DrPaddiLund TrainingCustomersToTreasureYourBusiness Ebook

Training
Customers
To Treasure Your Business
Customers who are anxious to

buy from you ... and pay what you ask.
Learn how Dr Paddi Lund uses
principles of education in his marketing
to help highly customers value
his services ... even before they
visit his business for the first time.
www.SolutionsPress.com.au
Digital Edition v1.0
.0 © 2011 Solutions Press Business Publishing
Pu
Training Customers to Treasure Your Business
Happiness & Profit: The Paddi Series...

... of business books and training publications
Building the Happiness-Centred Business
The Absolutely Critical Non-Essentials
The Secret of Customers Who Love to Pay
Simply Stunning Customer Service
Mobilising Your Customer Sales Force
Plus other practical kits and tape programs...

The Welcome Book Construction Kit
The Courtesy System Tool-Kit
The Original Paddi Story – Audio Recordings
The Complete Paddi Story – Video Recordings
Getting to ‘Yes’ … in One Visit! – Audio Recording
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www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - ii

Contents
Preamble v
From the Publisher, Fletcher Potanin
Greetings from Your Tutor, Dr Paddi Lund 1

Discovering Business Education 5
Prevention Classes, Education of Children, WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?,
Punctuation, Hypocrisy, Prevention Classes Revisited, Business Education
What Makes A Wonderful Customer? 13

Specific Ideal Customers, Good Company, Polite, Raving Fans, Constructive
Complainers, The Moneyed Few, Long-Term Customers, Referrals, Undesirable
Characteristics, Costly Customers, ‘A’ Customers, Hourly Rate
Know Your Business 21

Business Happiness, My Deathbed, What Do You Want from Your Business?,
Customers, My First Honeymoon, Training Customers
Moulding Customers 27
Admitted to Strode’s, Hard Interface, Incarceration, Armidale Adventure, The Boys
& the Boys-in-Blue
A Customer Curriculum 35
A Good Cause, The Christmas Street, Everything Is Learned, The Usual Business
Curriculum, Politeness and Courteous Behaviour, Customers Learning to
Apologise, Customers CAN Make Mistakes, The Advantages of Being on Time,
Discovering How to Complain, Constant Complaints, How to Make Requests
The Power of a Good Business Position 46

Two Teachers, ‘By Invitation Only’, Positioned Well, What’s in a Name?, Top of the
Tree, Prosthetists, Consulting Accountants, Winning Through Intimidation
Firing Bad Customers 52

Millions of Customers, Private Patients, The Quality of Customers, The Pareto
Principle, Doing the ABCD’s, Practical Pareto, Different Customers: Different
Treatment, Judgement and Morality, Referring the D’s, Errol the Felmonger
Advertising and Marketing 63

Filtering Customers, Dolphins, Up-Front Filtering, A Personal Lounge, Epididymis,
This Is Not the Only Way, Word-of-Mouth, Customer Information Book Revisited
The Welcome Book 68

Wonderful Referrals, Filtered Customers, Building Relationships, Allayed Anxieties,
Explanations Excused, Wisdom Teeth, Product Value Increased, Buyers Helped, All
that Glitters, Customers Armed, Courtesy Reinforced, Lifetime Value
A Final Word from Paddi 79

Addendum – On Marketing 80
Paddi’s Action Plan for ‘A’ Customers
Epilogue 87
From the Editor, Fletcher Potanin
www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - iv

Preamble
Over the many years I’ve been working with Paddi, one of the most popular aspects of
Paddi’s story has been his ‘Welcome Book’.
How is it that a simple book can do what seems so idealistic in business ... excite customers
so much that they,
Love being a part of your business,
Really want what you have to offer, and
Are happy to pay what you ask in return!
You must admit, Paddi has an incredible relationship with his customers and he seems to
have created such an enviable position for himself.
Imagine if you could educate your customers to be just as you want them to be?
Imagine if you could choose your customers ... and select only the wonderful ones?
How would that be? Well, Paddi has learned how to do that. So what has that to do with the
education of customers?
It is Paddi’s conjecture that the education of your customers is a vital (but often neglected)
way to improve your business and make your enterprise happier and more profitable.
So this little text is a collection of stories, lessons and principles that Paddi has learned along
the way to building his current, extra-ordinary business position. This book is about how
training and educating your customers is not only possible, but it’s also perhaps the easiest,
most leveraged, most effective form of marketing you can undertake.
A Rather Creative Approach

You’ll see from the start that Paddi has taken a rather creative approach in writing this story.
Paddi will explain how and why in a little while, but in case you’re flipping through, you will
find three characters in this text. The characters are Professor Paddi, Tutor-Paddi and Lund-
Minor.
Consider if you could learn about customer education in one of our more prestigious
educational institutions. The subject might well be titled, ‘Customer Training 301’. (A
fitting metaphor for the subject, don’t you think?) Paddi thought so. He has constructed this
text around that very theme.
www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - v

The subject is headed by Professor Paddi and the student is Lund-Minor (the young Paddi).
Lund-Minor is the Paddi of his late teenage years. He lives in the moment. He is brash and
headstrong and obsessed with (but confused by) the members of the gentler sex!
Lund-Minor writes like this.

For Lund-Minor the world is black and
white, and divided between good and
bad, right and wrong.
Oh the folly of youth!
Professor Paddi is stooped, old and wrinkly. His beard is grey, and his hair but a memory. He is
the one who, in his younger days, developed the subject, ‘Customer Training 301’, that Lund-
Minor is about to undertake.
The Prof. writes like this: precise

and heavy-handed. He has forgotten
about the light and shade of life
and is becoming a bit boring.
He cannot forgive the weaknesses of
others yet he is blind to his own.
Though he wouldn’t believe you if
you told him, the Prof. is becoming
a little senile.
A Few Unusual Ideas

Now that I’ve introduced you to the characters that you will find within these pages, I thought I
might whet your appetite for the more unusual ideas that the subject has to offer. In a little
while you will...
• Learn how to fire Customers.
• Find out how to gain a great advantage by having fewer customers.
• Discover how $50 per person spent on people you may never see as customers is actually
money well spent.
You may be thinking that if you follow these ideas you won’t have any business left at all. While
these ideas may not sound very sensible now, stick with Paddi, and I think he will show you
otherwise.
Remember that this book is about training. More specifically, it is about the education of
customers.
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An unusual subject for a business book, I agree. But not so when you consider how integral a
part of your marketing it will become.
I hope you enjoy Paddi’s newest work.
Kind regards from,
Fletcher Potanin
For all at Solutions Press
www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - vii

A Message to All Students

Greetin gs fr om Your Tutor Dr Paddi Lund
Have you ever felt that there is more than one person inside your head?
I have. Am I crazy? Perhaps … but maybe it’s not so uncommon to have a head so
well-populated.
At various times in your life you’ve probably had different personalities. Are you the
same today as you were five, ten or fifteen years ago? You probably had different
goals, concerns, attitudes and morality. And that adds up to a different character.
So what happens to these characters of our past? Where do they go? Well, I think that
some of them stick around. I certainly have a few of them in me. My characters co-
exist and usually come out when they are best suited to the situation at hand.
For me there is the Playful Paddi who loves to joke. There is the Cold Scientific
Paddi and there is the Romantic Paddi. They all have their time and place of
influence.
I often find the ‘Main Me’ Paddi conversing silently with my alter egos.
You really shouldn’t do that, says the Cautious Old Voice.
But it would be so much fun, says the Young Voice.
Do it, but be careful, decides the ‘Main-Me’.
Amongst all my sub-personalities, three are most prominent: the young Lund-Minor,
the middle-aged Tutor-Paddi and the old Prof. I can imagine a scenario where these
personalities are a part of an educational process.
Lund-Minor
While growing up in England I spent a year at a very traditional boys’ grammar
school, Strode’s.
This school was built many hundreds of years ago by the Coopers (barrel makers) of
London. We learned the classics, had inkwells, prefects with great power, six-of-the-
best with a long bamboo cane, a matron and a school dog.
It was all slightly mediaeval and, though it was not a private school, like Eton or
Rugby, the atmosphere was similar olde worlde.
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When there were siblings at the school, they were named by the Latin diminutive:
minor (lesser) for the second and minibus (least), for the third. I do not know what
happened when there were more than three brothers. Perhaps the descriptive would
have been microbus (as in the Volkswagen van of the 70’s). I was always called Lund-
Minor because I had an older brother.
Tutor-Paddi
Tutor-Paddi is my main personality. This Paddi is now old enough to believe he has
the experience to show others the way, but he remembers the follies of his youth and
realises he is still far from infallible. He sees a great advantage in being middle-aged:
to be able to slough off the anxieties and insecurities of youth and, as a result, see so
many different possibilities open up. However, he finds these advantages are mainly
cerebral rather than physical.
It is still hard for him to look into the eyes of a beautiful young woman and realise
that she sees him as a father figure (or even – perish the thought – a grandfather!)
However life is sweet and the increased knowledge he has is more than compensation
for the loss of hair and greying of the beard.
Tutor-Paddi is learning tolerance and respect for the beliefs of others. He is a lot
calmer and relaxed now after his frenetic early life.
Professor Paddi: the Prof.

The Prof. created the Customer Education Subject (CT 301) long ago and now he is
the Head of Department. Unfortunately, he has lost the breadth of vision that he
once had and he is reverting to the old ways of thinking about business. He is
intransigent and opinionated. The Prof. knows much but he has lost a lot of his
humanity and tolerance for imperfection.
The Prof. is the type of person I will become if I am not careful!

. . . . .
So these are the three characters you will meet on the lawns of the Campus and hear
in the unusual classes of Customer Training 301. They will guide you, I hope, to an
understanding of the power that you can gain from a concerted effort to educate your
own customers so they become what you want.
I wish I had learned about this subject far earlier in my career, because, since I have
had the knowledge, my life has been far more pleasant.
Best regards,
Paddi

Customer Training 301

The Subject Contents
Welcome to Customer Training 301
As its name suggests CT 301 is about Customer

Education – a much-neglected field. The subject was
built by my good self on the premise that to have good
customers you need first to choose them carefully and
then educate them to value your business above all
others: in other words, ‘To Treasure Your Business’.
In this subject among other things you will learn:
How to find out what you really want from

your business life.
How to avoid advertising and yet attract more

good new customers than you need.
How to get what you want from your customers.
What you need to teach your customers.
How to filter out the undesirables from your

customer list.
During the course you will need to find a business to

study. This will preferably be one that will allow you
to observe the effects of training on its customers.
Follow your Tutor-Paddi with caution. He has a

tendency towards unproven and ‘wild’ ideas that, if
adopted by students, may lead to greatly reduced marks
in the subject. Be careful lest he influences you with
his bizarre notions.
Professor Paddi
Head of Department

Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 27 July
Dear Diary, And they seem so happy

when I see them leave his
I really hope I have done the place. He is a dentist, no
right thing taking this less! You’d think they’d
subject, and I hope the come out screaming!
Prof. and Paddi are not going
to have too many I’m sure the Prof. won’t
disagreements. approve of Paddi’s practice
as my choice of business
I know it’s silly but I think I to study. He doesn’t seem
will choose Paddi’s business to like Paddi very much.
to study. It has great
customers so he must be It could make it very
doing something right. difficult for me in an already
strange situation.
Paddi works only 18 hours a
week and yet he makes all Still, might as well give it a
that money. His customers go, nothing ventured….
must pay him a lot.

Customer Tr ai ning 30 1:
Discovering Business
Education
“Discovering Business
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 3 August Education”
Dear Diary, Assignment:
I still can’t quite get why you Is it sensible to try to
would educate customers. No one educate customers, and if
likes to study. Why would you so, does it matter how you
want to put off the very people go about it? Is educational
who are giving you their money by talent innate or must it be
trying to teach them things? learned?
Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
Ever since I started in dentistry, educating patients has had an important place. In my
profession educating one’s clients about their disease and its treatment is the norm
rather than the exception.
However, I cannot remember having been taught how to educate.

ducate. This is not
necessarily an indictment of my university. It was very progressive in most areas.
Maybe I missed the lectures on educating patients. After all, I was studying at a time
when the lure of motor cycles, and the opposite sex, meant that I attended less than
half the lectures, and even then I was not always awake enough to give my full
attention.
Still, I do notice that when I’ve visited my peers, they also seem to understand little of
the rudiments of educating customers. So perhaps if there
there were lectures, they were
given little weight. Certainly there can be no question regarding the fact that the
whole area of how to educate customers is greatly neglected in most courses of higher
education.
When I opened my own practice, I was looking to instruct my customers in an

effective way. However I found myself floundering in the dark. I knew nothing of the
practicalities and methods of education.
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Prevention Classes
My first concerted attempt at Customer Training was in the matter of Prevention
Classes. I wanted my customers to have clean mouths and to regulate their sugar
intake so they didn’t continually have dental disease. It became a bit like a
religion with me. I used to think that a clean, sugar-free mouth was as close as
one came to having a ticket into heaven. I banned sugar in my house.
(Later when one of my daughters, Kate, adjudged I had softened my stance,
she told me how ineffective this was. My wife and children had resorted to
hiding the sugar at the back of cupboard. They even had a code word for it, salt!)
I had enormous enthusiasm for my Prevention Classes, but I was not very
good at the practicalities of education. In retrospect I had almost as little success
in my education at work as I did with my sugar edict at home.
The method I employed most was guilt and fear. I would not treat people
unless they had three lessons on diet and tooth cleaning. I made people sit
through videos and a few hours of indoctrination before I would even look in
their mouths. (I told you I was extreme.)
I educated by edict and bullying. There was little pleasant persuasion in the
process: ‘take it or leave it’ was my attitude. If people didn’t fit in, they did not
deserve to have my wonderful dental treatment.
Consequently I turned many people off. A few stoical ones did manage to
make it to the end of the course. In the short-term they had cleaner mouths, but
they slackened off very quickly.
My education methods were not very effective and had little in the way of positive
long-term effects. Eventually when I realised my ideas were not working, I began to
reassess my view of education in business and tried to find out more about the
subject.
Pedagogic Mother
My mother is a great educator. She has been involved in teaching most of her life. I
decided to ask her about the trouble I was having with my educational program.
My mother took me to visit a school that she had helped found, the Brisbane
Independent School. It was a school based on Montessori principles.
Unlike the restrictive schools at which I had been educated, at my Mother’s school
the children were far more free. They were given a clipboard of tasks for the day, and
they were free to roam around and ask the smarter/older children for help to
complete their assignments. There was seemingly little compulsion, but the children
were bright, knowledgeable and happy.

I decided that I wanted this kind of pleasant, relaxed teaching and success in
education for my business. So I asked my mother what principles she was using in her
education.
The main point my mother had to make was that you don’t so much educate as
facilitate learning. And the fact that pupils want to learn is at least as important as the
way they are taught.
For those of us who are not professional educators, there is often the temptation to
view the process of imparting knowledge as totally dependent on the teacher. In fact
the ground has to be ploughed very carefully before it will accept the seeds and allow
them to take root.
So I was thinking a lot about education and working out how to do better in my
efforts at work. That, and the fact that I had two young daughters, got me thinking
about how and why we educate children.
Education of Children
As I see it, the main reason we go to the trouble of educating children is so that they
can live happily in the world as it is. Left to themselves, I suspect most children would
not fit into a civilised society.
They have to learn to be polite, modest, hard working and ambitious, and to put off
today’s pleasures for tomorrow. All this goes against the grain of a child’s natural
inclinations. But these attributes are vital for anyone who has to live in an organised
society where one has to sublimate the ‘self’ for the chance to prosper as part of a
‘whole’.
To some this may sound a bit negative. If you’re like our young understudy, Lund-
Minor, you might ask, “Shouldn’t we be free spirits, able to do as we want without
guilt? Shouldn’t we allow children to continue to be childlike for as much of their
lives as they are able?”
… Well, no. I think not.
Though it sounds warm and fuzzy, it doesn’t seem to work in practice. The result of
that upbringing can often be sociopathic behaviour. It produces an adult who does
not consider the needs and wants of others to be very important.
Children need discipline, hard work and goals, and to see themselves as somewhat
responsible for their neighbours. That is the way society seems to work.

. . . . .
The best answer is, in a word, balance.
• Recognise that indolence is very boring and debilitating – just as is working too
hard.
• Enjoy the ability to play. Enjoy living in the moment. Allow yourself to be
completely taken up with now, but have the capacity to think long-term.
• Act selfishly, but also try to make your self-interest coincide with that of the rest
of the community.
The great motivator in all of this is selfishness. We all have it in us. You, me, our
children and our customers, too. When I say this in public, some people throw their
hands up in horror to think we are all acting selfishly. However I find it quite a
sensible conclusion. It’s just the way it is. Pursuing our self-interests is an important
part of human nature.
Why not use this tremendous force in a more overt way. Rather than having double
standards, let’s accept it and use it for our benefit. It’s easy for us to acknowledge that
our customers are selfish (constantly on the lookout for good service and bargains)
and yet isn’t it strange how we find it hard to think of our loved-ones and ourselves as
anything but ‘self-less’?
WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?

Paul Dunn of Results Accountant Systems describes the idea in the best way I have
heard:
It is as if people are walking round with invisible antennae on their heads. They
are tuned to a radio station, WIIFM. And that station constantly broadcasts
information about a person’s environment in terms of, ‘What’s in it for me?’
This picture of people with a piece of wire sticking out of their heads may not be an
attractive image of humanity, but it is a remarkably useful analogy and will lead to
predictable results as you set about training your customers.
If we are to make any sense out of customer education, it is important to realise the
WFIIM principle, and that it applies as equally to ourselves as to others.
Teaching is the process of helping people to learn. You can’t teach if the pupil does
not want to learn. The pupils have to see what is in it for them.
The best form of motivation is to show an advantage and….

