Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US. Besides a day to give thanks for all of the blessings life has sent my way, Thanksgiving has always meant three things to me– football, turkey and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. We have a new Macy’s in Denver. Actually, Macy’s is just extending is Macy’s brand, we’ve had the store for years we just used to call it May D&F, and then Foley’s.
When Macy’s opened the store here, they did a huge advertising blitz – including some information on the history of Macy’s. As it turns out, Rowland Hussey Macy the founder, was quite a forward thinking guy. In the 1860’s he appointed the first woman executive in retail, Margaret Getchell, who helped build the store’s sales to $1,000,000 by 1870.
Ms. Getchell was a dynamo. Her motto was “Be everywhere, do everything, and never forget to astonish the customer”. This is great common sense advice for entrepreneurs and small business people.
When you start a business, you don’t have a lot of resources at your disposal, so you literally have to “be everywhere and do everything” – in my experience at least. This can be time consuming and tiring but it has a few advantages. You really get to know you business and all that it entails. You have a complete understanding of the complexities of your business. You become the face of your business.
And, let’s not forget the “astonish the customer” part. When you run a small business, you have to set yourself apart. In my experience, great customer service is the best way to do this. You need to provide excellent products and services but you need to do so in such a way that people remember you.
Let me give you an example. Many years ago, I got a lead on some consulting business. The prospective client was in Saint Louis. I happened to be in Terre Haute, IN at the time. I called him to discuss his needs. He was interested in me and said he wanted to meet. I said, “I was planning on going back to Denver tomorrow, but I can drive to Saint Louis and meet with you first thing in the morning and then fly home from there. Basically, this meant I had to drive across Illinois (Terre Haute is on the Indiana Illinois border, and Saint Louis is just across the Mississippi River from Illinois), a couple of hundred miles.
He said, “you’ll do that? Drive all the way over here to meet with me?” He was astonished. And so began, a five year consulting relationship. The interesting part here is that a 200 mile drive on an interstate in good weather wasn’t all that difficult for me. However, he saw it as going out of my way to help him. In other words, it didn’t take a lot of effort on my part to astonish him.
This was great for me, but in some ways, this is a sad story. It demonstrates how little it takes to astonish customers. Drive a couple of hundred miles for some potential business – a no brainer for me. I have taken an all night flight from Seattle to Detroit and then driven two hours to do a talk the next afternoon. That one really did astonish my customer – and was something that I even I think was worthy of astonishment.
The common sense point here – to succeed as a small business person, follow Margaret Getchell’s advice: be everywhere, do everything, and never forget to astonish the customer”. In my experience, entrepreneurs have no choice in the first two. However, you can build a great platform for your business by paying attention to the third – astonish your customers.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more leadership common sense. Check out my other blog www.CareerSuperStar.com for common sense advice on becoming the life and career star you are meant to be.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand – my fundraising page is still open. Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.
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