Way back when I started in the IT industry, my boss at the time and eventual mentor was my first up-close exposure to a real life Texan. This was business IT sales, so he was buttoned-up, but you knew he was Texas all the way through to his boots. Beyond any obvious linguistic drawl, it’s his reliance upon metaphors and similes in a conversation that’s the real tell. I’ve met may people from the Lone Star State, and sometimes I think that might just be how they comprehend the world around them. Some of his turns of phrase took a moment to get the hang of and others made perfect sense. The first time he described someone taking to something as being “like a dog with a chicken bone,” my initial concerns were around the individual potentially choking as I’ve only ever had small dogs, and chicken bones are a choking hazard. I quickly understood, however, that he meant they enjoyed whatever that was immensely. Alternately, when he explained, “We have a hole over here we need to throw some dirt into,” it took me a moment to recognize that he was giving us instructions that had nothing to do with shovels. I have actually come to like that one and have repeated it on occasion.
One of my favorite phrases he used regularly was, “Give ‘em the old WTF!” This was his way of telling us to make sure everyone could feel welcomed and was in a good mood when they walked in the front door. You see, we’re talking about a long, long time ago in the far away land of a place called CompUSA. Even if you were in business-to-business sales—which I was—everyone had to take a turn working the floor. It was just how that place worked. Each workday around noon, the B2B team would come out from behind their cubbies and assume positions out on the sales floor for a couple of hours before retreating to their desks and phones.
For what seemed like obvious reasons, everyone tended to gravitate toward the laptops or the televisions—the big-ticket items. The problem was that those sections of the store were deep in the building, and potential customers would have to almost work to find their way to that area. That meant, by the time they reached the fabled land of the laptops, they had already fended off however many other sales team members’ attempts to sell them other things, and their mood wasn’t, shall we say, as bright and cheery as it may have been when they entered the building. I don’t think it’s a surprise to say that unhappy, unfriendly customers buy less; They certainly pushed back harder when we suggested add-ons and margin makers as we helped them into their new purchase. One way to combat this was to come out from the laptop section and greet them at the door and make them feel welcomed. Everyone smiles, and we all go off hand-in-hand to find the magical land of whatever big ticket purchase they are going to make. He wasn’t wrong, all they need is a little of the “old WTF”.
Times have, of course, changed and obviously, “WTF” does not mean now what “WTF” meant then. But the principle holds true. You see, this was the early 2000s, and the first Firehouse Subs had just moved into our area. As an office full of sales team members, everyone was on the lookout for a new lunch spot and when a good one was located, we all knew about it. Someone there had been to Firehouse before and recommended the boss make the sandwich run that day. I don’t know if they planned it or if it was just a happenstance, but he came back forever a changed man. He had seen the light, and it was coming from, of all places, a sandwich franchise. Understandably, he was a little out of sorts about being the guy picking up lunch that day, so he was a little like one of our customers. He was, to say the least, a little grumbly. That all changed, however, as he opened the door. It wasn’t the refreshing air conditioning that met him as he walked in, nor was it the delicious smells of meats and bread being assembled deliciously; It was the pimply faced kid behind the counter that proclaimed as loudly as he could, “WELCOME TO FIREHOUSE!”
Just that simple gesture was enough to make him feel welcome. He couldn’t help but smile because a goofy teenager was able to turn his mood around with something he was doing because he was trained to. At this time, in this moment, the tables had been turned and he was the customer with the bad day and attitude to match. That’s where the epiphany likely happened. Maybe he smiled because he had a new way to make an old point. He could be the guy who stood in front of the team and got them all the motivation to go out there and greet the day and their customers with a smile. Customer service starts at the door. Every morning thereafter, he would tell us, “Go out there and give them the old WTF.” I don’t know that I would use that phrase today, but we all knew what he meant then.
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