BJ's in Midlife: Not What I Expected, But More Than I Bargained For
Giving readers the best headline is a job I try not to blow.
There’s a skill to a title and subhead.
One that we writers hone over an entire career. One that some shortsighted penny-pinchers may think they can outsource to a GPT. Well, joke’s on them! This is one of the real ones made with human intelligence and double entendre—skills the robots haven’t yet wrapped their bytes around. Take that, Claude! Kapow!
Admit it: you clicked into this piece, wondering What the…? And I love you for it.
Fondue Rubble
We watched in horror as the bulldozers leveled what used to be one of our favorite places to take the kids for dinner. Not only did The Melting Pot give me a night off from cooking, but it allowed us to set our children in front of boiling pots of oil and other liquids, armed with raw meat and wooden tweezers. If you’re looking for contenders for parenting awards, look no further.
Dinners out with kids are no fun for parents. Yes, we deserve an occasional night out without the extortion of $100 babysitters. But, the kids’ food always comes out first and then they’re done and bored before we adults get to dig in. A fondue restaurant forced a slower pace. My husband and I could savor a salad or a beverage while the kids happily boiled broccoli, dunked it in teriyaki and actually ate it.
Unfortunately, we can never have nice things for long. Suburban sprawl gobbles up the cutest places and replaces them with big box stores, which is exactly what happened when The Melting Pot was reduced to rubble to make way for BJ’s.
Listen, I get that Marvin Welch wanted to honor his daughter Beverly Jean, but naming a store BJ’s is a marketing miss in my book. It hasn’t stopped their growth, however, proving that bad names don’t always equate to bad businesses.
Stepping out on Costco
As a Costco loyalist, I couldn’t have cared less about the new place. I didn’t need to pay for another membership that would allow me to spend money in their store, and I certainly didn’t need another option for amassing 97 rolls of toilet paper at a go. But, the $20 fee and $15 coupon made the net $5 annual admission irresistible to my husband. He and I took a quick run through on the day we picked up our cards, but it was my younger daughter who accompanied me on my first actual shopping trip.
Within 40 steps of entry, we met Abdoul. As a New Yorker, I have a native skill of walking right past people selling stuff as if they’re invisible and inaudible. But something about his sweet face made me answer his opening question: “How much do you pay for your cell service?”
“Too much,” I said.
“Let’s fix that,” he said. And we were off to the races, eye-rolling teenager notwithstanding.
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
I was skeptical—and with good reason since Verizon totally screwed me. They bait and switched me on a $600 rebate, and refused to make it right. Nothing says F you, new customer like the good ol’, “Whoops, that rebate we sold you on expired. Oh well.”
My cell phone route was a sad circle:
Unhappy at Verizon → Happy at T-Mobile →Unhappy at Verizon Again
I never would’ve gone back to Verizon if I wasn’t left helpless in a T-Mobile dead zone. Months after I had happily started my very nice T-Mobile relationship, my daughter started high school 20 miles from home. The school was smack in the middle of a T-Mobile service abyss. It became a real problem when I was sitting in the parking lot in a rainstorm trying to reach her behind locked doors. Zero bars. Zero connection. Zero way to communicate. I had zero interest in doing that for four years.
I had run screaming Verizon because their customer service was terrible and their prices were even worse and I actually loved T-Mobile.
They had been a client of mine (I wrote their website once upon a time). I thought switching would be a great way to support a company and team I believed in. But, there was no way to fix the dead zone, so I had to crawl back to stupid Verizon. The good news is my daughter has since graduated from that high school. The better news is that Abdoul asked the right question at the right time.
You can predict what happened next: I wound up with three new free phones.
But that’s not all: As part of the BJ’s-only promotion, Abdoul gave me $900 in gift cards and a monthly bill that is SEVENTY dollars less than I was paying. Oooweee, that’s significant!
