The crux of How To Get Even With Wall Street is taking a fraction of a second before you buy something and asking yourself Quo Bono (Latin for Who Benefits). Who Benefits from me giving them my hard-earned money?
If the answer is a big faceless corporation, then should your money come out of your pocket? Quo Bono means giving your money to local organizations, businesses and groups, where possible. If you want to be precious, call it Mindful Spending.
The thesis is this: Wall Street and Big Corporations do not care about you, where you live, your family, your friends, your neighbours, or what you do. This is obvious, as the $700 billion dollar bailout shows. That’s where we’re coming from. Wall Street and Big Corporations hate us, but they need us, as we supply their profits.
The second part of How To Get Even With Wall Street is knowing that the system is rigged for Wall Street’s benefit. Fine, our politicians let us down, but if the system is rigged, let’s find a way, using that knowledge, to deprive Wall Street of some of your money, with little or no impact on your own life. Let’s bring the benefits of our money closer to home. Let’s focus on where we live and work and exist.
Individually, we can choose who gets our money when we buy things. There’s no barter, or other weird economic voodoo setting up a parallel economy in Quo Bono. There is no website, membership cards, t-shirts, buttons or secret handshakes.
You can think for yourself and don’t need to be ‘organized’. You know where your wallet is located and how much money is in it. You don’t need someone to manage your buying decisions.
We both know that consumer boycotts don’t really work. Wall Street doesn’t give a fig if consumers rise up. Even the Cesar Chavez – California Grape Boycott was spotty in its results, as enough people bought grapes to keep the growers in business. Sorry folks. We know it is almost impossible to opt-out of the economy, but you can use your money strategically.
Quo Bono is pragmatic, from the standpoint of knowing for some things, you have no choice: Credit cards and pharmaceuticals come to mind. There are no local (or regional) credit card companies, or pharmaceutical companies. It sucks, but that’s what we have to work with.
What does work is individual action, which is at the heart of Quo Bono.
When you go to a local store, tell the manager that you are actively choosing to give them the sale, instead of a big box store. Something along the lines of:
“I’m here to buy things because I know you and your store is part of our community and you do things for us. I appreciate that, so you’re getting my money. I’m looking for a…”
I’m willing to bet that the local store owner or manager has never heard anything like that in their entire retail career. You will probably get exceptional service, or at least a sincere thank you.
You are clearly telling the store that you are mindful of how they behave and what they do for the local community and are very deliberately with malice aforethought, choosing that store, instead of some Wall Street corporation.
So, let’s go back to the previous post and add some extra content: Creative Complaining.
Creative Complaining is a polite, straightforward and legal method of communicating with Wall Street in a way that leverages the gamed system.
Large corporations spend millions tracking consumer behaviour. The PR Rule of Thumb is one complaint = ten unhappy folks who didn’t take the time to complain, but are still unhappy. However, consumers very rarely complain, or spend strategically. We just do our thing and keep our frustrations inside knowing that ‘things will never change’. Sound familiar? Now, let’s use that expected behaviour to our benefit.
Take tomatoes for example. Have you ever gone to the supermarket manager and very politely asked for more in-season local produce from local producers? Why not? Theoretically, that store manager is supposed to give you ‘service’ that makes you feel good enough to keep coming back to that store. The manager is allegedly on your side.
But the store manager isn’t (or very, very rarely) compensated on service. He or she is compensated on sales. That’s how the system is gamed: Move your mouth with the ‘service’ platitudes to distract the customers, but if your sales aren’t going up, you get your head handed to you on a platter.
Back to our example of asking for local produce: The answer from the manager is usually “We get what head office sends us. Sorry.”
You now have a choice to make, a Quo Bono decision. Since the supermarket is not supporting local farmers and the local economy, do you want to give that supermarket your money? No is a good answer, but there is another step: Tell them why.
There are three levels of complaint that you could use:
Polite: “Then I’m not buying tomatoes today, as I don’t want what you have. Mr. Manager, you’ve lost a sale.”
Mildly Grumpy: “That’s not the answer that you should give me. I am a customer in your store, who spends money here. Please request local produce from your head office. I am not buying what you have today and you have lost a sale.”
Dave Grumpy: “Since you haven’t offered to complain to head office for me and request more local produce that benefits our community, then I choose not to give you my money for groceries today. Here’s your shopping cart back. Thank you.”
Then walk out. Leave your half-filled shopping cart in front of the manager and walk out the door.
There is no law that says you can’t change your mind in mid-grocery shop, especially if the manager is not being responsive to your needs. If Mr. Manager wants to call the cops, let him. The cops will laugh until they drop their coffees and their Tasers.
I’m willing to bet that the Manager will tell his supervisor: “Murray, I had four customers walk away this week! And two more ripped me one for not having local friggin’ tomatoes! WTF?” Using the PR formula, six lost sales = Sixty unhappy customers who didn’t hand over the money. Yikes! That’s a bottom line shot.
You might get more local produce, or not, depending on how responsive the head office is. If they’re not responsive, then don’t give them your money.
If you want to ratchet it up a notch, tell the store manager that you will shop at the competitors, as they carry local stuff: Competition also scares the crap out Wall Street because a competitor means that store isn’t getting all the money that your and your fellow shoppers have to spend. You are spreading it around, mindfully, and that cuts into sales.
Sales are what matters. Not service, not happy customers, not well-stocked shelves. Sales. Dollars. Your dollars.
Another example: Self-Serve, U-Scan or Customer-operated checkouts. When a self-serve lane was put in the supermarket where I used to shop, I tried it a few times. I found a manager and asked if I get a discount for dong the work the store used to do. He laughed and said that no, U-Scan is the same price.
So, I do the work and I get what? Convenience? Actually, an average cashier can scan my stuff and bag it up faster than I can. I know this to be true as I timed it, more than once. Try it yourself. How many items can an average cashier zip over the scanner in 30 seconds, compared to how many you can scan in 30 seconds? The cashier wins every time.
(Self-serve checkouts are designed to go slower than a cashier, as the technology weighs each item and also weighs the carousel where the bags are hanging. If you go fast, like a cashier, the system stops you. The U-Scan technology compares physical weights at the pre-scan and in the bag area. If the weights don’t add up then something is wrong and the machine screams at you. Supposedly this ‘reduces shrinkage’ and mis-scanned items, as the machine assumes you are trying to steal stuff by going faster than the machine wants you to.)
If the store gave me 2% or 3% off the total for doing the work, I’d consider using a U-Scan or self-service checkout, but that isn’t going to happen as it cuts into the store profits.
I found the manager a few weeks later and said “I will not use your self-serve checkout, as you are not making it worth my time. In addition, self-serve means you can lay off people, who need their jobs. You’re doing nothing for me or my community with your ‘convenience’. Please tell head office. Thank you.”
I didn’t yell, scream or act self-righteous. I chose a course of action and made sure that the manager knew what I am doing and why. The Manger looked at me as if I had just broken the secret code: U-Scan is a way to lay off employees and increase store profits. It isn’t more convenient. It isn’t faster. It actually hurts the local economy by putting people, who need those jobs, out of work.
But the store and head office promote it as ‘convenient and fast to save you time in your busy day’. Quo Bono? Not you, not me and not your local community.
The third part, which includes more creative complaining, will show you a couple more ways to beat the system, by using the gamed system to beat Wall Street over the head with their own hammer.
RoadDave 