Schizophrenic Nation They're healthy; they're indulgent. They're cynical; they're hopeful. They're having fun; they're working like maniacs. Are today's consumers nuts--or just trying to have it all?

At gourmet takeout haven Urban Epicuria, patrons scarf down awhopping 200 pounds of grilled chicken breasts each week.That's no surprise in fitness-obsessed West Hollywood,California. But Wayne Davis, co-owner of Urban Epicuria along withAlan and Gail Baral, lets us in on a dirty little secret: The beeftenderloin is also a hot seller. And the chocolate cake--customerscan't get enough. "When we were putting this businesstogether, our investors were skeptical [about us selling richpastries and other indulgences]," says Davis. "But I toldthem, `You watch.' People talk about eating healthy--but behindclosed doors, it's another story."

Sometimes it's another story in public, too. Allentown,Pennsylvania, restaurateur Iris Konia packs in the local bonvivants at her Federal Grill & Cigar Bar. According toKonia, public indulgence in cigars, premium martinis and aged Angussteaks is not a sign of nutritional Armageddon. "Times aregood, and people are feeling expansive," says Konia. "Ithink it's a reaction to not [indulging] for so long. Peopleare having fun; that's what we're seeing."

Yet, it's not the kind of orgiastic free-for-all we saw inthe 1980s. Barbara Caplan, a partner at consumer research firmYankelovich Partners, puts it this way: "In the '80s,there was no shame; in the '90s, it's no apologies."Indeed, today's consumers are curious and conflictedcharacters--attracted by luxury but driven by value, knowledgeableabout fitness but susceptible to caloric sins. This is the culturethat spawned Martha (Stewart) by Mail, a service that packages allthe pillowy comforts of gracious living in a no-commitment,hassle-free format.

We are individuals who defy categorization. Los Angelesentrepreneur Erica Courtney, 42, founder of a jewelry companybearing her name, is a good example of the new nonconformity."I might buy myself a Chanel suit," says Courtney,"but I'd wear the jacket with blue jeans and the skirtwith a T-shirt. I do what I like, not what I'm supposed tolike."

Attitudes like Courtney's may spell good times for ruggedindividualists, but what about for entrepreneurs? In a universewhere roasted sea bass and crème brûlée areequally desirable--and where paradox reigns supreme--how does theentrepreneur stake a claim? And how did we get ourselves into thisstrange state of affairs in the first place?

Gayle Sato Stodder is co-author of Young MillionairesReveal Their Secrets (Entrepreneur Media Inc.).

Mixed Nuts

Whimsical consumer behavior is not a recent development. "Ilearned a long time ago [when running focus groups] that you'rea fool if you expect consistency from consumers," says MyraStark, senior vice president of knowledge management and consumerinsight for advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi in New YorkCity. "In a focus group, the same consumers will say theybelieve one thing and, minutes later, say the exactopposite."

Such fickleness may be a symptom of human nature, says Stark."We get carried away by the moment," she explains."One minute we hear a compelling argument and are swayed. Butthe next minute we may be swayed by something else."

In a culture as diverse and evanescent as ours, the potentialfor new allegiances is nearly limitless. "We live in a societywith strong trends and counter trends," Stark asserts."As a result, we all have contradictory belief systems, and wehave to live with that."

The tug of war between trends and counter trends isn'tnecessarily new, but its current expression is. Today, it's notjust diversity between Americans that makes the difference:It's also diversity within Americans.

Courtney sees this diversity every day in her jewelry boutique."I have customers who come in for a pair of $45 silverearrings one week and return for a $15,000 strand of South Seapearls the next," she says. "I'm also seeing a lot ofyoung [money-conscious] thirtysomethings spring for nice, expensivepieces as a treat for themselves."

The bottom line: Making assumptions about individual consumershas become nearly impossible. What you see on the surfacedoesn't even begin to hint at the complexity that lies beneath.That's why, unlike some upscale jewelry retailers, Courtneydoesn't try to size up a customer's buying potential by hisor her appearance. "It's so ugly for a salesperson todecide whether or not you're a pauper based on how youlook," says Courtney.

Ugly, yes, and foolish, too. In today's economicenvironment, the baby-faced guy in the frumpy coat and jeans justmight be a new-media millionaire. The woman in the sweats andsneakers might be an executive on sabbatical. And, as Jim Borsack,46, co-owner of Las Vegas-based El Portal, a chain of high-endluggage shops, points out, "That guy you don't like thelooks of just might be the drummer for Motley Crüe."

Strange Bedfellows

As Americans have become more eclectic in their beliefs,they've also become strangely demanding. The snack food marketis one example. Once upon a time, snack foods were universallyloaded with fat--in short, they were bad for you. In the fit ofpiousness that cropped up in the early '90s, a truckload ofvirtuous, fat-free chips and cookies spilled forth with the promiseof guilt-free snacking. Last year, in response to lagging sales,many such snacks--including Nabisco's flagship Snackwell'sline--were reformulated to include a little bit of taste-enhancing(you guessed it) fat.

The point? Consumers are no longer willing to take theirmedicine--if it's bad-tasting. Just a few years ago, the merenotion of a fat-free snack was enough to make people sit up andbeg. Today, the same virtuous snack also has to taste good. Reallygood. The once-acceptable argument that a low-fat snack with arich, satisfying taste was a scientific impossibility simplydoesn't hold water today--and not because science has changed.Consumers simply want--and expect--more.

Susan Mitchell, author of American Generations: Who They Are,How They Live, What They Think (New Strategist), observes thatfor baby boomers and later generations, the availability of choiceand the ongoing race for innovation have created a mentality thatanything is possible. "Years ago, you could have a Model T inany color, as long as it was black. Today, people want to buildcomputers according to their own specs and order custom-madeLevis," Mitchell says. "Companies have done such a goodjob of meeting consumers' expectations that expectations arenow unreasonable. People expect to get A and B, even when A and Bare contradictory."