The best teachers create a tension

that can only be resolved by
learning.
. . . . .
So I learned ways of putting my lessons in terms of the benefits to my customers. Not
only did I learn motivation but I also learned better methods of teaching. Particularly
I learned to be kinder and more tolerant of my pupils’ failings.
There were many methods I used in my Prevention Classes that were not very
effective. I had learned them from my school days.
Punctuation
By the time my foster boy, Ronald, had come to live with us a few years ago, I
still had a lot to learn about education.
One night Ronald had some English homework on punctuation. After
helping him for a while I became annoyed and said “Just do it – it’s easy.
Anyone could do that simple exercise!” Well, as you might imagine that didn’t
work very well. Ronald was upset, and he stormed off.
After I had cooled down a bit, I re-thought my strategy. Ridicule and
annoyance hadn’t worked. So I considered what might motivate Ronald.
Perhaps if I showed him a benefit, as I did when I was helping a customer to buy
something in my business? So I took time and explained the advantages of
punctuation as I saw them.
“We write so that the reader can understand our ideas. Punctuation makes
it easier for them. It makes meaning more obvious, and it gives the light and
shade that makes your audience want to keep on reading.
If you are going to write, you may as well do it so that people can understand
what you want to say and are interested enough to follow you to the end. Isn’t
that sensible?”
Needless to say this method of teaching, reasoned explanation illustrating
the benefits, worked much better.
I tried to use anger, guilt and belittling. None of them were very effective with
Ronald, and in fact they are of little long-term benefit in teaching anyone. And yet
these were the only teaching methods that I knew well. I think many people in
business are in the same boat now as I was then.
Hypocrisy
Your customers are always learning from their observation of you. It may not be what
you want them to learn.

Bad Teeth
When I was young I ate lots of sweet things. I didn’t choose my parents wisely.
They were genetically poor in the matter of teeth, and they passed that on to me!
Consequently (in spite of my mother’s major investment at our local dentist) by
the time I, myself, became a dentist, my teeth were chock full of large, dark
fillings.
For the next 20 years or so my teeth received haphazard dental care. (The
cobbler has the worst shoes.) I was not particularly diligent in cleaning my teeth,
though I was showing others how to do this very thing. So in spite of the fact
that I eschewed all sugar, by the time I was middle-aged, my teeth were a mess.
And this had a nasty side-effect: whenever I had to convince customers with
similar problems to mine to have their mouths reconstructed, I always felt a bit
embarrassed and guilty about my own mouth. Consequently, I was not as
successful as I wanted to be with my persuasion.
A few years later I had all my teeth capped. They looked better and they felt
more secure and clean. Now I use my own teeth as an example of what can be
done. I will open my mouth wide to a patient at the drop of a hat.
I ‘walk the walk’, and I am far more successful at helping my customers to
buy. I even feel more righteous.
Do you have any guilty little secrets that could be making it difficult for you to teach
the benefits of your products or services?
. . . . .
Prevention Classes Revisited

So we improved our Prevention Classes and became more successful. We tailored them
to the person involved rather than take a rigid, one size fits all approach. We chose
our customers a little more wisely, and we used a couple of the techniques of
education I had learned:
• No bullying
• Walk the walk: no hypocrisy
• Show benefits rather than just instruct
I found that people remained motivated and educated far longer than when I had to
keep reminding and chiding them about the state of their mouths. Rather than the
gradual deterioration we had noticed previously, customers actually seemed to get a
little better over time.
All in all, a very satisfactory improvement

‘How you teach’ is important if you

want your customers to learn ‘what
you teach’.
Business Education
What has this to do with business generally, you may ask?
Well, over the next few years, after I made my initial forays into education with the
Prevention Classes, I thought about education in business quite a lot. I didn’t solve all
my problems, but I did manage to find the answers to a few important questions that
I believe are very relevant to education in more main-steam types of businesses.
The Questions? Here they are:

• Is it a good idea to filter out undesirable customers before they do business with
you? Or is it better to do some business with them, and then decide if they are
worthwhile?
• Educational institutions have ‘Entrance Exams’ so that only certain
students/customers can get in. Would that work in business?
• Can customers be shown that, if they want a business that they like patronising
to prosper (and be there for them the next time), they need to do their bit to
help?
• If you can make children into useful adults with education, how about making
useful customers out of ones that are not so good? Are they immutable or can
we change them, too?
• And if you can change customers for the better, how do you go about it?
… So many questions.
And eventually I did work out the answers, but I had an awful lot more to learn
before that happened.

Discovering Business Education Lund-

Lund-Minor’s Note Book
Review Points:
• Just wanting to educate It strikes me that education in

customers is not enough. business may be a little more
You have to know how to difficult than I had thought.
educate or you won’t
achieve the result you want. I must admit, I find the
prospect interesting, but I’m
• The methods of education not quite sure how it all
used in your schooling were works yet.
often not very effective. If
you use those same My education hasn’t been fun
methods in business at the best of times, so how
education, you may not be do you make it interesting in
very successful. business? Why would
customers want to learn?
• You educate customers all
the time, whether you like As Paddi says, there are an
it or not, so you may as awful lot of questions….
well do it effectively.

Customer Tr aining 30 1:
What Makes A Wonderful
Customer?
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 10 August “Desirable customers’
Dear Diary, characteristics”
I really am finding it difficult to
think of customers as anything but Assignment:
precious. Everybody tells me that
theyy are the lifeblood of business–
business What are the characteristics
how can they be other than that you would
uld consider when
desirable? So what does it matter measuring a customer’s
what their character is? After all, desirability?
they pay the bills. And that’s what
everyone seems to think is important! Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
“But do they pay the bills?” That is the question. And the answer is, “Not all of the
time, they don’t.” And even when they do pay you, it’s not always as willingly as you
might like.
Even if customers do pay their bills, what if they make you and your people unhappy
to serve them. Does the money they pay override the happiness issue? No, there is a
bit more to this whole question, I think.
There is such a thing as an ideal customer.. This ideal person is a little different for each
business, but the concept remains the same. I think with customer training it is
possible to change people to a certain extent so that they become closer to that ideal.
But first you have to know what sort of customers you want to create. What does your
ideal customer look like?
If you want good customers, you have

to be able to recognise them.
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. . . . .
When I first opened my business, I welcomed new customers with open arms. I was
very happy to take any warm body that walked through my front door.
Each one of them was wonderful merely because they were an example of that most
admirable entity: living, breathing people who wanted to pay me their hard-earned
cash!
As time passed and my business grew, I started to find that customers are different
from one another. Some, I saw, were not so good for my business, and some were
obviously more pleasant and desirable than all of the others put together.
That they are desirable was obvious. Not so obvious was exactly what it was that made
them so much better for me than the rest?
Specific Ideal Customers

I think it is important that you work out just what makes up an ideal client for you
and your business. Then you can go about finding the sort of people who come
closest to this mystical ‘perfect’ customer. You can then learn to nurture the
attributes you discover in your more run-of-the-mill type customers.
Try to imagine an ideal customer. This is the person that you would most like to see
coming through your front door. It doesn’t have to be a real person. It can be a
mixture of people or a whole new person that you have created. This person is the
epitome of all that you could possibly wish for in a customer.
My friend, Mikes Basch, of FedEx fame encapsulates the concept of an ideal customer
by describing one who: Stays, Says and Pays.
• An ideal customer won’t ever leave your business. (STAYS)
• An ideal customer tells friends to patronise your business. (SAYS)
• An ideal customer pays the bill. (PAYS)
Stays, Says, Pays: there is a lot of good sense in that, and it is catchy too!
I found when I wrote down the things that were important to me in a customer, I
ended up with a very long list. For the sake of brevity I’ll limit myself in the next few
sections to the most important of the attributes I found on my list.

Good Company
I spend a lot of time with my customers. Part of that time is great. Some of it’s the
pits! It depends on the person. Some people I find too boring, some too mercurial
and some too emotional. There are some that seem to fit in and some that don’t.
Whom I find good company at a particular time does depend somewhat on my

mood, but there is only a certain range of people that I enjoy being with no matter
how I feel. As I grow older and learn to discover the good in people, I find that the
range is broadening. (This concept of learning to love customers is an important
principle of Stunning Service.)
To be truthful I like to visit with people who are not too different from me; a lot like
those I would choose to be my friends. They are different from me, but not so
different, and we have a fairly similar view of life. (I once heard that a good
conversation is one in which you take your prejudices out to air… and you find they
are admired.)
Polite
I like customers who are polite. I find I take offence if people are short with me or
don’t give me the normal courtesies. I know the other members of my business-family
are the same.
If people don’t use common niceties, I feel they don’t respect me. It is not whether a
customer feels they are being polite that is important. It is whether I feel they are
polite that is significant.
Now you may think me weak, but truth to say not many people in business (or
anywhere for that matter) react well to discourtesy. No matter how thick-skinned you
are (and whatever your personal definition of politeness) there is a level of courtesy
with which you feel comfortable – and uncomfortable with less. There is a definite
standard of politeness that we all like to receive, and if people sink below it, we are
offended.
It’s mostly the little discourtesies that make the day unhappy. I prefer to have happy
days, so I like customers who can supply me with polite social intercourse.
Raving Fans
Sometimes you have customers who patronise your business for your great skills or
wonderful product but who don’t really like you or your team. These people are not
as pleasant to serve as those who like you.

If I have the choice (and I do) I prefer to have customers who like me as a person
rather than those who aren’t very fond of me.
But I want people whose affections are not won too easily, who are a little bit of a
challenge. I certainly don’t want sycophants who hang on my every word. I want
customers who make a choice on a logical and informed basis and don’t blindly
believe everything I say.
“Gee, Doctor, you are wonderful,” is the name of a game that patients play with their
health-care practitioner. The sort of people who say this (or look as if they want to say
this) give their trust too easily. They are dangerous. If you do one small thing that
makes them question their trust in your abilities, they can quickly change their
affections and turn on you.
Beware of customers who like you too little, but be more wary of those whose
affection seems excessive.
Constructive Complainers
Customers who do their complaining badly are a problem. This is not to say I want
customers who are so spineless they would never complain, or so acquiescent they
would never express a contrary opinion. This would be very boring and my business
would not evolve.
Nor do I like the silent type of customers who tell no one if they have a problem and
never complain about anything. They can be very difficult, too. I like customers who
tell me when something has gone wrong for them. It gives us a chance to set it right.
However, someone who complains about everything is also a problem.
The customer who complains constructively is the best customer. The complaint is,
on the one hand, an opportunity to help you improve your service and, on the other,
an opportunity to try to solve the customer’s problem. With this person, you always
know that if there is a complaint, there really is a problem. And it’s so refreshing
when the approach is made in a mature, pleasant way.
It is said that only 10% of people complain when they have a problem, and only a
small percentage of those do it constructively. These are the type I really want.
With only this sort of customer, by my listening carefully to what is being said and
then acting to solve the problems, my business grows quickly. Complaints are a
wonderful opportunity to improve.

The Moneyed Few

You have to have some disposable income to be an ideal customer of mine. It is easier
for a client to feel happy about paying when they have money to spare. If they have
none, then everything seems exorbitant.
I want customers to pay with a smile on their faces and with willing hearts.
Otherwise the money seems tainted in some way.
My ideal customer is not necessarily rich but has decided to spend disposable income
on dentistry as a means of gaining extra happiness.
I don’t want customers who feel that the whole world is ripping them off. I do want
those who understand the concept of a fair price and who enjoy paying for things that
they desire and value.
I certainly don’t advocate searching out rich people to be customers. The really wealthy
are often very pleasant, but those who are trying to give the appearance of riches –
who are living at or beyond their means – make terrible clients. They are the worst
payers and the hardest to satisfy.
First appearances can be deceptive. High disposable income and the appearance of
wealth are not necessarily synonymous with being wealthy.
Ronald and the Rich

Ronald, one of my foster boys, had a somewhat deprived childhood and at
twelve he was still a little obsessed with the idea of riches and possessions.
He was driving with me in my Honda Civic one day when he espied a large
and luxurious automobile. Gazing enviously at the car and its young occupants,
he remarked, “They must be rich.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked.
“Because they’re driving in a new Mercedes,” Ronald replied.
I tried to make a lesson of it. “They may own it, true, but they may have it
on lease or hire purchase and be close to bankruptcy. They may have rented it
for the day with their last dollar. Their credit card may be way overdrawn.”
I don’t think Ronald really believed me. Appearances are very powerful. I hope
eventually he will come to the realisation that many seemingly wealthy people are
actually poorer than those who live less ostentatiously.
The trappings of riches mean little if you want your customers to have disposable
income. Poor-rich people are difficult because they have the taste but not the cash.

Long-Term Customers
Imagine that you changed your friends regularly. How disturbing would that be? It’s
the same with customers.
It is nice to see new faces, but not too many. I like to have a mix: some old and
constant companions, and some fresh new faces.
It takes a lot of effort to find good, new customers, and when you have found them,
it takes time to build up the level of trust you have with your long-term customers.
Truly the best customer is an old one. I like customers who stay with me for a long
time and return often. They give me money readily because they trust me … and they
give me good referrals.
Referrals
I don’t want customers who are the shy, silent, withdrawn types. On the contrary, I
want those who are louder and more gregarious and who have a large circle of
friends. I want customers who will happily tell their friends about my business when
we do things right.
When they do spread the word, because they are a good customer of mine, there is a
great chance their friends will be worthwhile, too. (“Birds of a feather flock
together.”) So the more friends they have, the better for me.
Undesirable Characteristics
To understand the good side of customers, it is also important to understand the bad
side. I hear a lot of horror stories about customers. Sometimes they make my blood
curdle. When I am being regaled with one of these customer horror tales, there is often
a point where I think to myself that the story could have been different.
“If only you had apologised here, or made restitution there, or told your customer
what you wanted or expected, it could have turned out for the best.” Bad customers
are the result of poor selection, poor education or poor treatment by you or the
people in your business.
In truth I think the bad customers are often like the bad child. They suffer from lack
of love, discipline and education. If it is not too late for them, good businesses can
address their problem.
However, there are some customers who would be best as patrons of another business
– any business just as long as it’s not yours!

As you probably realise customers can actually cost you money. Yes, there are some
people whom, if necessary, you should pay to stay outside your doors.
Costly Customers
Is it possible that customers can actually cost you money? Yes, some of them do. You
actually pay money out when you render your goods and services to them.
Sometimes this is obvious, such as when you are left with a bad debt. Obvious, too,
when someone sues your business. But there are other times where the loss is not so
obvious, and you just spend lots of time with customers for no result. Or you and
your team get so stressed out dealing with a particular customer that your efficiency
plummets, and you are unable to generate income for some time to come.
Undesirable customers, they cost money, and they can be dangerous.
Desirable customers are worth a lot.

Undesirable customers cost you.
‘A’ Customers
‘A’ Customers are your ideal customers come to life. A little later you will meet the
ABCD’s and you’ll understand why I named them this. For now it is enough to know
that it is a shorthand way of referring to the very best of my customers.
I now have lots of them in my business, certainly far more than before I learned how
to attract and create them.
‘A’ Customers are important in many ways, but for now lets look at the bottom line…
Hourly Rate
People often ask me how, in far less time, I make far more than the average
dentist in my area.
Well, it hasn’t always been like that. I used to work all the hours that God
gave. I’d regularly come home exhausted and yet only make an average income.
But now all that has changed.
The secret: I have only ‘A’ Customers.
Over the years I have become more and more selective with my customers.
And when you have customers who really want quality, and are prepared to pay
a premium for it, it’s easy to make far more than you would otherwise.

There are high-profit and low-profit items in most businesses. If you sell only
high-profit items all day long and you don’t have to waste time convincing
people that this is what they need, then your profit will go up dramatically. At
least, that’s how it works for me.
And the great thing about ‘A’ Customers is that they want what I have to
supply: the high-quality, high-profit items.
Imagine a day where you have only clones of your very worst customer. I would guess
that you’d reach the end of the day and everyone would be really worn out, upset
with each other and dog-tired (assuming you hadn’t killed each other before then).
I would also guess that you didn’t make very much profit for that day.
Now imagine the opposite scenario where you have a day of dealing with only your
very best customers – your ‘A’ Customers.
I think the outcome would be quite different. I think the day would have gone
pleasantly and everyone would be patting each other on the back for a job well done.
Naturally you would have made a very healthy profit.
Same team, same business, same day, but having ‘A’ Customers instead of ‘D’
Customers has made all the difference.
‘A’ Customers are good for the profit margins, but they are also good for you in other
ways. Ways that you won’t know until you think a little bit more about just what it is
that makes you and your business tick.
What Makes a Wonderful Lund-

Customer?
Review Points:
I have just finished my
• Your good customers make assignment about what makes a
you a profit and subsidise great customer. I think I’ve
the loss you make on changed my mind about all
serving the rest. customers being desirable just
because they are customers.
• If you don’t know what
makes up your ideal I think it really is worth
customer, you are less searching for the very best.
likely to find more of them. There seems to be an awful
lot of problems that you can
• If you actually want to get from the bad ones.
enjoy your customers, they
have to do more than just
pay your bill.

Know Your Business
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 17 August “Understanding
ing Your
Business”
Dear Diary,
If I had a business, I would Assignment:
know all its details intimately.
intimatel Who are you and what is your
business? In training, the
Doesn’t everyone who has a
first step is to understand
business know everything about
yourself, and what you might
it??? At least, don’t they know it
want from your customers.
better than anyone else does?
Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
On the contrary, many people in business are myopic about theirtheir own enterprise.
Most of us find it easy to view the work of others objectively, but our own business is
far more difficult to see clearly. Often outsiders observe things we miss completely.
When in business you look through the eyes of your profession.

profession. You have similar
misconceptions and blind spots to your peers. This is why most businesses end up
pretty much the same. And if we are honest, most businesses leave a lot to be desired.
This is sad. For most people business is a life’s work, and that makes
makes it doubly sad.
The problem is that most businesses just happen. “They are successful in spite of
themselves,” is a trite saying that I’ve always enjoyed.
Franchises are just the opposite, and this is why they are so successful: they come with
a plan. A plan to believe in, and more importantly still, a plan you can follow to make
the business turn out as you expect.
For most of us, who have approached business in an ad hoc way, this idea of
predictability is very attractive: To start from scratch and finish
finish exactly where you
want to be.
However, it is never too late to start planning. And even if you have been in business
for as long as I have, you can still do things differently and plan more carefully.

