The Business Journal of Charlotte - October 29, 2001
http://charlotte.bcentral.com/charlotte/stories/2001/10/29/smallb2.html

Small Business Insights
	From the October 26, 2001 print edition

Sales Moves

Even on a day off, service is key to success

Jeffrey Gitomer

Day off? As the Labor Day weekend began, I realized that I had an extra day to work. Monday! Everyone else will be playing, and I can use the time to get further ahead of them.

The list of to-do's was longer than achievable (nothing unusual there), and the list of must-do's was looming as at least half of my available time.

So I began on Saturday morning to write my next two columns plus the next two shows for my video Internet training program (http://www.trainone.com/), when all of a sudden, my printer decided to show me some error message that I have never seen before. Rats!

I tried everything. Nothing would work. So I called Tommy Berry, our computer maven and, as expected, got his voice-mail. I told him of my plight and hung up, resigning myself to not being able to print until Tuesday.

Thirty-seven minutes later, the phone rings and Tommy says, "I got your message, and I couldn't let you wait until Tuesday."

He calmly walked me through the solution (which I never would have figured out in a million years on my own) and, presto, it worked! I returned to my to-do list.

Sunday morning, I arose to the ever-present rain, which had become torrential. I felt a drip at the end of the bed -- the roof was leaking. The skylight we had just installed was leaking in buckets.

I said to Teresa, "Hey, let's call Wayneco Roofing." And Teresa said, "It's Sunday morning." I said, "Yeah, but didn't that guy give you his home number?" She hands me the number for Gary Campbell.

As soon as I identified myself, he said, "Tell me the skylight is not leaking." And I said, "Only in one corner." He said, "That's too bad. Let me see what I can do."

Teresa and I had to run an errand. When we came back, the Wayneco truck was parked in front of our building. There is Gary, out on the roof. He told me the solution was simple. He would fix it temporarily today, and permanently on Tuesday. I thanked him about 300 times.

That afternoon, Mary Beth came over to begin entering my sports memorabilia collection in the new database written for me by the great John Kooy. I realized several items were missing from the database, so I tried to add them on my own. The results weren't good. So I called John to tell him what I needed. I left a message on his recorder and figured he'd call Tuesday.

Monday, it was still raining. The phone rings. It's John Kooy. "Jeffrey," he says, "I was away yesterday and got your call. What do you need?"

John shows up, spends an hour, fixes the program and teaches me how to do it myself the next time.

What can we learn from these stories?

Three things went wrong: printer, roof leak, computer program. On a holiday weekend, you would expect nothing to be taken care of. But as I sat back and contemplated the events, it reinforced my belief in service.

All three of these persons were not only people of service but also people of character. They don't teach customer service, but all of them are among the finest living examples of it. They are not just successful in business; they are successful in life.

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Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached at (704) 333-1112 or salesman@gitomer.com.