People want to escape what’s going on around them, especially all of the negative garbage that is very difficult to escape. We can’t do much about that or how often the media reports it over and over again.
Here in the Cleveland area you may have heard about the big story (it became a national story) of the guy (Ariel Castro) who kidnapped three young girls and held them for over 10 years. You can imagine how, locally, it was everywhere, how it was the headline story every 10 minutes on the radio, on every TV newscast, front page of the paper for weeks, even the headline when you opened your browser on your computer – almost impossible to escape.
Earlier in the year, in the community where I lived, for the first time we had a bitter teachers’ strike that lasted for months, with a lot of media coverage even from different parts of the country.
Why am I telling you this? Because I talked to several business owners in the area while both of those events were going on, their business was affected in a negative way. This was true in several different business categories. This is true nationally as well as locally.
Think about it. People spend more money when they’re in a good mood or frame of mind (which is why so many radio stations and retail establishments start playing Christmas music so soon) versus being all bummed out about… 
Here’s what Disney is very good at: when the economy was at its recent worst in 2008, Disney made major investments in improving the customer experience and more interaction with the team and ‘guests.’
Disney created a place where their ‘guests’ could escape, where they didn’t have to hear about all of the negative news that was going on like home foreclosures, banks failing and so on.
I’m not telling you that you can do it as well as Disney can but there are things you can do in your business to allow your clients to enjoy their visit to your business or even during their phone call with you. Have music playing, not stations that are playing the news every 10 minutes but an all music station, choose a station that plays fun, upbeat music. There’s a reason why retail stores play Christmas music in their stores starting in November.