They Want Too Much

Customers demand everything. They want price, selection, strong customer service and the new thing, experience. They want unique, "third place" experiences that provide them mental stimulation and a sense of community. These are a lot of wants, especially in a commoditized market.

The population also demands high wages. They want $15 an hour minimum wage. They want a Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI). Conservative and liberal alike will shrug when a small business fails because of these demands. Meanwhile, job seekers languish, underemployed with job mismatches where worker skills are not the correct skill set for the hundreds of thousands of jobs that go unfilled.

Despite the higher wages, there are few workers to be had, what would normally be a sign that the pay is too low, but we've been forced to raise the pay. Where are the workers? For my store, almost every new employee requires significant training, and almost none of them match our job descriptions. The applications are notoriously slim pickings, and it's true for most stores around the country.

So everyone wants everything, nobody wants to do the job of providing it, retail increasingly moves online, and and we complain bitterly about big box retail treating us badly. Sounds like conservative talking points, but it's my experience in the trenches. Is this an impossible situation? Nope, don't despair, here's where the opportunity comes in.

Small business owners fill these gaps, delivering the impossible. The problem I have, as an established store owner, is I can't hire people to make miracles. I can either make miracles myself, or I can throw my hands up and declare miracles are phony. There is no amount of reasonable money that will let me hire a miracle worker. I cannot provide what people want under current market conditions. Can't do it. That right there is an opportunity for small business.

My inability to hire miracle workers is my competitors opportunity to make it rain. If you are delighted, entertained, awed by a local small business, I can almost guarantee you there's a business owner making miracles, because you can't hire saints and prophets, you have to become one.

This is both a competitive advantage and job security for small business, as well as a reminder to us middling businesses that you better bring the mojo. And if you continue to go to Toys R Us and Wal Mart and Target and complain bitterly about your mediocre, bargain basement experience, please remember you're asking the impossible. Maybe a small business will arise to provide that miraculous experience you crave. Maybe the prophet is you.