
He’s Only in Field Service - terpua
http://steveblank.com/2009/07/30/hes-only-in-field-service/
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mixmax
Here's a similar story.

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.

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donw
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.

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run4yourlives
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.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
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.

~~~
run4yourlives
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.

~~~
bkovitz
And, basic respect and consideration are very inexpensive. Often it's simply a
matter of returning emails and phone calls.

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johnohara
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.

Anyway, thanks Steve.

~~~
jamiequint
I think that is on all wordpress.com blogs.

~~~
blasdel
Why would the wordpress guys use a randomly-placed visible smiley-face gif for
statistics tracking?

Even an invisible one would be pointless, since they're running the webserver
that's hosting the page.

~~~
nopassrecover
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.

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edw519
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.