Naturally, this mind-set establishes a high standard forentrepreneurs. "Customers want what they want, when they wantit," says luggage retailer Borsack. "They don't wantto be told, `No.' "

So, whenever possible, Borsack avoids the negative. If a storeis out of stock on an item, El Portal will offer to ship it to thecustomer's home in two days. If a customer prefers something heor she saw at another store, El Portal will try to special orderit. And for folks who want El Portal's high-quality, high-endluggage at bargain prices, the company now has outlet stores.

Indeed, outlet shopping may be the definitive sport of the'90s. You get good stuff at good prices, which is saying a lotfor a retail transaction. Yet, true to Mitchell's observations,consumers aren't always content with the outlet experienceeither. Often, service is sacrificed. Or convenience is lost asthey drive to the outskirts of Nowhere to visit the nearest outletmall.

Is it unreasonable for consumers to think they can get upscalegoods, bargain prices, service, convenience and a twist offun? Yes. But that doesn't stop New York City entrepreneur KenSeiff from trying to provide it. Seiff's new Internet apparelbusiness, Bluefly. com, offers a wide selection of high-qualitydesigner-label clothing for men, women and children at 25 to75 percent off retail prices.

With Bluefly.com, Seiff hopes to quiet all objections to outletshopping. "Customers don't have to drive two hours to gethere, and they don't have to dig through bins to find the rightsize," he says. "We have a liberal 90-day return policyand a low $3.95 flat rate for shipping." Bluefly.com customerscan also create personalized online catalogs that contain only thebrands and sizes they want.

With Bluefly.com, Seiff and his team illustrate the flip side tounrealistic consumer expectations. When you harness innovation andunconventional thinking, sometimes you can break new ground."Wherever you have consumer conflict," Stark points out,"entrepreneurs have opportunities."

Paradoxical You

Consider the typical consumer: besieged by choices; needing moregoods at better prices with a range of enhanced, time-savingservices; bewildered by change, stress and the opposing pulls ofhope and cynicism. It's enough to drive anyone todistraction.

Yet distraction isn't exactly the state we're seeing.Yankelovich partner Caplan believes the simplistic ideologies ofthe past are toast in today's terms.

Why? It's not simply because we see more, have more ordemand more--it's because we know more. And with thatknowledge, we've become both sadder and wiser as a culture."Baby boomers grew up seeing the world in very ideologicalterms," says Caplan. "Good or evil, black orwhite--everything was one way or another."

But reality is not so easily defined. In the 1980s and early'90s, we saw wealth, then economic downturn. We embarked on anational mission to exercise, eat well and live healthy lives, onlyto find that we grew older anyway. "We embrace the idea ofbalancing work and life, career and family, in some kind of perfectharmony, but that, too, has been elusive," says Caplan."In the end, we've found we can't have it all. We canonly try to manage it. In the process, we've become morewilling to accommodate the areas in between [the ideal and thereality]. We're learning to accept a more complicated view ofthe world."

Complicated, indeed. "We saw [paradoxical thinking] comingonto our radar screens around 1997," says Caplan. "Therehave been a number of examples since then. People say they'reconcerned about their kids' nutrition, but they buy theirfamilies snack foods in massive quantities. We say we look to thehome as a refuge, yet we make the home stressful with multilinephones, faxes, PCs and all the other accoutrements of work. Againand again, we've seen strong findings that people want a returnto traditional social values, yet the public has approved inoverwhelming numbers the job [President Clinton] is doing,"even as they believed him guilty of morally questionablebehavior.

Yet, according to Caplan, this isn't hypocrisy."Nobody's fooling themselves," she says. "Theyknow they're dealing in contradictions, but they see them as apart of life. They're saying, `This is my world, warts andall.' "

On Bread Alone

It might seem like you're dealing with a consumer market sointricate that only a Zen master could decipher its motives. Butwhen you know your customers--when you greet them, seat them, moveamong them and study them--their desires can be as clear as day.Even if they aren't purely logical.

Konia, for instance, brought in clientele with the allure ofexotic cigars, cocktails and an atmosphere of decadence. "Theycome here for adventure," she says. "But once they tastethe food, they want to come back." And since even theadventurous don't always want a cigar with their swordfish,Konia was faced with crowded, smoke-filled dining areas and noplace to put the nonsmoking overflow.

So she recently built an upstairs addition for nonsmokingpatrons. It's not the crowd Konia expected. But with sales of$1.1 million last year, the success of her venture certainlyisn't an unwelcome surprise.

In the end, maybe the best entrepreneurs for this eclectic eraare eclectic themselves: bold, imaginative and not so uptight thatthey wouldn't pair a Chanel skirt with a $20 T-shirt. It'sa good time to sell jewelry in the $45 to $50,000 range, asCourtney does. It's a good time to try new and comfortablesales formats, like Bluefly.com's. It's finally time torecognize that even if man could survive on bread alone, thatisn't really living.

Let us eat cake.

Contact Sources

Bluefly Inc., (212) 944-8000, http://www.bluefly.com

El Portal, (800) 723-7568, http://www.travelsupplies.com

Erica Courtney Boutique, (323) 938-2850, fax: (323)938-8964

Federal Grill & Cigar Bar, (610) 776-7600, http://www.federalgrill.com

Saatchi & Saatchi, (212) 463-2000, http://www.saatchi-saatchi.com

Urban Epicuria, (323) 848-8411, fax: (323) 848-8416

Yankelovich Partners Inc., (203) 846-0100, http://www.yankelovich.com