{"id":298,"date":"2010-06-03T10:18:09","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T16:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/?p=298"},"modified":"2011-01-25T10:18:26","modified_gmt":"2011-01-25T16:18:26","slug":"marty%e2%80%99s-corner%c2%a0store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/?p=298","title":{"rendered":"Marty\u2019s Corner\u00a0Store"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was in radio, one of my bosses mentioned the concept of \u201ccorner store marketing\u201d that he read about in a book. I never read the book, but totally got the concept, because I actually lived it. I have been telling this story for 15 years to staff and students. Thought I\u2019d share it with you.<\/em><\/p>\n

I grew up in East Boston, Massachusetts in a predominantly Italian neighborhood. At the end of my street was this little corner store. The guy who ran the store was a short, fat, bald Italian guy named Marty. Now, Marty had about a seventh grade education, but he was a pretty smart dude. He basically lived in the store and was there whenever I stopped by.\u00a0 I would walk in, Marty would jump to attention and say, \u201cHi Louis, how you doin\u2019 today? Keeping your grades up in school? I saw you walking by with your sister Stephanie yesterday. You\u2019re a very good boy the way you watch after her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marty invested his time into us; into all of his customers. Marty was genuinely concerned with our well-being. Maybe it was because we were his \u201cbread & butter\u201d, or maybe it was because he truly cared \u2013 which is what we believed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s your mother?\u201d he would say. \u201cI heard she wasn\u2019t doing so well. I know she was having some problems with the job so I\u2019m going to put a little extra in the bag. Don\u2019t worry about paying for it now. When she has a little bit more money and gets back on her feet she can pay me then. \u201d Marty showed compassion toward us and sacrificed a bit of his own profit on our behalf. \u201cAnd your sister, wasn\u2019t it her birthday the other day? She\u2019s getting so big! I remember the day she was born.\u201d Marty was dedicated to us and showed intense interest in all that was important to our family. He would go on, \u201cAnd your grandfather, he\u2019s been a little under the weather. Is he doing ok? Anything I can do to help?\u201d<\/p>\n

Marty, this seventh grade dropout, was probably one of the best customer service gurus anywhere because he understood how to build great relationships. He invested in his customers. He invested his time in each and every one of us. He knew more than just a little about all of us, he knew our lives.<\/p>\n

There was another store about the same distance from my house on the other side of the street called Frank\u2019s. Every once and a while, Frank\u2019s would have a sale and prices might be a little better on some items.\u00a0 A buck here and a buck there\u00a0back then was important.\u00a0 We were pretty poor, so every bit counted. This was in the 70\u2019s before White Hen Pantries and Super Stop & Shops came into existence (Wegman\u2019s, Albertson\u2019s or Piggly\u00a0Wiggly for those of you outside the Northeast). Marty was our butcher,our grocer, and our vegetable vendor \u00a0too. Frank\u2019s at the end of the street would have a little sale, but we didn\u2019t shop at Frank\u2019s, even though it was cheaper. We shopped at Marty\u2019s no matter what. Marty was our guy, and we were loyal to him and his little store.<\/p>\n

You might ask, \u201cHow did he know how to do this?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhere did he learn this?\u201d He never went to college; he never even went to high school. How did he understand that to win people over and have them respond in such a positive manner, he needed to invest in them? Back then, Marty didn\u2019t know any other way. He just knew if you invested in folks it would pay off. No Gimmicks. No Flair. Just honest and genuine dedication to his customers. It was something he just \u201cgot.\u201d It\u2019s very basic, but he intuitively understood the characteristics necessary to build a meaningful and unbreakable relationship. Marty was a Relationship Architect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was in radio, one of my bosses mentioned the concept of \u201ccorner store marketing\u201d that he read about in a book. I never read the book, but totally got the concept, because I actually lived it. I have been telling this story for 15 years to staff and students. Thought I\u2019d share it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1654,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions\/1654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/louimbriano.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}