Lessons About Community Learned From My Local Supermarket

Building a community around your business is difficult. Regardless of your industry, to lead the pack seems like a great and horrendous challenge. While I can’t turn it into a one-two-three process, I did realize something about communities while shopping at my local supermarket, Sav-a-Lot. I don’t know a lot, but let me share this little story with you.

Sav-a-Lot is not a one-store mom and pop shop, not anymore at least. It’s also not Wal-Mart Corporation huge. This particular brand is successful at building a community around it. In my case, it’s the only place I can buy my energy drinks (two a day, no more, no less), so I end up going there. Every. Single. Day. That’s one part of building a community we can all agree with: have a product or service others deem important or necessary.

So, I’m already heading into this supermarket every morning. My fiancé usually has a small list of items she wants me to pick up along with my drinks. Using coupons and doing basic math, she finds deals on items she would otherwise spend more on before driving home from working at Walmart. So we could say that part of building a community is: extending value beyond your own four walls.

I pick up these items, but sometimes my favorite flavor isn’t in the fridge where it’s supposed to be. Sometimes, I simply pick a different flavor, but other times I’m feeling selfish and ask one of the workers if there are any of my flavor in the back. And here is where our community-building story takes off. See, the first time I asked this, the employee looked at me, annoyed at the interruption (really dude, there’s three other flavors, come on). But, they went in the back, grabbed my two cans of preferred flavor, and went on their way. Aside from a look, there was no blow-back for my request. I understood that look, because I’ve given it to retail customers myself. In other words, and I’m not saying you should work for free, but this employee performed an extra task with little to no retaliation.

Being that my typical load is less than five items, I get annoyed when I’m behind a customer that just bought everything in the store. However, I also know that my timing was wrong. Had I left for the store 15 minutes earlier, I could be ahead of the crowd. So I never whine about being behind. A lot of times, a non-clerk employee will pull me to an empty register and help me out. I always make sure to tell them thank you. They smile, and tell me to stay safe or some other positive message.

But just yesterday, I realized a full exchange has happened between this store and myself. I had just pulled into the tiny parking lot, and an older gentleman with a full cart was not even off the sidewalk yet, but crossing the roadway. I had time to pull through without endangering the man, or anybody else, but I stopped and let him pass. Why? Because he was old? Because I’m not as alpha as other men? Maybe, but that doesn’t explain some actions I’ve taken in Wal-Mart’s parking lots.

When my hands aren’t too full, and I see a cart out of place (in-store or in the parking lot), I get them out of the way for others, people I will never see and will never know a non-employee took care of something. Why? It’s not for ego.

I don’t spend a lot of time smiling or trying to impress people outside of my writing and artwork. But, when I’m at Sav-a-Lot, I smile a lot. I laugh too, even at the bad jokes employees and other customers say. Am I just being a different person in public, for the people of Sav-a-Lot? Well, yes…but only because the store and its employees let me feel like I belong there. And I think, as a hustling freelancer, as a busy artist, as a person who knows how hard it can be to build a community, that this last part is the most important part of doing so.

Have you had trouble, or success, building a community around your company or brand? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear your story!

Quick Recap

·       have a product or service others deem important or necessary

·       extend value beyond your own four walls.

·       perform an extra task with little to no retaliation, though not for free

·       never whine about being behind- everybody starts further back than someone else

·       help me out- or I won’t want to do anything for you

·       always make sure to say thank you

·       tell me to stay safe or have some other positive message

·       let me feel like I belong here

James Neal writes fantasy, both novel-length (Of Blood and Blade) and shorter stories (Paints the Invisible Eye).

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A Modern-Day, True Story Fable: The Writer and the Real World

This post has proven one of the hardest I’ve written. Since the first American Dirt post, I’ve pointed my finger at the many problems I see within American politics, culture, and pop-culture. Many fine insights and allegories exist within the words written here. This time, I’m pointing the finger back at myself. In doing so, I’m revealing my fallibility.

I’m laughing too because, on my original (now defunct) blog, RoosterWords, I had no problem pointing the finger at me. I laid out every mistake I was making, hoping somebody else would read it and not make those same mistakes. I’m afraid to do that on American Dirt. I’m afraid, now, that a person will read about me and call me a fool. I’m afraid you will point your finger…at me.

See, I wanted to introduce myself and show how poignant my points can be. How I’ve learned to set each word to impact the reader, set their mind on fire, and get them thinking about the subject I’m writing about. Instead, it seems I’m setting myself on fire in the digital street.

Five years ago, I began taking my writing seriously. My novel’s first draft was near completion, and blogging was introduced to me. Despite having no idea what blogging “is,” I discovered I had a natural knack for writing “to” people rather than “at” people. Five years ago, I felt my writing would take me everywhere.

I finished that novel, Of Blood and Blade, posted on RoosterWords, and eventually started worrying about my “brand.” Y’know, that big, buzzy word that every corporation and celebrity knocks around? Yeah. So despite the fifteen people following my blog at the time, despite my words touching somebody enough to want to read more, I deleted RoosterWords. I pretended that fifteen people wanting to read my words wasn’t going to make or break me. Maybe I was right…I think now I was a horrible person, and wrong.

By this point, my “true” professional life was in the toilet. I worked for a Rent-to-Own company that I despised (and for the second time, mind you), and they treated me, and the rest of my coworkers, like rag dolls. There came a point, and this was about two years ago, where I’d had enough. The company managed to push me, a father of two, far enough to quit. That’s a story for another day. I called my fiancé, and told her I was done with this job. I told her I’d make money freelancing because goodness, I’m just so good with words.

So I stayed home, I got on the freelancing sites like Guru and Elance, wrote up offers and…and nothing happened. Literally nothing. And now, two years later, I still haven’t’ managed to hustle up some business. Well, I created two logos and a book cover that I actually got paid for, but not a dime for my freelancing. And, because of that, I can’t afford to buy the courses that could make me better. I’m not taking care of my family financially. I’m the deadbeat dad I promised I never would be.

It didn’t have to get this bad. I could have put my ego to the side, did what the experts say, and found a job to get me through “the rough patch.” A few family issues aside (my fiancé works overnights, childcare is $1600/mo, etc) I could have done better. But I thought I was a special snowflake, I thought that if I gave myself no other option, I would succeed. Maybe I special, but I certainly don’t feel it now.

So I’m getting a J-O-B. I’m going to continue blogging. I will write fiction I know is decent. But so far, I’m no freelancer. It’s time I stop acting like a freeloader, as well. Maybe, if I put my ego to the side for a bit, my writing could still take me everywhere. I've got some work ahead of me yet.

Now, you can point the finger at me, or join me in solidarity by commenting on your foibles below. Trust me, I’d love to know I’m not the only one.

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