Blog

Do you go the extra mile for your clients? How about 3,727 miles? In other words, are you prepared to do whatever it takes to make your clients happy? How about simply helping them, just because you can? Certainly there are limits. You need to weigh the immediate benefits to your clients against both the long-term health of the relationship and the potential costs to your business. Sometimes this isn’t an easy calculation; and sometimes it is.

Due to a scheduling conflict, and the recent eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland that shut down air traffic across Europe, my oldest client was faced with being shorthanded at their booth at a major bi-annual trade show in Amsterdam. I’ve known this client for years and have worked trade shows for them in the past, so they asked if I could go with them and help.

Normally I would have jumped at the chance, but the week of the trade show was going to be a busy one for me and I couldn’t just drop everything, even for a trip in one of the most beautiful cities in the world (not that I expected to see much. I was going to be spending four, eight-hour days on the show floor).

While my client clearly understood, I realized this also left them in a very bad position. Having an understaffed booth could actually hurt their reputation. So, after some considerable juggling, I was able to clear my schedule at attend.

The show was a big success! We made new connections with people representing businesses from twenty-nine countries (see chart) and made a few, really big deals. We also made time to see some of the city (see pictures above), but the most important thing for me was I made my client happy, very happy; indeed.