But it wasn’t just the cost savings that impressed me—it was how well Abdoul knew his stuff and how chill he was about showing me the details and overcoming any trepidation I was feeling. He’s a young guy; this is his first job out of college. And he is everything a customer-facing sales guy should be. AT&T was right to pop him into a high traffic setting where he’d appeal to middle aged women and their eye-rolling teenagers who love a good tech upgrade in spite of themselves.
A Marketer’s Dream
Here’s the thing about me: if I have a good experience, I share it. I’m a marketer’s dream—a real word-of-mouth machine. Also, as an entrepreneur, I have a minor obsession with seeing good people and good businesses succeed.
As my daughter and I were taste-testing fruit purees, I got to talking to the lady next to me. On my effusive word, she thanked me and headed over to Abdoul. The lady giving out the puree samples intended to go see him after her shift, too. In essentially 30 minutes, Abdoul will have signed up at least five new clients. I hope he gets commissions.
Lesson 1: Authentic people get the best results.
Abdoul had calm energy, a sweet disposition, and he let me come to the decision after he gave me the facts. There was no pressure and nothing pushy about him. He didn’t create false scarcity. He didn’t nail me to “limited time” urgency. He didn’t reek of desperation. He even added his work # to my phone in case I had any more questions once I got home—a real human touch.
Abdoul is everything right about sales:
✅ Have a good product
✅ Offer something better than the competition, and
✅ Let people recognize it for themselves.
He didn’t have to coerce, beg, trick, or manipulate me. He was honest, direct, and friendly. He made me comfortable. Without meaning to, he made me an evangelist.
Abdoul embodies the way I do business. I want my clients, subscribers, and community members to be happy and enthusiastic about being part of my world. So happy that they share their experience without me even asking.
I don’t lean on gimmicks to build my business, community, or influence, and this is why the people who choose me stick around. That makes me happy and it feels good. Sales doesn’t have to be gross—and I love that
eats, sleeps, and breathes this philosophy. She keeps reinforcing that all the things that give me the ick about sales and business don’t actually have to be part of my sales or my business. Love that.Lesson 2: BJ’s is probably going to be my undoing.
I spent $80 on juice purees and came home with a receipt for 3 new iPhones with absolutely no pre-meditation for this switch.
Y’all can remind my husband that it's all his fault.
Lesson 3: Phone accessories are a side hustle for these manufacturers
When I called my college daughter to let her know we’d be bringing her a new phone when we visit, she panicked. “No! I don’t want a new phone! I can’t afford it.”
“What do you mean, ‘afford it’? I pay for your phone.”
“A new phone means a new case, new screen protector, new chargers. It’s not in my budget!”
She’s right. All these subtle design changes are probably intentional to force us all into never-ending peripheral spends.
I suppose that’s good for Apple’s bottom line, but if they cared about customers they’d at least include the damn charger. I guess that’s why Abdoul gave me the gift cards. Thanks, Abdoul. You get it!
//
Can we talk about your subscription to What Are the Chances?
If you enjoy my pieces about my misadventures in midlife, motherhood, entrepreneurship, and self-deprecation, I hope you’re a subscriber.
If you’re scared to hit that Subscribe button because you’re worried your inbox will be knocked unconscious, you can opt out of the email and instead get all my articles only in the app by following these instructions. I swear, it’s an easy toggle of a few buttons.
Upgrading
If you’re a free subscriber, please consider becoming a paid community member for a whole slew of additional benefits and content and perks.
But here’s the sticky part: you have to upgrade on your computer. The app doesn’t allow you to upgrade.
Want to know why? Because Apple only allows app subscriptions that pay Apple first. Yes, just like not giving you a charger with the purchase of an $1,100 phone, Apple makes sure they get their 30% pound of flesh.
Therefore, to benefit small content creators like me instead of behemoth companies like Apple, please upgrade your subscription ON YOUR COMPUTER using this link.
God dammit... you're so such a good writer!!! From the headline to the P.S. I was glued to every word. Thanks for the shout-out... I WON'T shut up about it because, like Abdoul proved yet again, this gets to feel good for everyone involved. And it still WORKS when it feels good.
Brilliant!! Great hook, but more importantly I enjoyed the read!