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An odd trend popped up and caught my eye over the last decade: failing businesses requesting donations to keep from going under. I mean donations literally: not an exchange of goods and services, but outright requests for money to pay off outstanding rent and utility bills. They were usually from bookshops under three years old, crossing my path because I am bookish and frequented bookish sites and forums where the requests appeared.
What the requests suggested to me, depending on the details:
- The owner did not have a viable business plan and knew diddly-squat about running a business.
- The owner confused their daydreams about what they'd do with 'the keys to the candy shop' with having a business plan.
- The owner confused being a business in the business of [whatever] with being a church in the service of [whatever].
- The owner confused being a business in a community with being a community center.
- The owner should have started a club instead, as it seemed they wanted a place to hang out with fellow [whatever] lovers rather than a business.
- The business was already beyond saving.
Bookshops aren't really the point here, but they do illustrate it well.
First, more than half of all new businesses fail by their fourth year, simply because new business owners are inexperienced. Successful business owners usually have a few failed businesses under their belt; their failures taught them the pitfalls of business, how to mess up and pick themselves up and eventually succeed. Bookish people who've long daydreamed of having their own bookshop look from a customer's point of view, seeing a lack of bookshops as a need for bookshops, but missing the obvious counterpoint: shops with decades of experience in successful operation were put out of business by Amazon and the chains, and those that survived did so because they had advantages others didn't (like a great walkable urban location) or because they made changes that brought in a wider range of people (like bric-a-brac hunters).
Second, these small business owners overestimated the importance of their interests to the local community, and their role within the community. To bookish folks, a refrigerator is just an appliance, a bath towel just a flop of cloth. They're just things. Books are different, sacred vessels to which we entrust ideas, containers for other worlds and lives. Opening a bookshop isn't just like having the keys to the candy shop - it's like being entrusted with your own church. A church of candy, even. That lends itself to unhealthy expectations, because to the rest of the community, a book is just a thing, and even dedicated bibliophiles are going to have to pay their own rent first.
That's why new and troubled bookshops take to their blogs and Facebook pages, asking for $15,000 in a month to cover their outstanding debts so they can stay in business. They do a little interview with the local paper about how they'll have to shut their doors if the community doesn't come through and show it values its bookshops, and keep Twitter abuzz with updates. They'll certainly get a few more customers, mostly looking for really good going-out-of-business sales, but I haven't seen a single bookshop yet saved by begging the community to keep their dreams afloat.
For some, as the deadline looms, the bitterness creeps in. If all the people offering supportive comments were regular customers... If they were real book lovers, they'd have been there all along, and the shop wouldn't be in trouble. They get huffy at what they see as invasive questions, because who do you think you are, asking them about their business plan and how you can be sure they wouldn't be asking for donations again in a few months? How dare you want to make sure your money wouldn't be wasted? They forget that they run a business, not a charity or a church or a fucking community rec center, and that nobody owes them a goddamn thing - certainly not to be rewarded with free money for their incompetence, no questions asked. "Show us you value our business" is the customer's line.
The community sees a business begging, and a business begging for donations is a business that's bad at businessing. Why throw good money after bad? That hardly gives them any confidence in the business owner's competence.
The community wants to see the business taking steps to fix its own problems, and telling them how they can help - not that it's dead in the water unless its customers come up with a load of cash. People will happily help someone raise money to start a business (and I will, because St. Louis needs Dr. Dan's Pancake Van). People will gladly patronize a business if they like it and it fulfills a need or want for them. People don't want to be blamed for a business they've never heard of going under, however, or shamed for not taking up the flag in someone's personal cause, be it books, raw dog food or organic produce.
To be clear: the point is not bookshops, failing bookshops, how many bookshops turn to donations/crowdfunding, that small businesses should not ask for help, that small businesses should not be given help, or that one should write off troubled businesses as, "Oh well, do-over." It's that the community loves to give businesses support, but asking for charity makes a business look non-viable.
All of which brings us to the inspiration for this ramble!
A local organic grocer's expansion fell through, and now the business is in debt and at risk. Though only five years old, they are pretty well established on the local food scene, and increasing their business steadily. On social media, they're sending a business message that suggests confidence and capability: we're responsible and well-run, not asking for donations but having a sale to raise funds to fix an identified issue. Not a hand-out, just a hand-up - that sort of thing.
