You’ve probably heard the phrase, “The customer is always right.”
It’s attributed to Eben Dyer Jordan.
Jordan was a businessman in Boston during the second half of the 1800s.
He founded a highly successful department store, Jordan Marsh.
Later (with other business associates), he founded The Boston Globe newspaper.
Jordan had another, less well-known motto he was even more fond of quoting to staff in his department store.
“The better you serve your customers, the better you serve yourself.”
One of Jordan’s employees who took that message to heart was Bridget Kennedy.
Born Bridget Murphy, she was the founding matriarch of the famous Kennedy dynasty through her marriage to Patrick Kennedy.
President John F. Kennedy was one of their great-grandsons.
How she and Patrick came to be in America and how Bridget significantly improved on humble beginnings by serving better customers is described in “The First Kennedys.”
It’s an excellent book by Neal Thompson.
Have you ever walked into a store, restaurant, doctor’s surgery, car showroom or similar and thought that the person who greeted you had made the wrong career choice?
These are places where first contact varies from sullen to downright rude.
A client relayed a story along these lines.
In his case, he was ignored by snooty staff in a very posh car showroom.
He had come straight from working in his warehouse.
He was not as he described, “suited and booted.”
Met with indifference (probably because of how he was dressed), he went elsewhere to spend more than £100k on vehicles for his family.
When you meet people like that, you feel sorry for the owner of the business.
You may also wonder why owners or managers allow those people to be in client-facing positions.
They are not serving the customers better. Often, they’re not serving customers full stop.
They’re not doing themselves or their careers any favours either.
Trade show stands (hopefully not yours) are not immune from this scourge either.
But worse than disinterest from stand staff is meeting a stand manager who doesn’t know why the company is exhibiting.
The most shocking example I’ve met so far was on a stand that must have cost at least £300k.
Fortunately, cases of trade show unfriendliness are rare.
The training we deliver is, on the face of it, about trade shows.
Really, it’s about better sales, marketing, and personal development.
If you look at the content of our courses, you’ll see that the mechanics of exhibiting are one part of a bigger picture.
If that could be helpful to a member of your team, you’ll find the details for two of our courses here.
Very best,