Most people do have careful plans already – plans for some part of their business.
The finances are usually the first part of business to be planned carefully. However,
other parts of our businesses often just develop as they may. Certainly, what I
consider the most important part of business is almost always left to chance by others.
What is it that I consider so vital in business? It’s happiness: plain happiness. Not as
exciting as cash-flow, take-overs or billion dollar budgets, but, nevertheless, happiness
is vital to us all.
Business Happiness
For a large part of my life I have gained a lot of happiness from my business and, over
the years, I have learned how to increase it.
It was not always thus, and this situation has not happened by accident. I have made
a concerted and serious effort to make my business the provider of much of what is
good in my life. And I have analysed my needs so that I can use my business to
achieve them.
It has gradually dawned on me that the conventional business heroes that I’ve
admired were not always happy with their businesses. Money and the trappings of
commercial success are simply not enough, no matter what we hear in popular media.
Many ostensibly successful people are deeply unhappy. They die early because they
have abused their bodies with stress, and they often choose to end their lives
prematurely.
For many years my eye has been firmly fixed on the winning post. Not the goal of,
“He who dies with the most toys wins,” that I once saw as a quasi-serious tee-shirt
slogan, but rather it is that of a happy deathbed scene: mine.
My Deathbed
We all have to die – you can’t avoid death and taxes, I hear. Well, some people do
seem to avoid taxes, but as yet I have seen no reliable accounts of anyone cheating the
grim reaper.
Death is inevitable, so I like to use my impending doom as a constant nudge to get

my life in order.
I remember the American Indian saying, “Today is a good day to die.” To be able to
say those words honestly implies a certain amount of preparation, completion in
one’s life, enough to leave this world at any time. There are no regrets and nothing is
left undone. It doesn’t mean that you want to die, but that you are prepared for
death. I would like to live every day as if it were, “A good day to die.”

Now, all of this sounds a little macabre, but it doesn’t have to be. Coming to terms
with death is a big part of life.
So when I am lying on my deathbed, I would like to have no regrets. I want to have

left nothing undone that I would still like to achieve, and I’d like to look back over
my life and think that it had been very worthwhile. I want to feel tired of life and
ready for the next great challenge, the unknown.
For many people this deathbed scenario would lead them to feel that the business
part of their life had not been as happy as it could be. A few years ago I felt the same.
My personal life was good; I enjoyed my family, my home and my love life, but at
work I was stressed and unhappy.
Life is too short not to have a good time at work. Time spent at work is not like
injury time in a football match. The Recording Angel does not allow you to go back
to earth for extra time equal to the period you spent at work. Your work is part of
your life. And yet, most of us try hard to find pleasure in our private lives, while few
people attempt to find happiness in their businesses. Money and power are far more
common goals.
Mostly I suspect this is because people have not thought about what is important to
them. It’s easier to do what everyone else is doing. Certainly, for a large part of my
life I was like that. I hadn’t thought much about what I really wanted from my
business.
If you don’t know what you want

out of your business, you are unlikely
to find it.
What Do You Want from Your Business?

You may agree with me that business happiness is important, but what does that
really mean. What is business happiness? It’s really quite hard to define: a state of
mind, an inner peace? Certainly it is. But there must be something more concrete.
If you look up happiness in the dictionary, you see it means joy and contentment. And if
you look up joy and contentment you find they mean happiness: a circular definition.
If you ask business people (and I have) how they see happiness in business, what
happiness in business is made up of, they often come up with things like:
• Pleasant surroundings

• Great team
• Healthy profit
• Short days
• A feeling of achievement
And always close to the top of the list is:

• An unlimited supply of wonderful customers
Customers
One of business-life’s greatest potential joys, but usually the source of greatest sorrow,
is the customers. Every now and then I hear something like, “My business would be
great if it were not for the customers.” And I am sometimes tempted to agree.
Good customers are a joy. Bad customers are unpleasant and downright dangerous.
The problem is customers are people with all their foibles and habits and insecurities.
And interacting with people is always more difficult than with things. Relationships
are simply not easy. Exciting, yes. Fun, yes … but not always easy. They can be full of
very nasty surprises for the unprepared.
My First Honeymoon
I was married early by today’s standards. We were wedded, Wendy and I, and we
left on our honeymoon. I really wanted to be a good husband, but I had not
thought much about being married or what it meant.
Our honeymoon was a sea voyage from Australia to the UK: very romantic.
The first day on board was wonderful. Being on a ship was exciting. Being young
and in love was heady. We were straight and true and confident of the future.
Nothing could go wrong for us.
On the second day I was walking on the deck before breakfast. The sun was
hot, but the wind was quite fresh. In front of me there was a companionway
ladder, and a couple of young ladies who had reached the ladder just before me
had started to ascend. As they did the wind whipped at their skirts showing
more of their lovely long sun-tanned legs than was quite decorous in that era.
I looked … and I enjoyed the view! The sun was warm and the breeze was
fresh from the South Sea Islands and their legs went on and on and on to end in
a glimpse of pink and white lace ... Oh, life was sweet and my head was filled
with tantalising possibilities…
I remember being quite startled when I realised that I had enjoyed what I
had seen on those stairs even though I was now married.
Somehow I had believed that this sort of attraction for the fairer sex (other
than one’s lawfully wedded wife) ceased completely with the magical state of

marriage. It really was quite a shock … and quite a burden for me to carry
through the subsequent days of my matrimony. Had I but known myself a little
better before embarking on the matrimonial adventure I might have saved us
both, Wendy and me, a lot of pain and suffering.
How could I have been so stupid and naive to believe such an absurdity that
my desire for others would cease with marriage. Well, I was, and I did. My only
excuse: youth and the lack of self-knowledge.
I have enjoyed a lot of romance since that memorable honeymoon. It has given me
happiness … most certainly. Has it given me pain as well? Most certainly. Which is the
greater? I am not sure, but it would be a close call.
When you are in love, you are in the furnace of passion. But the ardour often cools
rapidly under the harsh cold light of reality and day-to-day living. It is said that
romance is only possible between strangers. If you want romance to blossom, you
have to keep the mystery.
. . . . .
Romantic love is all fine and dandy, but I think if we look at the success of romantic
love (the amount of happiness generated) we may find that it lags behind the
arranged type of love that is common in many parts of the world.
In some societies people are more trained, prepared and selected for marriage than in
mine. Society assumes that young people don’t know or understand themselves (or
each other) very well so someone who is somewhat impartial selects them as being
compatible. The participants’ temperaments, physical characteristics and their places
in society are all carefully considered. They may meet as virtual strangers at their
wedding but as time goes by, often fall in love with each other.
So much more sensible, it could be argued, than our romantic but chancy way.
Now, I am not so silly that I would advocate changing our whole courtship system
from romance to arrangement. I’d run the risk of ostracism (or worse!) from those of
my friends and family who are True Romantics. However I am just silly enough to
promote a system similar to arranged marriages for business: you carefully select and
train customers so you can be compatible with them and have a wonderful long-term
relationship.
Relationships in business are almost as difficult as those in our private lives, and they
take up almost as much time (and sometimes even more). The relationships we have
with our team can be very involved. Relationships with customers are often even
more difficult.

And yet it is common for business leaders to look intently at the technicalities of
business, to keep a close eye on the money. But the parts of business to do with
customer relationships are often left alone and remain shrouded in mystery.
How do you treat customers well? … What do they really want? … What makes good
ones and bad ones? … And how do you attract more of the good ones? These sorts of
questions are important, and you need to answer them if you want to have all the
pleasure that your business is capable of giving you.
Training Customers
What can we do about this customer problem? Well, you could find lots of
potentially great customers and make them into what you want. That would be good,
wouldn’t it?
I think it is possible to attract pretty good customers without a lot of fuss and then
train them to be as you want them to be. And in fact, that’s what I’ve been doing in
my business for years.
Training Customers – that probably sounds strange to your ears. It would be a way-out
thing to do in a business. And yet as time goes by I am more and more convinced
that we are, all of us, limited more by our own concept of what we can do (and what
is reasonable for us to do) than what we actually are able to achieve.
We would never have had a wrist radio unless someone had conceived the idea for
Dick Tracey. So why not Customer Training? Why not consider the possibility that in
your business you could attract and train lots of customers who are perfect for you?
Know Your Business Lund-

Review Points:
• Your business is actually a I shall certainly be more

major part of your life and careful about romance. Perhaps
not something apart from it. I should do a course, or
perish the thought, listen to
• If you do not know what my parents’ advice!
you want out of your
business, you are likely to And I will really start thinking
die unfulfilled. about how to choose and
educate my customers.
• Like good marriages, good Business-life is going to be
customers don’t just happen so great!
– there is a lot of effort
involved.

Moulding Customers
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 31 August
August “Improving Customers”

I haven’t ever met any people Can you change customers?
Are customers immutable in
who have tried to educate their
their behaviour and
customers. From what I’ve seen
characteristics, or can they
most people just put up with
(and will they willingly)
will be
whomever they get. Can you
taught?
really change people, I wonder?
Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
Well, young people are very responsive to training and education. In times past,
certain historical figures and organisations believed that given someone young
enough, they could make that person what they would. Joseph Goebbels (one of the
masterminds of Nazi propaganda and the Hitler Youth) and the Order of Jesuits are
two examples that come to mind.
I am sure that is at least partly true for adults as well.
What is necessary to change people is that they are shown

shown the advantage to
themselves in changing. The path that you expose needs to be more attractive than
the one they currently tread. Then I think it is very possible to change people. And
customers are, after all, people, so training customers may not be so
so far-fetched.
far
Admitted to Strode’s
When I was 10, I passed an exam and was subsequently accepted at a very good,
but very traditional, English Grammar School called Strode’s. The masters
(teachers) wore gowns and mortarboards, and the headmaster ruled with wit a cane
and an iron fist. I missed having to learn Greek by a year or so, but Latin was
still one of the mainstays of the curriculum. I am sure it was a great school, but I
had no idea how I fitted in.
I came last in my class, and I understood little. I still
still retain a smattering of
Latin and a larger lump of French, but not much else has stuck.

Other boys obviously did better than I did. I just didn’t get it. I am smart
enough and I could have been a good pupil, but no-one explained to me what it
all meant. Why did I have to learn these things? Why the strict discipline? Why
was there so much tradition? I didn’t understand what they were trying to
achieve for the school or for me.
At Strode’s I was educated well about Latin, Mathematics, French and other
school subjects, but I don’t feel that I was taught how to become a good student:
one who would do well at school and speak highly of my ‘old school’ in the
broader community when I graduated.
So many businesses miss out in this same way. They do the core part of their business
very well but fail to create model customers for themselves, mainly because they have
not worked out how to do it.
Let’s look at a more extreme example.
Hard Interface
Our Criminal Justice System is one of the harder interfaces that we come up against
in society.
With the increasing privatisation of our prison systems in Australia it has become
fashionable to refer to the inmates as ‘clients’ or ‘customers’. I think this is a very
reasonable change from the more usual ‘inmate’ or ‘prisoner’.
Many people feel, as I do, that our penal system makes its customers more unfit to
live in society, rather than teaching them to fit in. Experiences ‘inside’ may persuade
these ‘customers’ that it is not in their best interests to go to prison again, but rarely
do they seem to receive training in the social skills or attitudes they lack so that they
can stay out of trouble.
What follows is a letter I received from one of my readers that serves to illustrate (in
an extreme setting) how powerful education can be. The author is a gentleman
named Harris, and it is a personal account of his experience as a special guest of Her
Majesty, the Queen, albeit at one of her less popular institutions. (The Queen, as
titular head of the Commonwealth of Australia, is the ostensible controller of the
prison system.)
When I received the letter I was quite chuffed, if not intrigued and moved. The letter
suggests that the Courtesy System (which I described in Building the Happiness-Centred
Business as a system for improving business communication and organisational
harmony) had a larger area of application than I had previously considered.

On re-reading Harris’s letter recently I saw that it also held another lesson that was
important in this ‘Customer Training’ context that we are considering. Here is what
Harris wrote to me:
Incarceration
After the court had deliberated about my case for sometime, I was found guilty-
as-charged and was taken from the court to the lock-up below.
I was stripped and searched and taken to a cell where I stayed for a long,
long time. I couldn’t tell what time of the day it was. It was only possible to tell
in a very rough way how quickly (or slowly) time was passing by the meals. The
first meal that was delivered took me completely by surprise. It was quickly
shoved under the 3 inch-thick steel door. And the ‘shover’ moved rapidly on
without any comment at all. A similar scenario occurred at each mealtime. It
was a welcome, if short, break from the distress of solitary confinement.
Day 2 through Day 5

Sometime the next day my door was unlocked and a voice said, “Shower!” The
guard opened my cell door and continued with his monologue. “Come out …
Turn right … Take the first door on the left.”
I followed his command and soon stood in the dimly lit shower room. The
guard locked the door and stood on the other side. He said not a word. His job
was to watch me through the grille in case I tried to knock myself out then
drown myself in the water. (Some apparently try!) After returning from the
shower I was cleaner but totally oppressed by the lack of humanity. I sat in my
cell and bawled my eyes out.
Purged of my more acute feelings I contemplated nothing except how to
improve my daily circumstances.
It was during this time I recalled what I had learnt while reading Building the
Happiness-Centred Business. It had served me well as a model for behaviour
outside, and I began to think that perhaps now, just because I was a prisoner, I
need not be as impolite and silent as everyone was to me.
I calculated when the next meal should arrive, and I lay down on the floor
to wait for the guard. I placed my mouth close to the space under the door
where the food would appear. When I heard the footsteps and saw the food
shoved under I said, “Thank you very much.”
There was no reply.
I did the same thing next meal and I received a gruff, “Okay,” for my
trouble. So far so good! I decided to be a little more daring. So, when the empty
tray was taken away I said, “Thank you. That was a good meal.”
“Yeah, okay,” was the reply. Things were improving!
After a couple of more days of this sort of conversation, Mr. ‘Shover’ said
something without me prompting. “Here’s your breakfast. Sorry, no milk
today.”
Quite a victory!

Once or twice two apples appeared on the tray instead of one. And each
time I would lie in wait on the floor to say ‘thank you’ and comment on my
meal. Each time the reply became a little more human.
Day 6
Soon it was time to be transferred to a ‘real’ jail. Two guards came into my cell,
handcuffed me and took me down to a truck framed with sturdy steel cages.
They motioned for me to climb into my cage and I said, “Thank you.”
When we reached our destination the guard I had thanked looked me in the
eye and said, “Please, step down.” Please? What a nice change.
I stepped down and he explained that he would be able to take the
handcuffs off in about 5 minutes. Another small victory for civilisation!
To my fellow prisoners he said … nothing.
I started to realise that as a prisoner the only opportunity I had to
communicate with anybody was when they told me to do something. I decided
that courtesy would be my hallmark. It started as a shield against discomfort,
but it turned out to be more like a credit card that purchased goodwill.
Day 7
One of the rules of prison is that you need to be able to account for your
whereabouts at any time. To this end it is imperative that when told to muster,
the entire community of inmates lines up to be checked against mug shots. They
even asked us to say our name. After a count is made and all are found in place,
one may continue whatever one was doing. Musters are sacred. Miss muster –
be punished. Simple as that.
Well, I was in my cell having a shower (another luxury for workers, a private
shower), when I heard a voice on a loud-speaker say, oh so sweetly, “Mr. Q,
would you kindly care to join us for a muster?” It was said with genuine warmth
and humour in this place where lack of humour was the most common feature
among staff and inmates alike. It was a rare kindness and a public
acknowledgement by the staff as a reward for being courteous to them. After all
it was becoming second nature by now.
Day 8
On the first day of my small job, the Corrections Officer and I walked around as
he showed me the areas I had to keep clean. He asked me if I had any questions,
and I said, “Thank you, I think I understand what you expect.” Ten minutes
later, I was on my hands and knees picking up cigarette butts from the grass.
(Thinking I would be harvesting another crop of cigarette butts from the same
area of grass tomorrow, and not caring because I simply wanted the time to
pass.) A cheerful voice spoke to me through a wire fence. The man asked my
name and what I was doing in jail. I told him, remembering my courtesy.
We talked through the fence for about 15 minutes, and then he said to me,
“If you could choose a jail, which one would you choose?”

