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Kicking the Habit

Change begins at home

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It seems no matter where you live, there's always some other, better place to spend your money. So people head out of town – any town – to do it.

Last year, I visited Wichita Falls, Texas, where I learned that everyone drives two hours to Dallas to shop.

Last week, I visited Monterey, Calif., where I learned that everyone drives two hours to San Jose to shop. The mall there is bigger – and roomier, since the San Jose locals have all gone to New York to shop. And the New Yorkers have gone to Provence, to anguish over buying real herbs. (Where do the French go? They're already There.)

Realization: Everybody everywhere goes somewhere else for better money-spending.

My trip to Monterey was aimed at helping local businesses break the habit of losing shoppers to other places. Marketing begins at home. I took a look at my own home town. We go to Santa Rosa. “We” is all of us (5400) living in Cloverdale, Calif., where there's a saying about almost everything: “You have to go to Santa Rosa for that” (40 minutes each way). Our town doesn't have Home Depot or Wal-Mart, not even a Piercing Pagoda. But while we court and market to visitors, here on the cusp of exploding Wine Country, we have plenty of businesses that need to make money now. And we all watch the locals pocket their money and leave.

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I now know how deep that goes. I got slapped in the face by the enemy of change: Habit.

The Lions Club in Cloverdale asked me to speak at its 50th anniversary celebration. Some 150 people were expected, a big event for our town. I asked where it was going to be held. And they said (as they and others have often said before): “In Santa Rosa.”

Why? I asked – and started digging. The Exchange Bank throws its staff a big party every Christmas. Where was the party last year? Santa Rosa.

I went across the street to the other bank in town, which pays each employee to work four hours a week in community service. I love the idea. It shows a big corporation using its power to do something good. But I couldn't remember hearing or seeing what the eight local employees were doing in Cloverdale. The manager told me: Yes, they do community projects. They do good deeds .. in Santa Rosa.

We have seen the enemy, and it is us!

The enemy of change is habit.

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How hard is habit? Hard. What, I wondered, does it take to change this? Total famine? Abject poverty? Nuclear winter?

The local merchants participate in committees and promotions. A slogan was devised a couple of years ago for a promotion called “Shop Cloverdale!” (It became “Shop Cloverdale Christmas!”) But we should have started sooner. And nearer to home. We should have been telling ourselves: “Keep the money in Cloverdale!”

Lions Club officers took the first step, changing their minds and bringing the event back to town. But producing the Lions Club dinner was a lot more work than going to Santa Rosa. There was no restaurant big enough for 150 people, and we don't have a hotel, so the Veterans Building (excellent for basketball) had to be transformed.

Volunteers didn't show up (the first right of every volunteer, alas), so there weren't enough hands to haul tables. And the fork lift was broken, so the ceiling didn't get its lights. And the Citrus Fair said “no” when asked for platforms, which wasted time and x-ed out another idea.

There were new encounters with caterers (local) and musicians (they had to come up here – from Santa Rosa), and, and, and…it would have been a whole lot easier to take the money, mosey on down the road once again and spend it in – Santa Rosa.

But at the Veterans Building, there is energy preparing the event. The hall is full of skeptics and some rising excitement. The tables are arranged in chevron pattern. This has never happened before, at least not in 50 years.

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Never have there been purple tablecloths and gold napkins, although the Lions'colors are purple and gold. Never before have there been goldfish in bowls on every table. The prime rib was good (don't even consider changing the prime rib).

Change was taking place. And I got to make a focused speech about how and why this celebration was held in Cloverdale. I even got a great punch line the day of the banquet. That morning, I heard hot news about the Cloverdale Rotary Club, about to have its 75th anniversary – 75! – and (here comes the punch line): Guess where their celebration is going to be held? “Not in Cloverdale!” This brought down the house in my speech, but the point is not funny.

O hard, hard, is the grip of “that's the way it's always been.” Our 100-year-old Citrus Fair was themed “The Way We Were” this year … ugh. (As if that view needed encouragement.) But many loved it. It reinforced their martyrdom.

Change is hard. On the way in to the Lions'dinner, I met a man who told me that downtown was “getting to be full of damn boutiques.” In fact, downtown is about to be renovated – big change! – and there is wild debate and arguments about angled versus parallel parking downtown.

The renovation itself is the object of scorn and derision for those who hate change. According to these hardheads, everything is wrong with the plan, beginning with its existence. But the plan has gone through. And the yea- and-nay-sayers will be standing there saying “yea” and “nay” when it happens. But it will be happening, and that's change.

Changing habits in people, and in yourself, is far harder than anyone dreamed. We all think we love change, we work to interpret it, we swear we advocate it, we know it's what we make and sell and buy. Every sale made is a change in habit for a customer. Each day, after wasting a night by sleeping through it, the world has changed, and we wake up behind the times.

Convincing people that change is good is a lifelong project that one performs on faith alone. Next week, Step No. 2: Go back to the bank and its Christmas party. Step 3: Go back to the other bank to ask when we'll see that goodness take root in our own community. Step 4: Let it be known that Will Jopson, Ace Hardware, told his crew it could have its Christmas party anywhere – within Cloverdale city limits. Step 5ff: Keep doing it. One event, one day, one dollar at a time.

Change is good.

Spread the word.


Peter's current activities include presentations to Cracker Barrel Corp. in Destin, Fla. A video of Peter's inspiring keynote address to R.A.C. 2001, entitled ” 'A'Is for Attitude,” can be ordered from the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA). Phone: 312-251-7262; fax: 312-251-7269; Internet: www.rama-nrf.org. A new book of selected articles by Peter will accompany him at the VM+SD International Retail Design Conference in Orlando this October. Comments? Contact Peter by e-mail at: jasminehill@thegrid.net.

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