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TrustedAdvisor Associates Workshops & Events, Winter 2010-11

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Join us at one or more upcoming Trusted Advisor Associates events. In January we’ll be hosting or participating in events in Fairfield, New Jersey; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon and through the globally accessed radio show "Trust Across America." Also, a few words about the new Trusted Advisor Mastery Program, and an offer to vote in this year’s Annual Top Sales Awards. 

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Wed. Jan. 12th        Global/Radio         Charles H. Green

Charles H. Green will be guest-hosting the Trust Across America Radio show, guests to be announced. Noon EST.

Thurs. Jan. 20th          Fairfield, NJ     Charles H. Green  

Charlie presents to Wharton Alumni Club of New Jersey on Trust, Influence and Advising. Club Cucina Calandra, Fairfield NJ, 6PM.  Email us at [email protected] to be notified of signup link when it goes live (within a week).


Wed. Jan. 24th            Seattle, WA       Charles H. Green

University of Washington, evening:  Details/venue to be announced: email us at [email protected] to be notified of details when finalized.


Mon. Jan. 25th            Portland, OR     Charles H. Green

Charlie is luncheon speaker at the CFA Society of Portland luncheon; subject Building and Maintaining Trust with Clients and Prospects. Open to the public.   Click to register here. 

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The current edition of the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program is entering its third week and hitting its stride. Participants bring their own unique experiences sharply to bear on issues we all address, so we all benefit from the perspective. Some perspectives: 62 Tips for Selling in a Recession.

To get on the notification list for the next Trusted Advisor Mastery Program, write to: [email protected]

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Vote for your favorite Sales Blog at The Annual Top Sales Awards.  And if you’re moved to vote for Trust Matters, well that wouldn’t hurt our feelings one little bit.

Beyond 51 percent: Gaining Buy-In

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In the airport recently, coming home from New Mexico, I just picked up John Kotter  and Lorne A. Whitehead’s new little book, Buy*in: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down.  The authors outline four ways in which attackers – consciously or not – try to kill new ideas:

–        Fear-mongering (hmm, where have we seen this before?)

–        Death by Delay

–        Sowing Confusion

–        Ridicule or Character Assassination

Their strategy for disarming these objectors is, at its heart, simple and counter-intuitive: instead of trying to work around naysayers, lining up votes in the cloakroom, ignoring vocal critics or trying to shout them down, Kotter and Whitehead suggest throwing open the doors and inviting the lions in. 

The key is then LISTENING WITH RESPECT. Kotter and Whitehead point out that trying to overwhelm the idea-attackers with more data and rebut them with more logical arguments won’t succeed. The critics need to be heard.

This research comports exactly with our teachings around building trust and gaining influence: listening as a sign of respect, letting others be heard before offering advice, the principle of reciprocity. Without first listening, we cannot be heard. And without being heard, our good advice or new ideas will never be accepted.

It really is that simple: to be heard, you have to listen first. 

The authors go on to give specific strategies for handling 24 objections, acknowledging the critic and at the same time avoiding getting drawn into inappropriate merits arguments. Take for example their Attack #18:

ATTACK: Good idea, but it’s the wrong time. We need to wait until this other thing is finished (or this other thing is started, or the situation changes in some specific way.)

RESPONSE: The best time is almost always when you have people excited and committed to make something happen. And that’s now.

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As I read through Buy*in and thought about it in the context of Trusted Advisor Associates’ work, I was also struck by a conversation I had had the day before with my sister, whom I had been visiting in her home near Taos. I mentioned that people of all sorts seemed willing to tell her anything. 

She just smiled and said: “It’s because I’m not afraid to hear it.” A lesson I’m bringing home with me.

Is Trust Trending?

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Here are six events I’ve noticed recently. I think there’s a connection, and perhaps even a trend in them. Help me sort out what that connection and trend might be, will you?

1. In mid-October, 100 of the world’s leading authorities on corporate disclosure gathered at Harvard Business School to attend an event called “A Workshop on Integrated Reporting: Frameworks and Action Plan” sponsored by the school’s Business and Environment Initiative. (Very briefly: Integrated reporting means combining traditional financial reporting with non-financial, i.e. Environmental, Social and Governance, issues). You can download a free ebook from the event with papers by about half the participants—it’s excellent.

2. The new Dean of Harvard Business School—who among other things had been a counselor to the MBA Oath program the year before—opened the conference, saying: "It’s a matter of great concern to me that society has lost so much trust in business.  It’s something that I think each and every one of us needs to pay great and serious attention to.  We live in a time in which business leaders are often trusted even less than politicians."

