cemented a customer relationship for life? You

betcha! Besides, my wife wasn’t complaining when I

took her to Hawaii on the first commission check I

got from that customer.”

Marsha laughed. “So that’s important—seeing a

distress situation and going several extra miles with

the customer until the situation is right.”

“Yeah,” said Gardener. “And in this case, I won

twice. The doctor with whom I’d had the cigars

became a customer for life, but when the word got

back to other doctors that I had hung in there—

including the high-profile doc who was loyal to the

competitor—more doctors began to use more of my

products, too. It was really nice. I guess you could say

that I converted a major ‘weed’ in the garden into a

perennial!”

Marsha scrunched her face. “What does that

mean?”

“Well, the whole idea behind ‘sales pests’ is that

they are folks who choose to do business with my

competitors. My job is to get those pests working with

me. Usually I do that through word-of-mouth about

my persistent application of best practices. Once they

89

Nurturing Pays Off