One of my favorite stories involves a blind street vendor of hot dogs. One day, one his customers suggested that if business was good, he should consider expanding. The customer offered to help the blind vendor with introductions to a banker, and so the vendor ended up buying a second cart, and hiring someone to work for him. That worked out so well, that he was able to buy more carts, and hire more people. This gave him enough discretionary income that he was able to send his son to college. The son majored in business administration. When the kid graduated, he returned home to see that his dad had purchased a corner lot and an old diner trailer that he rennovated and opened as a freestanding restaurant. The son was horrified. “Dad…don’t you know the economy is lousy! You shouldn’t be expanding right now…you need to pull in your horns and hunker down for a long recessionary period. This has got “Depression” written all over it! You’d better be careful, or you’ll lose everything!”

The father thought, “Well…my son did go to college, which I’ve never done, and he did major in business, and he did get a degree. Maybe he’s right.” So he sold the restaurant, sold off the other carts, and went back to working a single street corner, selling hot dogs. He thought, “Boy, my son was right. The economy is lousy.”

I don’t mean to belittle the dangers we face from all the greedy mortgage companies, hedge fund operators, and politicians, but I can’t help but think that a lot of our economy is driven not by facts and figures, but by perception and personal experiences. Case in point: gasoline prices.

I have a friend that runs a local restaurant. Nice place. Your average meal is going to set you back around $20, a little more if you go for an adult beverage and a desert. I asked him if business was off. He told me that it had been off when gasoline was closing in on $4/gallon here, but now that it’s below $2/gallon (!), business is back up, and in fact is even better than it had been well before the September Panic.

Think about that. People vote with their wallets. When they don’t have enough money to buy a tank of gas, going out to eat is a luxury they can live without. When gas is cheap, dinner out is okay. Perception becomes Reality.

Now if you’re a layoff victim, I’m sure you see the economy as a disaster. Here in Amarillo (so far, anyway) we’ve been largely immune from the effects of the recession. No idea why – but I’m glad. I’m certainly sympathetic to people who are suddenly without jobs, and I think there’s lots of blame to go around – blame for people like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Company, that got us into this mess by trying to game the system for their own benefit. However, I can’t help but think that if you can look at things with a positive attitude, the economy will improve – and improve faster than it would if we all rely on the folks in Washington, no matter WHO is running things.

Can we use what Norman Vincent Peale called “the Power of Positive Thinking” to turn a recession into a great economy? Probably not, but we can use it to keep a recession from turning into a depression, and help us turn things around faster. Of that much…I’m positive.

And all that hard work can be shot to Hell in the blink of an eye by one bad experience at a drive-thru window.

This morning, my daugther got a late start, and as a result, we didn’t have time to prepare her sack lunch. No big…school is not far away from the Captain Digital Secret Lair. Mrs. Digital prevailed upon me to stop by a fast food emporium, find something relatively nutritious, and take it up to her. The school encourages parents to eat with their children from time to time, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, and get lunch for both of us.

I pulled into a local fast food outlet which could remain nameless (except that I believe in full disclosure – it was Burger King). I ordered our meals at the display that has the mic/speaker combo that must have been Korean War surplus – audio fidelity is to a fast food window what an accordion is to a symphony orchestra. I placed my order. The order taker on the other end of the tin can/string contraption read back the order, and got it wrong. No big – not like that’s the first time. I repeated the order. She got it wrong again. I corrected her, and read the entire order. I was instructed to pull up to the second window. Fair enough.

When I got to the window, she again asked me if I wanted drinks. I said, yes, as I told you before, I want  a Coke and a Pink Lemonade. (My daughter’s a 10 year old. Guess which one of us likes pink lemonade.)

The lady (speaking strictly genetically – she was to quickly prove she was NOT a lady in the chivalric sense of the word) said, “You don’t need to get rude with me! I don’t have to take that kind of s**t off you!”

Huh? All I said was that I’d already given her my drink order (three times, in fact) and that I wanted to make sure that she got our order right. I’d not been sarcastic, rude, or made any kind of confrontational, non-verbal communications that would give her any reason or justification whatsoever to go Medieval on me.

I said, “Look, I don’t want any trouble…I just want my food.” Again, she took the opportunity to ratchet things up exponentially. Again she cursed. Again she threatened.

