The best part of being a B2B CFO Partner is the opportunity to meet a variety of business people and our ability to truly help them in their work life.  For example, I recently met a business owner who had turned his business around and was justifiably proud of righting the ship.  He was, however,  in a classic "Danger Zone" situation  where he was watching the numbers to a degree where he was pulling P&L reports very three or four days and struggling with both benchmarking and cash flow issues.

I asked him how much time he spent visiting customers and just touching base as to how he could help them with their businesses.  He indicated that this was a tough thing for an introverted person like him to do and that he felt more comfortable sending his sales people out to deal with customer contact.

This meeting reminded me of the reason why GM is where it is today and GE is where they are today.  I had the privilege to spend some time in a graduate study program with a talented engineer from General Motors in the early 1990's.  He relayed the experience he had dealing with the sale of locomotives to a foreign entity.  A Mid-East country had asked for bids on several locomotives to upgrade its rail transportation system.  GM and GE being the major players in this market were both invited to bid on the order.  This engineer, then in his mid-20's and a sales manager were assigned to make the proposal.  They requested that at least a VP of GM accompany them to the proposal.  There was no interest in a General Motors  officer attending the proposal with them.

They went and made the proposal.  Upon completing the presentation to the procurement officer, they went into the lobby and saw the GE presentation team.  GE had sent their Chairman, Jack Welsh, the President of GE Transportation, and two other technical experts, waiting to make their proposal.  Needless to say, GE was awarded the business.

I retell this story to demonstrate the point that people, no matter what the culture, recognize and appreciate the fact that their vendors believe them to be special and attentive to their needs.  As far as being hesitant to visit customers, I asked the business owner if he felt he was really helping clients.  He replied most assuredly that he was.  I them asked him how he could not want to enhance that assistance by making sure their needs were being met.  He agreed that this was his role and that looking at the books every couple of days was getting in the way.  We both agreed:

Your customer is your best friend.  Treat all of them that way.