customers politics and their spending

[huggytree]

i had a repeat customer leave a message w/o a phone # yesterday. I had to go through all my 2009 files to find him. when doing so i noticed 1/3 the jobs were in 1 upscale city. they i went through this years files...maybe 5% were the whole year.

i notice that the high end conservative neighborhoods are not spending at all.....but the liberal high end neighborhoods are.

anyone else notice this trend?

[Patrysha]

Trying to surmise a person's political affiliation from their address is highly inaccurate I would think. You might think I have a particular belief/political bent from my address, but how do you know I carry thoughts that are a complete 180 from my neighbours views?

[Harold Mansfield]

Yeah, I can't say that I have ever thought of a neighborhood as a certain political ideology.

I'm curious, if 2 neighborhoods are both high end, what makes one "Liberal" and the other "Conservative"?

[Steve B]

How can you tell? Do all of the people coming out of conservative neighborhoods wear a suit and tie and the people coming out of liberal neighborhoods look like hippies?

[Spider]

Wouldn't yard signs promoting a particlur political candidate at election times give a 'flavor' to a neighborhood.

Wouldn't a predominance of national flags being displayed on July 4th, MLK Day, Veterans Day, etc. give some indication if one neighborhood had a lot of flags and another didn't, or one holiday and not another?

Wouldn't noticing which automobiles dominated a neighborhood give a hint?

I think there are many ways one can get an inkling of the political persuasion of neghborhoods. It won't be 100% but it could give a guide that could be used in advertising and promotion. And don't forget you can have democrat conservatives and republican conservatives dominating a neighborhood, just as you might find liberal democrats and liberal republicans living together.

Birds of a feather, flock together!

Oh, yes - this is a fun exercise to try to get a handle on! And great for your business, if you can guess correctly.

[Harold Mansfield]

Wouldn't yard signs promoting a particlur political candidate at election times give a 'flavor' to a neighborhood.

Wouldn't a predominance of national flags being displayed on July 4th, MLK Day, Veterans Day, etc. give some indication if one neighborhood had a lot of flags and another didn't, or one holiday and not another?

Wouldn't noticing which automobiles dominated a neighborhood give a hint?

I think there are many ways one can get an inkling of the political persuasion of neghborhoods. It won't be 100% but it could give a guide that could be used in advertising and promotion. And don't forget you can have democrat conservatives and republican conservatives dominating a neighborhood, just as you might find liberal democrats and liberal republicans living together.

Birds of a feather, flock together!

Oh, yes - this is a fun exercise to try to get a handle on! And great for your business, if you can guess correctly.

With the exception of the obvious political signs on the lawn during election season, None of that gives you any indication whether one household is Liberal or Conservative.

Flags? C'mon. Are you saying that one is more patriotic than another?

MLK day? MLK was a Conservative Republican, so where does that leave us? Anyone that celebrates MLK's birthday by staying home and not going to work is a Conservative Republican? I don't really think that's the way it goes.

I don't think that assuming peoples political beliefs, religion or anything else will help you with advertising and promotion one bit. If anything, you are likely to offend more people than you attract.

Unless your business is politics, you should really not combine your political views, with your business. Nor attempt to market to people based on what you think their are.
There are reasons that big companies contribute to both parties during election season. Some do it to hedge their bets. Others because the total donation is a combination of employees and management across the company... and others still, do it for PR.

[Spider]

Harold, I'm not trying to categorize people - people categorize themselves - and it will be different in each neighborhood. If many homes in a suburban neighborhood outside Las Vegas put out flags on MLK Day and not on July 4th, that says something about that neighborhood and its occupants. What it says will likely be different to what a similar event says about a rural area in Michigan.

The trick is figuring out what such group happenings mean in your target neighborhood. Not in your particular case becasue you don't target residential neighbothoods for your business the way a residential plumber does. But I think if lots of North Arcadia Estates residents put flags on their houses for July 4th. and South Arcadia Estates residents do not, there's more going on than pure chance. And whatever is going on could affect the business they conduct with local vendors. It may or may not be political solidarity we are witnessing but something is pulling those people together.

Discovering what it is could be very useful.

[Harold Mansfield]

Harold, I'm not trying to categorize people - people categorize themselves - and it will be different in each neighborhood. If many homes in a suburban neighborhood outside Las Vegas put out flags on MLK Day and not on July 4th, that says something about that neighborhood and its occupants. What it says will likely be different to what a similar event says about a rural area in Michigan.

The trick is figuring out what such group happenings mean in your target neighborhood. Not in your particular case becasue you don't target residential neighbothoods for your business the way a residential plumber does. But I think if lots of North Arcadia Estates residents put flags on their houses for July 4th. and South Arcadia Estates residents do not, there's more going on than pure chance. And whatever is going on could affect the business they conduct with local vendors. It may or may not be political solidarity we are witnessing but something is pulling those people together.

Discovering what it is could be very useful.

