Why Cash Mob?

by Sankalp Gosain

Cash mobs for cash jobs.

We’re reasonable people. We know there’s little we can do to make anybody regularly patronize a ‘shmobs destination -that’s up to whether the business itself can win over the mobbing faithful.  And for all our wishes to the contrary, the one-day spike in business isn’t going to actually reverse the trajectory of a failing local business.

But what we can do is make it very, very appealing to walk in some shop’s door exactly once. Maybe the mob likes it and goes again, maybe the mob whips out their smartphones and leaves a hundred scathing reviews on Yelp before they’ve even left the building –that’s totally up to the whim of the mobbers and we wouldn’t have it any other way. However, in the same way that a store will hand out coupons or give away samples so customers will give them a shot, Cash Mobs can motivate the locally-minded into a store they might not have otherwise checked out (see “appeal of partying”). And like any other loss-leader, this just might mean a whole bunch of newly-minted repeat customers –something that actually can move a local biz into the black.

But wait, there’s more.

Now when other might-be entrepreneurs in town catch wind of their mobbing neighbors’ open-minded, ‘try anything once’ approach to fledgling enterprises you can sure bet they’ll be more inclined to taking the plunge and set up shop.

And that’s when the magic happens. Cue the chairman of the Federal Reserve…

Ben Bernanke: “Small businesses are central to creating jobs in our economy; they employ roughly one half of all Americans and account for about 60 percent of gross job creation, newer small businesses, those less than two years old, are especially important: Over the past 20 years, these start-up enterprises accounted for roughly one quarter of gross job creation even though they employed less than 10 percent of the workforce.”

Tim Kane, senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation: “Start-ups are responsible for all net job growth in the U.S. economy. During years of recession, net job losses grow at existing firms—those a year and older—while job creation at start-ups stays stable. Start-ups create an average of 3 million new jobs annually, all other ages of firms, including companies in their first full years of existence up to firms established two centuries ago, are net job destroyers, losing 1 million jobs net combined per year.”

When you support the local guys they stick around. And as the Cash Mob swells and word of this “give ‘em a shot” attitude spreads, new businesses and jobs pop up.

So Mob in your town. Help businesses survive and thrive in your town. And watch as the elusive job fairy is lured – you guessed it – to your town.

If you buy it, they will come.