I thought this was odd. I thought jail was jail? Apparently there are release
schemes available to those who qualify. To qualify you have to show that you
can conduct yourself in a manner acceptable to society. I said I didn’t have a
clue, thank you.
This man told me that I would like to go to a work camp. He sounded like
he knew his onions. He then pointedly asked me if I would object to having my
file given to those who select prisoners for the work camp. “No, of course not,”
said I. “Thank you.”
It turned out he was in charge of placing prisoners into different areas of the
penal system. It seems that the work camp was considered ‘heaven’ among the
prison populace. Going to a work camp was a step away from being released. In
fact, I could go home for a week’s holiday after 3 weeks’ work!
So what has all that to do with training customers to be more suitable for your
business? Well, imagine you are running a private jail. What sort of clients would you
prefer? Would their quality make very much difference to your profit margin? I think
it would. I imagine you’d want prisoners:
• Who are polite to their prison officers. (So the officers are happy in their work
and don’t leave – it’s expensive to train new recruits.)
• Who don’t cause trouble with other inmates. (Increased manpower would be
necessary to oversee them, and that costs money.)
• Who willingly do the work they are asked to do. (To offset the cost of keeping
them.)
• Who are not so unhappy that they demand a lot of luxuries to keep them quiet.
(Avoids the expense of providing these items, as well as a possible backlash from
the community perceiving you as being ‘soft on the criminals’.)
And,
• Who don’t re-offend when released. (Your system of social training is seen as
successful, so you keep the government contract.)
How do you create such ideal prison customers? Well, to my mind you institute a
training scheme.
The prison authorities rewarded Harris for being well-behaved. But I wonder if
anyone really took much notice of what he was attempting to do. It would be great if
someone had understood and admired Harris’s method. Even better if they had seen
the advantages of all the prisoners attempting the same.
Harris’s letter was too long to print in full and there was a whole section about his
experiences with the other inmates. He used the same system with them with some
success. I visited Harris in his jail before he was sent to the prison farm. I am sure a
prison officer’s work is very difficult. I thought they were doing a great job under the

circumstances. But it was almost as if the system were meant to dehumanise the
prisoners to make them more tractable and compliant. The trouble with this method
of control is that prisoners are eventually released, and they bring their new learnt
inhumanity back into society. How much better if they could be taught more
humanity and courtesy rather than less?
. . . . .
We can none of us keep totally apart from the legal system. And whereas I have never
had the experience of incarceration, I have had a number of encounters with the
police.
In one way the police are our servants: public servants. In another we are their
customers. Depending on the culture they have, police officers may see you as their
client – someone to educate and care for – or their victim. There are good cops and
bad cops. I was lucky to meet a good one early in my life.
Armidale Adventure
When I was an impecunious university student I bought a pre-war Morris van
from a friend for the equivalent of $10. As you may have suspected from the
price I paid for it, this van was not in the best of repair. It ran only on three of
its four cylinders, the radiator leaked and there was a hole in the floor that
caused me some inconvenience on rainy days. Nevertheless, my little van lasted
me for the whole year, faithfully transporting me the 10 kilometres or so into the
city every day.
At the conclusion of the university year I decided I would make a trip to see
my parents in Brisbane. In spite of the dire warnings of my parents and my more
sensible friends, I set off (accompanied by Allistair McAllistair, a friend who was
as strange as his name and even less sensible than I) on this journey of about
1700 kilometres in the old Morris van.
We didn’t, however, totally ignore their warnings of, “You’ll break down!
You’ll get stranded!”. The engine burned a little oil at times. (A little!) So we
took along a 44 gallon drum of used motor oil that we drip-fed into the ailing
engine through a siphon system.
I will not bore you with the numerous vicissitudes that beset us on this
journey. Suffice it to say they were numerous as we motored along the barren
highway that runs inland up the East Coast of Austrlaia.
By the time we reached Armidale in the northern mountains of New South
Wales (about 400 kilometres from our destination) we had used up most of the
oil. We were exhausted, our hands were raw from making running repairs to the
hot engine, and we were covered form head to foot with a sticky black oil-film.
Nevertheless we were buoyed by the optimism of youth and were jubilant to
have come so far under such conditions. What a story we would have to tell!
Our dreams of triumphant entry to Brisbane were soon called to question
when we were pulled over by a police officer. It was early evening and the red

glass that covered our single taillight had shaken off. The bulb inside it was
exposed white instead of the prescribed red colour. This is what had attracted
the policeman’s attention.
We were standing by our old van dejectedly as the police officer started to
write out the Defect Notice that would prevent us from continuing our epic
journey. When he came to the part on the form for the Licence Number, he
read our South Australian number-plate and stopped.
“You’ve driven from South Australia in this?” he asked incredulously.
“And we were going to Brisbane,” we said crestfallen.
He thought a while and said, “You realise that you are breaking the law
driving without a red tail-light? I know that you see this as a bit of adventure, but
you are putting other people at risk as well as yourselves.
I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Promise me you’ll get your light fixed properly when
you get to Brisbane, and I’ll make this Defect Notice current from midnight
tonight. You get some lipstick from the shop across the road and smear it over
the bulb. That will make it safer for the time being. Provided you are out of the
State before daylight, it will be okay.”
We set off through the mountains of New England as if the hounds of hell
were on our tail ... and we had a rosy glow in our hearts for the policeman who
had allowed us to keep our dream alive.
We passed the border gate in the early hours of the morning. We cheered
when we saw our policeman had kept his word, that there was no road-block set
up to catch us. We entered Queensland with a warm feeling for the guardians of
justice and the world in general.
I am sure the policeman realised that he had a chance to educate one of his
‘customers’ and he did it well. He taught me that the police have a difficult job to do.
They are conscientious, but they can also be human.
If the police officer had just been kind and forgotten all about the Defect Notice, I
would have been happy. But I would not have been educated. Instead he took pains
to tell us of the problems we could cause. He was sympathetic, but he upheld the law.
He knew that the law and its officers are important if we are to keep society civilised,
and he convinced me to feel the same.
Prior to this event I had certainly not been the model ‘customer’ for our police force.
I was cheeky and made their interactions with me as difficult as I could. But since the
‘Armidale Adventure’ I have always tried to be polite and co-operative with the
custodians of law and order wherever I find them.
That one incident of education and kindness has influenced my whole life like no
amount of advertising could have. This was education of the best kind. It made me
not only a good customer, but also a supporter and an advocate.

The Boys & the Boys-in-Blue

Now I have foster boys, three in fact. Their previous environment had left them
with quite a negative view of the police. The name they used for the police was
less than complimentary. I decided to ban that word and now they can only refer
to the constabulary as ‘police officers’. What they do outside my earshot I don’t
know, but understanding the power of words, I suspect that their attitude to
policemen will change.
I use every opportunity to paint the police in a positive light, and this has
borne some fruit. Ronald, one of the twins and now thirteen years old, has
decided that he wants to be a policeman.
Partly I suspect, the reason is that he thinks they spend all day driving fast
and screeching around corners in powerful motor cars. But I think because of
my education (and indirectly because of the Armidale policeman’s efforts with
me) he also believes now that police work is a noble profession.
I hope this little story has shown you the potential of education in your business or
profession.
Perhaps you also see the potential power of customers teaching other customers. Store
these thoughts away. We will come back to this particular idea again.
Moulding Customers Lund-

Review Points:
Paddi seems a bit obsessed
• People can change. I think with the judicial side of life.
most people are looking for Perhaps he has a guilty
someone to help them to conscience?
change for the better.
Interesting though, that you
• The businesses that I know can change people through
don’t seem to have thought education.
much about changing their
customers. They just I got an F for this
accept them as they are. assignment. The Prof. thought
that I had spent too much
• I hadn’t thought about it time on Paddi’s incarceration
much before but what you story and the police. He
think about a business couldn’t see the point in it. I
determines how you act must admit it was difficult for
with the people in the me too at first, but now I
business. really do see what Paddi is
getting at.

A Customer
Cu stomer Curriculum
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 7 September “An Education Program”

A curriculum for customers. Devise a Customer Education
That seems a bit way-out.
out. And all Program. How do you attract
to teach them to treasure your your customers to the
business. course? How do you motivate
But what does it really mean: them and what do you teach
to ‘treasure a business’? them?
Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
If customers treasure anything about
about businesses, it is usually the products or services
that they provide. With a good hairdresser, you might say that you treasure the ability
to cut your hair ‘just so’. With furniture makers, you might treasure the new dining
suite they produce.
But then what

hat happens when someone else supplies a better product or service? The
answer to that question is that most people will shift their custom and go where they
can get ‘better’ or ‘cheaper’.
However, I want my customers to stay with me even if they can get ‘better’
‘ or
‘cheaper’ elsewhere. Why would they?
A Good Cause
We all want to feel a part of something worthwhile. Many people feel lost in this
modern world where cultural, social, familial and religious norms seems to be
constantly changing. Many people – customers included – are searching for a cause.
Most people have one or two things in their life about which they are passionate.
Some people are passionate about a particular business of which they are a customer.
That business provides a fixed point in their lives. It is a representation of something

worthwhile and fine in a changing society. It is something that gives them guidance as
well as commerce. Why shouldn’t that business be yours?
I once heard Jay Abraham, a great business educator, encapsulate this ‘lost’ feeling of
customers with these words:
People are silently begging to be led.
People need something or somebody to follow. And customers are just people.
Just because the feudal system is gone, religion is becoming less popular and our
small community leaders have all but disappeared, it doesn’t mean people don’t still
want something to believe in.
The Christmas Street

I remember a visit to Vancouver where I was ‘knocked out’ at the Christmas
displays on the houses. Street after street of such gaily decorated and lighted
roofs and gardens that made me wonder how the national electricity grid coped.
In Australia there are few Christmas lights like the ones you see in North
America. In December the papers in Queensland carry a list of the few houses
that are decorated so that those with small children know where to visit.
Having three new foster boys, Debra and I decided to ‘show them the lights’,
so to speak.
We travelled from suburb to suburb to see a few houses sparsely decorated.
We were all feeling a little let down until we came across a whole street of gaily
lighted houses. Cars everywhere, people picnicking of the verges, every house a
party and children running up and down the street delighted with the bright
lights and the conviviality. It was like a fairyland!
How did this situation happen? Why was everyone pulling together?
Well, it turned out that a person in the street had given a block of land to
the community for children to play on. The children used that block and played
while their parents met. Then someone thought of a Christmas project, and
because people like to have a project (and because they had a natural leader, the
man who gave them the land) it just happened from there.
People want something to believe in, someone to follow and something to admire.
They want to feel a part of something bigger. Why not make that thing your
business.

I even think customers can ‘fall in love’ with your business. They certainly do with
mine. And then it is hard to do wrong in their eyes.
Customer Love
At a seminar in Sydney I was handed a piece of paper asking the following
question, “What do you do when your customers fall in love with you?”
I suspect this was from an attractive practitioner who was having trouble
with the opposite sex. However, I preferred to look at it from a slightly different
point of view.
So I continued, “What happens when customers do fall in love with your
business? The answer is that I cheer. Because that is one of the effects I am trying
to achieve.”
Not the sort of answer that the audience might have expected, but it would
have made them think, I am sure.
In times gone past, when people merely valued your products and services, that was
quite good enough. Now when everyone is getting on the service bandwagon and the
quality of most products is improving, if you want to be really successful, this is no
longer enough.
There is always the chance of losing customers to someone with temporarily better
service or a better range of products or a more attractive credit plan. What I want is
for people to almost fall in love with my business.
If you want to provide great service, it is a good idea to learn to love your customers.
It is far easier to serve those for whom you have affection than those for whom you
don’t. If you want your customers to treasure your business, in a way you want them
to fall in love with it. In spite of the mistakes you will make and the imperfections
you exhibit, you want them to remain steadfastly with you – just like someone in love.
Customers in
in love with your business
won’t be so keen to notice the
imperfections.
When you are in love with someone, it doesn’t matter that the beloved is not quite as
good in some (or many) areas as another person. You see that person through rose-
coloured glasses, and the details don’t matter. You love the whole package.
And that is what I want for customers of my business.

Leaders rally their people through patriotism. Religions appeal to higher causes. I
want customers to feel some of those loftier emotions when they think of my
business. A little arrogant, you might think, and perhaps you are right. But so long as
I don’t betray customers’ trust, I think it is for a good cause.
Treasure Your Business

So how do you have people stay with your business even if someone down the road
can provide a better product or service? The answer is, you need to coax your
customers to fall in love with your business. That way they will take more from your
relationship than is normal in commerce: a cause, feelings of being part of a greater
whole, or even a guide for their lives.
I want to teach customers to treasure the whole of my business – my people, culture

and environment – rather than just our products and services. And they can’t do that
unless they get to know us and we them.
There are also some deep feelings I want customers to develop for my business. They
normally come as we mutually disclose our personal details and perform little acts of
kindness for one another. This gives our customers an understanding that we have a
greater cause than just the pursuit of profit.
In addition, there are some specific skills that I would like my customers to learn.
Everything Is Learned
Children don’t automatically know how to act in polite company. Neither do many
customers. But they are often amenable to learn if they see the advantage in it. If they
feel privileged to be a part of your business, that might be motivation enough.
We sometimes expect customers to know what every good customer should know and
to act like every good customer should act. Unfortunately these things are learned,
not innate, and there is no institution that teaches the skills for acting like a great
customer.
Great customers are made, not born.
Imagine if you were developing a curriculum for training customers. It’s a slightly
bizarre concept, I know. But it’s interesting to imagine how, as with some clubs or

societies, customers might have to undergo a formal education process before they
can become accredited, desirable clients. The curriculum would contain a number of
subjects and a brief description of the details and contents of each of these subject
areas.
The Usual Business Curriculum

You’ll notice that whenever you have had to learn something in a formal educational
institution, there is a set curriculum. You know what you are going to learn before
you start. That way you can associate the things you learn with a structure, a bigger
picture.
Most people already educate customers in their advertising to some degree, and their
curriculum is usually about the core parts of the business; things that are particular to
their industry or profession.
However, every business has some wondrous parts. They may not seem very exciting
to the people who work in that business, but customers often find them very
interesting.
Don’t be reticent to say what you do. Your customers will think you are first in your
field and wonderfully innovative, even if it’s just old-hat to you. And if you tell them
some slightly impressive detail of your business before they have heard it elsewhere,
customers will often imagine you are the only business with this feature.
The Fresh Food People

In Australia there is a supermarket chain called Woolworth’s. A couple of years
ago they coined the phrase, ‘The Fresh Food People’.
I thought this was very clever. In one sentence they not only implied that
their products were fresh but also that everyone else’s products were not as fresh.
Woolworth’s claim and the effect it created may not be warranted, but it is a
great example of saying things first and taking the high moral ground.
Say it first and it’s yours.
Most people already do this type of education pretty well with display advertising,
marketing brochures, point of sale tags, etc. What I find more interesting is educating
customers about the decidedly human aspects of my business – the people in my
business-family and how customers should behave when they interact with us.

Customers can have a great effect on your business, both for good and for bad. If they
like your business and want you to prosper, it is productive to show them that they
have some responsibility to learn and use pleasant ways of interacting with the people
in your business.
Here are a few examples of what I mean...
Politeness and Courteous Behaviour

Show your customers that it is to their advantage to be polite with the people in your
business. It means that your team will enjoy serving them. When you are polite, you
will receive politeness in return, and it is these small pleasant interactions that make
everyone’s day go well. When people enjoy serving, their service will be better.
G’day Mate
There is a tendency in Australia to greet people with ‘mate’ rather like the way
the Americans use ‘buddy’.
Now this is OK in some circles. If someone addresses me this way in a local
pub, I find it endearing. However, I have been called ‘mate’ in a legal office and
a wine bar, and in those places I find it very annoying. The method of greeting
should be appropriate to the surroundings or else it seems impolite.
If you want to build trust with people, it is important to talk in their
language. But, until you know what their language allows, it is better to err on
the side of diffidence and politeness. It is very rare to offend someone with a
higher level of politeness or a more elevated form of address than that which is
commonly used in their circles. However, to address someone with less
politeness than that which usually comes their way (or with less courtesy) often
does offend.
The best way to teach this to customers is by example. Only occasionally have I had to
point out to a customer that they are being less polite than is acceptable in my
business. When I have done so, it’s always been received with gratitude and has
improved my relationship with this person. I think they respect the courage that my
forthrightness required.
Customers Learning to Apologise

Customers need to learn that if they do something to upset someone in your office,
they will become less popular. This will affect the level of service they receive and the
enjoyment they gain from their commercial interactions.
Customers can also learn:

• The advantages of apology and restitution

• The how and why of apologies

• Why an apology puts things right
• When to make restitution
There are many times in the working day when a situation cries out for an apology to
put things right. In an environment where mistakes are frowned on, people find it
difficult to say ‘sorry’ because they don’t see any advantage, only lots of disadvantages.
If in your business mistakes are seen as an opportunity for change, apology comes
more naturally. If it comes naturally to your team, it is more likely to be practised by
your customers.
Customers CAN Make Mistakes

Some customers have heard Stu Leonard’s adage, “The customer is always right.”
Unfortunately they believe it!
In many establishments poor behaviour from customers is tolerated because ‘the

customer is always right’. So long as customers are not delinquent in their accounts,
almost anything is acceptable.
Team members are forbidden any outright response, so they make their views known
in more subversive and snide ways. The atmosphere is never cleared, and the
customer does not have a chance to improve.
You can ask your business-family to play the game that ‘the customer is always right’,
but only to a certain point if you want them to keep their good humour and sanity.
Teach the people in your business to play the game (that it is only a game), and teach
them where they should stop.
Customers can be taught that they are not always right, as well. And when they’re
wrong, teach your customers to apologise and make restitution. Otherwise, the
people in your business will play the game of ‘the customer is always right’ until it
becomes ridiculous and damaging for all concerned.
Act as if customers
customers are always right
but don’t try to believe they are.