I honestly don't see how analyzing somene's political affiliation or beliefs is going to help a plumber with his marketing.

You should be more concerned with who needs services and can afford your rates, not who they vote for or what church they go to.

That is a slippery slope and I see no way that by combining the 2 anyone can win. I honestly believe that you should keep your nose out of your clients personal beliefs. It's a 50% chance that you are going to be wrong and offend someone and lose that money.
50% chance that you are going to come off looking like an idiot about something that has nothing to do with your services and blow the sale.

The 2 have no place together. Even if you hit the nail on the head, most people do not want you in their personal beliefs and actions.

If you treat all of your customers with respect and the same, you should have no problems no matter what their personal affiliations are.

The common denominator, which should be your only concern, is that they need a plumber. Which political sign they have on their lawn, or who raises a flag on what day is way out of the scope of what kind of involvement you should have with potential clients and frankly, as a service provider, none of your business.

The only demographics that are going to help you with marketing are financials, maybe history and age of the average home in the area, and number of competitors.

I could really care less who raises a flag on what day. I'm not selling flags, nor am I taking polls for a political party.

None of this has anything to do with if people need, want and can pay for your services.

If the premise is that if you can guess (because that's what you will be doing), where people lean politically, you can use that in your marketing, then you are a really running the risk of screwing up your company's reputation and alienating paying customers.

What are you going to do, put Sarah Palin's picture on your ads in the neighborhoods that you think are conservative, and Barack Obama's photo on ads in what you believe to be Liberal neighborhoods?
You do that and you may very well never get another client again from either side.

It's offensive and condescending, but why stop there?
If you are going to use political affiliation as a motivation for your marketing, why not use other factors that also have nothing to do with your services such as marketing to people based on:

If they own a gun.
What religion they are.
What kind of Gasoline they buy.
Who their favorite NASCAR driver is.
If they watch American Idol and who they voted for to win.
Dog lovers or Cat lovers.
Beer or Wine

Just like political affiliation, none of these have anything to do with marketing your services as a Plumber. They are just personal. Leave it at home and be a plumber and take everybody's money.

[KristineS]

I would say the error here is more in the original assumption then in classifying people or neighborhoods by political party. The assumption seems to be that people are making choices to order services, in this case plumbing, based on the political party with which they associate themselves. That's a pretty big deduction with really no basis in fact to support it. There could be a million reasons why one neighborhood is spending more on plumbing services and the other isn't. The houses that were constructed in one neighborhood could have been built with substandard fixtures or pipes that wear out faster. There could be an issue with water mains in one section of town. One neighborhood has more of a "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality and so when one person remodels their house the other neighbors follow suit.

In marketing you can't make an assumption about why people buy or don't buy something based on one variable, particularly if you have no hard data to back up your assumption.

[Harold Mansfield]

Or maybe you are getting more work from one area because of word or mouth. It could be anything.
I get both the Conservative Newsletter and email updates from the President and Vice President's Office and I haven't seen either of them mention anything about Plumbing.

You should be looking at other factors that actually make sense, such as, is there a new program or tax credit for home improvements or repairs going on right now.

[Spider]

...i notice that the high end conservative neighborhoods are not spending at all.....but the liberal high end neighborhoods are...Dave has identified a distinction he can make in neighborhoods in his market area. He notices that HEC neighborhoods have stopped hiring his services and that LHE neighborhoods continue to hire him.

I think it is very astute of Dave to notice that. I judge from his words that this has been determined by some amount of research of his own records. Excellent!

Now, because he serves an area that is larger than he can affort to advertize to in total, he decides to limit his advertising to areas that are more likely to hire him and not advertise to areas that are less likely to hire him. Very sensible decision, I would think.

Of course, he could advertise to half of the houses in every neighborhood regardless of his past success, and keep his advertising within budget. But he chooses to advertise to half the neighborhoods - the half that is currently proving to be profitable, and the neighborhoods that have given him no business in the past (he has not advertised to them) but which he deems to be similar in political makeup to the neighborhoods that are hiring him now.

I say Dave is making a wise choice.

[Spider]

...duplicate.

[Harold Mansfield]

Dave has identified a distinction he can make in neighborhoods in his market area. He notices that HEC neighborhoods have stopped hiring his services and that LHE neighborhoods continue to hire him.

I think it is very astute of Dave to notice that. I judge from his words that this has been determined by some amount of research of his own records. Excellent!

Now, because he serves an area that is larger than he can affort to advertize to in total, he decides to limit his advertising to areas that are more likely to hire him and not advertise to areas that are less likely to hire him. Very sensible decision, I would think.

Of course, he could advertise to half of all the neighborhoods regardless of his past success, and keep his advertising within budget. But he chooses to advertise to half the neighborhoods - the half that is currently proving to be profitable. This includeds neighborhoods that have given him no business in the past (he has not advertised to them) but which he deems to be similar in political makeup to the neighborhoods that are hiring him now.

