Cheating Just a Little

Hired to deal with various flaws in businesses I often come up with surprising strategies.

Many are a bit... well... 'biased' to use a polite word.

This is because my focus is on the health of the business not on any other factor.

"When people who buy a Lottery ticket every week never win, and the guy who just took the Jackpot tells the reporter it's the first he's ever bought a ticket, sales of
Lottery tickets drop."

Members of the Board were looking at me. Some nodded their understanding, others took somewhat longer to 'get it'.

When the majority seemed to have caught the point, I continued;

"This can't be a truly 'random' draw. The most loyal customers must win."

There were a couple of politically correct types making the expected noises.
I wore my 'interested' face but all they were doing was extending a thirty minute meeting to an hour and a half, but the coffee was good, the pastries excellent.

They'd be brought around.

The plan was simple. Everyone could enter. They'd write their names on their receipts and drop them into the bin.

On Sunday, at closing of the supermarket, the Bin would be taken into the Office. While the other workers cleaned, the Senior manager would go through the entries.

The entries by well known and faithful customers would be kept, the entries by strangers would be tossed.

On Monday morning the Draws would be held. In that Bin were only the receipts of the best customers.

The contest went off without a hitch.

All our good customers felt that shopping with us had benefits. Sales went up, and I was being congratulated by everyone, even those who didn't know about the little 'trick'.

I got a reputation,( in house), of knowing how to do contests so was loaned to a few other companies (non-competitors) to help them.

My most challenging mission was the muddle one organisation had gotten itself into with having the public, online, select the name for the new beverage they were about to introduce.

Never, ever, use the word 'online' in any possible connection to 'voting'. In most cases those who would vote are Trolls and other denizens of the Dark Side.

Customers might, standing by the table, sipping the free sample, make an entry. But how many real people would go home, connect to a web site so as to nominate or vote for an already nominated name?

I mean is our little contest that important to them?

I am sure 88.9% of all people forgot about the contest before they got into their car, and another ten percent before they had reached home.

Considering the names that had been 'nominated' were Gross, (capital G here) I instructed the Creatives to come up with twelve possible names.

While Trolls nominated and voted for Puke, Choke, MouthFail, and other such, the team was coming forward with 'Breeeze', 'Sunnyshine', 'Neat', and other such ideas.

I then informed the company to insert the names the Creatives had selected on the Chart.

I had our I.T. folk set it so that fifty votes for one of the Troll names registered as one and every vote for one our names equaled 50 so to push our names to the top of the list.

On the last day of voting we actually had about 25 good names and went with them into 'Round Two'.

Sure, it was cheating, but Business trumps democracy.

The purpose of a business is to make money. To get and keep as many customers as possible and to treat them in such a way they feel prized. Happy customers are the best advertisement.

Happy customers bring in new customers, and new customers, if treated with respect and made to feel comfortable with become steady customers.

Focusing on the best customers, making sure they 'win' competitions makes them feel prized.

Limiting the kind of 'voting' which would result in disasterous results can be done in a business. After all, this is not 'free and fair' elections, this is money making.