3. The New Yorker magazine printed an article titled, “What Good is Wall Street? Much of What Investment Bankers Do is Socially Useless,” whose tone is considerably less strident than its title might suggest.

4. October saw the release of the documentary “Inside Job,” a serious (and seriously critical) look at the recent financial crisis by Charles Ferguson, an MIT PhD in political science.

5. The MBA Oath, something that many considered faddish a year ago, seems to be gaining steam. 

6. Robert Ketchum, head of FINRA, seems to be advocating for a fiduciary standard of some sort for the brokerage business. 

One robin doth not a Spring make; and maybe I’m generally an optimist. But I think there’s something positive going on here.

When I see integrated reporting discussed by 100 people—not just non-financial reporting, but integrated reporting—I think that’s significant.

When I see global business institutions like the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration making serious trust-talk at the Dean’s level (and Dean Nitin Nohria was appointed in part, I’m sure, because he talks that way), I think that’s significant.

I realize the New Yorker is not Forbes magazine, but when they decide that it’s time to write a serious business article, and to do so with their high standards of journalism, I think that’s significant. 

When the financial legislation was passed earlier this year, the fiduciary issue was left out of the mandated laws, and left to the discretion of the SEC. Given the recent election results, I wouldn’t have predicted FINRA’s reaction. That feels significant.

What I think is significant about all this is not that an argument is being won or lost. This strikes me as refreshingly not about good and evil. It’s about a new willingness to take seriously some complex issues of trust. How do we integrate stakeholders? What does trust mean for governance? Can we have intelligent regulations that increase trust? 

Most of all, I sense a willingness to bring trust to the business table as a core and valid agenda item—a willingness that I don’t think was there as recently as just 12 months ago. 

Is something going on? Or am I on drugs? What do you think?

Five Ways to Create Trust with Stories

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You already know you’re supposed to use stories to convey your point, right? Yet be honest: are you still using Powerpoint decks crowded with 12-point fonts and multiple bullets? And no stories?

If you suspect you might not be using story-telling as much as you should, let’s review the bidding.

Five Reasons to Use Story-Telling

1. Many of us veto the use of a story because we think it makes us appear unprofessional, or risks being seen as “too soft” on content. That right there’s a good reason to increase your use of stories: professionals especially under-estimate their utility.

2. Sims Wyeth describes why story-telling is the perfect solution to the “split audience” problem: when half the audience are technical, half aren’t; half are old, half young; and so on. And he tells you how to do it.

3. Stories create emotional connection. Sean Kavanagh of the Ariel Group explains the Irish version of the story connection. 

4. There is something about a story that lowers the emotional resistance to advice. The best way to get a teenager not to do something is to tell them to do it. And we’re all in touch with our inner teenager. But stories get past that. Somehow, when we hear the ‘meaning’ of the story, it becomes our meaning. Our inner NIH syndrome disappears, and we accept the advice, even if it’s very transparent, in ways we never would directly.

There’s a reason that we watch Jimmy Stewart play George Baily in It’s A Wonderful Life every year–because we love the story. And part of that story is the story that the angel Clarence tells George Baily—the story of his life-as-it-could-have-been. This story-telling device was used precisely the same way, to equally great success, in The Christmas Carol. Come to think of it, ditto for 1,001 Arabian Nights—the story of 1,001 stories. 

5. And then there’s metaphor.  A story is a form of metaphor. Metaphors allow us to make connections in ways that our linear, rational minds never allow. In some ways, deploying stories as metaphors gives us the widest range of all in terms of uses. 

Anne Miller has written a book on precisely that subject, called Make What You Say Pay. In chapters organized by application, Miller gives example after example of metaphors: to explain new concepts, to simply a complex pitch, to shift a paradigm, to close a deal, and so forth.  

Miller’s book gives at least five times five ways to use stories as metaphor, you’re bound to find several that help your work. 

Want some advice on how to get better at telling your stories? I can think of no one better qualified than Patricia Fripp. Here is a 7-minute YouTube piece from a National Speaker Association talk by the Frippster. You will not get more insights-per-minute anywhere else.

Fripp says, “Stories are the creative conversion of life itself, into a more powerful, clear, more meaningful experience.” And an audience will always prefer a simple story well told to a brilliant story badly told. (For the few combination speaker-musicians out there, you may know Patricia’s brother—King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp). 