I say Dave is making a wise choice.

Sure, but none of that has anything to do with political affiliation or ideology.
It's simple economics.

[Spider]

... what is happening today? - another duplication!

[Spider]

Sure, but none of that has anything to do with political affiliation or ideology.
It's simple economics.Sorry, Harold, it has everything to do with Dave's assessment of the political affiliation or ideology of the neighborhoods under consideration.

[Harold Mansfield]

Respectfully, I have never heard anything more absurd. There is not even a percentage of a solid foundation for a disagreement here.

Unless Dave has a Political Party logo, or politically motivated bumper stickers on his truck, or wears Tea Party T-Shirts to his jobs...the politics of a neighborhood has absolutely nothing to do with who needs a plumber and who hires Dave.

Anyone, anywhere could need a plumber at anytime and what party they side with has nothing to do with it.

Next you are going to tell me that I buy gas at a certain station because of who I vote for, and not merely because it's the closest gas station to the house, or that I buy Vanilla Oreos because of my religious beliefs.

[Steve B]

I seriously doubt one plumber's observation of spending habits of various neighborhoods over a few months could come even close to anything resembling statistical significance. To make any decisions based on the limited data and huge assumptions in this scenario would be ill advised.

[Spider]

...Next you are going to tell me that I buy gas at a certain station because of who I vote for...No, I wouldn't tell you that, Harold. You are extrapolating from the group to the individual and it doesn't work like that. Just because the majority of a group is one thing that doesn't mean any particular individual is that thing, too.

A group of mixed vegetables may be 60% cauliflower, 20% carrots, 10% lettuce and 10% tomatoes. That doesn't mean any particular vegetable specimen is a cauliflower, and it certainly doesn't mean every vegetable in the group is a cauliflower. It only means that you have a more than even chance of picking a cauliflower if you are picking blindly.

Therefore, if you want to make a salad, don't pick from that group of vegetables - find another group of vegetables with a better mix for your particular purpose.

If you receive a lot of good, healthy, profitable business from people in group A, and nothing but heartache from people in group B, you would be wise to seek business from group A and simialr groups, and avoid seeking business from group B and other groups like group B.

That's all it means. Very simple mathematics.

[Spider]

I seriously doubt one plumber's observation of spending habits of various neighborhoods over a few months could come even close to anything resembling statistical significance. To make any decisions based on the limited data and huge assumptions in this scenario would be ill advised.There are likely to be better criteria on which to base one's decisions, but that option wasn't presented in the OP. You go with what you have, and a considered guess is better than taking a flip of a coin.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm sorry, but there is no way that the 2 things are connected. .

If in fact we could back up the claim that one neighborhood was a majority of one political ideology (which we can't) and compare that to the sales statistics of one individual service provider, we would still only come out with what any educated economist, marketer, advertiser, or theorist would call "a coincidence" ..AND, one that only applies to that one service provider at a given moment in time..and a thin one at that.

Every coincidence is not a conspiracy theory and a coincidence in of itself, has absolutely no basis of fact to prove relationship.
You could probably make same assumption about any number of random occurrences if you choose to link them together.

If your last 3 clients (out of hundreds of previous clients) all just happen to drive BMW's, are you then going to state with certainty that ALL BMW owners hire plumbers more? How could you without polling a large portion of BMW owners and even then the results would have large degree of inaccuracy.

Just like the BS polls that come out every day during election season, you can't get an exact measurement of opinion by talking to 1000 people at a mall. You can only be accurate by talking to everyone the poll supposes to represent. Anything else is a guess, lie or misrepresentation.

It's thinner than deli sliced Swiss.

This argument would have a lot more legs if it compared things where the initial input was not a guess, but something that could be actually backed up personally.

If the statement was "I have been working in both Black neighborhoods and White neighborhoods lately and the people in the Black neighborhoods seem ready to spend right now on plumbing."

Then at least we can make the assumption that Dave has personally confirmed to the best of his abilities who, of the people that he talked to, was "White" and who was "Black"..at least it is a variable that can be corroborated.

It's still a generalization, but at least it's on something concrete..the number of Black People compared to the number of White people that you have actually talked to.

Would it be accurate across the board ? Nope. Just that day in the life of one person.

But you cannot start with an unknown variable, throw in made up stats, and come up with fact and unfortunately, there is no way to look at people, their home, or their zip code and know how they vote.(no matter how many people think they can)

And even if you were privy to the statistical information about registered voters in certain areas, the relationship between how they vote, and hiring a plumber would still be a ridiculous assumption.

The 2 have absolutely no relationship.

[Spider]

I'm sorry, but there is no way that the 2 things are connected... The 2 have absolutely no relationship.You might not see the connection, and I might not see the connection, but clearly Dave does, and I think he is right to run with it, to test it, at least.

