I cannot believe what happened last week. One night during dinner at a leadership conference for restaurant executives, I saw the CEO of a company we do business with at a nearby table eating dinner with a couple of guests. I excused myself and went to his table to say hello. He was very gracious and introduced me to the others at his table. They asked me who I worked for. I told them Radiant Systems. The CEO said that Radiant was the best company in the retail technology industry, great partners and did wonderful things not only with our technology but also our people. He was incredibly kind to me. I went back to my table feeling really wonderful. And then it happened.
After five minutes or so, someone I had never seen before came over to our table. He told us about his company, a multi-hundred unit fast food chain, and his role, which was a very senior one within it. They were in the midst of trying to work with one of our competitors on a pilot and he and the rest of his management team were very discouraged on a variety of fronts. They didn’t know what to do, and then he overheard the conversation I just had with the CEO.
He asked us if we could meet him first thing the following morning. We did and now we have a major opportunity that didn’t exist 12 hours earlier. Our culture promotes more than anything else the importance of taking great care of customers and partners. We invest millions of dollars in relationships. The notion is two-fold – first, it’s the right thing to do and is very inspiring for our employees. Second, the best way to market our company is through word of mouth. To watch word of mouth in action was a first for me and I found it one of the most fulfilling business moments of my career.
