Tell your independent owner why you keep coming back

The person behind the counter at your local does not know if they are going to make it this month.

Rent is behind. The numbers they set themselves at the start of the year are not where they need to be. They got up before anyone else, unlocked the door, and they are running on whatever is left in the tank. You probably cannot tell from the outside.

I have built and sold companies. I know what it feels like when someone walks in and says you got it right. Not an email from an investor. Not a quarterly report. Just a person who uses your thing looking you in the eye and saying it is good. That matters in a way that is almost embarrassing to admit, but it is true, and every founder I have ever met would say the same.

So think about your independent. The coffee shop you go to on a Tuesday. The butcher whose granola or ham sandwich or flat white you would quietly miss if it was gone. The person who has learned your order.

Now think about the last time you told them why you keep coming back.

Not a five-star review tapped out on the bus. Not a repost. Just saying it out loud, in the shop, to their face: I love this coffee, I am in here every day, what you are doing is right. That is the whole thing. That is it.

I am not asking you to spend differently today, though that matters too. I am asking you to use a sentence. One sentence that costs nothing and lands somewhere the owner will still be thinking about at closing time, on a day when everything else told them this was too hard.

Go in today. Tell them why you love them being there.

If you have a story about an independent that deserves to be heard, send it to keepthemopen.com.