The Advantages of Being on Time

When customers are late for appointments, it totally disrupts my day. Particularly
when we are busy. We don’t like to keep our customers waiting, and do everything to
make it so they don’t ever have to. It’s important that our customers value our time as
much as we value theirs. So we teach our customers,
• The advantages of timeliness
• How to be on time for appointments
Tardy Kevin
Kevin always came late. He apologised in a perfunctory manner, but you could
see he had more things on his mind than putting us out. There was always some
small emergency that made Kevin tardy, and he was often agitated and nervous.
Kevin’s treatment was always fraught with problems because he was tense.
In addition, we were always rushing to make up time. We did not much look
forward to seeing Kevin, even though he was a nice person.
I had a talk with Kevin and told him how it was greatly to his disadvantage
to be late. I explained that he had more discomfort than he need have and that
the treatment I did for him was not as good as it could be if I had more time.
Kevin apologised profusely and later sent me a nice note.
Kevin now understands that his previous habit of tardiness was not to his
advantage. Now he is timely, more relaxed and his treatment goes well.
Discovering How to Complain

Your customers will be happier if they tell you when they encounter problems with
your service. Unfortunately, most businesses handle problems badly and make
customers feel guilty or afraid of saying anything of a complaining nature. Even if
they feel it is constructive.
Make sure that the people in your business team actually welcome complaints and see
them as opportunities.
Customers will learn:

• What to do when something goes wrong
• That mistakes will always happen – but that they can be put to rights
• How to complain constructively
• How they can do themselves (and your business) harm by over-complaining and
under-complaining
• What your business will do in return when they complain

Constant Complaints
Normally I believe complaints are great and that we should welcome them as a
chance to pick up our act. Complaints are usually good all around. But this story
is about a customer who I felt complained a bit too much, and it was definitely
bad for everyone.
John had such advanced gum disease that he needed lots of treatment just to
have a chance of saving his teeth. Treatment for advanced gum disease is not
pleasant and involves a certain amount of bleeding, scraping and cutting. We
can get rid of the pain of the procedure, but it is still uncomfortable for the
person involved and not aesthetically pleasing for the observers.
Certainly John was nervous, but he complained so much it put us all off our
work. I found myself asking Merilyn to book John two months ahead rather
than the month it should have been. I found myself cutting corners in his
treatment so I would not have to listen to John complain about how long it was
taking. One time he made me so annoyed I wanted to hurt him! Not good for
me … or for John.
Finally I decided enough was enough, John needed some education.
“John,” I said. “When you constantly complain about what we do it makes
us feel bad. I get stressed and angry. The CareNurses get upset.”
And the clincher, “It may not be to your advantage that we become upset
when you have your mouth full of our sharp instruments!”
The next time John came in he was mild as a lamb. Our work went better
and he seemed a lot happier … I certainly was.
Enjoy Paying for Goods and Services

Customers can enjoy paying their bills. It’s true. However one of the great barriers to
this being true in most businesses is that people act as if it is not possible to pay and
be happy at the same time. Because people in the business feel this way, I am sure it
influences customers in a very negative manner.
Morally Reprehensible
The other day I found myself talking to my accountant Martin on the telephone.
I had just completed some major work on Martin’s front teeth that had cost him
thousands of dollars.
It was a day when I was thinking about this whole idea of customers paying
happily, so I took the bit in my teeth and asked Martin how he felt about paying
the bill for his teeth. Mind you, not how he felt about his teeth (I knew he was
happy with them), but how he felt about paying.
The words that Martin used I found a little strange at first. Martin said, “I
would feel it morally reprehensible not to have been happy paying you the
money.”

That was a little more than I expected. Not only had Martin said he was
happy to pay – which was what I wanted to hear – but he had added another
dimension. It seemed for Martin, our education was very influential.
How to Make Requests

‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’ is an old adage. It contains a lot of truth. It is to your
advantage that customers get what they want. The only way you know what they want
is if they ask. Unfortunately many are too embarrassed or shy to say it outright. Most
customers need constant reassurance that it’s fine to ask for what they want.
Customers also need to be taught that it is important they ask pleasantly. And the
best way to do that is by example from you and your business-family.
You’ve Been Asked!

I decided to purchase a small appliance, so I went to the local electrical goods
store. I walked in, picked up the appliance I wanted and I walked to the cash
desk.
Now unfortunately this store was still making paper copies of its transactions
as it wasn’t completely computerised. So when I approached the assistant with
my box under my arm, she pointed to the desk where there was a form. She said
rapidly in a bored voice, “Fill this out, sign here, press hard, third copy’s yours.”
She then turned away to do something else leaving me to consider her words!
It took a few moments for my poor brain to figure out what she had said,
such was the speed of her presentation. Now I mentioned before that I’m
sometimes particular about how people address me. How this young lady asked
me to fill in the form is one of those things that rankles me. I did sign (and I
remembered to press hard), but I was tempted to walk out.
What this young lady said to me is not unusual. It seems very few people in business
these days understand that how you ask for things will determine much of the
likelihood of you receiving them.
Here is a hierarchy of politeness (in decreasing order) that I’ve observed when people
have asked me to do various things. Perhaps you recognise a few of these methods
from your own experiences? I consider anything below level 2 to be unacceptable, and
I tend to be difficult in return, almost out of spite, but really in an effort to educate
the person asking.
1. I wonder if you would mind just filling in this, please, so that … (mention some
benefit to the person). (A very pleasant request)
2. Please fill in this. (Polite Request)
3. Fill this in, thanks. (Request)
4. I’ll just get you to fill this in. (Disguised command)

5. Fill this in. (Command)

6. Fill in this or you die, scum! (Threat!)
Throughout this curriculum there is a basic principle that all the people in your
business should be following.
Treat customers as you wish them to

treat you.
We all want to be loved, respected and valued – both the people that serve as well as
the people who do the serving.
How do you know when you are loved, respected and valued? By the way
people treat you.
What is it that makes people treat you well? Usually how you treat them.
This is the most important thing that we can teach to customers.
A Customer Curriculum Lund-

Review Points:
I can see how all this
• The way people act with stuff would be helpful in
you determines how you act business, but I learned all
with them. Some people that when I was young.
never learn this. They are Didn’t everybody?
used to being aggressive,
and to be good customers On another note, it’s fine
they need education.
and dandy to make this
• Why not tell people how you
curriculum and all, but how
want them to act in your are you going to get your
business? You wouldn’t put customer to do these
up with inappropriate things?
behaviour from visitors to
your house, so why in your Can you just hand a list of
business? instructions to them and
command, “Do this or you’re
• How are customers to know out of here!!!”
what you expect of them if
you don’t tell them? That sounds like fun!

The Power of a Good
Business Position
Positio n
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 14 September “The Elements of A Good
Business Position”
Dear Diary,
Perhaps this is why people will Assignment:
follow the curriculum? I know I What is a ‘good business
listen to some more than others, position’? Write an essay on
and when I do I’m more likely to the concept of positioning
learn from them (and do what as it applies to customer
they want). I suppose customers training.
are much the same. Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
When Napoleon spoke, I am sure everyone around him listened
listened carefully. They
learnt and remembered, even if he were only talking about the kind of present he
would send to his Josephine. Why? Because he was important: Napoleon had a good
position.
When you position yourself you teach people who you are, how you
you want to be
treated and how much they should respect you and what you do.
When you are a super-star

star entertainer, it doesn’t matter how badly you sing on the
day. The majority of the audience will still think you are wonderful. When you are
not a star, you
u may sing incredibly well and still be judged mediocre.
Whether your customers will listen to what you teach them depends very much on
your position when you ask them.
Two Teachers
When I was in high school in Australia, we had two lady teachers. They were
wer
Miss S______t and Miss M___n. (Everyone was Miss in those days even if they
were married … sort of like an early version of Ms.)

These two teachers were of a similar age and stature, and they had the same
qualifications. However, the relationships they had with my class could not have
been more different.
When Miss S______t walked into the room everyone stopped talking and
sat quietly. Even the most unruly boys quailed when she raised her voice.
On the other hand, when Miss M___n entered we hardly noticed or
acknowledged her presence. Conversations continued, fights erupted as per
usual, and missiles dotted the air. She could shout and scream, but it made no
difference whatsoever. She had no power over us at all. She knew it. We knew it,
and though she collapsed into tears with the frustration, we took no notice of
her.
From Miss S_______t, we learned lots. I can still conjugate my Latin verbs,
and I still love English. But from Miss M___n, I don’t think we learned
anything. Try as I may, I can’t for the life of me even remember what subject she
taught us.
I am sure you have had similar experiences in your schooling. If teachers
positioned themselves well, they were able to teach effectively. Their pupils
actually learned. If not, there was little learning done at all.
This same truth holds in business. Customers will learn from people who are seen to
have power and position. They will find it far more difficult if the teacher has little
perceived status.
Effective education is as much

related to the authority
authority of the
teachers as to the words they use.
‘By Invitation Only’

My business has a silent telephone number, a locked front door and no signs outside
to indicate it’s a Dental Practice. I accept only new customers by invitation from my
present customers. You can become customers of my business in no other way.
My business used to be By Referral Only. A few years ago I decided to be a little more
selective. I decided I would ask only certain customers to refer their friends, and I
called this By Invitation Only.
You can read more about this in Mobilising Your Customer Sales-Force, but I think it is
important to discuss it here because it is a big part of my positioning. So far it seems
to be working very well.

Positioned Well
It is not infrequently that I am sitting across from a customer in a Personal Lounge
having the following sort of conversation.
Me: It’s nice to see you here, John. How did you come to see us?
He: Well, it wasn’t easy. You are hard to find. I have a friend, Jim, who is a
patient of yours. He told me that I should come to see you, and he gave me
your telephone number, but I lost it. I tried to find you in the phone book,
but you’re not there. Then I rang Directory Inquiries, but you’re not listed. I
know that is how you want it so only your patients can ring you, but I must
say, you made it hard for me!
Anyway, I rang Jim, and he rang Pat, and she rang me and sent me out the
Customer Information Book … and it looks really great … all the things you do
are so different from other dentists.
Me: Thank you.
He: Anyway I was hoping that you would let me join your practice?
Me: Well let’s talk about it.
So we talk and eventually I condescend to have John as a new customer.
Inside I am chuckling to myself. I think how strange this conversation would
have seemed had I had it a few years ago.
Sitting across from me is an obviously desirable new customer. Not all that
long ago I would have been prostrate before him begging him to become a new
client. Instead, he is asking me very earnestly if I will allow him to join my
business.
Weird, eh? Oh, the power of positioning!
But it didn’t come easily. A lot of bricks had to be put into place to build the edifice
of my position.
Some of the steps were big – deciding to lock the front door, tearing down the signs
and taking our name out of the telephone book. Some were smaller – elevating the
position of my CareNurses so that my position would be elevated in its turn.
What’s in a Name?
One way of giving people status is by the use of names.
Though other people would call my ladies, Chairside Assistants, I refer to them as
CareNurses. This gives them added status in the eyes of their clients. Strangely
enough it also gave them status in their own eyes, and they have grown in
accomplishment so they are now more powerful and talented than their title suggests.
Often team-members are given low status titles and only their first name is disclosed
on their name badge.

I think badges can be a good idea. They are a great help when customers forget
people’s names, and so I think that they lead to more intimacy. However it always
strikes me that a badge with a first name only reduces a person’s status. Having the
first and second names would solve that problem.
This is sometimes resisted because managers feel that if those lower down on the
ladder have more status, it will be threatening to their own positions. On the
contrary, I think it would elevate and improve managers’ positions in customers’ eyes.
Top of the Tree

You improve your position if you are seen to be superior or more powerful than
others who are also seen as having power or expertise. Sometimes this is a hard fact to
grasp.
Prosthetists
I remember when there was a push in the state of Queensland for dental
technicians to be licensed to make dentures. They were to be called prosthetists.
All the dentists were up in arms.
I didn’t like making dentures. I felt they were a lot of trouble and gave me
little profit. Clients for whom I made them never seemed really happy no matter
how hard I tried. I felt it was a good idea for someone else to make the dentures
so I would have more time to pursue other forms of treatment. I was all for the
change. For some of the older dentists, however, it was a terrible thing to
happen.
Being young and brash I decided I should give a talk to my Study Club
about the advantages of the new legislation as I saw them. Firstly, there would be
no more need to make those awful dentures. Secondly, because a new tier was
added to the pyramid of dental occupations, dentists on the top would benefit
from an increase in status. (I remember I had a slide with a cartoon of a dentist
on a pedestal.)
It was easy for me. I hadn’t based my business on dentures, and I wasn’t
putting kids through college or supporting a heavy mortgage. For others the new
legislation was too threatening for them to see the advantages I was promoting.
My talk went down like the proverbial lead balloon. At the end of my
presentation the audience filed out coldly without question, and I was left to
make my own way to the dining room.
I think time may have vindicated me a little, and some dentists now do
accept that the move was a good one for dentistry. Many dentists have stopped
making dentures and are happy with the change. However, because of the early
antipathy towards prosthetists, dentists have done little to integrate them into
the dental hierarchy, and as a result they stand somewhat to the side. In the eyes
of most people they are actually dentists.

General dentists don’t have the elevated status we could have achieved had
we grasped the opportunity early. We could have improved our position and
now be thought of as specialists with all the advantages of that position.
Consulting Accountants
I have two great accountants, Bert and Martin, who are in partnership. They are
personable, pro-active and seem to know what they are talking about.
Coupled with that they seem to have bypassed the ‘charm-removing process’
that seems to be mandatory in accounting schools. (I’m certain that until a few
years ago trainee-accountants went through a special process to have their
charisma removed for fear they would not effectively make cold and impartial
financial decisions.)
Bert and Martin are very good at educating their customers (me) and I
receive a steady stream of great material. This however is not the point of my
story, even though customer education is the point of this publication.
I was impressed that Bert and Martin defined themselves as Consulting
Accountants on their letterhead. These words didn’t influence me in my
perception of their skills (because as a dentist I am far too unemotional and
objective), however I suspect that they did influence less experienced minds than
mine. (Just kidding!)
I happened to be talking to Mark, a good friend who is also an accountant,
and he remarked on the part of Bert and Martin’s letterhead that I happened to
be reading. “There is no such thing as a Consulting Accountant,” said Mark.
“You are either a CPA, chartered or unqualified. That’s it! It’s something they
made up.”
I was surprised, but little affected. What does the truth matter? I knew they
were Consulting Accountants because it was written on their letterhead!
The lessons?
• Once you have achieved it, a good position is a very powerful tool.
• If you are brave enough to take a particular position in the eyes of your
customers, mere facts tend not to change it.
• The printed word is still very powerful.
Winning Through Intimidation

I remember a great book I read in the seventies. It was called Winning Through
Intimidation. I must admit that I was a little intimidated by the title of this
strange little book!
As it turned out it was not about aggression at all, but about positioning.
Briefly, it is a story about a man, Robert Ringer. (I can still recall his photo
on the back cover which showed him wearing jeans so flared they almost
completely covered his shoes!) Robert, (I hope he doesn’t mind first name basis),
found that he was constantly unsuccessful in business because people felt he was

unimportant and powerless. Through educating his customers, and potential

customers, he manufactured a position for himself that was highly elevated from
the position he’d previously held in the eyes of his customers.
He was basically a real estate agent, and at the time where he lived it was
possible foror his customers to avoid paying his commission with few
repercussions. His position was weak and powerless.
Robert built himself a power position by using expensive letterhead and
stationery. He generally began doing things to the Nth degree. He set up a secure
legal framework for his fees and was sure to educate his customer about the
strength of the backing that he had.
By the end of his program, instead of waiting for the crumbs of commission
on small deals, he was commanding a large slice of the action on large deals.
Good education can give you a powerful position. A good position is often the
difference between a small fee paid grudgingly and a large one paid willingly.
If you really want your customers to listen to you, make sure that you and your
business-family
family perform your education techniques from a position of power and
trust.
Good Business Positioning Lund-

Review Points:
Yes, positioning ... I get it,
• Customers will do more for but it’s a lot harder to do
you if they respect you. when you’re on the bottom
And they will work hard to end of the ladder!
earn your respect.
Positioning is sensible, and if it
• Teaching from a position of works like Paddi says, it looks
strength is so much easier. easy ... as long as you’re
Poor Miss M---n.n. No wonder confident. I guess the idea
she couldn’t teach anything. of using positioning
ositioning is to get
people to listen to you and do
• You can make a position for what you want them to do.
yourself just by telling
people you have that Not a bad idea at all.
position. You don’t have to
pass an examination or test I wonder how I can position
or something. myself better with Mary?!?!
How interesting!

Firing Bad Customers
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 19 October “Firing Customers”

Getting rid of customers? That’s Is it possible to have too
a very silly idea. Of course you many customers? Is it true
that the more customers you
can’t have too many customers. I
have,
, the more money you
can understand that you might
make? Is it reasonable to
feel you have too many, y, but
divest one’s business of
actually firing customers? That’s customers?
just a bit too weird for me! Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
It almost seems an oxymoron: too many customers. Customers are, after all, the life-
life
blood of any business. How can one have too many? Well, you can!
Millions of Customers
Back in the 70’s I worked in England under the National Health System (NHS).
The System seemed to work reasonably well for medicine, but for dentistry it was
a bit of a disaster.
Most dentists were pushed (or dragged by their own avarice)
avarice) into providing a
production line of very poor standards of service.
As a young, wet-behind
behind-the-ears
ears dentist, I was seduced by the System. I had a
job in a working class area of London near the docks at New Cross. We had far
more patients than we could
could handle, and we treated them like dross.
“How long will he be?” asked the long-suffering
long suffering customer calling across our
seedy waiting room.
“You’ll have to wait a bit longer,” replied Betty our receptionist.
“But he’s already two hours late,” said the poorpoor customer. “I have to go to
work.”
“Take it or leave it,” replied Betty laconically.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to wait a bit longer. You’re better than going to
the Butchers’ at Deptford down the road (vernacular for the other dentists on our
street) … and you’re not so far to walk.”