At that point, I’d had enough. I asked to see the manager. When he appeared at the window, I said, “Look. I don’t appreciate being cussed out at a drive-thru window, and I doubt seriously that Burger King would approve of this either. I’ll give you a choice…you can discipline your employee in front of me right now, or I can call the zone office and ask them to have her fired – your choice.” (I’m normally a pretty even-keeled guy in public, but I don’t put up with service employees getting abusive with me, especially when I’ve done nothing to justify their behavior.)

The woman in question slammed some things around inside, and proclaimed, “I don’t need this “s**t…I’m outta here…I quit!”

I looked at the manager who perhaps saw his entire fast food career going up in flame-broiled customers, and said “well…it looks like that problem may have taken care of itself.”

In fairness to the manager, he did what you would expect a manager to do – apologize profusely, take personal responsibility, assure the customer that this incident was both unacceptable to him and the company, as well as an isolated one. In short, he did everything he could to pour oil on the troubled waters and smooth things over as best he could. He related that they’d just put in a new cash register system and everyone was stressing out over it.

I sympathized with him, but the simple fact of the matter is, employees can never take their own frustrations out on customers, unless the company is willing to turn customers into both ex-customers and evangelists who’s sole mission in life is to counteract every bit of positive image and goodwill the company has earned over their years in business.

So, to recap, Burger King spends millions on advertising to present a kind of “out there,” tongue-in-cheek image, one that is at the same time hip and doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Their entire image was cratered by one employee with anger management issues and a less-than-firm grasp on how to prevent frustration from having a negative impact on customer retention.

Think about that. Millions of dollars spent to get people like me to go to Burger King, and every dime of it wasted by one bad employee.

Ouch.

Because the manager dealt with the problem quickly and appropriately, Burger King hasn’t lost a customer. However, the experience has left a bad tast in my mouth, and that’s not a good thing, especially if you’re peddling fast food. It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, and only a second or two to torpedo it. Bad news spreads at the quantum speeds – good news takes it’s own sweet time.

I’d say the King has received not a mortal wound, but at the very least a black eye. The thing is, Burger King has blown a ton of good will. Now I’m in the “show me” state of mind, where I will take every bit of their advertising with a very large grain of salt-substitute. Their image ran smack dab up against their reality, and reality won.

What this means for you is that no matter how carefully you craft a marketing campaign, customers are not won by CPMs. They are won, one at a time, and if a prospect’s or customer’s experience does not meet their expectations set by the marketing campaign, the marketing campaign will fail. Every time. That means that it’s absolutely essential to have every employee recognize how essential they are to the success of every marketing message. For they have the power to negate your marketing message, without spending so much as one thin dime.

Here’s the truth: most people form their opinions based on what they see on TV, hear on the radio, or read in the newspapers, magazines, or online. We have a name for these folks. We call them sheeple (or homo ignoramus if you’re into Latin). The simple fact of the matter is, most people are too busy living their lives to be willing to put much effort into thinking, let alone thinking about things that don’t directly affect their daily lives on an immediate basis. If you DO have an opinion about Iraq, and it’s not something that you are simply parroting that you heard on your prefered news channel, then you are likely NOT a sheeple. If you sample information from more than one source, analyze the input, and form your own opinions based on that information filtered through your own experiences, logic, and deductive reasoning, then you are most certainly NOT a member of the sheeple group.

Unfortunately for humanity, you’re also part of a demographic that counts as about 2% of the population.

What can we take away from this, as marketers? Well, gentle reader, to understand the import of this, we have to return to the familiar mantra, Perception IS Reality.

You see, a majority of the general public suffers from information overload. Couple that with a general apathy, and a specific, narcicistic indifference to actually thinking about anything, and you have a recipe for a sound-byte society. From a marketing point of view, this means you have a nifty little paradox on your hands. It’s a lot less work to get people to make up their minds when they’re not interested in doing their own homework. However, it’s a lot more difficult to change perceptions, as you have so much competition in the business of changing perceptions.

Essentially, it comes down to telling your story, and you are in direct competition with every one else who’s telling a story. Everyone out there, from Bill Gates to yours’ truly has but 24 hours in the day. Your job is to get them to spend some time listening to your story. If it’s an engaging, compelling story, you have a chance (and only a chance, mind you) of compelling and convincing someone to buy your story, your product, or your service. If you’re story doesn’t sing, you don’t have a prayer.