It's perfect! It should appeal not just to the organic church and choir, but also to the community. Except, in local print media...donations help", if the problem has even been identified or if this is just rescheduling a crisis. It's all just "Support my church of candy! Don't you love candy? Prove it!"
Besides, who says something like that when they're asking you for money? "I need $1000 to pay my rent and heating bill and buy food. You have the chance to say whether it's important to you that I don't freeze to death homeless and starving on the street." And why am I hearing Sarah McLachlan?
To the owners, local and organic is its own little church of candy. To the 'church and choir' customers, it's local, it's organic, but it's also asking for a lot of money, while using language that puts responsibility for its success or failure on the people it's borrowing from. To the community that might have been persuaded to help a local business out, it's a goddamn business, and they do not need to prove any goddamn thing to a goddamn business. The community does not have to prove its love, prove that it cares, prove that it values a certain kind of business. The business has to prove that it's not going to tank and leave people high and dry with worthless gift certificates. Because it's a business, not a cause.
SPACEBALLS: THE CLARIFICATION! (and update): Yes, this entry was edited to clarify the intent (I hope), eliminate some repetition, and address my lack of caffeination when it was written. But more importantly, on February 1st, LHC met their funding goal, and the villagers rejoiced!
What the requests suggested to me, depending on the details:
- The owner did not have a viable business plan and knew diddly-squat about running a business.
- The owner confused their daydreams about what they'd do with 'the keys to the candy shop' with having a business plan.
- The owner confused being a business in the business of [whatever] with being a church in the service of [whatever].
- The owner confused being a business in a community with being a community center.
- The owner should have started a club instead, as it seemed they wanted a place to hang out with fellow [whatever] lovers rather than a business.
- The business was already beyond saving.
Bookshops aren't really the point here, but they do illustrate it well.
First, more than half of all new businesses fail by their fourth year, simply because new business owners are inexperienced. Successful business owners usually have a few failed businesses under their belt; their failures taught them the pitfalls of business, how to mess up and pick themselves up and eventually succeed. Bookish people who've long daydreamed of having their own bookshop look from a customer's point of view, seeing a lack of bookshops as a need for bookshops, but missing the obvious counterpoint: shops with decades of experience in successful operation were put out of business by Amazon and the chains, and those that survived did so because they had advantages others didn't (like a great walkable urban location) or because they made changes that brought in a wider range of people (like bric-a-brac hunters).
Second, these small business owners overestimated the importance of their interests to the local community, and their role within the community. To bookish folks, a refrigerator is just an appliance, a bath towel just a flop of cloth. They're just things. Books are different, sacred vessels to which we entrust ideas, containers for other worlds and lives. Opening a bookshop isn't just like having the keys to the candy shop - it's like being entrusted with your own church. A church of candy, even. That lends itself to unhealthy expectations, because to the rest of the community, a book is just a thing, and even dedicated bibliophiles are going to have to pay their own rent first.
That's why new and troubled bookshops take to their blogs and Facebook pages, asking for $15,000 in a month to cover their outstanding debts so they can stay in business. They do a little interview with the local paper about how they'll have to shut their doors if the community doesn't come through and show it values its bookshops, and keep Twitter abuzz with updates. They'll certainly get a few more customers, mostly looking for really good going-out-of-business sales, but I haven't seen a single bookshop yet saved by begging the community to keep their dreams afloat.
For some, as the deadline looms, the bitterness creeps in. If all the people offering supportive comments were regular customers... If they were real book lovers, they'd have been there all along, and the shop wouldn't be in trouble. They get huffy at what they see as invasive questions, because who do you think you are, asking them about their business plan and how you can be sure they wouldn't be asking for donations again in a few months? How dare you want to make sure your money wouldn't be wasted? They forget that they run a business, not a charity or a church or a fucking community rec center, and that nobody owes them a goddamn thing - certainly not to be rewarded with free money for their incompetence, no questions asked. "Show us you value our business" is the customer's line.
