Asking Is The Hardest Job

This past weekend, we spent some time at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (which we refer to as "The MIA" around these parts). We were there for a private art tour for Beatrix’s book club (yes, my almost seven year old belongs to her own book club with several school friends). It was organized by an acquaintance of one of Beatrix’s friend’s parents who also works at the MIA. The tour was based loosely on the book they had just completed reading, Charlotte’s Web. It was a lot of fun for kids and parents alike. Every time we visit the MIA, which ends up being a few times a year, we are reminded just how much we love it and express a desire to make our visits there more frequent.

As our group was gathering, putting away coats, and making general small talk before the tour began, the tour leader mentioned that membership to the MIA was now free. Entry to the museum has always been free (or an optional donation). But the membership, which gave you a fair amount of added benefits, had been a fair price for as long as I remember. He also mentioned that one still gets the same benefits formerly offered at the old entry level membership fee.

I asked him how they were able to do this. As in, how were they able to give something away free that I felt had more than fair value before. He explained that, in part, they had been seeing membership decline steadily for years while at the same time attendance was increasing. That there were several sponsors and foundations that awarded money based on membership levels. Therefore, by increasing membership they would get more money from these large organizations that would hopefully make up the loss. It made sense on one level but on another it really bugged me.

You see, a few years ago we received a family membership to the MIA as a gift. It was a great gift. We would have gone far more often as members that year but, for whatever reason, we had a frustrating and almost comical time actually trying to get the gift membership activated. In fact, it took seven months and multiple calls to several people to finally get our family membership activated. And, when we finally did get it activated, they set the membership expiration date to one year from the date of the gift. In other words, they did not offer at all to grant us the time it took to actually get the membership activated. At that point, we knew it would take even more calls and hassles to get that made right, so we didn’t bother.

But, the thing is, we would make perfect MIA members. Not only do Bethany and I love the MIA, Beatrix loves art museums and loves the MIA especially. We really believe in taking advantage of the wealth of arts experiences the metro area has to offer. We support many other arts organizations with our time, talents, and money. We are active members of other museums in town. In other words, we are exactly the sort of people who would have been paying members and likely for life…

If they had only asked why we weren’t any longer.

I wonder what would have happened, if instead of reducing the price to free, they simply called people who were members at one time and no longer were a simple question — why?. Not some pushy sales call or some temp worker with no power to right any wrongs. Just a simple call from someone who cared to listen and was empowered to "make it right" wherever possible.

We would have told them how much we love the museum, how we really wished we were members still, but that we had such a bad experience with getting the gift membership straightened out and not getting the full year out of it that it left a bad taste in our mouth.

If, then, the MIA representative would have offered something fair — like the ability to purchase a year long membership with the seven months we lost added on for free — we would have jumped at the chance and our faith and generous support of the museum would have been restored.

I wonder how many others like us there are. How many are no longer members because of some bad experience in the past. Perhaps the problem in their declining membership numbers is not because times are tight and people are cutting back. Perhaps it is because the there was a serious problem in the membership process that was never discovered and resolved. Perhaps a phone call and some good will would have turned the tide.

Asking for money is hard work. Asking for money takes courage and a belief that there is real value in what you are selling and the price you put on it is a fair one. It takes believing that there are those to whom this will be obvious and that they are your ideal first customers and that there are many just like them out there just waiting for you to ask. That, people who were once your customers and no longer are likely so for a reason and they are just waiting for you to care enough to ask why. Asking means facing the fear of failure.

Many businesses frame their first dollar bill. It is, in part, pride. A visible symbol that the business is now officially open. That someone cared enough to believe in what they had to sell. But, that framed dollar represents something deeper: That one can frame that one because they believe so strongly in what they are selling. They wont have to break open that frame to get the only dollar they will ever make. They have the courage to believe that another dollar will come along.

Making the price free is easy. It avoids the hard work. You don’t have to face rejection or get past your fear. You don’t have to do the hard work of figuring out and communicating what your value proposition is. And, even still, it assumes that you can’t convince your customers of that value and that your best marketing asset and opportunity for growth is not the people paying for and enjoying your product. Or, in so many cases — even now in the case of the MIA — it proposes that the customers are actually the product you are selling.

Instead, we happily and immediately signed up for the free membership as soon as we got home. We will certainly use it. But we would have anyway and we would have let them know if they had bothered to ask.

I’m a writer. Writing is how I make this world a better, friendlier, stronger place. If these words improved your day, please let me know by contributing here.

Tinkers by Paul Harding — A Brief (non) Review

This is not a review of Tinkers by Paul Harding. The reason this is not a review is because I did not finish the book.

