from: Bloodstone43956@i-mail.irs
to: Raventrap39996@i-mail.irs
date: 7518.17286
My Dear Raventrap ~
Sometimes your observations are right on the money, so to speak. If we set up our young clients to become proper little narcissists, this is like setting up an annuity. The time value of their contracts will grow and grow as our grip on them becomes more secure. Our infernal study groups have shown advertising is a very effective means to this end. You see, what we’re trying to do is establish a culture of consumerism, in which every decision is measured in terms of money or things. You’ve heard the expression, “Time is money.” That’s one of my favorite thoughts. If time is money, and nothing more, our clients will ~ in time ~ come to believe unless they can get something for their time, it will have been wasted. Never mind all that claptrap about Our Competitor inventing time, or His expectation that they should use it to help others or improve themselves.
We can take narcissism to the next level very easily. One of the modern names for it, as you should know from your work at the TSA, is, “branding.” Our strategy is to make sure our clients all seek to become a “brand.” While there is nothing wrong with this aim on the surface, our intentions reach well below the surface, to corrupting their identities in order to restructure their very contracts. While many older “brands” on Earth got that way because of decades of hard work and dedication to their products and customers, we need to keep this notion out of our clients’ conscious awareness. The TSA has already taught many clients that if they engage in relentless self-promotion, swagger, and puffery, they will become a “known” brand to others, and this brand will pay off monetarily. They naturally believe the time they put into “creating their brand” will not be wasted. Imply “all you have to do” is develop your “presence” on broadcast and social media, get a logo, and put together attractive promotional materials and presto; you will have your “brand.” And occasionally, you will have a client who has become so good at developing his personal “brand,” very little about his actual deeds will make much difference to many of our other clients. The gullible little lemmings will literally follow a well-branded client off a cliff, regardless of whether there is anything to back up the brand! This is a rare, but exquisite achievement for the tempter who pulls it off.
You see, Raventrap, The Corporation does not expect its clients to be too concerned about quality of work or decades of service. We want them to substitute form for substance. And, if we can dupe Our Competitor’s sales representatives to choose marketing over meaning and attempt to “brand” their product just like any other product on Earth, they will nudge our clients ever closer to The Corporation without ever knowing it. Again, we want our clients to choose a thing for selfish reasons, not because it is good or right.
Consumerism is a trap. We know this. Our Competitor knows this. Just make sure the little mallrats never find out. As soon as their focus on branding takes hold, all sorts of delightful temptations follow. In the past few years, we’ve seen to it everything and everyone must have a rating. This is the way we do it here, and it turns out the Earth was also adaptable to our system. If everything is subject to a rating on a scale of 1-5, and everyone is able to register their rating anonymously, in many circumstances the rating will become, in a word, meaningless. First, we must discourage honest ratings. Make sure your clients rate others, as well as their products and services, only when they are the most upset, pressed for time, or simply exhausted. Frustration, haste, and fatigue can practically ensure personal bias over objectivity. The last thing we want is constructive criticism, much less magnanimity. We want the blistering effect of an unexpected unfair rating coupled with flaming negative comments with little basis in fact. We also want the concomitant misinterpretation of the quality of the product, service, or client being rated. Many of our clients are already predisposed to believe a few “red flags” raised by a small minority somehow represent everyone. Merely tempt them to disregard the opinions of the vast majority and accept what a few have to say. Some have rejected formerly trusted products, services, or even colleagues based on a few negative reviews.
Instill a consumer-based judgmental attitude. If you conduct an effective whisper campaign, it’s not too difficult to convince a client, one who had been happy to frequent a store or restaurant, or work with another client, to head for the door after only one negative experience or one supposedly “offensive” comment. It’s a great accomplishment to get one of our clients to abandon another after months or years of satisfying service, just because of one small mistake or one misspoken word. The joy of rejection is sweet, and sometimes all we have to do to trigger it is to plant the question, “what has he done for me lately?” in a client’s mind. Some of our clients have remained loyal to a brand ~ or a partner ~ for decades, but have decided to switch loyalties on a whim, merely because something didn’t happen to “suit” them!
What we want to propose is a special form of the old temptation to Gluttony. I’ve called it “Designer Gluttony.” It’s really not necessary to get our clients to consume more and more, although this is an old and reliable technique. Often, it’s preferable to sweetly suggest they have a right to expect the product or service to be perfect in every way, to meet all their expectations, no matter how trivial, no matter how dependent on their minimal knowledge of the product, or how they might in fact have misused it. This game is sometimes as simple as a prank. For example, I’ve persuaded many clients to complain about a small black spot in a baked potato so the restaurant would be forced to provide another, and in some cases a free meal as well! Imagine a negative rating based on a one-tenth of one percent defect in a naturally-occurring product. We can actually get our clients to blame these kinds of things on others. More deliciously, I’ve been able to con students into extremely negative ratings of professors based on the outcome of one or two assignments in a course. The pot-shots taken on teacher-course evaluations are have become legendary. Never mind the fact students are expected to do their part and ask questions before they hand in assignments. The emotional pain of such “evaluations” is indeed very useful to us.
The basic idea is to keep your clients focused on themselves. The product or service is to become “all about them.” If there is any defect or mistake, no matter how inconsequential or unintentional, the client must be coached to conclude this was done just to annoy him, to inconvenience him, or to make his life miserable. Our clients are, after all, entitled to certain levels of service. The phrase, “you get what you pay for,” is helpful. The more they pay, the better the service they will expect. Of course, this is true here below as well, but keep in mind the relationship is relative. Be sure they keep thinking either “I’m paying too much for this” or “for what I’m paying I don’t deserve this,” and no matter how much or how little they are paying, the product or the service won’t be “good enough” or “worth it.” Keep them “hyper-critical” and they won’t notice how hypocritical they’ve become!
Some of your clients might remain loyal to certain brands or businesses. Some might even adopt a more balanced attitude to their consumer choices. No matter what, we must maintain two basic loyalties: the loyalty to self and the loyalty to the bottom line. There is an ironic form of hypocrisy in a business that expects “brand loyalty” from its customers but displays no such loyalty to its suppliers. If the object is to improve the bottom line, products will be bought and sold to achieve a profit, not to provide what the consumer really needs or wants ~ unless he only wants the best deal. Think of it, Raventrap, millions of retailers and consumers all pressuring each other for a better deal, each trapped in a cycle of desire and attempted satisfaction of that desire, each wanting what they want when they want it and for the price they want it, and all bargaining for the cheapening of other brands even as they seek to enrich their own brand! This wonderful spectacle is called vanity. Our Competitor warned them no good would come of it. Well, they wouldn’t listen ~ all the better for The Corporation. What consumerism has brought them is a “race to the bottom,” and we will be waiting there!
Your Devoted Cousin,
Bloodstone
MurrayWorks 