Frankly, I don't know what he means by liberal high end and conservative high end. But I'm pretty sure Dave does. And that's all that matters. To me, one is Group A and the other is Group B. If group A is giving him a lot of profit right now, he is wise to try to find other groups like group A to approach. I'm sure you do the same - any business person would.

Also, I don't think Dave is considering this observed relationship to be a fixed-for-all-time phenomenon. It appears to apply at the moment so why not run with it for the time being. Things are always the same until they are different!

You are right, though, in that we are only considering "one service provider at a given moment in time" - that's all that Dave claimed - and quite rightly, all that he is interested in. I don't think Dave was proposing this as a proven fact for the textbooks to apply to all service providers for all time. This is not akin to the discovery of gravity! Dave noticed the trend in his records and he asked if anyone else had noticed the same. That's all.

Having noticed this apparent relationship between his profit and his beliefs about certain neighborhoods, is he not to pursue it simply because it doesn't seem to make sense? Or, because such a relationship seems odd?

I don't think that is a good enough reason to not pursue an idea.

[Steve B]

The BMW example was perfect. Reacting to something that is just as likely to be a chance occurrence would be a waste of time and money.

I'm guessing Deming (W. Edwards Deming) would have thought reacting to a statistically insignificant observation based on fuzzy facts is a great example of what not to do in business. Deming did a lot of good for business by training managers on the concepts of basic statistics. Althought it goes against human nature, it's usually best to refrain from changing something about a process (i.e. Dave's marketing efforts) until a statistical trend is verified.

When I used to work in a production environment, our managers spent a significant amount of effort trying to keep the operators from tweaking the knobs and trying to adjust to every random occurrence. They forced the operators to learn how to identify a statistical trend before making adjustments and efficiencies went up significantly.

[billbenson]

I have to disagree with you slightly, eborg, if I understand huggys analysis correctly. He is saying these 5 areas, or people of some political persuasion in these areas tend to do "this". He is not extrapolating this outside of his market sample area.

It makes sense to me that you can talk to voters in a particular mall in VA and say they tend to vote a particular way. It makes no sense to extrapolate that logic to a mall in LA or Vegas.

But Huggy isn't doing that. He is apply his stats from his market sample to others in his market sample. Thats the beauty of niche marketing.

[Harold Mansfield]

All I am saying is there is nothing to confirm that he is at all correct in identifying any kind of trend, because he can't accurately identify who is Liberal and who is Conservative.

The whole things starts on a guess. For all he knows, he has them identified backwards and who he thinks are the liberals are actually the conservatives.

That's just it. You can't put your finger on any part of this assumption to take it any further than a big fat, uniformed guess. It has the accuracy of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

You could string together anything that happens closely to each other and call it a trend.
For all we know, maybe the temperature of the day had something to do with it.
It is just as likely or unlikely.

He choose to tie these 2 things together. There was no reasoning behind it or any proof that he was even accurate in identifying the people correctly.
The only thing that can be said with a certainty, is that they were all people.

[billbenson]

All I am saying is there is nothing to confirm that he is at all correct in identifying any kind of trend, because he can't accurately identify who is Liberal and who is Conservative.

The whole things starts on a guess. For all he knows, he has them identified backwards and who he thinks are the liberals are actually the conservatives.

That's just it. You can't put your finger on any part of this assumption to take it any further than a big fat, uniformed guess. It has the accuracy of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

You could string together anything that happens closely to each other and call it a trend.
For all we know, maybe the temperature of the day had something to do with it.
It is just as likely or unlikely.

He choose to tie these 2 things together. There was no reasoning behind it or any proof that he was even accurate in identifying the people correctly.
The only thing that can be said with a certainty, is that they were all people.

Well, he is taking data and making assumptions. However, I'd say that is better than having no data and making assumptions. I'd say the greatest error that huggy could have with this position is that he stops marketing to areas that really are good markets.

But Eborg, get real, its not like he needs the accuracy of the census here or anything :)

[Harold Mansfield]

I know, I understand but the only real data is the actual sales/work, and that he performed the services for people...human beings.The fact that they were indeed people is the only thing that we know for sure.

Therefore the politics of the people has absolutely nothing to do with anything, because like you said, it's just an assumption, and as of yet, we don't even know what that assumption is based on.

For all anyone knows, the people were nether Conservative, or Liberal, (those aren't the only possibilities you know). There is no fact to support the supposed trend, therefore, the only thing we know for certain is that Huggy was hired by some people. The other stuff is made up.

So how is it different from any other day, week, month or year? It's not.

This is Chicken Little logic...."I just saw 4 guys on motorcycles, therefore I assume that the town is being over run by biker gangs."

You could apply this logic to every bird dropping on a windshield if you have that kind of time. There is nothing to any of it.