We treated everyone badly. We did not discriminate. And we did not make
a fortune in spite of the fact that we had an enormous number of patients who
did whatever they were told. Our fees only just covered overheads, and people
were not used to paying out of their own pockets.
Luckily I had remembered enough of my people skills to attract a few paying
customers.
Private Patients
On Friday mornings I was allowed to treat private patients. The work was a little
more complicated, but far more enjoyable because I had time to do things properly.
I made as much profit in this one morning as in the whole of the rest of the week,
and I had a more enjoyable time. Without these few private patients my business life
would have been far more difficult.
In the matter of customers: quality

surpasses quantity.
You can have many customers clamouring for your attention, but unless they are of
good quality, your business will not be very successful and your life will be hard.
Mr Cresswell’s Crabs
There was one gentleman who sticks in my mind to illustrate the advantages I
gained from my private patients. His name was Mr Cresswell.
I spent a long time reconstructing Mr Cresswell’s teeth. He had root
treatment and bridges and precision attachments ... all the best I could do.
At one point Mr Cresswell had a problem for which I had to refer him to an
Oral Surgeon. That gentleman sent me a nice note afterwards saying how he felt
I had reconstructed Mr Cresswell in a wonderful exhibition of contemporary
dentistry. (In retrospect it was not that good, but in contrast to the usual
dentistry that was being handed out at that time in the UK, it was pretty decent.)
Anyway, I was quite chuffed by the letter. It was an added reward. I had the
pleasure of practising my art, the pleasure of Mr Cresswell’s company (he was a
personable man) and the great pleasure of a hefty fee. Not only that, but Mr
Cresswell was an importer and wholesaler of seafood. For the next few weeks I
received deliveries of fresh prawns, fish and crabs! I can assure you, it brightened
the days of that drab London winter.
What a contrast to the NHS people who paid far less (but received far less)
and never gave me anything, not even a card.

If I’d had fewer National Health System customers to look after, I am sure
that I could have persuaded them to pay for their dentistry. I would have made
much more money … and had a better time doing it. However, I did not make
that great leap.
The Quality of Customers

Often, the professionals who are only booked a few days ahead, or the businesses
with a small number of good customers, do the best. And often, the businesses that
are booked up six months ahead, with many unsatisfactory customers, make far less
profit.
In these types of businesses, there are people who don’t arrive for their appointments
and who don’t pay their bills. They can be unpleasant to serve and are often
dissatisfied with their purchase.
The more people that you see who are not really that keen on doing business with
you, the less money you make … and the less fun you have!
Most people feel they don’t have enough customers. They are constantly marketing
and advertising for more. My observation is that, apart from businesses just starting
out, most people have more than enough customers already. And what they really
have is too many undesirable customers gumming up the system. What they don’t
have enough of is the time to turn the good customer into wonderful ‘A’ Customers.
It’s likely you already have more

customers than you need.
The Pareto Principle

You may have come across the Pareto Principle applied to the economics of business.
Paraphrased it says:
There are 80% of your customers who give you 20% of your takings and 20%
of your people give you 80% of your takings.
I would also add from my own experiences that the self-same 80% of people who give
you 20% of your profits also give you ... 110% of your hassles!

You spend a lot of time fighting fires with these people, and it’s when you’re fighting
fires that you lose money. It’s hard to believe, but some customers are actually costly
to your business. You actually pay them for the privilege of serving them.
So how do you decide who are the customers that give you profit? And who are the
ones that cost you money?
Doing the ABCD’s

I felt that I needed a system for quickly deciding who were the most worthwhile
customers. So I divided my customers into 4 categories – A, B, C and D’s.
25% of people were wonderful to deal with, complained little, seemed to appreciate
what I did for them, paid their bill in a timely fashion and thus gave me most of my
profit. They were the A’s.
The B’s were slightly deficient in one of those characteristics, the C’s more so and the
D’s were the people who were quite undesirable to me both in a business and a
personal sense.
The A’s gave me most of my profit and pleasure, the D’s, my losses and my pain.
20% of your customers give you 100%

of your profit. The remaining 80% of
your customers give you 110% of your
hassles!
Practical Pareto
Now this wasn’t God’s judgement. These people may have been wonderful, virtuous
people – but they weren’t wonderful people for me and for my business.
“How much money does this person give me?” … that was what was most important.
(Remember, at the time I was on a treadmill: work hard to pay my debts, to earn a
little money, to spend my money trying to buy a little happiness, to work longer hours
to pay off my lifestyle...)
A second consideration was, “How much pain or pleasure do they give me?” In other
words, “Do I enjoy being with these people?”

The ‘D’ people didn’t particularly want what I had to offer. I had to persuade them
very hard to buy it. They weren’t particularly grateful for the things we did for them.
These were the people who complained a lot. And, they seemed to have many
problems. If they ever did refer anybody to me, it was a similar sort of person.
So, if I had cultivated the ‘D’ people, I would have had myself a lot of hassles and
very little money. In fact, I would have lost money and, with their referrals, I would
have had more people of the same type of person – “Birds of a feather flock
together,” so to speak. So I decided to cultivate the ‘A’ people – not so silly when you
think about it.
The only way I could have time to do this – because I was already working 60 hours a
week – was to divest myself of some of the people who weren’t so wonderful to me.
These were, of course, the ‘D’ patients.
We marked these designations on clients’ charts so that it was obvious who was who.
On the top of the patients’ charts (they were ‘patients’ at that time) the CareNurses
wrote a letter: A, B, C or D, depending on how we felt about this person.
Different Customers: Different Treatment

Armed with this new tool for recognising what people were worth to me, I decided to
put into effect what I imagined Pareto had meant – that one should treat the good
(useful) people with more care and consideration than the others. In other words, to
concentrate on the ‘A’ people.
During the course of any day, things happen to break the routine. In these times,
when I had to make a choice where I would devote my time or effort, I would often
make that decision on the spur of the moment. However, now that I had decided to
judge people’s value to me, I decided to treat different people differently according to
their value.
In fact, I already knew the criteria I would use, too. If, because I was running late, I
had the choice of inconveniencing one of two people, all other things being equal, I
would choose the person who had least value to me.
If I had to plan treatment for two customers, a ‘B’ Customer and an ‘A’ Customer, I
would start with the ‘A’ Customer. I’d rather take care of my ‘A’ Customer first just
in case I ran out of time and couldn’t do the other.
It is fair and
and reasonable to treat
different customers differently.

I can remember the first time I put my new criteria to use. One day a ‘B’ Customer
arrived late, and an ‘A’ Customer arrived early. What would I do? I took my courage
in both hands and saw my ‘A’ Customer first. My ‘B’ Customer had to wait.
My ‘A’ Customer was more enjoyable and more profitable. Interestingly enough, I
can remember my ‘B’ Customer wasn’t happy at the time, but he was never late again,
and he is now one of our ‘A’ Customers.
If I have an opportunity to chat about our services and there are two types of
customers with whom I can talk, I will choose the person in the highest category.
Judgement and Morality

After reading my last few words you would not be alone if you thought to yourself,
“How selfish, how judgemental, how immoral to make a value judgement of people’s
usefulness.”
True, my statement doesn’t sound very politically correct. However, if you think
about it, valuing people differently and treating people differently is something we all
do most of the time.
We treat our friends in a different way from strangers. We treat our uncles and aunts
differently from our parents, and we treat our brothers and sisters in a different way
from our spouses and lovers. This is accepted. It’s just normal, reasonable behaviour,
and it makes for a happy efficient world. I think that it is OK … no, wise … to do the
same with our customers.
I might also point out that in practice my system was rarely so cut-and-dried as you
might expect. I was not always as objective as I wished. I found that I could be easily
persuaded to spend excessive time with a charming (but obvious) rogue or an
impecunious young female client with attractive physical attributes.
Pareto’s principle has been quoted by lots of business authors and has certainly done
much good. However, this same idea has also been used to justify some of the more
horrible tenets of Italian Fascism. Profound ideas have a lot of power, and one must
be careful with them.
Good and Bad: What does it mean?

Consider my use of the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in relation to desirable and less
desirable customers. Lest you get the wrong idea and feel that I am making some
moral judgement, let me protest that I really am not.

I am certainly not claiming to be some universal arbiter of who’s ‘good’ and who’s
‘bad’. I have not been talking about moral judgements. I am speaking about the
effect of people – for good or for bad – upon my business. How pleasantly do they
treat me? How much have we in common? How happy are they to pay for my goods
and services? Those sort of things.
I learned quite quickly that my opinion of people’s value to me was not a guide to
their placement in any hierarchy of the afterlife. As well, my opinions were not
indicative of the person’s value to other businesses.
Referring the D’s

My progress in this area of treating different customers differently took a lurching
step forward when I was suddenly confronted by the one patient who had figured in
my nightmares. It was my archetypal ‘D’ Customer, Errol!
Errol the Felmonger

Errol would come to see me whenever he had a problem. Errol would not come
for regular visits so he could prevent his problems occurring, and he did not
even do the little things that most of us do to maintain our teeth. Errol did not
brush (“What’s the point? You’re going to rip them out anyway.”) and he did not
regulate his sugar intake at all. Errol’s idea of dental hygiene was a quick (or
sometimes more prolonged) swill of that much favoured amber liquid that
comes in ring-pull cans.
Errol’s other claim to fame was that he worked in a felmongery. Now I am
not sure whether you have intimate knowledge of the art and science of the
felmonger, so I shall digress a moment to explain more of this ancient art.
. . . . .
Felmongers render down slaughtered animal carcasses into their constituent
parts. They boil the unfortunate beasts in large vats for days on end until they
are reduced to a sort of mush. And then they sell off the mashed up parts for
others to make into things that we use in our daily lives.
A felmongery is usually situated in the worst part of town, close to the
tanneries and abattoirs. It is built as far from human habitation as possible, not
only because of the somewhat gross nature of the activities, but also, more
importantly, because of the exceedingly pungent aroma that emanates from such
establishments.
Unfortunately for the hapless workers such as Errol who toil in these
businesses, this odour is quite tenacious and it readily clings to their apparel.
. . . . .
After working at his art for a number of years, Errol was a sort of walking
advertisement for his employer. With the wind blowing in the right direction,

Errol had simply to walk up the road and his presence could be sensed by those
clear on the opposite side of the street.
I think you get the message. Errol SMELLED!
. . . . .
Now in the pursuit of a better class of clientele I had recently purchased a
new brocade lounge for my esteemed clients to sit upon whilst they waited for
my kind attentions. The day following my purchase of this decorous and
expensive piece of furniture, who should breeze into my establishment but my
friend (and by now your burgeoning acquaintance), Errol-the-Felmonger.
I sensed Errol’s presence almost immediately and rushed out to check on my
lounge. Too late!
Errol had ensconced himself firmly on said furnishing and was busy
transferring his corporate image to the brocade covering! I breathed deeply (in a
figurative sense –you only took shallow draughts of air in Errol’s vicinity) to calm
myself. After a few moments my blood pressure reached safer levels, and
resigning myself to the inevitable, I asked Errol the nature of his problem.
“Gahh gaur greu granch,” replied Errol speaking with some difficulty
because he had his finger in his mouth pointing to the offending tooth.
Contrary to the folklore that exists about dentists being trained to
understand answers from patients when they have their mouths full, I did not
understand Errol’s actual words. But his body language suggested he had a
problem tooth and the glimpse I had of the decayed-to-the-gum molar tooth at
the end of Errol’s grubby finger convinced me he had a serious problem.
It didn’t take a genius to know what Errol was actually asking. He wanted
me to extract his painful tooth. This I deduced because of the state of the tooth
and because it was what Errol always wanted: a tooth extraction. And extracting
teeth is something I hate to do.
History had taught me that Errol’s tooth would be very difficult to numb
and remove, and that because his mouth was so filthy, the socket would become
infected. It would require him to return at least trice for dressing the infected
bone.
From his pain and suffering Errol would deduce that I had not performed
my job correctly (Bit of a butcher. Pulled out half my jaw and he must have used dirty
instruments because I swelled up like a balloon.). As a consequence Errol would feel
justified in withholding my fee, and his bill would remain unpaid until I wrote it
off.
My day would be ruined and I would pay for the privilege.
. . . . .
As it happened, some weeks previously a new dentist had come to town.
Like Errol, he was also from the country. His name I have forgotten, but I shall
call him Jim for the purposes of this story. A likeable gentleman, Jim
nevertheless had mannerisms and speech which set him apart from us city folk.
(He introduced himself to me at a Study Club meeting as ‘the new local Fang

Farrier’. A ‘farrier’ is a person who shoes horses ... and occasionally takes a rasp
to their teeth when needed. Country humour!). He was large and jovial but with
arms like a blacksmith and a handshake like a steel trap. Not a person to annoy, I
thought to myself.
. . . . .
I suggested to Errol that he came to me only out of habit, and he really must
not think me a good dentist. (Because he always became infected and had to
forgo paying my bill.) Errol agreed this was the case and took to my idea of
seeing the country dentist with alacrity.
We arranged for Errol to visit Jim that very day, and Errol left my building.
We all heaved a sigh of relief, and the rest of the day went smoothly.
. . . . .
I mentioned before how I had spoken once at my Study Club. Well, it was
with increasing disquiet that I awaited the advent of the next Study Club
meeting.
I had enjoyed referring Errol to Jim, but I also felt somewhat guilty for
saddling Jim with a problem patient. (And a smelly one, at that!)
I managed to avoid confrontation with Jim for a few minutes, deliberately
avoiding the bar where he was drinking with a group. However, after a few
minutes he spotted me and walked briskly over.
I cowered in the corner but had to acknowledge him when he greeted me
with his usual bone-crunching handshake.
“G’day, Paddi,” he intoned as he towered over me. I felt a little queasy.
“Thanks for sending Errol to see me!”
I gulped, “A pleasure,” thinking he was being sarcastic.
“Yeh, a great guy. We grew up in the same town.”
“You took his tooth out?” Jim nodded.
“Better than that, a full clearance. I took all his teeth out and gave him a set
of clackers. He paid in cash. Then we went to the pub, and he shouted me all
night!”
You could have bowled me over with a feather. Different strokes for
different folks.
The Errol Incident

The interesting thing about the Errol Incident is that all the participants gained
something. I was happier than I had been before because:
• I no longer had to lose money from treating Errol. (You remember I spent a lot
of time with Errol. Even when he did pay me, and he usually didn’t, it cost me
more to treat him than I received!)

• I didn’t get stressed out, so the people I treated after Errol did not suffer.
• I did not suffer emotionally by Errol telling me I wasn’t good at my job.
• I had energy to spend with my ‘A’ Customers, and that translated to more profit
for me.
Errol got what he had really always wanted. He found a dentist he liked, got rid of his
annoying teeth and replaced them with a gleaming set of false clackers.
Jim, the dentist, found a great new customer, did the sort of dentistry he wanted and
made a good profit.
. . . . .
So my archetypal ‘D’ person became Jim’s archetypal ‘A’ person.
It’s interesting that the customers you refer on to others often become desirable
clients for those businesses. Your ‘D’ people could well be someone else’s ‘A’ people.
It’s funny how the world is.
Whether customers are desirable or

undesirable depends on the business
they patronise.
Why is this so? Because, it’s ‘Different strokes for different folks’. Not everybody can
give you exactly what you want in the world, and you cannot be all things to all
people.
. . . . .
I often wonder why I didn’t do this sort of thing a long time ago, rather than
continue to have problems (and lose money) treating certain clients. It seems that
sometimes we have to ‘stick our head in a gas oven’ before we realise it’s not a smart
thing to do.
I eventually divested myself of a large portion of my customers. To most people in

business this sounds like a very frightening idea. We all know how hard it is to build
up our business. And then to think you’re going to give part of it away?
Even if you believe my ideas are very reasonable and sensible, to rid yourself of
customers is still a little like making your first parachute jump. However, unlike a
parachute jump, you can make your changes gradually. You can always see how you

feel about the result of each little alteration. Even with that relative safety, it takes
more than a little courage… at least that’s what I found.
. . . . .
Luckily this nail-biting stage of firing bad customers didn’t go on for very long. I
quickly worked out more successful ways of getting really great new customers
through my front door. Ones that I would not want to leave.
Firing Bad Customers Lund-

Review Points:
I had imagined that dentists,
• If you had someone like of all people, would have to
that Errol fellow, you would take everyone as a customer.
soon get the point about That there was some sort of
firing customers. moral issue here. If they
chose you, you had to treat
• You can have too many them. I suppose if you were
customers, but you can’t the only dentist for miles
have too many good ones. around it might be the case.
• You are not the best When I get my own business,

business to serve all the I am going to be discriminating.
customers you have. Some I want to have a good time at
customers are far better work. I don’t want to go
off elsewhere. crazy like Paddi did, and I
don’t want to end up as
crabby as the Prof.

Advertising and Marketing
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 26
26 October “Advertising
g and Marketing”
Dear Diary,
Okay, you can fire customers. Assignment:
So how do you get new Does it make any
customers? Well, it’s the obvious difference when, where and
answer. It’s what everyone does, how you find your
right? Yellow pages, mail drops, customers?
display ad, small ad, large signs. Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
For many, advertising is very successful – if you plan carefully, you can get a
worthwhile result for the amount you pay. Then again,
again, sometimes advertising is a
dismal failure. And unless you track your results very carefully, it can even be hard to
tell when you do succeed.
Advertising isn’t really an exact science. Some people even consider it an art form and
have a view of the advertising
dvertising world as though through rose-coloured
rose coloured glasses. From
my side, I see that consumers are being bombarded more and more with ads (and are
far more cynical) than in times gone by. As each year passes it takes more expertise
and time to persuade consumers
consumers to buy your goods or visit your establishment. It’s
not that easy to advertise well … and it’s not even always appropriate.
Filtering Customers
Sometimes I talk with others in my profession who advertise heavily just to attract
thirty or forty new customers
tomers in a month. This seems an awful lot to me now. I can
remember when I used to see thirty or so new customers in a month, and I was
happy. However, now a good month is when I see six or seven new customers. How
times have changed.
Perhaps all those new

w customers are good for my colleagues. However, I found that
unless I was discriminating in choosing whom I attracted, I’d need 30 or 40 new

customers just to get 6 or 7 good ones – and I never knew which would be the good
ones. I’d have to meet and greet all the ‘potentials’ and try to persuade them to have
what I wanted them to have … only to fail with all but 6 or 7.
Because they’ve been bombarded with advertising, and because most other businesses
are trying to persuade them as well, new customers are often cynical and difficult to
lead to a trusting relationship. And many new customers are really not suitable for
your business anyway. If you keep them as customers they may cause troubles for you
or cost you money. Maybe, just maybe, this is an inefficient way of acquiring
customers.
. . . . .
Conventional advertising is rather like casting your net widely and then throwing out
the fish you don’t want. Rather like the professional fishermen who cast drift nets for
harvesting fish.
Dolphins
A few years ago there was a big furore about the dolphins that were caught by
boats fishing for tuna. They were using huge drift nets that caught large amounts
of sea creatures at a time. Albeit efficient in terms of human effort, these drift
nets were quite indiscriminate in the nature of the catch.
Environmentalists took up the cause of the dolphin. The products of the
drift net fishers were boycotted. There was a lot of bad press for them, and I am
sure they lost a lot of money.
Now most of the tuna is labelled ‘dolphin friendly’, and I assume that the
fishing is done with more care and different equipment so that the fishermen
harvest only the fish they really want.
The problem with casting your net widely and using an indiscriminate
technique is that you catch a lot of different creatures in your net. Some are not
edible and you have to get rid of them, and some of your catch could give you a
very nasty bite.
What on earth have dolphins to do with advertising, you may ask?
If you catch dolphins when you want tuna, a lot of damage is done to the dolphins
and to your reputation as an ecologically caring business.
The same sort of thing holds true for customers. You can cast your net widely,
advertise heavily and attract lots of new customers. However, many of them will be
unsuitable, and you will either tell them to leave (overtly or covertly by not serving
them well), or they will leave of their own accord. It’s a lot of effort either way.
Some may even cause you a lot of trouble before they are finished with you. (Bad
debts, bad press, lawsuits.)

