Page 194 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

ordinary athletes. I called him back a couple of days later and said, “A
preapproved application for your sister is in the mail. She just has to fill
it out and send it in.”
Half a year later, we had some trouble on that account, and it was a con-
tentious problem that took months to fix. I’m convinced that we were
granted the time and the opportunity to fix the problem because the client
remembered this personal favor.
Now, I am not recommending that you send cards on clients’ birthdays
or embarrass them with elaborate gifts that they might have to return.
That kind of stuff is just obvious and craven.
Just do the things that will win you a reputation as a problem solver,
for problems of all kinds. That way, if something goes wrong, the client is
inclined to call you rather than your bosses.
Again, doing favors for your cus-
tomers and donors is not the same as
JUST DO THE
having strong social ties to them, which
THINGS THAT WILL
I do not recommend. I would go out of
WIN YOU A
my way not to have the families get
REPUTATION AS A
involved in a client relationship because
PROBLEM SOLVER,
your chances of having a problem spill
FOR PROBLEMS OF
over into your business go way up. I had
ALL KINDS.
a senior sales executive, for example,
whose son was dating a client’s daugh-
ter. The son broke the relationship off and was not nice to the girl at all,
and her parents were quite upset. How insane was that? I would lock my
children in a room if one of them tried to date the child of one of my
clients.
The final way to keep big clients happy is never to lie to them. If your
company has screwed something up, tell them you screwed it up.
If the client is happy, she isn’t necessarily going to express that happi-
ness to your boss. As a CEO, if I were having dinner with a client, and she
were to say, “Your guy Ed has been really terrific with us,” I would know

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