[huggytree]

maybe other parts of the country are more politically diverse.

around here some city's are and some arent

Madison, WI is like 90% Democrat...its extreme....Christmas Tree is a 'Holiday Plant' there

The high end city's are not politically diverse....they are 70-80% rep or dem

My County is strongly Repub. and my city is like 80% repub.

its not something i guess about, its discussed on tv/radio when election time comes.

i notice extreme trends right now...the conservative city i used to work in ALOT is now a work ghost town....and the Liberal city has a dumpster on every block...(along w/ a Prius in every driveway)

i find KNOWING your customers to be very important....seeing trends and categorizing potential customers is also very important.

I dont share my politics w/ customers...I may have a NRA sticker on the mini van, but my work truck is 100% work...anyone w/ money is my customer.

[Harold Mansfield]

Yes, I understand that, but do you know with certainty that the clients that you have included in this trend, are of the political affiliation that you say they are ? Or is it just a guess?

And do you have any proof, no matter how thin, that how they vote has anything to do with hiring a plumber right now?

I just don't see how you have made the connection of Politics, and who hires you. Are you meeting the clients at Political functions?

[huggytree]

some of the customers have political bumper stickers in the liberal neighborhood...so definitely i know 1/3rd atleast are liberal in the liberal neighborhood....

im not being specific!!...im just noticing a dramatic change and certain neighborhoods have increased and certain ones decreased...

almost 100% of the rich conservative neighborhoods have decreased and almost 100% of the rich liberal neighborhoods have increased....its not just a slight movement, but an almost 80%+ drop in conservative rich.....

all my comments are a 'general' thing..i dont know if most of my actual customers are liberal or conservative...but these neighborhoods are very dramatic!!...anti war signs on every other house in the liberal neighborhoods......not 1 that ive ever seen in the conservative neighborhoods..

my own neighborhood has about 30 to 1 republican yard signs come election time.(i noticed his yard sign lasted only a few days)..im sure there are more than 1 democrat in my neighborhood, but possibly they dont want to be exposed to the 80%+ who disagree....we have shy democrats around my neighborhood....they are anything but shy on the liberal side of town

it seems like you all have never heard of a city being mostly conservative or liberal? around here things seem self segregated by race,politics & money....if i know where you live i can tell alot of things about you and ill be right 80% of the time

[Harold Mansfield]

some of the customers have political bumper stickers in the liberal neighborhood...so definitely i know 1/3rd atleast are liberal in the liberal neighborhood....

im not being specific!!...im just noticing a dramatic change and certain neighborhoods have increased and certain ones decreased...

almost 100% of the rich conservative neighborhoods have decreased and almost 100% of the rich liberal neighborhoods have increased....its not just a slight movement, but an almost 80%+ drop in conservative rich.....

all my comments are a 'general' thing..i dont know if most of my actual customers are liberal or conservative...but these neighborhoods are very dramatic!!...anti war signs on every other house in the liberal neighborhoods......not 1 that ive ever seen in the conservative neighborhoods..

my own neighborhood has about 30 to 1 republican yard signs come election time.(i noticed his yard sign lasted only a few days)..im sure there are more than 1 democrat in my neighborhood, but possibly they dont want to be exposed to the 80%+ who disagree....we have shy democrats around my neighborhood....they are anything but shy on the liberal side of town

it seems like you all have never heard of a city being mostly conservative or liberal? around here things seem self segregated by race,politics & money....if i know where you live i can tell alot of things about you and ill be right 80% of the time

Interesting. Now it starts to make a little more sense..although it was fun arguing the logic of the initial statement.

I definitely know the segregated areas around town, but it's usually ethnic or economic.
the need to find a way to segregate themselves from others so I guess religion and politics are the last 2 things people can hold against each other. (Now that is interesting).

I guess looking back, during the last election it did seem like the McCain/Palin ticket spent a lot of time in smaller areas while the Obama team was hitting all the big cities. (! million attendees in St. Louis)

I don't have any experience in areas that are segregated by politics...I have never heard of such a thing, but i guess it makes sense outside of a major city.
I guess was thinking about my own knowledge of cities like Detroit, Miami, and Las Vegas where you can tell a few things about people by where they live, but politics is not one of them. Out side of your own peer circle and the bar, people generally keep their politics personal.

[Spider]

Interesting. Now it starts to make a little more sense..Apology accepted :D


[Frederick ducks and runs away!!!]

[Harold Mansfield]

Apology accepted :D


[Frederick ducks and runs away!!!]

Hey, you can't fault me for questioning the logic without having all of the information.
If I had done that in college, I might actually have a degree that I could have used.:)

[Business Attorney]

I'm going to jump in on Dave's behalf here. First, he just said "i notice that the high end conservative neighborhoods are not spending at all.....but the liberal high end neighborhoods are." He called it a "trend." I'm sure he didn't mean that no one in a "high end conservative neighborhood" ever needed routine plumbing repairs or even that a few people in those neighborhoods weren't doing major remodeling jobs. It's just a pattern that he noticed.

