It was exciting for me that the conversations went on well over an hour after the sessions were officially over. The Standard Bank folks are some very nice people, and from the conversations, it’s obvious that their customers really value these sessions.

Richard of Missing Link offered me the chance to visit the ML offices and I took it. What a collection of talent, spirit and energy! Richard has a good thing going. You guys have to rummage through my photos of the space. I spent some time with the animator guys in the back. Very talented and super nice guys and gals. It’s funny - the space is so full of animation and contrast but everyone works in the space with such focus. I’m impressed. They do their thing - presentations and presentation strategy - and they do it very well.

Now for some thoughts. I was sharing stories with Richard before the Cape Town Espresso Session started and he was telling me about how awesome it made him feel to come home for dinner and his four-year old son meets him with a hug and says ‘I’m glad my dad is home.’ I told Rich ‘yeah I remember those days but my daughter is now 12 and affection and words for me have been gone for years.’ He looked at me straight in the eyes and said ‘Geno, it didn’t happen overnight.’ Bam! Rich didn’t mean to zing me but it did. As I was going over my presentation for the next Espresso stop in JoBurg, it hit me.

I spend way too much time speaking in abstract talk about what WOMM is and what WOMM is not. Several years ago I allowed affection to subtly disappear from my relationship with my daughter. In business we do the same, as relationships mature we don’t feel the need to continue to feel that personal connection. Maybe we pass them off to another lower level person or maybe it’s just the case of being too busy.

The majority of the time, the reason I recommend or go into my deep evangelistic behaviors is because I feel some love, or at least something. It could be just a smile, or if I’m really lucky they have shared something that turned into an experience that to me was worth sharing. A case in point: I was stunned when a South American businessman told me he had a problem selling South Africa as a travel destination. WTF! I would give up a free week at DisneyWorld to come back to this place. My friends that know me know that making that statement is a big deal. I have never felt such awe in my life. For the people, and the land.

As fate would have it, I checked my email one last time before I checked out South African time and I had an email from my daughter. She hoped I was having a good time and wanted to see pictures of Cape Town. But it was the last line that got me. It read, ‘To the coolest person ever, Dad.’ Do I deserve that? NO. Does it ROCK my world? HELL YES!

There is hope out there. I feel like a Fedex commercial but do yourself a favor, pickup the phone (don’t email), and call that one customer that popped into your mind. Tell them you just wanted to say hello and thanks. For one simple thing: being a customer.

Some of our customers are begging for us to reconnect, as well as our family. Better yet, share with them your side of the story of that first connection.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 3:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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