STORY: Postcards, Pakistan & me | Timing matters

Postcards from Rethink Central

Fancy chatting live? Scroll down for details (or to read the transcript)

Got a burning business question? Come to a live call

Next live call is October 10, 2023 - Noon Eastern / 5pm UK.
Come along to ask your questions about launches, strategies for marketing, Masterminds or whatever you're stuck on in your business.

Add your email below and I'll send you the zoom info for the calls. See you there!

Or come say hello on Instagram here.  I microblog daily. 

Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript:

Today, I want to talk to you about customer service. I know, deathly dull. So, let me illustrate it with

a couple of stories about two very different approaches to customer service from the time I lived in Pakistan and in India.

I lived in Pakistan when I was just a teenager. And one day, my father took us to this little beautiful set of tombs just out of town – called the Chaukhandi tombs.

Now, we’re an Irish family and frankly, we’re not really made for daylight.

So pretty soon after I got there, I started feeling very dizzy and very heat stroke-like.

I went over to the wall to – forgive me – throw up.

I didn’t feel well.

It was very hot. It was Pakistan. I’m Irish. My father stood behind me, sort of patting me on the back in that kind of vague ‘there there, dear’ that I believe is traditional from all parents.

As I puked, one of the postcards sellers from the tombs came over.

You know the sort, has a little fold-out pack of postcards. I heard of they still do these anymore but they do in the subcontinent.

And, in between me puking, he would flash the cards in front of me to see if I wanted to buy them. So puke, flash, puke, flash.

It’s quite possibly the worst sales technique I have ever not even seen, heard of.

Truly, there was no possibility that A) a 12-year-old girl was going to buy the postcards or B) that her father wasn’t going to lamp the postcard seller for doing this.

My father was, I have to say, remarkably polite considering the situation as his tween daughter careened about the tombs.

We didn’t buy that day, but that stuck in my mind.

As a reverse of that, here’s what happened in Delhi, India a few years later.

We were visiting again, tombs. Again, still Irish and still prone to not doing that well in the bright sunlight.

Once again, I came over all bizarre, little bit of heat stroke. Believe me, I get it super easily. I’m stood in London, it’s a wonder I haven’t got it here yet.

So, the stallholder saw that I was come over dizzy…

He offered me a seat. He put up a little shade. He sent off his nephew to go and buy me a soda pop at his own expense. And allowed me and my mother to recover.

Now, that’s the way to do customer service.

Provide a service, be there when people really need help and really want it.

As coaches and service providers, this is super important to us.

We want to sell, sure. But do it when someone’s receptive.

Help them, when they need help. And then offer them something later.

Both of those things stuck in my mind for completely different reasons.

Partly, I remember that while I was recuperating <in Delhi>, my sister bought a little soapstone dish from the guy. And they were haggling. There I sat and I remember thinking how deeply inappropriate it is.

But now, I see that because that little safe space had been opened up, my sister could haggle and get a good deal.

So, let me offer to help you. If you have a question about your business or potentially Pakistan or India, although business will be a much easier chat – I know a lot more about that – come along to one of my Q&As.

There’s a box below with the date of the next one. Drop your email. And I’ll see you at the next Q&A.

Now, I better get out of the sunshine.

Next live call is October 10, 2023 - Noon Eastern / 5pm UK.
Come along to ask your questions about launches, strategies for marketing, Masterminds or whatever you're stuck on in your business.

Add your email below and I'll send you the zoom info for the calls. See you there!

Or come say hello on Instagram here.  I microblog daily.