The community sees a business begging, and a business begging for donations is a business that's bad at businessing. Why throw good money after bad? That hardly gives them any confidence in the business owner's competence.
The community wants to see the business taking steps to fix its own problems, and telling them how they can help - not that it's dead in the water unless its customers come up with a load of cash. People will happily help someone raise money to start a business (and I will, because St. Louis needs Dr. Dan's Pancake Van). People will gladly patronize a business if they like it and it fulfills a need or want for them. People don't want to be blamed for a business they've never heard of going under, however, or shamed for not taking up the flag in someone's personal cause, be it books, raw dog food or organic produce.
To be clear: the point is not bookshops, failing bookshops, how many bookshops turn to donations/crowdfunding, that small businesses should not ask for help, that small businesses should not be given help, or that one should write off troubled businesses as, "Oh well, do-over." It's that the community loves to give businesses support, but asking for charity makes a business look non-viable.
All of which brings us to the inspiration for this ramble!
A local organic grocer's expansion fell through, and now the business is in debt and at risk. Though only five years old, they are pretty well established on the local food scene, and increasing their business steadily. On social media, they're sending a business message that suggests confidence and capability: we're responsible and well-run, not asking for donations but having a sale to raise funds to fix an identified issue. Not a hand-out, just a hand-up - that sort of thing.
It's perfect! It should appeal not just to the organic church and choir, but also to the community. Except, in local print media...
Horine says it would defy the Local Harvest ethos of building a stronger local-food community to close without first turning to that community for help.Give the community a chance to... Gah!
"We've always stuck with it," he says. "We believe in what we're doing. It sounds cliché, but we feel like it's bigger than us. So we're going to give the community a chance to try to save it." (Ian Froeb, "Local Harvest Grocery and restaurants face imminent closure, seek help", St. Louis Post-Dispatch 27 January 2014)
The Scoop talked with Earnest about her fund raising plans. “What we built the [Local Harvest] model on was building a local food community,” Earnest said. “People will have the chance to say…whether it’s important that we continue to exist. Whether it’s worth it. Whether it’s right for them. Obviously we think so, but do they?” (Ligaya Figueras, "The Scoop: Local Harvest launches community fund raising campaign to avoid closure", Sauce Magazine 27 January 2014)Whether it's worth.... Gah! 'Cause' wording undermines any sense of confidence and capability. By shifting all action to the consumer, it doesn't tell us how (or if) the business is trying to fix its problem, if there's a plan besides "beg for
Besides, who says something like that when they're asking you for money? "I need $1000 to pay my rent and heating bill and buy food. You have the chance to say whether it's important to you that I don't freeze to death homeless and starving on the street." And why am I hearing Sarah McLachlan?
To the owners, local and organic is its own little church of candy. To the 'church and choir' customers, it's local, it's organic, but it's also asking for a lot of money, while using language that puts responsibility for its success or failure on the people it's borrowing from. To the community that might have been persuaded to help a local business out, it's a goddamn business, and they do not need to prove any goddamn thing to a goddamn business. The community does not have to prove its love, prove that it cares, prove that it values a certain kind of business. The business has to prove that it's not going to tank and leave people high and dry with worthless gift certificates. Because it's a business, not a cause.
SPACEBALLS: THE CLARIFICATION! (and update): Yes, this entry was edited to clarify the intent (I hope), eliminate some repetition, and address my lack of caffeination when it was written. But more importantly, on February 1st, LHC met their funding goal, and the villagers rejoiced!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 05:42 am (UTC)From:Really?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 11:25 am (UTC)From:I was talking about the wording of requests for help. The business is the passion of the business owner. Some of its customers might be passionate about it, too, but many just see it as a shop. Putting out an SOS that sounds like abdicating responsibility for the business's problems and placing the responsibility for saving it on the community's shoulders with trust-fall wordings ("Prove you value us!") makes the regular, non-passionate community respond with, "Back up - how do I know you won't be back here asking for donations again in a few months?"
We want to help people start businesses. We want to see them succeed. We want to help when we hear, "It's been a tough year, and we could really use some help," but not "EEK! RESCUE US!", and especially not, "It's all on you if we go under and our employees lose their jobs!", because there's a difference between those things.
