Sunday, January 11  

An unlucky break!

Mmmmm. Okay, I'll confess I've made a few mother-in-law jokes over the past 3 or 4 weeks. Maybe more than a few! After all, my mother-in-law (and father-in-law) has been staying with us for almost a month.

They were due to fly out on Wednesday. Note the past tense of "were due to fly out". You see, karma finally kicked in today. Here's what happened.

I happily took my 2 sons off to have a game of cricket at my brothers place. He has 2 young sons roughly the same age and they love getting together. My brother has a waterfront home with a sandy beach in front, a pool, an enormous backyard, games galore, toys galore.....it's pretty much boy heaven.

Well 10-year-old boy heaven anyway.

I was all set to take a wicket

In the backyard cricket test match I was bowling. And may I say I was starting to trouble my 9-year-old nephew with my spinning leggies! I was sure to get a wicket very shortly.

I was stopped in my bowling action by my mobile going off. I answered and the first words I heard were from my wife, "Honey, can you come home? Dad's just fallen off the ladder and broken his ankle."

It turns out that my father-in-law was up a ladder taking care of some household maintenance. Maintenance that maybe, just maybe, should have been done by me. I'm feeling a little guilty!!

The ladder wobbled and Paul (my father-in-law) took a tumble. Result: off to hospital for a pin and plate into his badly fractured tibia and fibula.

And you just know what that means? No flying for a while. I'm not sure how long just yet, but I'm assuming a week at least. Which means the mother-in-law stays longer. Terrific. Just terrific. Is that karma or what!

(She's not as bad as I make her sound................she's a whole lot worse!)

Part of my deep, dark past was marketing private hospitals. In marketing private hospitals you basically have 2 major marketing segments. The specialist doctors and the ambulance drivers.

Both of these groups make the decision on which hospital the patient goes to. So that's who you market to.

And here's how we used to market to the ambulance drivers. We'd have a party. A party for the ambulance people. And at that party would be all of the staff from our Emergency Department. These were the people the ambulance guys would deal with day after day.

And after these parties our ambulance admisson figures would go through the roof. And the reason was very simple.

Personal relationships

The ambulance guys would have a chat with the Emergency staff. They would get to know each other, understand each other a little and get a sense of who they were and where they were coming from.

And if you know a person you are generally more comfortable with them. And you're more likely to do business with them.

Simple. Let's say you're an ambulance driver who has just picked up Paul with his broken ankle. You have a choice of 4 hospitals to go to. Which one do you choose?

You choose the hospital you feel provides the best service. The hospital with the best staff. And that was our hospital after the parties. Because the development of the personal relationships contributed to the hospital staff being able to communication their commitment to quality. Easy.

As I said below in the example, business is about personal relationships. Get to know your customers and potential market. They'll love you for it.

Cheers

Brendon