When Journalistic Trust is a Matter of Life and Death

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We in the US are frequently critical of the media.  And when we talk about trust, it is often in at a luxury level.

But tonight I attended the 20th Press Freedom Awards, presented by the Committee to Project Journalists –and got rudely reminded of how trust and journalism and life and death play intricate dances with each other in this world.

Yes, it was a swish event: black-tie, about a thousand guests, celebrity hosts—Tom Brokaw (who pinch-hit for Brian Williams—something to do with his day job and Korea), Christiane Amanpour, Gwen Ifill, Sir Howard Stringer. But it was a very serious event too.

Journalism is Hazardous to Your Health

39 journalists have been killed in 2010. Since 1992, 840 journalists have been murdered with impunity. Murder may be the leading cause of death for journalists–and the killers are rarely prosecuted, or even sought.  At this moment, 140 journalists are imprisoned around the world. The Committee to Protect Journalists fights on their behalf; in Iran, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Russia, Mexico. They provide legal assistance, personal help—and aggressively intercede with national governments. 

Interestingly, virtually every government at least admits the principle that they shouldn’t be harming journalists. And thus the power of the press to “name and shame,” as one awardee put it, is far-reaching.

The Power of Truth and Trust

One of the most basic parts of the Trust Equation is credibility—can we believe what we are told. At a social level, this is a critical question: are we being told the truth? 

If a social group believes it is being told the truth, then we can trust what we hear, and trust the teller. If we do not believe we are being told the truth, then we don’t trust the teller—and it all goes downhill from there.

In society, the enemy of truth-telling is typically a government, a would-be government, or a quasi-government: some group of people who want to control others, and who fear that the truth will get in their way of doing so. 

And in society, it is the job of journalists to tell the truth. By that definition, it is journalists who are in charge of the level of trust in society. If they are allowed to operate, they oxygenate our dialogue. If they are repressed (or, as one awardee pointed out, simply denigrated over and over), then our oxygen flow is reduced.  We don’t believe.  And then we don’t trust–government, business, the other political party, our neighbors. 

Is Truth Relative? Come On

Some critics will say that ‘truth’ and a ‘free press’ are bourgeois affectations of a society that is itself corrupt. Sara Palin talks about the ‘lamestream’ press, and both right- and left-wing critics say there can be no such thing as ‘truth.’

And then there are the facts staring you in the face in that room tonight.

Journalists are convicted of terrorism for reporting the facts of arrest in Russia. A journalist ‘disappeared’ in Sri Lanka 300 days ago, but the government hasn’t initiated efforts to ‘find’ him. 30 journalists were massacred in the Philippines, but attorneys are not being granted access to the evidence.

You have to be Taliban-far out of the mainstream to argue that this kind of suppression isn’t a bad thing. We can all agree.

And if so, there you go. Social trust thrives on truth. Truth is sought by journalists. The attempt to suppress or neutralize them is anti-truth, and anti-trust.

As Tom Brokaw pointed out in his closing, we have luxury debates in the US. Our freedom of speech is enshrined in a constitutional amendment–the first one, in fact. Watching five people from foreign lands who put their freedom and even their lives at risk in search of those rights is a humbling experience.

TrustedAdvisor Associates Workshops & Events, Fall 2010

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Join us this Fall at one or more of our 2010 TrustedAdvisor Associates events through globally accessed programs and webinars.

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Mon. Nov. 15th        Global          Charles H. Green & Stewart Hirsch

A new Trusted Advisor Mastery Program group began this week.  This session is full, but you can send an email to [email protected] to be notified when we begin another.

The group is getting acquainted on the proprietary forum bulletin board, downloading customized audio-video content on building trust and relationships, and beginning to work their individual specific client and customer relationship issues in one-on-one personal coaching sessions.

We described the program in a blogpost last week.  Contact us at [email protected] to get on the notification list for the next session.

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 Next Thursday marks the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and hope they enjoy the holiday well past the stuffing and cranberry sauce. We warn you though, tryptophan does set in! Enjoy the time off with family and friends, as we will be doing the same!

All Change is Linguistic

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That title is lifted from Peter Block, and I want to make sure credit is given where credit is due.

I think those four words are wonderfully meaningful and I want to add my own take on it (any flawed interpretation is all mine, not Block’s). It has to do with a larger question: the relationship between thinking and doing.

Do Thoughts Drive Actions, or Do Actions Drive Thoughts?

This is not some abstraction. It matters greatly to businesses whether you can better think your way into right action, or act your way into right thinking.

