A friend of mine runs a (very) small chain of coffee shops. Two years ago he was on holiday in Southern America, and happened to be in the same city as one of the major coffee exporters of the continent. Since he's a true coffee geek he called them up, told them that he owned a very small chain half-way around the world and asked if he could come visit. They agreed, and when he got there he was treated to a whole day of tasting, talking, and generally doing what coffee geeks do with people fairly high up in the company.
When he asked why they had spent so much time on him when, at best, he would becme a very minor customer they said that they did this to everybody no matter how small. The reason was that many years before another random guy had called up and asked if he could come down for a visit from the US. They treated him well, extended him some credit and generally gave him excellent service. He also ran a small chain of stores. They bonded and he stayed a loyal customer for many years because he was treated well.
Steve touches on something that most good salesmen already know: you never know where your next order is coming from.
I've seen companies bet the farm one one prospect only to have them go somewhere else 6 months into the pipeline. At the same time they ignored anyone who didn't fit their perfect prospect profile.
Failures to understand this have become legend. The Mercedes dealer who ignored the millionaire in flip flops who left the showroom and bought a BMW. The fraternity brothers who ignored the old man on their porch until he got up and left his fortune to charity. The software entrepreneur who didn't take the call from IBM (for whatever reason), so IBM went to Microsoft instead.
And the solution is so easy: treat everyone how you'd like to be treated until they give you reason otherwise. The best people I ever knew (family, friends, business associates) all made me feel special. Come to think of it, they made everyone feel special. No coincidence they were also the most successful people I knew.
This reminds me of one of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard: If someone gives you a lead on a prospective customer, don't ever turn it down. Even if you know that the lead won't be interested, or if you have no intention of following up, don't turn down the offer... because the next time that said person wants to help you out, they'll hesitate, because you turned down their kindness before.
Amazing how many people don't follow this simple rule.
This is a good article, but the real nugget isn't something the author really gets into: Treat everyone with respect and consideration, no matter how lowly they may be.
You'd think that the Lion and Mouse fable would resonate more, but for some reason it never does.
What you said is true, but what he is saying is about spending your resources. Time, money etc. You may be nice to everyone but due to constraints you may not be able to offer resources to everyone.
That's the point though. If you travel through life only worrying about people that can help you directly, and never stopping to offer help of your own, you miss these opportunities.
The beauty of "charity" in any form is that it sometimes has the very difficult to predict side effect of offering the largest return on investment.
I've always liked the layout of this site. Clean, functional, easy to use. Thoughtful design.
But today is the first time I noticed the little 6x6 pixel design embedded in the background directly to the right of the book image.
At first I thought I had coughed at the screen, or somehow got pen marks on it and was reaching for some cleaner when I realized what a screen capture into Paint and a quick zoom confirmed.
The smiley does look like it's floating. I assume the reason is for Wordpress sites not hosted on WP servers? Often people will be using WP without the expertise or ability to deal with server-side stats.
A friend of mine runs a (very) small chain of coffee shops. Two years ago he was on holiday in Southern America, and happened to be in the same city as one of the major coffee exporters of the continent. Since he's a true coffee geek he called them up, told them that he owned a very small chain half-way around the world and asked if he could come visit. They agreed, and when he got there he was treated to a whole day of tasting, talking, and generally doing what coffee geeks do with people fairly high up in the company.
When he asked why they had spent so much time on him when, at best, he would becme a very minor customer they said that they did this to everybody no matter how small. The reason was that many years before another random guy had called up and asked if he could come down for a visit from the US. They treated him well, extended him some credit and generally gave him excellent service. He also ran a small chain of stores. They bonded and he stayed a loyal customer for many years because he was treated well.
The small company he owned was called Starbucks.