When I first moved to New York City the first restaurant I went to naturally was Chick-Fil-A. I went to the nearest one to the church I work at which is located in Times Square in New York City. It’s in the middle of all of the Broadway shows, the shops, the street dancers, the restaurants it’s all there. When I walked in to Chick-FilA it all looked the same as the Chick-Fil-A in my hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana. The menu items were the same, the seats, the branding, even the way the employees said “My Pleasure” was the same. But when I went to pay for my number three value meal with a Coke Zero and extra Chick-Fil-A sauce (if you don’t like Chick-Fil-A sauce we can’t be friends) it was twice the price I was used to paying in Louisiana. Why? Because they can. Because they are in one of the most trafficked tourist areas in the world. They know that the tourists passing through in ninety degree summer heat in New York City who want Chick-Fil-A are going to pay whatever they charge for.

Chick-Fil-A’s pricing in Times Square compared to Louisiana is a classic example of running a business or organization determined by short term vs long term behavior .

Chick-fil-a in Times Square charges more because there’s no prospect of repeat customers. They are running their business based on the customers short term behavior. They’re not worried you’re going to say oh that’s too expensive we’re never going back there. Because most of their customers are only in New York City for vacation and will go only once so they can charge more and even if people are upset Chick-Fil-A knows there will be another willing tourist tomorrow coming in to pay for overpriced fried chicken. Very good overpriced fried chicken, but overpriced nonetheless.

Therefore, the Chick-Fil-A in Times Square can treat their customers like tourists.

But the Chick-Fil-A in Lafayette, LA is optimized for long term behavior because they know people in Lafayette will keep going back week after week, month after month and year after year because they live there. So they want to keep customers happy and coming back. This is running a business optimized for long term thinking.

The Chick-Fil-A in Lafayette, LA behaves like a resident not a tourist.

I started to think through all of my daily personal interactions with people and began to list the ones that I was currently optimizing for short term behavior and long term behavior. Am I treating these like a resident who will be interacting with these people for a while or a tourist just passing through? We all have dozens of daily interactions and they can’t all be optimized for long term relationships but some can. Here’s a list of the interactions I began to evaluate in my life. These are just a few examples, but I know there’s plenty more:

• Interaction with my doorman on the way out each morning

• Interaction with the front desk worker at my gym

• Interaction with the barista at Blue Bottle Coffee (the best coffee in New York City)

• Interaction with the person sitting next to me on the Subway

• Interaction with the person checking me out at Trader Joe’s

• Interaction with my Mom as she text me to ask about my day

• Interaction with my best friend when she wants to talk through a problem

• Interaction with someone on my team who needs an answer to a question so they can complete a project

• Interaction with my Pastor when he needs information for an upcoming event

• Interaction with the security guard when I walk into my office building

After that I began to evaluate the interactions that our church has with people and the community each week:

• Interaction with the single Mom who gets on the subway from Queens with her 3 children to get to church each Sunday

• Interaction with the parking garage that our church does business with to provide parking for our congregation

• Interaction with a tourist who is visiting from Italy and wants to see a Gospel choir so they come to our church while they’re in town.

• Interaction with our health insurance provider.

• Interaction with the contracted out sound and video guys.

• Interaction with the high schools near our church.

• Interaction with the homeless man who sits outside of our church each day asking for money.

• Interaction with the mayor and city council.

• Interaction with the local abortion clinic.

• Interaction with the other thousands of churches in our city.

You get the point. In every interaction we have an opportunity to treat someone like a tourist and give them a product and get short term results or we can choose to treat them like a resident and hope for long term results.