The bartender rule

My first sales job was behind a bar.

I was pretty good at it, wherever I worked, and not because I could flip a bottle. I couldn't. No hand-eye coordination at all. Still don't.

What I could do, I learned from my first real bar manager, a friend of my dad's. Almost 40 years ago now. He gave me one speech and I've been living off it since.

Your only job is to keep them here.

That was the speech. Not sell more drinks. Not be charming. Keep them here. If the place looks busy, more people come in, and more people stay. And they're not really here for you anyway. What they come back for is each other.

So John walks in after work. Alone, beat up, ten minutes to himself before he goes home to whatever's waiting for him there. You put a drink in front of John. Then you introduce him to the couple beside him. "Bob, tell John that thing you were telling me." And you walk away.

John leaves feeling a little better about his day. John comes back.

That's the job, all of it, and it's the only thing I've done for 30 years. In bars, in front of rooms, on the phone, and eventually in writing for other people. Get the room talking to each other. Face to face it's easy. Online it's harder. Same job.

Which explains what this blog is

It's a free drink.

You walked in. Maybe somebody sent you, maybe you were fighting with ChatGPT at midnight and typed something rude into Google. Either way, you're here, and the first thing I do is put something in front of you that costs you nothing. A tool that argues your bills down. A few things I've learned the hard way about getting a machine to sound like a person. The odd funny thing, because I've been called an entertainer since my first serving job and it's a hard habit to kick.

And then, if I'm doing my job right, I introduce you to the person beside you and walk away.

That's the part I'm still working out online. In a bar it's easy. "Bob, tell John." Here it's slower. But the idea's the same: I'd rather you talk to each other than listen to me. If something on this blog helps you, tell the person who'd get the same use out of it. That's you talking to Bob. I don't need to be in the conversation.

So what do I want from you?

Nothing. Yet.

I mean that, and I know how it sounds, because everyone on the internet says it right before the pop-up. So let me say it more precisely. There's nothing on this page to buy. There's a form at the bottom if you'd like the next post, and that's optional, and you can leave whenever you want. That's the full list of asks.

Somewhere down the line I'll have something to sell you, and I'll say so plainly on that day, in a place you can't miss. It'll be the same deal as the bar. Buy or don't, you're welcome to stay either way.

Until then, the drink's on me.

What did that bar manager know that the internet forgot? That people come back for each other. Not for the guy pouring.

Your only job is to keep them here. Everything else follows.

The free tool's at the top of the blog. That's the drink. Everything else is up to you.