I’m writing this from my room at a lovely resort in Portopetro, Spain, on the island of Mallorca. On Wednesday, I’ll be delivering leading-edge sales training to the DocuWorld Europe conference, put on by DocuWare, for the second year in a row. I’m excited about the training, but this article isn’t about DocuWorld. It’s really not even about me. It’s about one man who made a huge difference for myself and my wife.
We arrived Saturday in Barcelona, and immediately drove to Fraga. Fraga is a little town of about 15,000 people, and the sole reason we went there was because it was the closest place to Sunday’s World Superbike Championship race with an unbooked hotel – the Hotel Casanova. The Casanova is a great hotel, built in 1954 and still completely in the Mid-Century Modern design, with nice rooms. One person at the Casanova changed our entire experience.
I should point out that Fraga is not a tourist area of Spain. I was spoiled last year, because we stuck mainly to tourist areas, and hence there was someone who spoke English nearly everywhere. Fraga is not such a place. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the only English speaker in the city was the constantly smiling woman who checked us in to the hotel (she was the only hotel employee who did speak English).
This didn’t present a problem while walking around town, although we frequently got a look that anyone who has sold in small town America is familiar with – the look that says, “You’re not from around here, are you?” Some things are the same the world over.
Our lack of Spanish – and their lack of English – presented a problem for us at dinner. We sat in the bar/cafeteria, ordered iced teas (hint – in Spain, say “Nestea”), and chatted, but when we attempted to order food we just got a shaking head. Suddenly an older, well dressed man appeared. He also spoke no English but he mimed eating motions and we nodded vigorously. He then led us back into a very nice, white-tablecloth restaurant that was basically hidden from view of the lobby.
To make a long story short, we got a meal of sautee’d pork sirloin and potatoes in an exquisite cream sauce, a starting course of cheese tortellini, crème brulee, a bottle of the house red wine, and of course our Nesteas, for a grand total of 33 Euro for both of us – about 40 bucks U.S. More than that, we got great service by the same gentleman and an attitude from him that made us feel completely at home and still has us smiling two days later.
We never got his name, but we will remember him fondly. As we will the Hotel Casanova. We may never pass that way again – but if you are in the area, you could do much worse than staying and dining there.
Here’s the point. Had it not been for him, we’d have felt very much like the outsiders that we were. But one person made all the difference. In today’s Internet age, it still takes people to create experiences, and that’s the lesson to come forth from this article. What difference are you making for your customers?
If you’re still stuck in the mode of taking orders and showing features, that’s what the Internet does best. You’re not going to survive. If, however, you’re willing to find ways to be a difference maker, opportunities will present themselves every day.
