The Only Vote We Get

In a world where it feels like we are powerless when it comes to the things that happen to the world we live in, what power do we truly have? We vote for politicians who do the opposite of what they said they would, companies raise prices without the thought of what the impact will be on the consumer, and big tech companies can change their algorithms affecting people's livelihoods without any reason whatsoever. So where does our true vote lie? In the money we spend.

Story time: I was using a pay-per-lead platform to get my leads, I got some good out of it, some not so good, and a lot that went nowhere. A potential customer reached out to me for a quote on assembling a child's playset. Now, as I have learned and you can read about in my previous post, these can take anywhere from eight to eighteen hours depending on the size and complexity of the assembly. I quoted the customer my full-day rate ($550) since the assembly looked as though it would take about that long to assemble.

The potential customer replied with “thank’s for the reply, Wal-Mart (I’m assuming who they were buying it from) said that they would assemble it for $425 and we were trying to see if anyone could do it cheaper.” Not a big deal (except that lead probably cost me nine dollars), I have more than enough work to keep me busy and keep the business going.

This got me thinking. If Wal-Mart can do it for cheaper than I can, then they must be doing it at a higher volume, meaning that they are sending a crew of two people that can do multiple jobs in one day. If they are doing it at a price $125 cheaper than me, I can’t imagine that they would be paying their assemblers a livable wage (as a company they rarely do).

Story over

This all went through my head after reading the customer's response. And believe me when I say that I understand we are all looking for the most budget friendly option, especially with the way the economy and inflation are at the moment. But, the only vote that we truly get is where we spend our money. Do you want to spend the money with a multi-billion dollar corporation who is consistently one of the top four employers in the nation whose workers use medicaid and food stamps? Or do you want to spend your money with a local independent handyman who donates ten percent of his monthly profits back into the community in which he lives? 

Like I said before, money is tight for everyone right now and the difference in prices was quite considerable. But just keep in mind as we spend our money on a daily basis, this is really the only vote that we truly get, so make sure it’s a good one.