It's been five days since I sat down at the Community Coffee shop located within my college's campus, and I still can't get what I overheard out of my head.
A group of people passed who noticed that CC's distributes free issues of The New York Times -- of course, all with the intention of drawing more people to buy more coffee.
One person in the group said that they went to the coffee shop every day to pick up a copy of the newspaper. Initially I thought this was pretty neat -- finally, I can find a copy of actual newsprint, which is much more appealing to me than online newspapers. I spend enough time online writing papers, doing research, etc. that I try to minimize the time my eyes are exposed to the horrendous blue waves emitted by the screen of my Dell laptop. But it took me a day or two of pondering increasing my visits to the coffee shop specifically to get that newspaper that (1) I would look pretty bad for not buying anything, which was alright with me and (2) I would probably be tempted to buy more coffee, which I already have a problem with at the moment.
More and more since taking this basic Economics class I've been thinking about how small changes can lead to big results -- something which the book by Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, covers through numerous examples, such as the way a couple of mavens/hipsters can wear Hush Puppies and suddenly those shoes are scattered on runways and on the streets. In the case of CC's, these free newspapers seem to cost the place a few bucks, but probably not enough to outweigh their profits for the amount of people who pick them up. Not a lot of people read newspapers, and I didn't even notice they were there until I heard someone talking about them. When that person mentioned the newspapers, I and a couple other newspaper lovers picked up on it and were more likely to go back to CC's again to pick them up. Perhaps CC's is catching on to a small group of newspaper loyals. Even though most people don't read newspapers, a small percentage do, and CC's capitalizes on essentially the only place on campus where free newspapers outside of The Maroon are available.
What I make of all this is that although it's a pretty tricky thing to do, I have to applaud them for it. That one change in scene -- adding a newspaper stand -- probably draws in a small group of loyal customers who come to get the newspaper, and, probably coffee. After all most people have a habit of drinking coffee with their newspapers each morning, or, nowadays with their online, tweet-like versions of it -- snippets of daily events, watered down to satiate our small attention spans. It baffles me considering how that one detail in CC's probably gives them a whole base of customers who reliably buy coffee on a regular basis, without having to spend much money (the money they spend on the newspapers is probably outweighed by the coffee people buy to go with their newspapers, as well as the fact that there are usually lines outside the shop at low-energy times of the day like 3pm).
So, obviously CC's is doing itself a grand favor by offering free newspapers outside of it's non-existent doors. So how are we supposed to benefit from this discovery? If you're trying to run a business, organization, or perhaps a non-profit in which you're trying to gain profit/support, look for the one detail that will keep people coming back. Do you have great customer service skills? Do the laptops you sell come with an option to decrease the backlighting, so users do not burn their eyeballs reading online newspapers? I am sure that many organizations have that one small improvement that they can make that will turn everything around -- you just have to look for it. As for myself, as I try for what is probably the fourth time to bring together a group of people interested in poetry open-mics and writing workshops, I think to myself: What do writers on Loyola's campus want in a writing-centered group, and what will keep them interested in that group, i.e. participating and collaborating in what would hopefully be an inspirational and creative conglomeration of Loyola word-nerds? Maybe I have to spend hours creating flyers and hand-outs again, throwing them around campus frantically like someone losing their mind. Or perhaps, I just need to add newspapers.
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