A Story Worth Telling
-
Alt Text for Image
“The first step in meeting your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.”
— Roy H. Williams, author, and founder of the Wizard Academy Institute.
“Yes sir, I do have the parts you’re looking for in stock,” Chris responded to my email Saturday morning.
One call confirming that Time Machine Spas was open, and I was on my way to Longview. Closing the sale with some friendly conversation about my day job, owner Chris Ogden shared that his college journey began with a desire to be a journalist before he wound up in business. However, he never lost his love for sticking words together to tell a story.
I smiled when he confessed to creating a side business in college, writing academic papers for those absent the day writer’s genes were passed out. The smile was because I had done the same thing. “Ghost writing” for the word-challenged at Kilgore College in the late 1960s proved profitable for me as well.
The Leigh Apartments in Kilgore sat on a hillside above North Henderson Boulevard. A row of lawn chairs under a big shade tree beside the parking lot was a roosting place for guys to watch traffic on the busy street below and exchange commentary and/or grades on two things: good-looking fast cars and good-looking girls driving any kind of car.
My writing business was born during one of those observational afternoons. “Man, I’ve got to get started on that paper for English class,” lamented one of the lawn chair gallery members.
“When’s it due,” I asked. “Tomorrow. And I’d give anything if I could just pay somebody to write it for me.”
Thinking for a minute during the short silence, I challenged the question. “How many pages you need … and what would you pay? “
After supplying the composition criteria, he asked. “You know somebody that would do it by 1:00 o’clock tomorrow? For $20?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me.” “You?”
“Yeah, me,” I responded. “I may be flunking trig and calculus, but I’m making As in English and composition.”
We struck a deal at four that afternoon and I headed off to the library. I was the last one out when it closed at 10 and kept my portable typewriter busy that night while everyone else, including my first business client, played spades at the apartment four doors down. I presented him with a manuscript about the same time his card game broke up.
Later that week, he was waving his graded paper in the air. “I got B-plus,” he hollered.
“Is that good,” I asked hesitatingly. “Good? It’s the first passing grade I’ve made in that class,” he beamed. “The teacher said my progress was remarkable.”
“Whew,” I sighed. Word spread through the apartments and out to friends. I was soon spending one or two nights a week in the library and some Saturdays when I wasn’t traveling with the band for an out-oftown football game.
By finals, I had earned a nice nest egg toward next semester’s college expenses and had spending money. I also had happy customers with good grades as references. Well, except for that one paper.
That customer, a football player, was getting out of his car at the apartments when I saw him. “Hey, how’d that paper work for you,” I asked?
The six-foot-two, 260-pound lineman unfolded out of his car, turned to me, and said, “I got a D.”
“Oh no,” I exclaimed. “I am so sorry. I’ll give you your money back,” I added, reaching into my pocket. “Can I look at it and see what the teacher’s problem with it was—will she let you do something for extra credit? I’ll do that for free.”
“Are you kiddin’, it’s fine,” he said, waving off the money with a grin. “All she wrote on it was, ‘I know this not your work, but I can’t prove it, therefore I cannot fail you.’ She gave me a D which is better than the F I would have gotten. And I don’t have to take the class over next semester. It’s all good.”
Business lesson two in my young career was that some customers’ expectations will be less than others. And that will be all right, too.
Last Saturday in Longview, I was happy to buy parts to repair my hot tub and get them the same day without ordering online. Chris seemed happy to make a sale, albeit a small one, and charged me less than I was about to pay online.
A win-win with a bonus: making a new friend with common stories to swap.
That part was above and beyond my expectations. —Contact Leon Aldridge at leonaldridge@gmail.com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge. com