Restoring the American Economy: Make Customers Happy

I have written multiple posts about consumer responsibility. I stand by the idea that we, as consumers, are responsible for what is bought and sold in the US.

Now I want to address business owners, specifically small, local business owners. What the hell?

Sorry. It is like you aren’t even trying anymore. You have given up. Here in the small towns surrounding where I live the stores are pitiful, ugly, tired-looking places with almost no inventory (except for the bazillion Dunkin’ Donuts franchises that have popped up everywhere — they treat their employees like crap folks). It seems as though they are not paying any attention to the very ones whom they serve. Um, did you get that little word “serve”? Did you see that?

Serve.

I want you to know that I want to be WOWed. I want to be valued. I want good manners and smiles. I want you to act like you give a flip that I came to YOUR establishment.

You are not doing me any favors by slicing my roast beef. You are not going out of your way if you make sure my cheese is sliced at the thickness I prefer. You are not being put out when you must consider carrying something that I will buy. I am not obligated to you if you repair my car. The economy is depressed, yes. You are hanging on by a thread or about to go out of business, definitely. I know this when I see your shelves mostly empty. I know this.

My life is just as depressing. I probably don’t have a job, and if I do, it doesn’t pay hardly anything. I might be on SNAP because I can’t find a job after 3 years of job searching. I might be about to lose my house or have my car repossessed or have mere pennies to buy food with this week. Life is dark, at least here in Connecticut. You need to make me feel better when I visit your establishment.

You do not make doing business pleasant if you lie to me, cheat me, sell me junk, refuse to be polite, do not acknowledge my presence, do not offer the best service that you can offer, and do not make an effort to make your place of business pleasant.

There is one little market that I frequent that has almost nothing on its shelves. I know it is struggling. But when I walk in there it is so depressing that I don’t want to come back. I want to see fresh, local produce. I want to see an effort made to carry quality, healthy products because even though many people are struggling financially, they still need healthy food. Actually, they need healthy food now more than ever because stress in life wreaks havoc on the body’s immune system. Pay attention to what your customers want.

If you can’t afford to keep a decent inventory, find some way to bring in items under consignment. Work with other local businesses to sell other businesses’ products. The grocery store can carry seasonal plants from a local nursery, or flower arrangements from the place next door. What are you business people doing? There is no business community. There is no working together to weather the storm and make it through intact.

Show some heart, business owners!

You small businesses: if you want my business back, you need to earn it. You need to entice me to buy from you. Do not mark up your products 80% higher than standard retail prices. Hire some local talent to work on window art, build that web presence or rent space in your store to other small businesses. Get creative. Be nice. Treat your employees well — this is huge for me and the reason I rarely buy from Dunkin’ Donuts (besides the fact that they sell unhealthy food). Invest in your community. Show me that you not only sell bread or yarn or snow blowers, but you care about your community. Show some heart. That might be all that we have left in this economy. And that is something that discount stores can’t provide.

So while I am asking my fellow consumers to consider buying from small, local stores in lieu of that trip to Target or Wal-Mart (and always read labels and try to buy from the USA or countries that treat their workers well), I likewise ask you, small business owners, to open your hearts to me and my fellow community members. Show me that you care about me as a customer. Show me some loyalty and I might show you some right back.

P.S. There is no excuse for not using clever marketing practices (not deceitful, mind you — fraud will lose you customers and possibly put you in legal trouble). If you refuse to invest in local talent, which would be a great investment, in my opinion, get on the internet and do some research. Learn how to use your computer to breathe some life back into your business. Work on your brand. When you attract a customer, make sure that they will want to return over and over and over. Give them a reason to return. Those returning customers are your bread and butter, folks.

P.S.S. When you invest in your employees you show me that you truly care about your community and building a strong foundation as a business. I support and frequent businesses that treat their employees well with good working conditions, where employees are happy and they get raises and benefits. I notice those things.