For example: can you better train for soft skills via role-playing, or through readings and multiple-choice quizzes? Are pick-up lines best practiced in a bar? What about sales pitches?

So, do thoughts drive action or does action drive thoughts? The proper answer is ‘yes.’ Actually ‘yes, but it depends.’ Proving causality of anything is an impossibility, much less proving proportional causality. But in the commonsense world we all live in, we can see that the arrow points both ways. The only useful question is: when does it point which way?

Acting Your Way Into Right Thinking

This is the kind of phrase you hear in 12-step programs, or from motivational speakers, or—interestingly—lean management. It usually means, “You’ve been kidding yourself all these years by talking a good game; when are you actually going to [quit drinking] [lose weight] [ask her out] [practice what you preach]."

You also hear it in HR groups, advocating for certain kinds of change management: “You’ve been kidding yourself all these years by talking a good game; when are you actually going to [go to the networking meeting] [hire someone not a mirror image of us] [actually promote on values].”

Seems to me these are typically situations where ‘whole body’ involvement is required. You can’t just isolate one aspect of a situation, but rather you have to engage physically and emotionally in a full sense.

When Thinking Drives Action

Does that mean thinking works better in small, focused change efforts? Yes, but that’s only part of the story. For example, visualization is used by athletes to tweak the mindset, or attitude—before a golf swing, before a marathon. 

But there’s another sense in which thinking drives action: it dates back to Aristotle, who suggested there is a steel cable leading from thinking to doing.

Aristotle has his modern counterparts in NLP theorists, change specialists and neuro-everybodies who all point to the semi-conscious inclination of the brain to create beliefs, assumptions, habits, instincts—and then to act on them. 

How do you drive thoughts? Some tried-and-true methods include message-repetition (depending on your perspective, this equates either to propaganda or to staying ‘on message’), linkage (‘Marlon Brando smoked, it must be cool’), or authority (‘my doctor recommends it, it must be good for me’). You may think that in this day of digital social media we are immune to direct mail and tv ads from Madison Avenue—wrong, wrong, wrong, the same techniques are here, just in new clothing.

All Change is Linguistic

Full circle back to Peter Block. One of the most profound ways we have of unconsciously altering mindsets and attitudes is through language. Most overtly, Big Message repetition uses language. Chant “Obama was born abroad” enough times and you’ll get 20-30% of the US public to believe it.

But it isn’t just the denotation of words that drives change. It’s the emotional tone as well. The language of etiquette and empathy drives reciprocity—the most important form of influence, according to Robert Cialdini. The tones in which such words are said also add influence. Even the vocabulary of differing languages (French vs German) convey differing meanings to those who hear them.

To Think? Or To Behave?

If you’re wondering whether to change people or organizations, the usual answer is ‘both.’ But it does make sense to lead with one or another depending on the situation. 

The power of frequent close, personal, physical interaction—in schools, in the military, in marriage—probably does more to tear down racial barriers then any educational program. Better language constructs will follow.

But if you’re trying to get people to behave rightly in a corporate merger, for example, slogans are your friend—lead with language like ‘make a friend first,’ or ‘the first word in merger is ‘me,’ or ‘no more old-company name.’  

Whether you start with the behavior or the language, you’ll get to both. All change is linguistic, sooner or later.

Hamburgers, Confidence and Trust

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It was a beautiful day in March, warm and sunny. My husband and I spent the morning kayaking on Seattle’s Lake Washington. Afterwards, we were ready for a hearty lunch. We found the perfect spot: a restaurant with sidewalk-seating in the sun. 

We settled in and placed our order for burgers and iced tea. The waiter brought us our drinks. Then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited some more…way too long.

Between the time the waiter delivered our drinks and the time he delivered our burgers, we never saw him. 

What we didn’t know was that this restaurant was a sports bar, this day was the first game of March Madness, and the local team was playing. Inside, the bar was packed. The kitchen was overwhelmed. Once the game started and we heard the fans screaming, we figured out what was going on. 

We could not find our waiter. With no way to communicate with him, we had a tough decision to make. Should we stay or walk out? We stayed and eventually had okay burgers.

This is a story of the difference between confidence and trust.

During our extended wait, once we realized how busy the kitchen and the wait staff were, we wondered if our order had even been delivered to the kitchen. We wondered how long it would take the kitchen to make our burgers. How many orders were in line ahead of us?