I don't know about other places, but I do know that around Chicago you can clearly define geographic areas by their politics. There are communities where even a moderate Democrat would have no chance of getting elected (like most of DuPage County) and other cities where it is tough to even find a Republican.

It is widely recognized (and supported by years of concrete results at the polls) that Wheaton is a conservative community and Evanston and Oak Park are quite liberal. Does that mean that there are no Democrats in Wheaton or no Republicans in Evanston? Of course not.

I have no idea whether Dave's observation holds water. It certainly is anecdotal, not a statistically valid survey. Also, there are lots of flavors of conservatism and liberalism. The fact that someone is considered a conservative on some social issues, such as abortion or gun control, doesn't mean that they are fiscally conservative.

Dave didn't claim his observation as a universal truth, just something that he seemed to notice and wondered if others had seen the same thing. To me, it is a perfectly reasonable observation based on his experience and his understanding of the area that he lives in. Whether it is a fact or simply a coincidence is beside the point in making the observation. In fact, that was implicitly the question he was asking.

[Harold Mansfield]

Now that there is more information, I can see it now too.

Where I live, there are 2 1/2 million people. You can't tell a Liberal voter from a Conservative voter anymore than you can tell what brand of gas is in their tank.

I had no idea that there were communities where people segregated themselves based on politics. Of course I know that there are areas that lean more one way than the other, but I also know that it is not consistent and many fluctuate each election season...actually every election season. Case and point the last election...obviously a lot of previous conservatives voted the other way, or there are just not as many in the country as one would have you believe.

I knew that with the right statistical info that you could narrow it down to districts...I had no idea that people (Who are not politicians) were purposely herding together in neighborhoods because of politics, because the very idea to me seems ridiculously juvenile, so I can't fathom, nor have I ever seen it.

By itself, not a reason for an intelligent disagreement, but the lack of information at the onset was.

[Spider]

To pursue this interesting discussion further - not the politics or actions of individuals, rather the analysis of numbers --

Certain areas - neighborhoods - were referred to in political and economic terms - conservative high end and liberal high end. It really doesn't matter whether people gather together based on their political ideals or their love of golf, let's say. (In Houston there are many "golf communities" - residential areas designed around a golf course with as many homes as possible fronting the golf course. Similarly "lake communities.") Or any other core idea that brings people together. And it doesn't matter how many or how few people subscribe to the perceived idea for the neighborhood.

As I said before, it is group A vs group B. The name you give to the group and the beliefs of the members, are immaterial in this discussion. If analysis of sales to a particular group show group A buying more than group B, then it is worth focussing on group A for your advertising. If it turns out that a preponderance of group A members prefer blue underwear, then find other people who like blue underwear, and test to see if they, too, are better customers for you.

It doesn't matter if there is a logical connection between what you sell and blue underwear. What matters is you get more sales from an area that is known for its blue underwear than from areas that are more varied in their choice of underwear. It is worth trying to repeat that with focussed advertising.

[Harold Mansfield]

All good points, but when it comes to consumerism, I don't see politics taking any kind of substantial role enough to base anything on other than a hunch or coincidence.

With the exception of organized ( or even not so organized) boycotts and protests of a particular brand or industry, there is no correlation between who you vote for at the polls, and normal everyday needs like hiring a plumber.

Sure, there are people that are only going to do business with certain kinds of people. I have seen people that won't drink Coke, because their favorite NASCA driver drives for Pepsi, or a driver they don't like drives for Coke...( but aren't smart enough to know that Gator Aid is a Coke product).

Some will only hire a white plumber. Some may not hire a fat plumber. Some may only hire union plumbers, but..they are still going to hire a plumber.

In order to be able to break this down into something a little more concrete, you would have to break down each kind of plumber and then compare each individual statistic of each plumber in the study with who hired them..but it would only be remotely accurate if you also have the reasoning why group B didn't hire them.

If the reasoning were more akin to everyday reasons such as "Don't have the money", "I'll do it myself" or anything other than political motivations, then you would have to agree that what you have is merely a coincidence and if you try hard enough to make two things relate to each other, you find a coincidence in every direction that you look.

This morning I saw a bird grab a worm in the exact same spot as another bird yesterday morning at around the same time.

Does that mean that there is a heavy concentration of worms in this one spot ? Or is it something more logical like, it is also about the same time that the sprinklers go off and there are worms above ground all over the place. The location of the worm find was a coincidence.

There are no more worms in this patch of grass than any other on the same lawn. And you can't logically determine anything to the contrary without digging up the lawn and counting the worms per square foot.

Just to add:
Political affiliation may be a contributing factor on issues that are political (or have become political) in nature. Economic legislation, Abortion, Social programs, Education and so on. Who renews their license or hires a plumber, are not those kinds of issues.

Even if the local Plumbers Union contributed heavily to an opposing candidate or supported issues that you disagree with...you still need a plumber. No one who is sane is going to let their septic tank back up or allow water to flow freely from a leak because of politics.

Assuming that we are talking about sane, rational people.