Deception Makes the World Go Round

I know a handful of people in this world who are what they appear to be. They are honest, open, vulnerable and truthful. I am attracted to this kind of person. Most of us are, to some degree. But then we often move back a few paces, put a little distance between reality and our desire for comfort. You see, comfort seems to drive the world. Wait, did I use the word “Deception” in the title of this post? Well, yes, I did, and for good reason. The appearance of the thing seems most important to most people. That is why people drive cars and buy houses they can’t afford, and go into debt so that they are clothed in designer outfits, and buy their kids the best of everything. That is why advertising is so successful in the modern age (I am showing my age using that term). An ad exec (or, actually, one of his minions) comes up with a slogan, look, a feeling that they want a product to evoke in consumers. They spend tons of money to advertise that the product does something in particular for the consumer. Most consumers buy the whole ball of wax hook, line and sinker (sorry for the mixed metaphors). That is because most people want to trust, to believe, to hope that something will make them feel successful, special, important, or wealthy-looking. The idea of truth in advertising was a big deal when I was young, and multiple corporations were always in hot water for misrepresenting products. You just don’t hear about that anymore. As long as you pay off the FDA or USDA, the EPA or some other governmental agency, you are free to push whatever you want on the unsuspecting public. Did you know that you can now fast-track pharmaceutical approvals through the FDA via a large fee? Haha! Bet you didn’t. The FDA isn’t even ashamed of this practice, or doesn’t care. The idea that you can buy an FDA approval is so accepted that they aren’t even hiding the practice anymore.

Salon.com publishes an op-ed piece on Chipotle’s moving new advertisement against factory farming of animals. But most people missed the part about the solution being a plant-based diet.

Same with the big biotech companies. Monsanto designs a new genetically modified seed in their lovely, expensive laboratories, injecting foreign viruses, animal DNA, and who knows what else, into a seed so that it will tolerate massive amounts of herbicides and/or makes an insect’s stomach explode. They are not required to prove that such seeds and their resulting crops are safe for human consumption long-term. Nope. They can design some short-term studies, throw out any results they don’t like (or fire and blackball the scientists that find results that they don’t like), and submit their results to the FDA who is staffed with former Monsanto executives. Do you see the pretty little picture here? It is all smoke and mirrors.

On the local front, the local movement pushed by locavores attracts scam artists who import products from out of the region, and sometimes the state and country, and sell them as their very own. How are you going to know? I finally understood the importance of supporting small businesses that have been in a town for 30 years: if they had cheated their customers or tried to pull a fast one, they would not be in business anymore. Word of mouth would destroy them. But it still happens. And for small businesses hanging on by a thread, the temptation to lie, cheat and steal their way through this recession is probably too much for some.

Quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. Created by Glitters20.com

On a personal level, I respect and admire individuals and businesses that are honest and up front. What a breath of fresh air to this world of dark, twisted plots and subplots to make another dollar. Consumers are complicit in the support of a world of deception because we love to be told something is amazing and will make us amazing, too. Instead of working hard, creating something valuable, giving to our communities, honestly supporting one another, too many feel appearances are most important. I was taught honesty by my parents. Yesterday, I actually tried to remember any lies that either of my parents told me (other than the Santa and Easter Bunny thing, and that is fantasy). I know they weren’t always right about everything, but I cannot remember one time when they made something up with the goal of deceiving me, making me think something that wasn’t true. They protected me at times, allowed me to be a child when times were rough, but never spun tales and tried to make me think they were something they were not. I actually have an overactive conscience in the lying department because of this honesty standard. I find it funny when people don’t trust me. If they only knew how honest and trustworthy I was it would probably shock them, because I will walk an item back into the store if I get out to the parking lot and discover I didn’t pay for it. I turn in items I find, including money. Yes, I am kind of crazy that way. I believe in karma. I believe that you reap what you sow. I believe that what you dish out you will eventually receive, and multiplied. I might reach the end of my days and wonder why I was so obsessed with honesty, but I will have a clear conscience in that department. I know I am not lying and cheating people, and that is enough.

I didn’t start out meaning to preach. I have had my eyes opened quite a bit lately, and it hasn’t been pleasant. I have great respect for small business owners who are able to weather the economic storm with honesty and integrity. I have great respect for individuals who can honestly state that they are having a modest Christmas and refuse to go into debt so that people won’t know how much they are hurting. I was talking with a fellow student this past week about my need for scholarships (hence my need to maintain a good GPA) because “I am poor.” I couldn’t believe how quiet the classroom became. If I had been in Texas or Florida, no one would have batted an eyelash, but up here in Connecticut, perception and appearance are everything. I have great respect for whistleblowers and people of conscience in the medical, biotech, and political arenas (they are few and far between, and always pay for their honesty by losing their jobs at the minimum, but often lose their careers and their lives). Maybe I am mistaken that you reap what you sow. Maybe the liars will inherit the earth after all. Well, in a few years they won’t have much to inherit. And those of us who are honest will shake our heads and wonder if it was worth all of the deception.