How nice it would be to have a net other than a drift-net so that the dolphins (your
‘unsuitable customers’) are not caught at all?
Up-Front Filtering
My word for the concept of filtering out the unsuitable customers is (not
unsurprisingly) filtering. When it is done before customers even come to my business,
I call it up-front filtering.
Educate people so they can make a sensible choice and select themselves out.
Up-front filtering saves a lot of time and effort down the track and makes everyone’s
life (the filtered customer included) more pleasant.
It is far more efficient to filter

customers up-
up-front, before they come
to see you, than later in the
relationship.
A Personal Lounge
When I built Personal Lounges for my customers, I found that they suddenly
improved their memories. They asked more intelligent questions, came to decisions
more easily and kept their commitments. I think it was because customers made their
decisions in an environment where they didn’t feel coerced.
Like most dentists I used to talk to my customers while they were sitting in the dental
chair. I would discuss the type of treatment that I felt they should have and often the
cost of the treatment.
I expected that they would listen to me. After all, I was telling them things that were
important for their health and financial well-being.
It didn’t seem to work that way. I lost count of the number of times I told customers
some important facts, only to have one of the nurses tell me later that as soon as I was
out of earshot the customers would ask, “What did he say, again?”.
Now some of this was due to the fact that I used jargon in my speech, but a lot was
due to the environment. The other day I lapsed and spoke with a customer while in
the surgery – same effect as always. Merilyn and I laugh about it often. We now

realise that people with whom we talk in the surgery only retain about 10% of what
they hear ... and more importantly, what they commit to.
I liken it to the effect that occurs when I am introduced to a perfect stranger,

particularly in a social setting. I am so nervous or so overawed by the event that I
promptly forget the name of the person to whom I am introduced. If I am nervous,
embarrassed or angry, I forget easily.
Epididymis
Say I am in the doctor’s waiting room, and I have an appointment to see about
my epididymis. (You can look it up if you don’t know what it is, but I can tell you
that it involves non-public parts of the male anatomy.)
Suppose the receptionist happens to mention my condition in the hearing
of the rest of the waiting customers. I can assure you that my carefully cultivated
air of calm would quickly disappear. And I may well forget anything that she
mentions next. I am so busy wondering what the rest of the people in the
waiting room heard and think that I just don’t process the information.
Any communication that takes place under these circumstances is inefficient.

Communicating in public and without close understanding is ineffective. You are
liable to get all sorts of strange misconceptions and half-truths if you try.
I think that advertising can be a lot like that. Getting information from a newspaper
advert is just not the same as a chat with a friend, which is why I like word-of-mouth
advertising so much. It’s much more efficient.
This Is Not the Only Way

Advertising is obviously a great idea if you have small, fairly impersonal sales like in
an ice cream shop or a pizza parlour. But if you have deeper relationships with your
customers, and you have higher priced products and services, advertising can
sometimes be more trouble than it is worth. You get a lot of people through your
door, but often they are far from ideal ... and that can cause you an enormous
amount of trouble.
Having said that, there are all sorts of businesses that do very well from their
advertising. What I am suggesting is that there are other ways. Sometimes they can be
more efficient and lead to a more pleasant life for the people in your business.
Word-of-Mouth
If you are good at what you do, you probably receive a lot of new customers by
recommendation; possibly far more than you realise. Often these customers are far
more suitable for your business than those who might come to you from advertising.

It is your best customers that most often tell their friends to patronise your business,
and as their friends are often similar people, you get great customers by this word-of-
mouth way. It does however depend on what your customers are saying about you.
For instance, if your existing customers say you are cheap, then you are likely to get
new customers for whom the price you charge is very important: price shoppers. If
your existing customers say that you are ‘expensive but good’, then any new
customers they send are likely to want good quality and be prepared to pay for it.
You can educate your customers about what they should say when talking about your
business. And you can give them words that are of most benefit to you. How? Well,
perhaps you remember the story Fletcher told in his preamble at the beginning of this
text? How when I first met Paul Dunn at a Marketing Boot Camp, I sent him one of
my then (badly) named Customer Information Books?
Customer Information Book Revisited

You might wonder what happened to it, the book that I sent out to Paul that
impressed him so much. It is alive and well and working hard in my business.
After a lot of trial and error, I managed to build into this one useful tool the two
important elements of customer education: filtering out customers before they come
through my door and training good customers to be ‘A’ Customers. Because it has
the word ‘Welcome’ in big letters on the front cover, I call that tool my Welcome
Book.
Now that I have used a Welcome Book for some years (and I have seen how easy it
makes my life) I think if I had to do without it I would give up dentistry altogether.

Advertising and Marketing Lund-

Lund-Minor’s Note
Note Book
Review Points:
I think the point of this
• You may think that your assignment was efficiency.
advertising is working, but
you won’t know
now until you I am starting to realise that I
test and measure it. am not immortal. (Still hard to
believe, though). You only have
• Word-of-mouth
mouth brings in a finite amount of time and it
fewer new customers than a is important not to waste it.
full page spread in the
yellow pages, but the When I am in business I don’t
customers you do get are want to waste my time trying
likely to be far better to persuade people, who don’t
qualified. want what I have, to pay me
money for delivering it to
• Any advertising you do them.
should not just attract
indiscriminately but should Nope. I can see a different
filter as well. way now.

The Welcome Book
Lund-
Lund-Minor’s DIARY: 2 November “The Practical System”

All this theory has been very Search out a practical
interesting, but something system from your chosen
practical would be great. I business that demonstrates
wonder what Paddi’s marvellous the principles of Customer
Custo
Welcome Book is really all about? Training.
Prof. Paddi
. . . . .
I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at two seminars in North America
recently: one in Las Vegas for the Richard’s Report and one in Canada for McGill
University. At both venues the participants received some handouts, on the cover of
which I had written a few points ‘tongue in cheek’ but with somewhat serious intent.
You know how when you go to a seminar you get things on the notes that are teasers
for the presentation? Things like, “How to work more efficiently.
efficiently. How to close the
sale.” … that sort of thing? Well, I thought I would provoke the audience a little (and
see if they read my notes) by putting some challenging ideas in them.
One of my bullet points was: “How to attract fewer customers and spend $50 on
them before they even come through your door!”
I could see the puzzled expressions on people’s faces as they glanced at the handouts
then quickly re-read
read the offending title.
I could almost read their minds: “Why would I want to spend money on customers
before
efore they even came in? Why would I want to have fewer customers?”
I suspect you know by now the purpose behind what I’d written for them. But just in
case you haven’t got it, here it is again:
It’s better to have only a few good customers than some good and some not so good.

It’s better to filter customers before you see them for the first time.
It’s worth spending $50 (the cost of a Welcome Book to me) on customers if you are
likely to make far more than that in profits from having them as clients.
Unfortunately, during my presentation I didn’t have much time to cover the area of
Customer Education in detail. I hope that at the end of my presentation the
participants understood something of my point. However, I suspect that many didn’t.
If they ever get together, I bet they still talk about that crazy Paddi Lund who is
headed for bankruptcy and the loony bin.
But are they right? Is it silly to spend $50 on a Welcome Book?
Well, I could just say, “Yes, of course,” and leave it at that, but you may not be
satisfied just to take my word. So let me tell you a little about my Welcome Book and
you can judge for yourself.
The Welcome Book Described

As I mentioned, we send the Welcome Book out to customers who have made an
appointment to see me. It is normally posted to them but if time is at a premium we
courier it out the same day.
If ever there is no time to get it into a new customer’s hands before the first
appointment, it is noticeable at the appointment that the customer is not as pleasant
and co-operative as we are used to.
Physically it is a book in a custom-made binder with a full colour, printed cover.

There is a large ‘Welcome’ on the cover, photos of all the business-family inside, and
it contains about 50 pages of assorted information.
The sum of the parts is, however, greater than the whole. The paper and card and
plastic add up to a fabulous tool that I wouldn’t want to work without!
It’s the culmination of my learning and experience in business education. It brings

my two main ideas together: education and filtering.
We have talked about training customers. You can train customers to be what you
want. There was the concept of the mythical ‘ideal customer’ – the ‘A’ Customer.
And we discussed referrals and having your customers do the pre-education for you.
We have talked about selecting and filtering new customers by helping them to ‘de-
select’ themselves in the light of what they learn about your business.
The Welcome Book puts all these ideas together.

In addition, the Welcome Book:

• Pre-educates about the little details, like how to get to our place of business and
what our building looks like.
• Pre-educates about the big things, like what we have to offer, and about money,
for instance that we are more expensive.
• Recounts our personal stories so that deep relationships are built more quickly.
• Serves as a resource of customer information and a place in which to
accumulate important educational materials.
• Tells people how we want them to act with us.
• Generates lots of referrals.
Wonderful Referrals
The Welcome Book is just a little too good to throw away. It is also specially made so
that it fits in only about 5% of bookshelves, which means usually it sits out on the
coffee table. It has an interesting, colourful front cover, and every now and then
someone will pick it up and glance at the words within. It’s a good way for potential
clients to become more educated about my business, and it’s often a conversation
starter between my customers and their friends.
When customers’ friends come over, it is there in front of them, and I suspect it
forms the basis of many interesting discussions about dentistry (everyone has a dental
story to tell).
That way my customers do my advertising and marketing for me!
I find that my customers use the book as a reference to help sell the benefits of my
business to their friends. This gives me the ideal kind of advertising without any
extra expense.
It even educates my customers exactly about what to say to friends that they want to
refer.
Filtered Customers
The Welcome Book is appealing to the type of customer that I want, ‘A’ Customers.
It is designed to impress exactly that sort of person, and to a certain extent repels
other types of people. These are the ‘A’ Customers who want exactly what I have to
offer and cannot easily get the same service-mix elsewhere.

I even go so far as to describe the characteristics of my ‘A’ Customer in the text. I tell
my customer the type of person I want.
It’s great when prospective new customers are educated enough about my business
that they know when they are not suitable and select themselves out. I filter out the
prospective customers that do not want what I have to offer before they come
through my front door. It saves my time ... and theirs.
Building Relationships
The Welcome Book will help new customers to get to know the people in my
business. Consequently, my business-family finds it easier to form a close
relationship with customers – they know us already.
Customers like to get to know those from whom they buy. In these days of
increasingly impersonal business transactions, any ‘human touch’ is very impressive to
customers.
It is much easier and more pleasant to buy from someone you know and trust than
from a stranger. And to have customers whom we like and know is very pleasant for
my business-family.
Allayed Anxieties
The Welcome Book puts to rest my new customers’ anxieties before they come to my
business for the first time.
Dealing with a business for the first time certainly has the capacity to provoke anxiety.
It is a characteristic of humanity to be nervous in unknown situations. If my new
customers have enough concerns about patronising my company – even if the
anxieties are all minor – they may think of a good, substantial and very logical reason
why they should not make the change to me.
I tell customers how to find my office, what to do if they get lost, where to park,
where the toilets are. These are little things but, if omitted, they can add up to
someone feeling stressed, even if just a little. We all get that way when going
somewhere new.
The Welcome Book is a very effective way of showing my prospective customers

exactly what they can expect when they make their first business contact with me.

Explanations Excused
The Welcome Book explains problems before they happen. That way I don’t have to
make excuses afterwards.
If I say I’m more expensive up-front, and my new customers accept that, they are not
going to complain that I am pricey when they get their bill. (Within reason!)
What you say before the event is an explanation, after it’s an excuse. This principle is
akin to ‘under-promise, over-deliver’. People are happy if they get a little better than
they expect, unhappy if they get a little worse.
It is easy to forget to give people an explanation, imagining that things will go

optimally. Then when things go wrong (or less optimally than you expected) the
explanations sound hollow, even to you who are giving them.
Education before the event is vital. It can even turn a negative into a positive. I
imagine at times my customers have said to themselves, “The bad things didn’t
happen. They must be good at what they do.”
Education after the event is merely damage control.
In the eyes of your customer an

explanation given after the event is
just an excuse.
Wisdom Teeth
Whenever I take out wisdom teeth, I enumerate a litany of ill that may befall my
poor patient. I tell customers they may have a broken jaw, a numb lip, a numb
tongue and massive infection. I even have them sign a form that says they
understand there may be terrible side-effects.
When they recover from the anaesthetic and finds that their lips are not
numb, their jaws unbroken and recovery uneventful, they are often very grateful.
I am required to tell them the awful possible consequences in the interests
of informed consent, even though most of these occurrences are very unlikely
unless I’m unusually careless. However, customers are still very grateful when
nothing untoward occurs.
I am starting to think that perhaps all business transactions should be
preceded by an explanation of all the things that can go wrong.

Say I put my car in for a service, for instance. If the service department had
listed all the things that could go wrong, I would already be half accepting of the
fact that there might be some unforeseen circumstance that could force them to
keep it overnight.
Then if I got my car back the same day, I would be ecstatic.
Product Value Increased

My Welcome Book increases my customers’ perceptions of the value of my products
and services.
Customers do not always understand the benefits that they will gain from their
business dealings with you. The value that you see in your own product is not always
obvious to your customers. So an important role of my Welcome Book is to describe
the benefits of my products.
It is a fundamental principle of marketing that customers buy something because they

believe in the advantages that a product will give them, rather than because they
understand how it is constructed or delivered.
The fact that a car is well-made or good value-for-money is not usually the main
reason we buy it. Typically, we buy a car because we fall in love with its shape or
colour. The ‘logical explanations’ are the ones we give to our friends and to ourselves
… after we have decided to buy.
I try to describe the benefits of my product with exciting words so my customers can
feel as thrilled about them as I am.
When the other business-family members read the Welcome Book and note the
benefits that they can supply to their customers, they gain a whole new feeling about
the value of the things they do. They also acquire a lexicon of phrases to use when
they describe service-items to their customers.
I often find myself and my team speaking the very words I have so carefully written.
Buyers Helped
After customers have seen my Welcome Book, the benefits I have enumerated will be
in the forefront of their minds. It is this knowledge that persuades them to buy from
me for the first time.
In many businesses, a common complaint is, “I hate having to sell.” And customers,
strangely enough, hate being sold to.

Since we have changed our Welcome Book to emphasise benefits, I find that I do not
really have to sell my services any more – people ask to buy! How much more pleasant
it is when customers simply … ask to buy!
A Welcome Book is not the only tool you will need to produce this state of affairs,
but if you’re in the right business, it will be a significant step in the right direction.
In these days of high cost labour, it is wonderful for us to have a tool that works so
tirelessly and with little effort from anyone.
All that Glitters...

For various technical and biological reasons if people need caps on their back
teeth, I recommend that they be made of gold. The problem with this is that
most people these days don’t like the look of gold on their teeth.
I cannot count the number of battles that I have had trying to persuade
patients that it is worth the poor appearance for the other advantages. People
just seem to switch off. They want their teeth to be white.
Finally I decided to enumerate the advantages of gold for back teeth in the
Welcome Book.
Now many people react to my suggestion in the same way as Jane who came
in yesterday. When I mentioned caps on her back teeth, she digested the
information for a moment and then said, “Well, I think you should use gold.
It’s stronger and you won’t have to remove as much tooth.”
Jane was quoting almost word for word from the Welcome Book. She was
making a very good case to me using my own words. Very gratifying!
I decided that I would do as Jane requested (she was very persuasive), and we
made a date to prepare two of her back teeth for gold caps.
I now have few arguments with customers about gold, once again illustrating the
power of pre-education and the written word.
Customers Armed
Relationships are obviously good things in life, but they do cause certain problems in
business.
A customer comes in and decides to buy some of your products or services. He or she
goes home and tells his or her spouse that he or she has just committed to spending
X thousands of dollars. The spouse, not understanding the reasons for the
recommended products or service (and not being so intimately acquainted with the
reasons for his or her spouse seeking a solution to his or her problem) is not happy.
In fact his or her voice may be raised.

