“To receive everything, one must open one’s hands and give.” - Taisen Deshimaru, Buddhist philosopher
A woman stands in a busy supermarket checkout line. The shopper in front of her realizes that they don’t have enough money with them to cover their purchase, so she steps in and makes up the balance. Then, when she reaches the checkout, her own receipt totals up higher than she was expecting. She doesn’t have enough left in her purse.
“No problem,” says the young clerk and swipes his own debit card to pay for her groceries[1].
A bystander snaps a photo and posts the story to Facebook. The story ends up on local radio and TV news. Unstructured citations[2] for the grocery store start crackling like popcorn[3]. National news takes notice. A scholarship foundation presents a check to the clerk. When asked how he felt about it, the clerk said:
“Personally, I think it’s undeserved attention. Because she did something so good … I felt like it was my responsibility to return the favor.”
In the process, if only for a moment in time, an everyday supermarket is transformed into a rescue operation for hope in humanity. Through the lens of local SEO, it’s also a lesson in how good deeds can be rewarded by good mentions.
Studying business kindness can be a rewarding task for any motivated digital marketing agency or local brand owner. I hope this post will be both a pick-me-up for the day, and a rallying cry to begin having deeper conversations about the positive culture businesses can create in the communities they serve.
10+ evocative examples of business kindness
“We should love people and use