Where LHC has used "We could really use some help" wordings, they've gotten better responses, more supportive responses, than where they've used "Prove you value us" wordings. People respond differently to wordings that ask for support (like in starting a business) than to wordings that suggest an obligation or a responsibility to provide support (because it's not our business).
I've seen shops, both established and new, put out word in the community that they need help, and raise money with community support through special events and sales (like LHC is doing). That's not what I'm complaining about. I'm complaining about businesses hitting the community up for donations, and the only businesses I've seen doing that are new businesses, which suggests that the business simply was not viable out of the gate, and the business owner needs to learn, regroup, and yes, try again with the wisdom they've gained from that experience.
Failure is not a death-knell. Bob's Book-A-Rama might be a hot mismanaged mess, but his second try, Bob's Bookolodeon, will benefit from the time he spent not flailing to apply band-aids to a fundamentally nonviable business plan.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-29 12:15 pm (UTC)From:- I'm not talking about what businesses should or should not do.
- I'm not saying people should or should not support a business in trouble.
- When I talk about businesses requesting donations, I don't mean businesses trying to raise community support. I mean literal donations - bookstores barely open long enough for the paint to dry asking for Paypal donations because they owed six months of back rent and utilities.
- The post was intended to be about semantics - in particular, why people were balking at LHC's call for community support.
The short version is that LHC's wording not only did not inspire confidence in the business's ability to recuperate, it undermined it, hitting the same "Support my church of candy!" button that new bookstores were hitting.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 02:28 am (UTC)From:You've written other posts (too many to list; I would actually have to check your archives to refresh my memory, which would be painful) where I've questioned your motives or raised an eyebrow or two. Who cares, though; I write that way often enough myself. Now I'm just getting a better taste of what it's like to be the reader instead of the writer of such things (and I am sort of jumping up and down in pain from it, but hey, don't mind me).
This in particular almost sent me rocketing out of my chair:
If all the people who offered support in comments had ever come in before they heard of the shop's troubles, they wouldn't be in trouble. All these people coming in now aren't true book lovers, or they'd have been there all along. And who do you think you are, asking them about their business plan and how you can be sure they wouldn't be asking for donations again in a few months?
You know, forgetting that they run a business, not a charity or a church or a fucking community rec center, and that nobody owes them a goddamn thing - certainly not to be rewarded with free money for their incompetence, no questions asked.
It hits close to home for me because while I realize you're talking about brick and mortar businesses I'm currently supporting an online-only business which is crowd-sourcing the next version of itself in much the same fashion (in a sort of "prove to us you think our vision is worth it" manner vs. a "here we are asking for a hand up not a hand-out" manner). You're right; this is about semantics but the difference is I don't care how a business asks for our help as long as I support the business. To you that's a big deal, how they ask, why they're asking, that they get offended or don't have a proper answer if you ask them where they'll be three months from now (asking for money again? That's insulting and of course they get offended by the question for the lack of faith it shows; I would get offended by it, too).
I would've also been more at peace with the following if you'd done some research on it...
[...] I haven't seen a single bookshop saved by begging the community to keep their unrealistic dreams afloat, no matter how much they appeal to the community to 'show your support' and 'show us you value our business' (that's the customer's line, folks!), because to the community, that feels like business owner abdicating responsibility and shifting it to the customer.
I mean, I know you haven't seen it. My point is, does any research exist on the matter that says how often bookstores in particular fail or succeed after asking for community help/donations/hands up not hand outs? And if you don't know the answer to that question then what does it matter what just one person (you) has 'seen'? If you're going to offer that up as a fact, it's not my job to make sure it is, it's yours to check any existing statistics that support your argument before you write the post. Because you didn't perform due diligence (or share the results of any due diligence you performed) I have no idea if what you said is true or not but now the curiosity is killing me, which is not a good state to leave a passive reader of your post in.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 06:04 am (UTC)From:I'm writing about the reaction I feel as a consumer, and the reaction I see from other consumers. I'm stating that, in my opinion and from this POV, some wordings (and some stances) are counterproductive when requesting help. You can take that as a resource to be used, disregard it as irrelevant to your situation, disagree with my reasoning, etc., as you please.
