Flashback: My first job out of undergrad was selling insurance for a State Farm agency.

I had a great mentor who taught me how to sell insurance; how to help people see the “no-brainer” decision many insurance products can be; how to inflect my voice over the phone; how the phone is one dimension and you must develop a “voice for the phone” and “rhythmic speech pattern,” etc., etc.

The biggest lesson? Thank customers for their business!

“Amol, always thank people for their business,” he would say to me. “They can do business with anyone, but they chose us, so thank them, they’ll appreciate it.”

Funny how things stay with you…

It’s such a simple concept and yet, how many of us really focus on it – really devote time in our day to asking ourselves, “How are we truly thanking our customers?” It’s one of the few activities that we marketers should do without any hope for return – we should just do it because it’s right. Period.

We’re going to create that kind of experience for eTail attendees and for all WBR events, so if you’re an eTail customer, be on the look out. And if you don’t hear us thank you, in some special way, tell us.