Editorial: Can we make people get up and dance?

Whether or not they endorse real dancing, Baptist churches could learn a lesson from Kip Tindell, chairman and CEO of the Coppell-based Container Store, and what he calls “the customer dance.”

Big Think, an ideas website, calls Tindell “an evangelist for integrity-based sales and brand promotion through actions rather than words.” That’s a great idea right there. If our churches featured more integrity-based evangelism that emphasizes “actions rather than words,” we would see more people following Jesus and more lives, families and communities transformed.

Editor Marv KnoxWhen Tindell starts talking about sales in his stores, he can’t resist telling what he calls the “man in the desert story.” In an interview  at bigthink.com, he acknowledges, “It’s the silliest story in the world.” But it makes a wonderful point about sales. And it makes an even better point about paying attention to people.

“There’s a guy that lives on an oasis in the desert, and he looks out one day, and there’s a man that’s been obviously stranded in the desert for days, kind of approaching death or something,” Tindell explains.

“And so what happens in the retail industry is people rush up to him and give him a glass of water. And then he drinks the water, and they pat themselves on the back, and the man in the desert wonders off some more. They’re feeling great about themselves; they got the guy a glass of water.

“And so there’s so much more that you can do for him. You need to intuit his needs. So, let’s see. He needs more than water. He’s been out there for days; he needs food. He might need electrolytes, not just water, so let’s give him some Gatorade. He needs to call his family and let them know that he’s OK, and not to mention aloe vera and all of that.

The man in the desert

“So, you’re really—the man in the desert—you’re fulfilling his needs, intuiting his needs and filling them through conversation. It’s hard work, but you’re doing all of that. Then you can feel good about yourself.”

Does Tindell know sales, or what? If a Container Store staff member follows his “man in the desert” principle, she’ll turn the sale of an item or two into refitting an entire section of a home.

That’s where “the customer dance” comes in.

Tindell describes a woman in a store’s closet section, holding “a tie rack in one hand and a shoe rack in the other hand.”

“I mean, she obviously has a closet somewhere that’s driving her crazy. And you can conclude that fairly safely,” he observes. “And if you let her get out of there with those two items, she’s still going to have a closet that’s driving her crazy, but the ties and the shoes will be a little bit better off.”

But a caring, attentive salesperson can make that woman’s life better, he insists. A holistic approach to the customer’s needs can lead to understanding her problem and providing sensible solutions she may not have considered on her own.

The customer dance

“What you can do is … take a complete closet approach to really kind of redoing her whole closet,” Tindell advises. “And what that will usually lead up to is a customer that’s vastly happier because she got her problem solved. And she’s dancing in the closet because it’s so perfect. That’s what we’re trying to get. We’re trying to get what we call the customer dance.”

Of course, that’s good business. But it wouldn’t be good business if it didn’t involve paying attention to, caring about and trying to help people.

So, why talk about the sales philosophy of a specialty company, even a Texas-based specialty company?

Because we need to learn Tindell’s lesson.

As Christians, we must pay close attention to friends, neighbors and acquaintances, as well as people who walk into our church buildings. Some of them are carrying a tie rack and a shoe rack, and they’ve got a closet somewhere driving them crazy.

Not literally, of course. But people show us bits and pieces of their lives all the time. Maybe it’s a look of sadness or fatigue. Perhaps it’s a sigh. A shrug or a strange, out-of-context question. Or a few words about a situation. If we’re paying attention and we’re empathetic, maybe we’ll find out about a room in her soul that’s driving her crazy, a situation in his life that’s pushing him to the edge.

Some ministers are tremendous at this. You probably know laypeople who are great at it, too. But what if we all prayed about and worked at paying this close attention to and caring this much about folks who cross our lives?

Maybe we could help meet their needs and lead them to peace in the Lord that would make them so relieved and joyful they couldn’t help but—you guessed it—dance.