Here’s the thing: I’m supposed to like this book. In fact, there’s nothing to not like about it. The prose is beautiful, rich, and dense. The story, about a man on his deathbed surrounded by family and drifting in and out of consciousness and time, is compelling. And, one needs to give some appreciation to the fact that this is his first novel as it is better than most writers tenth novels. It even won the Pulitzer Prize. In other words, people far smarter than me like this book. They love this book.

Here’s another thing: You will likely enjoy this book as millions of others have. Not to mention as much as those who gave it the one of the highest prizes in literature clearly did. You will likely read this post, read the book, and think I’ve lost all sense and good taste. For all I know, you might be right.

Yet, I could not get through it. I tried three times. The funny thing is that the reasons I should have liked this book are the very reasons I could not push through it. I found the prose to be too rich and the story too deep. I found that it suffers from an affliction of many first novels in that it is weighed down by too much description — beautifully described, but too much all the same. It was like a well made flour-less chocolate cake — delicious first slice but a few bites more than that and you quickly become too full and too ill to eat more.

This is one of those rare times I understand "book guilt". Most of the time, I have no problem putting a book I’m not enjoying down and moving on to another. Life is too short and there are too many great books to waste a single moment more on one you are not enjoying. But, I felt very conflicted about walking away from this one.

Because no one warns you about the ones that might be too good. Or, the ones you just might not be ready to read — those you may need more wisdom or more patience to truly enjoy. Or the ones that you know are technically great, that everyone else says are great, but for whatever reason are just not for you.

Even though it is much more difficult to admit and do, the same rules apply for these too. Books are meant to be read and enjoyed. If one is not doing it for you for any reason, put it down and move on to another guilt free. Even is it is "good".

Intentions for 2015

I’ve decided I’m not going to do some lengthy after action report (AAR for the military nerds) about the successes and failures of last years list of intentions. Let’s just suffice to say that I feel I was about 50/50 on those. I’m trying not to beat myself up about the ones I didn’t succeed at. I’m going to move forward.

Here are the few things I plan on achieving in the coming year.

  • Compete the first draft of my next book. This book will be different than anything I’ve ever done before, will require a lot of research, and I got a grant to help with funding it. Therefore, only committing to a “shitty first draft” is far more ambitious than it sounds.

  • Monthly date nights with my wife, Bethany. We have been doing this for the past couple of years and it has been very successful and rewarding. It allows us time to connect and remember why it is we got married in the first place. This is also one of the several shared resolutions/intentions — it is on each of our lists. As stated before, resolutions don’t happen in a vacuum.

  • Hike. Hike with Family. Hike with Friends. I enjoy hiking. I always have. I did so very actively when I was a teen but don’t do as much now. I’d like to change that. Every time I do get the opportunity to go hiking I’m reminded of how much love it. And, my daughter Beatrix really enjoys it too and we have a blast hiking together whenever we get the chance. Beatrix is naturally a very good hiker. I have taken her on some fairly technical and rough trails and she blows through them like a breeze. I’d like to foster that talent. I’d like to be more intentional about planning and creating those opportunities. This also aligns nicely with Bethany’s desire to enjoy Minnesota more. It has a lot of great trails and nature to offer.

  • To use more of what we already have on hand. This is another shared resolution that resonated with both Bethany and I. We have so much on hand that is half used or unused. We resolve to change that by using it or…

  • To get rid of the things we don’t use. Not just by throwing away or charity donation. This is also about considering those around us that could benefit from these items more than we can. To see that things we used once but no longer do see a new life being re-used by someone else. We are active on several neighborhood Buy/Sell/Trade boards to help with this. And, our Little Free Library fits into this in the book department.

  • Organizing, framing, and hanging our art. Another shared resolution. We have so much art and so many pictures in so many piles. They deserve better. As my wife said simply, “It’s not doing any good sitting in a pile. Print photos and frame them.”

  • Finish Winter Street House. I don’t discuss it publicly too much but we have a house that we bought for a song that needed a fair bit of rehab and it has taken me far too long to do. We bit off more than we could chew as quickly as we hoped here. But, it is now way too long and it needs to be done. I have a rough vision of all that remains to achieve that goal. I just need to block out the time to do it.

  • Drink more water — especially in winter. It’s just so darn dry here in the wintertime. And I often don’t discover how dehydrated I am until it is too late. I’m going to try to get in the routine of drinking water to help with this. A “glass at wake up, glass before bed” sort of routine.

So, there we have it. Here’s wishing us all success with whatever we endeavor to do in the coming year.