By David Tashjian
April 2, 2020
People Like People !
It’s a difficult time across the country….and the world. Currently, roughly 90% of the US is under strict “Stay at Home” orders. Physical socialization is temporarily a thing of the past. Communications have been relegated to phones and laptops. Keeping up with friends has become an effort rather than a norm. All the while walls are slowly closing in at home as everyone fights for their corner of the house – parents are looking for a space to work from home while home offices have become home schooling conference rooms!
Despite all of this, a new wave is emerging. We are realizing how much we can still achieve in this new world order. The old stories and phrases of our parents and grandparents are now hitting home with much more learned relevance- how they lived and loved through the Great Depression, how they fought in WWII, how they used to have dinner together every night…the whole family. How they would sit together on Sunday nights and watch the Ed Sullivan Show or Walt Disney, back when there were only three channels. And especially, perhaps most importantly, how they espoused the importance of a simple life of caring and closeness of family.
The fact is the things that are really important in our lives…those basic moral rules of life…they survive all. While we all get lost in the present and tend to forget, it’s times like the current that bring these back to the forefront. They haven’t gone away…they just got lost for a while.
I write this because of what I’ve seen the last two days. I am fortunate to be a partner in a company called Tippy. We help salons and spas get their service professionals’ tips up and into their bank accounts quickly, using terminals placed in their salons and spas. Not today, though. Today nothing is open and these wonderful service professionals are at home wondering every day how they are going to cover their costs. The virus has literally placed a wall between the customer and their service professional. Keeping up with each other is no longer easy, it’s not even just an effort, it has become near impossible.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday we launched Tipit fwd, a new online solution that provides salons and spas their own unique website that can be shared with customers. Here, from home, the customer visits the site and is presented with photos of their service professionals. They click on who they would like to tip, choose an amount, and Tippy takes care of the rest! We get those funds into the service professionals’ personal bank accounts every next business day. AND…the customer can include an encouraging message.
In one day, just one day, we saw what was truly phenomenal. Everyone cared. Our site was overwhelmed, as were we! From the tips, to the encouraging messages, to the pouring out of what’s most important through these times…that we all stick together and that we all help one another. It’s the simple things we do that can bring smiles and hope to so many, and it’s that hope that matters the most.
These times are a generational marker….one that will help shape our children’s views and lives forever. There can always be a positive even in the worst times, so don’t let this opportunity go by. Let’s make lemonade out of the lemons we’ve been dealt and use these times to show our children what’s really important in life…helping family and friends!