[Spider]

All good points, but when it comes to consumerism, I don't see politics taking any kind of substantial role enough to base anything on... Again, you are missing the point, Harold. As I have been trying to indicate, the actual political affiliation of customers, non-customers and vendor has nothing to do with it. It's purely numbers. Nothing but numbers.

Let me try explaining it like this -- Let us consider what Dave called a "liberal high end neighborhood" (the ones that he says are continuing to spend) - let us suppose one "liberal high end neighborhood" was 90% liberal and only 10% conservative and that the total homes in that neighborhood was 2,000. That gives us 1,800 liberal homes and 200 conservative homes.

Let us further suppose that Dave serviced 100 of those homes during the year. That would be a pretty good penetration in that one neighborhood, considering that not every home would have needed to call a plumber. But it's possible that every one of Dave's customers were conservatives - in this 90% dominated liberal neighborhood.

So the political leanings of individuals has no bearing on the results whatsover. But, even if Dave knew all his customers were conservatives, that would still not lead him to promote in the conservative neighborhoods, because his own records show that the conservative neighborhoods have stopped spending.

It's not the politics of his customers that is in important - the important fact is that they live in what Dave has designated a "liberal high end neighborhood" regardless of their individual politics.

Does that make it clearer?



...In order to be able to break this down into something a little more concrete, you would have to break down each kind of plumber...No you wouldn't! Because we are not trying to determine a standard for all plumbers, we are only concerned with Dave's business -- and for that we have Dave's own records to guide us.

[Harold Mansfield]

I understand market research and analysis.

What I don't understand is (in this conversation) if politics have nothing to do with it, and are not one of the variables why is it still part of how you are attempting to describe the 2 groups.

Why aren't we just using the information that we know...side of town, average income, etc. Why even mention politics in the equation? It's not something that can be proven.

You keep explaining yourself by continuing to tag the variables with political affiliation.
If politics has nothing to do with it, why?

[Spider]

I understand market research and analysis.
..What I don't understand is (in this conversation) if politics have nothing to do with it, and are not one of the variables why is it still part of how you are attempting to describe the 2 groups.
..Why aren't we just using the information that we know...side of town, average income, etc. Why even mention politics in the equation? It's not something that can be proven.
..You keep explaining yourself by continuing to tag the variables with political affiliation.
..If politics has nothing to do with it, why?I think I'm beginning to understand. The problem seems to be that I am using political designations to describe the neighborhoods.

I am doing that because that is how Dave (OP) described them. I attempted to move away from those titles, you will notice, by calling them group A and group B several posts ago. I even went so far as to bring in 'golf communities,' 'lake communities' and 'blue underwear' to make the point in my last post but one.

These designations are only titles (confusing ones, it seems) and could very well have been side of town, average income, etc. except that we didn't know those details and Dave didn't give us that information.

If Dave had described the neighborhoods he was comparing as 'large homes' and 'not-so-large homes' would that have made any difference? Would you have seen the same illogical premise?

All we can see from this is that in one area of Wisconsin one thing is happening, and in another area of Wisconsin a different thing is happening. If we are only going to stop advertising in the unprofitable area and double our advertising in the profitable area, then we don't need to know or even speculate about the reason for the difference. It's only if we are going to search for other areas in which to seek work that the reason for the difference is useful - so we can find other areas that are similar to the profitable area.

[Harold Mansfield]

I think the problem is that I am thinking about this literally and want to use real data or at least variable that actually makes sense to analyze the supposed trend.

There may be something to Dave's suggestion, but it is not based on politics.

I was merely suggesting that we look at all of the data to come up with the real reason for the increase business in a certain neighborhood.

We know it has nothing to do with who they vote for, that was just a noticeable coincidence.

It probably has more to do with Age of the homes, Keeping up with the Jone's, Word of Mouth, Home Improvement Tax Credits, Builder and original installation materials, and other things.

If we want to use this information to cultivate a marketing plan to possibly capitalize on any trends, you are going to need something other than who wears blue boxers and who wears red ones or you will be throwing good marketing money down the drain.

You'll have a better chance of success by sending that money to me and letting me put it all on Black on the Roulette Wheel.

[Spider]

...You'll have a better chance of success by sending that money to me and letting me put it all on Black on the Roulette Wheel.Harold's new marketing plan? :D



...I think the problem is that I am thinking about this literally and want to use real data or at least variable that actually makes sense to analyze the supposed trend.
..There may be something to Dave's suggestion, but it is not based on politics...Are you sure?