These questions are about confidence: we did not have confidence in the kitchen or the restaurant. There was no face attached to our lack of confidence. We lacked confidence in the process. 

During our wait, we also wondered about the waiter. Where was he? Why wasn’t he communicating with us? We didn’t even have a chance to ask him about our concerns because he just disappeared. 

These questions are about trust. We did not trust the waiter. Trust is personal. It’s about another person. 

I thought about the difference between trust and confidence when it came to my clients. What is the source of their trust and confidence in me? And since many of my clients are professional practitioners, it’s useful for them to think about how they generate trust and confidence in their clients.

Clients want to have confidence in our professional competence: a tax lawyer’s knowledge of tax law, a surgeon’s skill in the operating room, a real estate agent’s knowledge of the market, my skill as an executive coach.  

But that has nothing to do with trust.

Clients have trust in me because of my personal characteristics: the care and concern I show towards them and their needs, the degree to which I am predictable and dependable.

Why does this distinction matter? Because there are different paths we can take to increase the level of trust and the level of confidence our clients have in us. 

When we want to increase confidence, we take steps to increase our knowledge and skills and we provide clients and prospects with information about our competence (hence all the letters after my name). Competence can be increased in the classroom. 

Confidence can also be increased by delegating work to competent others. I chose my financial advisor not simply on the trust I have in him, but also because of the confidence I have in the competence of the company standing behind him. 

Trust is won or lost in personal interactions. Trust is built over time by working together, dealing with difficult decisions together, experiencing and repairing breakdowns in the relationship.

On that warm and sunny March day, we were hungry not just for burgers but for the trust and confidence required for a relaxing dining experience. Unfortunately, although the burgers came, no trust in the waiter and no confidence in the restaurant were served that day. 

© 2010 Ann Kruse. All rights reserved. 

Introducing the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program

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Our business at Trusted Advisor Associates is to help you become better trusted business advisors.

That started when I co-wrote The Trusted Advisor in 2000. It continued with my book Trust-Based Selling in 2005. In 2008, we added the Trust Quotient, a self-assessment survey which has now had over 14,000 takers.

Throughout, we have given practical, real-world advice to thousands of managers and professionals in major corporations throughout the world through our seminars, webinars, speeches and consulting.

On Monday November 15th we are beginning the first session of our new Trusted Advisor Mastery Program, and I want to tell you why we are excited about it–and why perhaps you should be as well.

What Will the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program Do for Me?

What Is the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program?

Who Should Consider Taking the Program?

What Are the e-Learning Modules About?

What Does the Program Include?

When Does the Program Begin?

How Much Coaching Does the Program Contain?

Who Does the Coaching?

How Much Flexibility in Scheduling Is There?

How Long Does It Last?

What Does the Online Learning Management System Do?

How Much Does the Program Cost?

How Do I Sign Up?

What Will the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program Do for Me?

It will make you a better trusted business advisor. That means:

Your clients/customers will be more likely to take your advice. They will be less likely to seek alternate providers. They become more likely to sole-source you going forward. Your opinions will carry more weight. You will be invited to discuss more open-ended issues than in the past, and invited earlier than before. You will get less price-resistance. Your repeat business, customer retention rates, and customer loyalty are all likely to increase as you become more trustworthy, and trusted.

Are these the kinds of benefits your business could use? What are they worth to your business? What are they worth to you personally?

What Is the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program?

It is a three-month program for cohorts of 5-10 people at a time. It combines e-learning modules with personalized coaching, group coaching, and a rich collaborative on-line environment. Each participant has a great deal of freedom to customize the program specifically around their very particular issues.

Who Should Consider Taking the Program?

External professionals (accountants, consultants, lawyers, etc.), internal staff professionals (HR, IT, Finance, Legal), sales and service people from complex product and services industries. The program is particularly attractive for those in smaller companies, including solo and partnership businesses that don’t have access to 20-30 person in-house training sessions in larger corporations.

What Are the e-Learning Modules About?

There are 20-plus modules, all delivered personally by me, Charles H. Green. All the content that I deliver to my major corporate clients I deliver here, in e-learning form, to participants, in ways you can rewind and read again. The materials are annotated, referencing two books, forty articles, and over 800 blogposts.

The modules dive deep into issues like creating trust in the sales process, understanding the dynamics of different trust temperament personalities, practical uses of the Trust Equation, the application of the four Trust Principles, trust-based leadership, successfully creating trust in conversations, creating trust in virtual teams, accelerating trust creation, recovery from trust loss situations, mitigating trust risk, asking difficult questions, and answering the most difficult sales questions.

