People Trying To Give You Their Money

People Trying To Give You Their Money: Consumers and Customers

Until you do right by me, everything you even think gon’ fail!
—Cellie, Color Purple

 

Whoopi was as right as she was homely in that movie. If you don’t do right by people you will fail. But I don’t think most businesses really understand people these days. Just check how we talk: Consumer. Customer. Demographics. Viewer. VIP. Subscriber. Target Audience… Heartless, mechanical words, all.

We measure our relationships with people with phrases like “market share,” “trends,” “box office,” “tipping point,” “saturation,” “ratings,” “market penetration,” “retention,” and “brand loyalty.” We talk about “winning customers” like they’re trophies or purses and wallets waiting to be pried open. It’s more of that “communication” nonsense. And besides getting in the way of people talking openly and honestly, it’s gotten in the way of the one truth most businesses fail to recognize:

Consumers are just people trying to give you their money.

Consumers are just people with money looking to give it away. And they’ll give it to anyone who gives them a good enough reason to do so. Once the mood strikes and depending on what’s going on in their lives, they’ll even give it up for a bad reason. The only difference between a consumer and a customer is the consumer is trying to give their money to someone while the customer is trying to give their money to you. And the more reasons you give us, the more of our money we’ll give you.

Consider: People already have bottles and fresh running water at home, yet they’ll pay up to $2 for bottled tap water. We stock our fridges and cabinets with groceries and then order out. We buy clothes based on changing trends. We buy Pampers and diapers. We’ll buy place settings and silverware then get paper plates and plastic forks because we don’t want to “waste” the silverware. We buy disposable contact lenses and disposable cameras. Why? Because America is a consumer culture and consumers are just people trying to give away their money.

I shop therefore I am.
—Popular 1980s slogan

Not too long ago I worked on a project for Absolut vodka. Now I’m not much of a vodka drinker so I hit the bars to see what people were into. It took a minute but in the midst of my “field research,” I realized that I wasn’t interested in the people at all. All I cared about was Absolut and how to get these 20-somethings to drink more of it. I forgot about the “people” inside the consumers—they were just codes to be cracked.

I felt like the bad cops I had run-ins with growing up. Most cops don’t live in the neighborhoods they patrol; so many cops only see people, particularly minorities when they’re investigating a crime. Now if you only see the worst in people as a career, at some point you detach from them. Business is the same way: If you only see people as demographics, target audiences and marketing opportunities, eventually you start treating them that way. After a few years, that’s exactly what I did.

With each passing assignment, I could feel myself getting a little more heartless and callous. It got harder and harder to do everyday activities without wondering if there’s an angle I could flip for one of my client’s brands. Everything and everyone became an angle to hustle. People became numbers and target audiences. Parties and events became sponsorship opportunities. Art and music became trends and untapped resources… And though I was getting good at my job, I also felt myself getting uglier and a little more inhumane with each passing year.

We have to remind ourselves that business, when done right, is just people and money hooking up. No more, no less. Give folks a good product and they’ll pay. Make that good product or service affordable and accessible, and they’ll pay more. Wrap it in an honest and compelling message and you’ve got a great, profitable brand. But many businesses have lost sight of the “people” in the consumers. Today everything is just bait for the catch. And if the catch is too small they throw it back and fish for something bigger.

Consider this from William S. Burroughs’ classic The Naked Lunch:

“The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer; he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise he degrades and simplifies the client.”

Like I said earlier, we use fancy, oftentimes non-human phrases like “consumer” and “viewer” because we don’t see people as human anymore. I think that’s why so many marketing campaigns have no heart. It’s why so many of the products that come out have no real relevance or use. People just don’t care enough to connect with each other anymore. Businesses just think they can monopolize and bully their way into market share. I think most corporations care more about their revenues than their employees and their competition more than their customers.

We’ve got to remember that everything you do as a business is about understanding that consumers and customers are just people with money. Your marketing campaign: That’s talking to people with money. Your sales force: That’s meeting and engaging people with money. Your retail and distribution: That’s getting your product to people with money. The quality of your products and services: It’s all a reflection of how much you respect and care about people with money. In business absolutely everything you do is about people and whether or not you care about them.