One Great Assistant
So my girlfriend came home last night and told me a story about how she had managed to impress the personal finance manager of one of the richest men in the world. She works as an assistant to a banker for a bank that handles high net worth individuals. She said that the finance manager had called numerous people at the company but was unable to reach anyone for various reasons until he listened to the message on my girlfriend's bosses message machine which instructed him to call my girlfriend.
Now she is only an assistant at this bank and did not know at first that this guy was the personal finance manager for such a major major client. Regardless, though, she simply treated him with respect and listened to his problem, assuring him that she would find the necessary people to take care of him. She wrote down notes about everything he said and passed them along to the banker that eventually handled the request. Since the banker had all the notes my girlfriend had taken down he did not need to ask the finance manager any more questions, he simply took care of the situation.
This happened over a month ago and the other day, when the personal finance manager had a meeting with some bankers at the bank he made it a point to bring up that experience and comment on how impressed he was with my girlfriend's performance.
There are two lessons to this story as far as I see it.
1) It does not take much to impress the hell out of people in business, or really in life. If you treat people with respect, listen to their problems, and handle the situation to the best of your abilities then you are going to impress the vast majority of people you deal with.
2) It really pays to hire great people, regardless of their position. I'm always surprised by how poorly assistants, receptionists, etc are looked at and treated sometimes. These people are frequently the first line of attack when it comes to customers calling in. They set the tone and are capable of completely calming an otherwise irrate customer down if they handle the situation properly. Such people deserve far more respect then they are awarded. If they are good then the value they add to the business can be enormous. If they are bad then the damage can be even more significant.
Now she is only an assistant at this bank and did not know at first that this guy was the personal finance manager for such a major major client. Regardless, though, she simply treated him with respect and listened to his problem, assuring him that she would find the necessary people to take care of him. She wrote down notes about everything he said and passed them along to the banker that eventually handled the request. Since the banker had all the notes my girlfriend had taken down he did not need to ask the finance manager any more questions, he simply took care of the situation.
This happened over a month ago and the other day, when the personal finance manager had a meeting with some bankers at the bank he made it a point to bring up that experience and comment on how impressed he was with my girlfriend's performance.
There are two lessons to this story as far as I see it.
1) It does not take much to impress the hell out of people in business, or really in life. If you treat people with respect, listen to their problems, and handle the situation to the best of your abilities then you are going to impress the vast majority of people you deal with.
2) It really pays to hire great people, regardless of their position. I'm always surprised by how poorly assistants, receptionists, etc are looked at and treated sometimes. These people are frequently the first line of attack when it comes to customers calling in. They set the tone and are capable of completely calming an otherwise irrate customer down if they handle the situation properly. Such people deserve far more respect then they are awarded. If they are good then the value they add to the business can be enormous. If they are bad then the damage can be even more significant.
posted by The Entreprexplorer | 3:22 PM
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