Don't be too quick to judge

I was thinking about an old friend of mine the other day. He was always a bit eccentric, but was well-off financially. He liked to dress in scruffy old clothes when he went out to make major purchases—like a new Porsche—and see the look on the salesman's face when he took out his cheque book to buy. He delighted in the quick aboutface these people often performed when they saw he was a serious buyer. Many had tried to give him the brushoff when he entered the showroom, but he always said the really astute salespeople were the ones who treated him well from the outset, regardless of how he was dressed.

This brings to mind something that happened to me many years back when I and a business partner owned a small advertising agency. One morning two gentlemen walked in unannounced and asked to see the agency president. They were an odd pair, a tall skinny man in a really cheap, old-fashioned suit and shoes and a shorter Japanese gentleman who spoke hardly any English.

Although my partner and I were busy with other things at the time, we reluctantly agreed to meet the men and ushered them into the meeting room to find out what they wanted from us.

As it turned out, they wanted to hire us as their advertising agency. We had never heard of their company and were skeptical at first but finally agreed to take them on as a client.

Well, to make a long story short, they were setting up the Canadian office of an international company, based in Japan, which was well-established around the world! We quickly learned that their product, a childrens' learning system, was highly regarded and an industry leader.

We worked on that business for over ten years and it was a mainstay account in our agency resulting in hundreds of thousands in profits!

The point of this is: you never know who you are going to meet so treat everyone fairly and listen to what they have to say.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?