For example: To you that's a big deal, how they ask, why they're asking, that they get offended or don't have a proper answer if you ask them where they'll be three months from now (asking for money again? That's insulting and of course they get offended by the question for the lack of faith it shows; I would get offended by it, too).
This is a clear point of view issue to me. It's the business owner's baby. Lack of unquestioning support for it, lack of faith in their competency to run it - it's a blow straight to the ego.
It's not the customer's baby. To the customer, it's a shop. Maybe a favorite that speaks to their personal identity and the causes with which they align themselves, but a shop nonetheless. They're being asked to take a leap of faith with the owner, and they just want to know it's not off a cliff. When they ask "How do I know you won't be asking for money again in three months?", what they're asking is, "Have you sorted out the problem?" Indignation that they'd even ask suggests (to me) that the owner refuses to admit that there even was a problem, or wants community help sans community input ("Just shut up and give me money"). Neither inspires much faith.
Second, yes, my tone comes across as ranty and crotchety at times. It's the way I talk and the way I write when my brain is taking apart an idea and exploring its nooks and crannies for all the fun meaty bits. I'm receptive to people asking for clarification; I'm not receptive to tone-policing. If you don't like the way I write, don't read what I write. I won't be offended if you unfollow.
(Yes, I'm aware of the irony of talking about tone-policing in the comments on a post that talks about problematic tone.)
Fourth: I would've also been more at peace with the following if you'd done some research on it...
This is not a research paper or a formal study of crowdfunding and small bookstores. This is not a piece of hard-hitting investigative journalism. My posts aren't The Definitive Subject On This Topic. If something has caught your interest and you want more in-depth discussion and details than I have offered here, in my long-winded mix of anecdote and opinion, then go forth and research to your heart's content. But that's not my job.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 06:30 am (UTC)From:I guess that's just down to personal preference and my own experience - which is mostly writing about a big online company that screwed people out of their money with a glee that to this day cannot be matched by anyone. I did that for years and from the start I researched and fact-checked just to cover my ass precisely so that when the inevitable company trolls would roll in to call bs and "YOU LIE" I could say, with a clean conscience, "tell me where I lied or did not tell the truth exactly as it is and I will gladly correct that for you". So I guess it's just second-nature to me now.
Blogging about things in general is more casual by nature and does not normally require due diligence. I'll admit that. I don't always do it myself - I leave people to find the truth on their own with some of my posts (but if they do bother to dig, I don't leave them wanting; I'll base what I say on the truth while avoiding specifics that'll just push me into a corner before I've lined up proper resources). So I guess my gripe was you were very specific and when I'm that specific I'll handle it differently or I won't be that specific at all.
I'm not trying to have a tone argument with you or tear you or your post down over tone: I have a tone so ranty and crotchety of my own there are times in calmer moments when I read my own DW that I practically need to cover my ears for what I can hear jumping off my pages at me. I'm simply saying the way I inferred your tone on this post was as misanthropic and it rubbed me the wrong way. I subscribed to you (and that was a long time ago, too) because your tone was something I enjoyed and a tone I used myself long before I ran across your DW. So we had that in common. It's just that this time that tone got twisted into what I felt was a merciless, totally obnoxious, unkind POV and that's when I decided to step back and re-assess.
I don't have the same reaction as you do as a consumer, sorry.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-31 01:05 am (UTC)From:I don't see it as being very specific, since the point wasn't about the number of failed bookstore crowdfunding attempts. They were simply an example I'd seen often (since I often wandered in book blogs, forums and social media) that made it easy to illustrate the chain of reasoning behind those blurred boundaries and conflation of cause and shop in sometimes detrimental ways (forgetting it is a bookshop, not a church of books). The reasoning was the thing for me, not the numbers. Different strokes for different folks!
When I'm in pursuit of an idea or point, I can neglect to put things tactfully. And I can be extremely pedantic, which often comes across as merciless or unkind (for much the same reason). I don't see anything particularly cruel here, in my frustration with a business doing it right (not requesting donations, but raising money) but pitching it wrong ("Giving the community the chance to prove..."). Again, different strokes for different folks!
I strike everybody as obnoxious at some point or another. I've come to accept it as a fact of life.