There is nothing worse than making a contract with a customer, only to have it
broken because of the influence of a third party. One answer is to use a Welcome
Book to pre-educate the spouse by giving your customer enough information and
technique to do the job for you.
. . . . .
We have a similar sort of problem in the matter of Health Insurance.
Private Health Insurance is an interesting business in Australia, as I’m sure it is in

your country, too. Some dentistry is covered, some is not. In any case, insurance
companies have set up a coding scheme whereby they can determine which
procedures they will reimburse customers for, and which they won’t.
For years this caused us all sorts of problems. We do not itemise accounts, and this
annoyed the insurance companies immensely. Previously, when our customers took
their accounts into the Claims Office they were often told how wicked we were. That
we were not itemising accounts just so that we could cheat them (the Insurance Fund
and our customers).
Now we have an education sheet in the Welcome Book that sets out the reasons why
we do not itemise accounts. It then states clearly the advantages that gives to our
customers. These few paragraphs help the customer take our part against the
insurance people, and our problems have stopped.
Give your customers the right ammunition (information) and they will fight many
battles on your behalf.
Courtesy Reinforced
Finally and probably the most important benefit to me of the Welcome Book is that
it carefully explains how we want customers to behave in their interactions with us.
I want customers to be polite, so in the Welcome Book we place a copy of our

Courtesy System. I ask customers to use this as a model for their communications
with us all. It has parts about saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, about complaining
pleasantly, solving problems easily and many other skills.
I explain that they must tell us if they have a problem, that they are not always right
and that I want them to pay their bills as soon as they are asked.
Strangely enough all of that is what customers seem to do.

. . . . .
So was it worth spending the $50 on customers who hadn’t come through my door
yet by sending them a Welcome Book?
Lifetime Value
At one time I used to talk at a lot of accounting seminars. I learned an awful lot
from listening to the other speakers. Not just about accounting but about
business.
One of the principles I learnt was the ‘Lifetime Value of a Customer’. How
much is a customer actually worth to you?
You need to know that so you can determine how much is reasonable to
spend on the acquisition of a new customer through your advertising.
Say your advertisement costs $1000, and you gain 4 new customers as a
result. Is this worthwhile? Well, it depends on the value (Lifetime Value) of your
customer and your profit margin.
If your average customer spends $500 per year, and your profit margin is
50%, then they are worth $250 a year to you. If your average customer stays with
your business for ten years, their lifetime value is $2500.
If you can acquire one of these customers for $250 ($1000/4) then you
would probably think that a good deal. Without the information you are
working blind.
After my first talk in which I mentioned my Welcome Book, some of the
accountants voiced concern that it cost me $50 to prepare, print and deliver a
Welcome Book. I did the mathematics on average Lifetime Value of my
customers. It turned out to be a great bargain!
When you know what a customer is

worth, you know how much you can
afford to spend acquiring them.
And the rest of the Lifetime Value Equation? The pleasure of your customers’
company, their accolades for a job well done, their trust? What is the value of these
things to you and your business-family? These are not measurable, but they are at least
as important.

. . . . .
Do you currently get what you want out of life from your business, or could you
improve the part your business plays? In which case, please consider these points
poi as a
way of wrapping up our little dialogue about Customer Training.
• Do you want customers to patronise your business on the grounds of price and
quality, or would you prefer that they fall in love with your business?
• Is it worth your while to help your
your good customers to be better ... and your bad
customers to find somewhere else?
• Wouldn’t it be beneficial to you if your customers were skilled and trained in
bringing you referrals?
• Are you well-positioned
positioned in your customers’ eyes?
• Wouldn’t it be good if your new customers came through your door already pre-
pre
educated, pre-filtered
filtered and convinced that your business was the one for them
above all others?
I wanted all these things, and now by using the principles of customer training, I have
them. It has been a long path, but all worth it.
Thank you, Customer Training, and thank you, Welcome Book!
The Welcome Book Lund-

Review Points:
Well, that’s it for this
subject. I must admit, it’s
• You have to know how much been quite an eye- -opener. As
a customer is worth to you a customer, I now see the
before you know how much opportunities many businesses
you can reasonably afford to are missing to improve their
spend acquiring and customers. I just hope I can
educating them. use all these
se ideas when I’m in
business.
• Paddi’s Welcome Book sets
his position and helps people But for now I just have to
see he is better than they submit this assignment, take
otherwise would. the final exam, and then if I
pass, I’ll be a fully-
-fledged
• Customers respect a Customer Educator.
business that tells them how
it is right from the start. Roll on Summer Holidays: sun,
sea, sand … and bikini clad girls!

A Final Word from Paddi

As you’ve probably noticed, I really enjoyed writing about my ‘alter egos’ in this story.
I just thought I would take one last opportunity to tell you how each of my ‘selves’
managed during the course of the subject, Customer Training 301.
Lund-Minor did graduate as a Customer Educator – not with an A but

with a solid B.
The Prof. warmed to Paddi’s ideas a little in the end, and his brush
with Lund-Minor seems to have brought him out and mellowed him a
bit.
Paddi does not seem to be growing just like the Prof. He has his bad
points, but seeing the Prof.’s character in print has helped him avoid it
thus far.
And you … I hope I have not discomfited you with my strange ideas! I also hope that
you have learned something useful about educating customers in the sometimes-scary
realm of business marketing.
If you haven’t done much in this area before, why not try it. As Omer Reid, a
respected acquaintance and a great educator, is fond of saying, “If it’s been done
before ... it’s probably possible.”
And before I go, a special thanks to the teachers I have had. To my Mother: you
taught me so well, I didn’t even know I was learning; To Omer Reid: you inspired me
to think outside the box; To Paul Dunn: you taught me that humanity is possible in
any business; To Jay Abraham: you showed me that you can value your time highly
and that people will value it the same. To Helen Parker: you demonstrated to me
that warmth and kindness in business are not dead; To Rich and Dave Madow: you
taught me that Americans have still got a lot to offer the rest of the world; And finally
to Mrs Clark, Mr Stillwell, Miss Stoddart and Mr Slade: you gave me the basics, and
you still live in my memory.
Thank you to you all.
Paddi

Addendum — On Marketing
Conventional business wisdom has it that to educate people in marketing is one of

the most expensive approaches you can take. And this is true. In terms of cost per
lead or cost per sale, particularly with unusual products or services, it is a very costly
process to educate the broad mass of potential customers.
However, educational marketing to the interested and motivated is perhaps the most
efficient form of promotion. And that is exactly what Paddi’s style of education in his
marketing is all about.
Not many businesses set out to educate their customers. Most people see customers as
being either good or bad, but they don’t appreciate that they can change customers
significantly. At least most business people don’t make a concerted effort to change
their customers. However, you can teach people to be better customers, and you can
help them to enjoy your business and its people more.
These stories you’ve just read in Paddi’s text are about the formal ways of educating
customers, including usage of the written and spoken word. The aim of these stories
is to show you how important it is to teach your customers to value your product, as
well as the people who deliver it.
. . . . .
This book is about a particular view of business.
You can be financially successful with many different models. However, there aren’t
any business models I’ve seen that will give you as much financial success and
emotional fulfilment as Paddi’s.
Paddi makes more money while working less hours. He works more efficiently
because all of his clients want what he has to offer. He has less down time when at
work because everyone shows up for their appointments promptly, and he completes
jobs more quickly because clients are more co-operative.
Paddi wants to enjoy the time he spends at work. So Paddi tries only to attract those
customers who want what he has to offer. This makes his business life more
enjoyable, profitable and efficient.

Paddi has applied all of the principles of customer education about which you’ve
read. They have taken the form of his Welcome Book and Extra Information Sheets
that he discussed in the last chapter.
For your interests, I thought you might appreciate a summary of Paddi’s Welcome
Book. Following are the Chapter Titles from the book, as well as the Subject Titles of
Paddi’s Extra Information Sheets.
Welcome Book Chapter Titles Special Information

The Patrick Lund Dental Family (Here customers can put the extra
How to Find Us information sheets that they are given during
Our Courtesy System the course of their relationship with Paddi’s
General Information business. The Subject Titles of the sheets
Only by Invitation are any of these as appropriate.)
What we want for you
Making the most of your time Complete Examination
How we make your treatment pleasant Inviting Your Friends to See Us
The problem with fillings Why We Do Not Itemise Accounts
Caps are often the answer Caps for Your Teeth
Preventative Dentistry Having Your Wisdom Teeth Removed
Why we have no front desk Refinishing Swollen Fillings
Food and Drinks Gum Disease
How do our fees compare Fissure Sealing
Guarantee Surface Treatment
Payments
Tooth Nerve Troubles
Health Funds
The hours we work
Root Canal Treatment
Unlisted Phone Number
Emergencies
A Bargain we would like to make with
you
However, it’s important to point out that there are many more ways to educate
customers in business than what Paddi has illustrated.
You don’t have to create a Welcome Book in order to have wonderful customers and
a successful business. In fact, a Welcome Book system modelled faithfully on Paddi’s
is really only ideally suited to a particular type of business ... usually a service-type
business, with prices in the high-end of the marketplace, and with a customer value in
excess of $500 in the first year.
You can, however, apply Paddi’s principles of customer education and filtering to
your business, no matter what industry you are in, no matter how you do your
marketing.
The Welcome Book Customer Education System is not the subject of this text.
However, the principles in this text are exactly what Paddi has used to create his own
Welcome Book. If you would like to learn from Paddi exactly how to create a

Welcome Book for your business, as well as acquire a copy of Paddi’s Welcome Book
to copy and use for yourself (with Paddi’s permission, of course), then please visit our
website, www.solutionspress.com.au and go to the page titled, ‘Welcome Book
Construction Kit’.
. . . . .
You may not feel that it is possible for customers to treasure your business. You may
be surprised at their response if you ask them. Anyway, it’s good to have lofty goals so
that even if you fall short, the result is a good one.
Overleaf is a list of important steps (summarised from the text) that you are advised
to keep in mind. Good luck applying the principles of customer education to your
own marketing.
Kind regards
Fletcher Potanin, Publisher

For all at Solutions Press

Paddi’s Action Plan for ‘A’ Customers

The Seven Steps for Training
Wonderful Customers
1. Have a clear picture of ‘A’
‘ Customers in your
mind. Know what you want them to be and do.
2. School your customers in enough desirable
features of your business so that they will want
to become ‘A’ Customers.
3. Educate your customers about the benefits of
your services.
4. Say it first, and then, in your customers’ eyes,
the idea is yours – even if it is old hat to you.
5. Tell customers exactly what you want, and you
will probably get it.
6. Make a fair bargain with your customers, and
they will respect it.
7. Do not try to be all things to all people. Speak in
specific terms to filter your prospective
customers. (Write with words that ‘sing’ to your
ideal customer, and forget about the rest.)
 2011 by Solutions Press for Dr Paddi Lund

Epilogue
From the Editor, Fletcher Potanin
Please let us know how you have enjoyed this publication. If we can help in any way with
Paddi’s ideas, or if you would like to communicate with him, you can write to us by e-mail at
info@solutionspress.com.au.
If you have any comments to make about this programme, we would love to hear from you,
too. It does not matter if your comments are laudatory or critical, we welcome them all.
Praise gives us encouragement to continue down the same path. Your constructive criticism is
even more valuable than praise because it helps us to change our way of doing things for the
better.
Which Language?
Solutions Press is an Australian Publishing company and yet many of our publications find
their way to English speaking countries who use other than our Australian English.
In its written form, Australian English is very similar to British English. However, if you listen
to the way we speak you may wonder how this can be. Many British people find vernacular
Australian almost incomprehensible.
We were faced with the decision of which language to use: International English or US
English or to remain true to our origins and use our Australian English in our publications.
We decided to take the latter course because we feel that the world is already becoming too
homogeneous, and that it is the differences in cultures that make life more interesting.
If you are American, our decision to publish in Australian English may cause you some
difficulties. We do hope however that you will forgive us and that you find our use of words
(and our different spelling) enriches your experience.
The Language Differences

In some ways Australian English is more modern than the US English but in most ways it is
more traditional and the spelling is more difficult.
Some of the idioms and grammar in US English have remained as they were at the time of the
War of Independence while other branches of English have changed. For instance, in
American English Gotten is the past tense of the verb ‘to get’. In Australian it has become got.

Spelling
Under the influence of such famous Americans as Noah Webster, a lot of words in the
American English language have undergone a simplification of their spelling.
From -our to -or – In our publications you will read colour and labour for color and labor.
From –ae and –oe to –a and -e – In Australian English we use the double vowels ae and oe.
Hence you may see encyclopaedia and foetus instead of encyclopedia and fetus.
From –que to -ck – We use words ending in –que, such as cheque instead of check
From –c to -k – We refer to a computer disc instead of disk.
From –ll to -l – There are more double letters in Australian English than American and so
you will see travelled rather than traveled.
From –re to -er – You will find that we often place text in the centre of a line rather than the
center.
From –s to –z – We organise our publications, instead of organizing them as you would in

America.
A Short Course in Australian Language and Culture

We fly in aeroplanes. Wash our hands under taps in the loo. Drive around in cars, place our
suitcase in the boot and fill the oil under the bonnet.
Redheads, we call blue. We wear thongs on our feet. Drink cold stubbies from the esky and put
petrol in our cars.
Our kids get cavities from eating lollies. We queue to go into the pictures.
Our postal codes are shorter. The water runs down the plughole in the opposite direction.
Our billions are 1000 times as big (1,000,000,000,000 rather than 1,000,000,000)
Footy (football) is the national religion, and there are 4 denominations that vary according to
the state in which you live: Soccer, Rugby League, Rugby Union, and Aussie Rules.
Christmas dinner is traditionally held at the beach and everyone heads north to the warmth
in June holidays.
In spite of these interesting differences, in many ways US and Australian cultures are similar.
Australia is a large country with lots of open spaces. It is almost as big as the USA but with
only 18 million people. Many Americans see our Outback as being like the Old Wild West.
Contrary to most people’s perceptions, Australia is the most heavily urbanised (read urbanized)
country in the world. A greater percentage of our population lives in cities than any other
part of the globe. The sun-bronzed, outback Aussie is a rarity.

We acquire cultural influence from North America, Asia and Europe. People here are still
unsure of whether we are a distant outpost of European culture or the harbinger of a new
multiculturalism.
Anyway we like it here! Come and see us sometime.
An Unusual Vocabulary
In this text, Paddi has followed the same use of words that he adopted in his ‘Welcome Book’
and in Building the Happiness-Centred Business.
Paddi uses familiar words in unfamiliar ways. You may find Paddi’s practice a little confusing,
so we have included a brief list of the more important of these words in a Glossary.
You might wonder at some of these words. ‘Business family’ is a good example. The concept
of the all the people associated with a business being part of a business-family is certainly
unusual.
Many people in business find it hard enough to be civil to those with whom they spend their
working days. However, “Words shape our thoughts,” as Paddi is fond of saying.
If you want to create greater interpersonal bonds with the others in your business, just try
using words like ‘family’, ‘customer-family members’ and ‘team-family feelings’.
If you do, you will begin to find that the words will direct and control your own thought
processes. Eventually you will begin to think in the way that you desire by the words you use.
This glossary contains a brief list of what Paddi considers are the more important of these
words for our business environments.
The Glossary
Paddi uses familiar words in unfamiliar ways.
Congruent Business Position, n. The dynamic and desirous stage in a developing

business when its culture and persona are a fitting reflection of the personalities
tastes and desires of its people.
Customer-family, n. The customers of a business. The use of the word ‘customers’

to describe the people who come to a business is familiar to most. However, it is not
used very much in relation to professional businesses. Most health-care practitioners
use the word ‘patient’ while other professionals use ‘client’. Referring to people as
‘customers’ emphasises the fact that the business-person is there to serve – a fact easily
forgotten.
Business-family, n. The employees of a business. Also Team-Family.
Supplier-family, n. Anyone who supplies goods or services to a business.

Extended business-family, n. All of the people associated with a business, including

managers, employees, customers and suppliers.
Specific Ideal Customer, n. The customer who gives the business-family all they
could wish for. One who – “stays, says and pays” (Michael Basch, 1992). A customer
who keeps coming to a business, says pleasant things about the business, and pays the
bill. To this could be added ‘and who refers wonderful new people’.
Irresistible Customer Attractor, n. A description of those core parts of a business

that are designed to attract the Specific Ideal Customer to a business. Also Irresistible
Attractor.
Happiness-centred, adj. (Usually applied to a business.) Describing a process that

leads to an increased happiness for all. A way of conducting a business.

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Happiness & Profit: The Paddi Series...

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SOLUTIONS PRESS BUSINESS PUBLISHING

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - ii

Greetings from Your Tutor, Dr Paddi Lund 1

What Makes A Wonderful Customer? 13

Know Your Business 21

The Power of a Good Business Position 46

Firing Bad Customers 52

Advertising and Marketing 63

The Welcome Book 68

A Final Word from Paddi 79

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - iv

A Rather Creative Approach

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - v

Lund-Minor writes like this.

The Prof. writes like this: precise

A Few Unusual Ideas

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - vi

I hope you enjoy Paddi’s newest work.

Kind regards from,

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - vii

A Message to All Students

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 1

Professor Paddi: the Prof.

The Prof. is the type of person I will become if I am not careful!

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 2

Customer Training 301

As its name suggests CT 301 is about Customer

In this subject among other things you will learn:

How to find out what you really want from

How to avoid advertising and yet attract more

How to get what you want from your customers.

What you need to teach your customers.

How to filter out the undesirables from your

During the course you will need to find a business to

Follow your Tutor-Paddi with caution. He has a

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 3

Dear Diary, And they seem so happy

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 4

However, I cannot remember having been taught how to educate.

When I opened my own practice, I was looking to instruct my customers in an

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 6

… Well, no. I think not.

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 7

WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?

The best form of motivation is to show an advantage and….

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 8

The best teachers create a tension

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 9

Prevention Classes Revisited

All in all, a very satisfactory improvement

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 10

‘How you teach’ is important if you

The Questions? Here they are:

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 11

Discovering Business Education Lund-

• Just wanting to educate It strikes me that education in

www.PaddiLund.com e-Book Digital Edition - 12