you’re not getting smarter.
You’re getting invisible.
Those Greek restaurants?
Still wondering why tourism is at an all-time high but their tables are empty.
The answer is heartbreakingly simple:
When you kill what makes you special to save a few euros, customers will save their euros too.
By spending them somewhere that still gives a damn.
So before you cut that “unnecessary” expense or kill that “inefficient” tradition, ask yourself:
Is this what makes people choose us?
Because if it is, you’re not cutting costs.
You’re cutting your throat.
And unlike those fruit platters, that’s something you can’t serve on the side.