Let us suppose that my wild suggestion is in fact true --
...that Dave serviced 100 of those homes during the year. That would be a pretty good penetration in that one neighborhood, considering that not every home would have needed to call a plumber. But it's possible that every one of Dave's customers were conservatives - in this 90% dominated liberal neighborhood.A logical reason could be that the conservatives in this area of Wisconsin are better off than the liberals of this area and are more able to keep their houses in good working order. Their liberal neighbors are feeling the unemployment pinch and have stopped spending but they are generally optimistic about Obama's ability to solve the problem, while the richer conservatives in other areas have stopped spending because they expect Obama to destroy the economy. Dave's conservative customers are encourged by their liberal neighbor's hopes for a better future without fully accepting that Obama will be the saviour, so they are more inclined to spend than the liberal neighbors and their conservative counterparts in other areas.

There's no telling if this is true, but it is not logically impossible - and is entirely politically based. The next step would be to see if their are any facts available that prove or disprove this hypothesis.

[huggytree]

the rich liberal neighborhoods are typically older houses (1920's era)-the old area surrounding Milwaukee..houses are a bit smaller, but very expensive, well cared for, small lots...

the rich conservative neighborhoods tend to be newer houses, lake houses..1950's to 2007...further out and in a different direction around Milwaukee...larger lots, house size varies from 1,200 brick ranches to 4,000 2 stories.

age of the house and layout is definitely a factor.

i still think politics is the #1 reason because the change is so dramatic....its like someone flicked off a switch in the rich conservative neighborhoods.

when i work in the rich liberal neighborhoods id say because of yard signs and bumper stickers that i can prove 1/3rd of them to be Democrats.....when i work in the rich neighborhoods i have no idea which way they vote...im purely going by talk radio and tv political shows discussing elections and neighborhoods.

liberals tend to be 1000% more outspoken....i did see a bumper sticker last week on a customers car which said 'time for a 2nd revolution' though...it was in the rich conservative neighborhood

[billbenson]

Eborg, I also think there is value in "gut feel" The people behind the camaras in Vegas. In my college security job (pre camera era), if my boss said "follow that guy" they stole something 90% of the time. Cops that take a second look at people just because they have a gut feeling after doing the job so long. They may be picking up on body movements etc., but its subconsious stuff after years of doing something

Huggy may be trying to do this statistically, but what he may really be doing is acting on his feelings after doing something in that area for years.

To be clear I'm not talking about armchair quarterbacks. The guy who is an expert on politics because he saw it on fox news.

[Harold Mansfield]

If I were using this as a basis to determine a marketing plan, where I was going to spend some money, I would be more prone to base a little more faith on this:


the rich liberal neighborhoods are typically older houses (1920's era)-the old area surrounding Milwaukee..houses are a bit smaller, but very expensive, well cared for, small lots...

as a logical reason for a certain area needing more plumbing work, than I would who is red or blue.

[Spider]

That's all well and good, Harold, as long as you realize that you are limiting your own analysis. While the house size (or is it the prices, or the age, or the size of the lots?) may seem to be more relevant to plumbing services, they are no less hypothetical than the political relationship that has been detected. My hypothesis about the political connection is no less valid than your hypothesis about the houses, and they both stand as nothing more than hypotheses until tested and proven (or disproven.)

That is the nature of scientific discovery.

[Harold Mansfield]

That's all well and good, Harold, as long as you realize that you are limiting your own analysis. While the house size (or is it the prices, or the age, or the size of the lots?) may seem to be more relevant to plumbing services, they are no less hypothetical than the political relationship that has been detected. My hypothesis about the political connection is no less valid than your hypothesis about the houses, and they both stand as nothing more than hypotheses until tested and proven (or disproven.)

That is the nature of scientific discovery.

Age of the house and what kind of system is installed is not a hypothetical. That is a very real variable for a plumber and it has a lot to do with everything.

Politics on the other hand, really has nothing to do with it. The only time plumbing and politics ever collided was Joe the Plumber...McCain/Palin's "every man' prop...and that still was not a catalyst for people to, or not to hire a plumber when they need one.

I am sorry, but I will never see any relationship between politics and needing a plumber and I don't see how anyone would consider someone's politics when talking about marketing a plumbing business.

I don't care if you knew for sure that every one in a certain zip code was a die hard Conservative Republican..it still has no bearing on when they will need the services of a plumber.

It is not a hypothetical variable just like the age of a house because the age of a house is a real concern of the job. Red or Blue is not. So you can't put them together as if they have equal bearing.

If you are going to use all hypothetical that are equal, then use something that equally has no relationship.

Pipes don't bust because you voted for the wrong or right person. Leaks don't happen because of an election.

Anyone who uses something so trivial and of no relationship to come up with marketing plan really should come to Vegas with that money.

If you truly think because I refuse to consider peoples politics is limiting my analysis so be it. I see it as a waste of time to even add it to the mix.

Even if I had 3 clients in a row that wanted me to build Liberal sites and blogs, I would not conclude that liberals are spending more online, only that it was election season and they are probably gearing up for something.

I would also determine if they came by way of referral.
When it comes to analysis, I believe things that I can prove. Not hypotheticals.

I'm not one to believe that my phone rings with a client on the other end, every time a bird lands on a certain tree branch outside of my window.