Putting Your Customers' Needs First

magazine which is again something that you cannot give them. Providing incentives to key employees to help promote your products and services can make good business sense!

• Tradeshow/Conference Activities – Every industry tends to have annual tradeshows and conferences. While most all major companies tend to participate in them in some form or fashion, I would suggest that some companies could use them more effectively as a tool to attract new business as well as to entertain and inform existing customers. Hospitality Suites can be much more than just a place to get a drink! I was fortunate enough to inherit a Westinghouse tradition in my job as Marketing Communications manager. Our suite became a regular meeting place for conference attendees and their wives after the daily sessions, to meet other couples going out to dinner or as a place to meet up after the dinner meal. We would usually feature a small band for background music, draft beer on tap and limited liquor. Each year we would handout complimentary glass beer mugs with a unique logo for that year. One year we even featured an induction heated electric air popcorn popper built using our semiconductors! It was a great place for our sales personnel to “meet and greet” customers. Lunch Seminars – people attending conferences and seminars have to eat; usually grabbing lunch on the run is not very appetizing and is rather expensive for what you get. This can be an excellent opportunity for your company to sponsor a luncheon affiliated with the conference or tradeshow (on-site if possible). You simply promote and event and have customers and prospects register to attend for free; they get a FREE lunch and you get 30 minutes of their undivided attention to promote your applications, products and services to them. A good deal for both parties! • Walt Disney World Experience – One of our annual industry conferences happened to be held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fl. General Electric was one of our major competitors to Westinghouse Electric in the semiconductor business, but an industry conference is a great place to interact with your competition on a legitimate basis. Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress attraction sponsored by the General Electric Company opened at Walt Disney World in 1975. As part of our industry conference, we had the unusual opportunity at that time to see the “inner workings” of Walt Disney World…a grand tour of what really goes on behind the scenes of the public part! We got to see rooms full of costumes and tunnels and people scurrying about; we were treated to a seminar on how they approach serving their customers. Every person is a performer…when they are in the public eye…they are on stage! Whether they are a food worker, a hotel desk clerk or Mickey Mouse, they are on stage performing for the public. Why do you think grounds are spotless, why there is never a “burned-out light bulb” to be found, why everything is precisely how you would imagine a “Magic Kingdom” to be? They work around the clock when the park is closed to make sure all of the surroundings are kept in immaculate condition. Ever go somewhere and the restaurant or business ONLY opens promptly at 11AM or whatever time…so you are ten minutes early and you must sit out in your car waiting;