If you build it, they will come – and walk right by you

A few years back, 2021 I believe, while I was living in Vietnam with Sana, I met some of her coworkers for lunch at the nearby mall. We had “hot pot” (think boiling soup in front of you while you cook meat and veggies yourself) and all in all it was a great time.

After I had had my fill, I told Sana that I was going to go and find one of the massage chairs they have setup around the mall and relax for a bit.

So I’m walking around the mall, looking for an available chair. And while I’m looking, I walked right past two separate vendors that were setup in the middle of the mall that were selling, you guessed it, massage chairs.

At one of the kiosks, two young people were sitting on chairs, scrolling on their smart phones, oblivious to the multitudes of people walking by their chairs that might want to try out one of their chairs.

At the other, a young man was standing near what you might call the entrance to the booth, but he simply bowed to me and otherwise ignored me as I walked by.

I finally found a massage chair, put in some money and enjoyed my 12 minutes of R&R.

It probably wouldn’t shock you to tell you both of these vendors had zero customers. Not even a passerby wanting to take one of the massage chairs for a spin.

Later on I told Sana about this, and she said that is so typical of Vietnamese businesses. They have the ultimate “if you build it, they will come” mentality when it comes to marketing (or lack thereof) their businesses.

Another example is a coffee/tea shop that was down the road from our apartment in EcoPark. They had a really nice baby grand piano inside the shop, and they called it “Piano Cafe”.

Its design was upscale, perhaps to give a different type of appeal to adults sans small children to have a cup of tea or espresso after dinner.

And every time Sana and I walked by it, more often than not, it’s completely empty. Again, the people inside were scrolling on their phones, making no effort whatsoever to make people aware they existed.

I even brought an associate of mine who is a virtuoso pianist to their shop. You’d think they would have wanted to offer him a standing gig to play and provide a nice ambience for their customers.

To the surprise of no one, the “Piano Cafe” didn’t survive even a year. And to their shame, they left the doors to the cafe open constantly, allowing the humid tropical air to destroy that beautiful piano.

We might read this story, and lament what could have been with that shop.

It could have been a great success story, but the people operating the shop simply didn’t put any effort into it.

They built it, and people came – and walked right by it and on to the Onsen coffee shop down the road that was alwaysbusy.

I remember when Onsen coffee shop opened. They had a massive marketing campaign for months prior to opening, and the results speak for themselves. The Onsen coffee shop doesn’t have a piano; they play the same music on the speakers that every other coffee shop does and did.

They just prefer to have precious customers sitting in their shop, and they take actions that make that happen.

That kind of reminds me of a guy named Bill Peck. Bill Peck was given an assignment by his employer to do something that was absurdly difficult, and he did everything it took to accomplish the task.

Even when he realized his boss had sent him on a fool’s errand, he kept his cool and found a way to get the job done.

He didn’t wait for people to come to him to get what he wanted; he went to the people and literally bent reality so that his will came to pass.

Bill Peck is the main character in a short story titled The Go-Getter; and is one of the titles available in my bundle of audiobooks that are on sale for $4.99 for the month of January.

Keep in mind you’re subscribing to a continuous service, which means more titles will be added to the collection regularly.

(And I think you’ll like what is to come in the near future.)

So take advantage of this offer while you can. The price won’t be that low forever.

Here’s where to subscribe to the collection: https://jns.media/audiobooks-in-the-public-domain/