I had a rule of thumb, a deal I would make with nearly all the people I sold to. I told them there were three things that were available in any deal. Being the nice guy, generous soul I was, I told them they could have any two of the three.
But the third was for me.
The three things available to them were the following:
1) The item can be exactly what you are looking for. The right color, the right style, the perfect fit for your decor.
2) The item can be exactly the quality you are looking for. High end leather, heavy duty steel or in the case of used furniture a perfect condition.
3) The item can be exactly the price you want to pay for it.
Like I said, I told my customer they could have any two of the three. Thus if they wanted it to be exactly what they were looking for and in exactly the quality they wanted, they would have to pay my price for it. And if they wanted exactly the product they were looking for and in a low price, then they had to take it in a lower quality. You get the picture.
This kept everybody happy. My customer got a fair deal, I got to make money, and we both walked away from the experience with a certain amount of satisfaction.
I mention this because more and more consumers aren't satisfied with their purchasing experiences. The United Airline fiasco of last Sunday was merely the latest example, but it's been in the cultural trade winds for several years now. Baseball teams use "flex pricing" to sell at scalper prices tickets to the most popular games. Electronics stores advertise ridiculously low prices on a particular item and only in the small print mention that only one or two are available per location. Cell phone companies have so many pricing plans and change them so often that's it's quite possible two users with the exactly the same plan can be paying wildly different rates. And of course airlines have so many up charge extras that once were givens such as more leg room, the bulk head seats, checked luggage, food and drink, and coming soon overhead storage space.
When people aren't satisfied with something as simple as buying a product or service there is a grumble in their stomachs, an ache that isn't soothed until they lash out in some way. United executives can't figure out why so many people are so upset about that video? How about it's because every one of us knows that guy could have been us. Heck, it WAS me on one occasion, albeit I wasn't dragged off the plane, but I was escorted off by security after being told my seat was needed for someone who paid more for that flight (he had paid the outrageous walk up/day of the flight price).
The ache isn't helped by the multitude of ways now available to search for pricing and the subtle admonishments given to continue to search for better pricing even after making a purchase. Ever wonder why for days after you bought that pair of tennis shoes from Sears an ad for those shoes keeps appearing on your Facebook wall? It's their way of saying somebody else might have gotten a better deal. You shouldn't rest until you know you have gotten the best deal possible. There's a rumor somebody somewhere in that other place over there got it for FREE!
What happened to just buying something and moving on? This constant litany of being told to never be satisfied is driving all of us just a little bit off our collective gourd. The reality is it's not in some people's interest for us to be satisfied. There are those out in the big bad world who want to keep us dissatisfied with everything, to make us think that the deck is constantly being stacked against us because, well, they are the ones who are stacking the deck. It's a beautiful bit of fraud. Make people dissatisfied by taking from them that which once satisfied them (a pleasant economic exchange) and then tell them that they are right to be dissatisfied so they need to keep searching for that mythical something better. Whatever you do keep picking at the scab of any transaction be it economic or personal or political, there must be something better. No, nothing is good enough...
And that's how you wind up with Donald Trump as president.
I suggest we as consumers turn my old three point deal program around and start telling people we are spending our money with that THEY can have any two of the three. That if they want to get their price and sell what they want to sell then it has to be at the quality you want. And if they want to sell the item or service at the quality they have then we get to pay the price we want. And if they want to sell the quality at the price then we get to get exactly what we want. And both of us will walk away from the transaction happy and we'll all be satisfied.
And we might just save democracy.
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| United Flight 3411...or Tiananmen square? |
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