What Does the Program Include?

You get:

· access to all online content

· 4 one-on-one coaching meetings, about an hour each

· 4 hours of group coaching (with other cohort members)

· unlimited access to the customized Learning Management System

· online forum conversations between your cohorts, coach, and myself

· copies of both books

· your own trust quotient and trust temperaments self-assessment.

When Does the Program Begin?

The first session starts November 15, and is fully subscribed. If you send an email to [email protected], we will notify you when the next cohort-session begins. (Your email will be used for no other purpose, and will not be sold or given to anyone else).

How Much Coaching Does the Program Contain?

Each participant gets 4 individual, one-on-one hour-long coaching sessions with a professional, Trusted Advisor Associates coach; either Stewart M. Hirsch, TAA’s head of coaching, or coaches under his guidance. The four group coaching calls include exercises and discussions on issues that arise in the online forum.

Who Does the Coaching?

Stewart M. Hirsch, Trusted Advisor Associates’ head of coaching, is the lead coach for the Trusted Advisor Mastery program; he does much of the coaching, and other qualified coaches work under his guidance. Stewart is a superb and experienced coach, steeped in the Trusted Advisor approach and dedicated to the success of all his clients.

How Much Flexibility in Scheduling Is There?

One of the most attractive characteristics of the Trusted Advisor Mastery program is the extreme degree of flexibility in scheduling it offers you. With the exception of the four group coaching hours, which require minimal coordination with other members of your cohort, you have great freedom. The online learning can be done 24-7; your individual coaching can be arranged at any time that is mutually convenient to you and your coach.

How Long Does It Last?

The program typically last about three months, though the precise beginning and ending, as well as the pace, are well within your control. The modules and online forum remain open for a total of five months, to allow discussion and learning to continue after the formal portion of the program is completed.

What Does the Online Learning Management System Do?

It is a customized environment, built on an Adobe LMS, the same kind of platform used by major universities for large scale delivery. This is not your retail-available webinar-online type software. It offers you forums, special readings, eLearning materials, webcasts, a diary function, and rich controls for customization and privacy.

How Much Does the Program Cost?

The material delivered in this program is exactly the same material we deliver live to groups of 20-30 in-house for major corporations–except that it is priced far less. By combining online learning with designed high-quality interaction and just-in-time coaching, we have been able to keep this program affordable, and yet very high value at the same time.

How Do I Sign Up?

The November 15 session is fully subscribed. We will be doing more programs in the future, though specific dates have not yet been set. To be notified when we schedule the next program, send an email to [email protected].

How Lexus Made a Customer for Life

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My good friend Judy bought a Lexus last spring, from Prestige Lexus of Ramsey, NJ.

A previous owner of a Pontiac, a (used) BMW convertible, and a string of Toyotas, she wasn’t quite sure her self-image was that of a Lexus owner; truth be told, she felt slightly talked into it by her boyfriend.

But that all changed last week.

She had a bad head cold. Her car was due for its 10,000-mile checkup, and there was a product recall check due as well. She set out early for the 40-minute drive to the dealership, and was dismayed to find 20 people there ahead of her for service at 7:30 in the morning.

But the lines shrank instantly in the face of the dealership’s rapid processing, and she was quickly off home in a loaner car—the same model she owned.

At about 11:30AM, John DeSantis of Prestige called her. “That cold of yours sounded bad, Judy,” he said. “Would you like it if we drove your car home for you and picked up the loaner, so you didn’t have to come back out and drive up here?”

Does a duck like water? Judy was grateful for the offer, and even more delighted when she realized the charge for the whole day—checkup, recall, loaner, home pickup service—was $0.00.

“I think I’m a Lexus owner now,” Judy says.

How Prestige Lexus Does It

At first, I figured this was an exceptional event. Turns out, it’s policy, at least on a space-available basis, for scheduled maintenance. 

(On the social media front, I was impressed that @prestigelexus is also tweeting—not a lot yet, not terribly well, but hey give ‘em credit. Though I was very impressed that they’ve got a QR code on their service page!).

It’s tricky to offer services and not have them become commoditized, demanded by customers, standard operating procedure. A lot of doing it successfully has to do with the personal touch; a policy is just a policy until someone makes it personal for you.

That’s what Prestige Lexus did. And no, I’m not getting any recognition or credit or tie-ins with them of any kind. I’m just passing good stuff on.  Judy told me, and I told you, and now you know.