Finding Your Tribe

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Like many stores in the US, rotisserie chicken draws people in with the promise of a meal that requires very little effort at a low cost. In the big box club stores in the US, they sell awkwardly large chickens that weigh 4+ pounds cooked ( 1.81437kg cooked) for $4.99 (4.77 EUR), less than the price of a whole uncooked chicken.

Why?

These stores believe that people don’t simply come to purchase a chicken (or two). They believe that people will come to the store and purchase many other items while there and the store will make money from those purchases as well as the club membership fees that are charged plus create loyalty that brings people back again regularly.

Companies, non-profits, and individuals on the internet try to persuade us in different ways.

For example, there is a beautiful Buddhist temple about two hours outside of New York City. Not many people live near it, and they wanted to introduce more people to Buddha’s teachings. To do that, they created an introductory course for attendees to learn how to meditate, charging a nominal amount to attend. Very few people did.

They thought and decided to make the weekend course free. More than five times the number of people came. During breaks, they walked around the grounds, stopped in the…