What They Say When You Are Not In The Room...

The most valuable sentence ever spoken about your business was probably said when you were not there to hear it.

The Call At Midnight

Years ago, in the fitness equipment business, one of our flagship clients was a health club widely considered one of the best in the country. It was a large place, busy, and full of people whose opinions traveled like business owners, public figures and people who noticed everything. The owner was rarely involved in the day-to-day running of it; however his family members were active, whom I knew well.

One Sunday, at midnight, my phone rang and it was the owner. He told me he knew this was not something we handled, but he needed my help as a friend. A friend of his had a sauna at home that had stopped working, and he needed someone there the next morning.

We were distributors for fitness equipment and wellness related products; however, saunas and similar equipment were not items we distributed. I picked up anyway, because when a customer calls at midnight, I assume it really matters, and I would like to believe I would have done the same for any client. The next morning, I found someone through our contacts and sent them over. They did not fix it that day, but within a couple of days it was working.

Nobody paid for that, nobody signed anything, and it was not in any verbal agreement we had in any way, shape or form.

The Ordinary Weeks

Most of what happened with that club was not dramatic. It was the steady work of keeping a very busy facility running. When equipment failed, we tried to resolve it within twenty-four or forty-eight hours. More than once, I had spare parts shipped overnight from the factory, because a club like that cannot afford a machine standing dead on the floor in front of its members.

None of it was extraordinary on its own. Together, over years, it became something else.

"Why Do You Need To Come?"

Because that club was so well known, prospective buyers would often call me asking for the same equipment that club had, as it was considered premium. So, I called one family members and asked whether I could bring a few customers over for a tour.

Her answer has stayed with me ever since. "Why do you need to come? You don't need to come here, just send them over and I will take care of them."

So I did, more than once. And the customers would call me afterwards with some version of the same sentence: I know you are more premium and we may not be able to afford what we wanted, but after what she told us about you, about your company and about how you look after your customers, we want to buy from you.

Several large contracts were signed that way, in a room I was never in.

Later, when another premium club asked the owner to recommend a general manager, he gave them my name as “the guy who is perfect for you, but you will never get.”

The Face That Dropped

Years after I had left that company, I went back as a consultant and it so happened I had to go to that club to oversee some changes which were being made. The owner saw me, and his face lit up the way you greet someone you have not seen in a long time but the relationship always meant something.

"You're back," he said with a wonderful smile.

"No, unfortunately I'm not," I told him. "I'm just here to help a little briefly, and then I'll be leaving again soon."

His face dropped slightly, a real sadness was apparent. In forty years, I have never seen a customer react like that (although our relationship could have been labelled more as friendship by that point), and I will admit it felt wonderful just briefly, as it made me understand from just an expression how he felt.

Looking back now, it is more like evidence against me. I have written more than once that if the experience changes when “one of your best people leaves”, you do not have a standard, you have a hero. His face was telling me exactly that. A lot of the trust he had built was with me, not with the company, and when I left, not all of it stayed behind.

Advertising Versus Testimony

The mechanism is simpler than most marketing departments want it to be.

Advertising says we are great. Every business says it, so it carries almost no weight. A referral says I was there, I experienced them, trust me. That sentence carries someone else's credibility, and it is the only kind of trust you cannot buy, fake or schedule.

Notice what actually earned it. Not the sales pitch, not the original deal and certainly not the price, because we were the more expensive option.

It was everything after the sale:

“The midnight call that was not our job, the parts that arrived overnight, the years of problems solved before they could become stories.”

Most companies invest heavily in the moment before the signature and treat everything after it as a cost. They have it backwards. Think of the most expensive car you can imagine. Sooner or later it needs an oil change, and if the workshop makes you wait a month and hands it back dirty, the badge stops meaning very much. Anybody can make a sale. What happens over the next five, ten or fifteen years is what the customer actually bought. The pitch wins you one customer. What you do after the signature decides whether that customer starts selling for you.

I have argued often that “great customer care equals sales, while great sales will never equal customer care.”

This is the clearest proof I have. I did not sell those later contracts, my customer did.

Two Kinds Of Absence

There is a simple test for trust, and almost nobody measures it. It is not what a customer says to your face, in a survey or in a meeting where you are present. It is what they say about you when someone asks whether they know anyone good, and you are not there to influence the answer.

No CRM records that sentence, yet it may be the most valuable sales conversation your business ever has.

But that owner's face taught me there is a second test, and it is harder. The first absence is when you leave the room. The second is when you leave the company. A referral that only works while you are still there is not a business asset. It is a personal one, and it walks out of the door with you.

The Audit

Ask yourself four questions this week.

• If one of your best customers were asked about you tonight, what exact sentence would they say? Not roughly, the sentence they would speak out loud.
• Is there a single customer who would let a stranger walk through their business on your behalf?
• When did you last do something for a client that was not your job, not in the contract and never going to be invoiced?
• If you left tomorrow, what would your best customer's face do, and would anything you built stay behind?

If the first answer is vague, the second is no and the third is that you cannot remember, you do not have a reputation. You have a sales team. If the fourth answer worries you, you have a reputation, but it belongs to you rather than to your business.

The Question

So I will ask you directly. Who carries your name into rooms you will never enter, and would they still carry it if you were gone?

Advertising says we are great, however a referral says I was there.

Trust is the only currency that compounds without inflation.

Relationship. Not Transaction.

Georgios B.