The Christmas Story
I will never forget meeting Kevin Staples for the first time.
I was preparing to do a “New Store Customer Service Meeting” at his location in Arizona. He asked me what his role in the meeting was and I was sort of stumped. Usually, the District Managers were so tied up with last minute details the day before Grand Opening that I would just ask them to deliver the “close” to everyone and sort of tie the bow on top of the package at the end of the 4 hour workshop.
But Kevin’s store was 100% done, all of his associates were dressed as if their store was already open and I can honestly say that over the 6 years during which I delivered well over 100 such meetings, Kevin’s was unique.
He told me that he had a story he would like to share and so at the end of the meeting, Kevin stood up and told us his Christmas story.
Some years earlier, Kevin had been a Store Manager and he asked everyone if they remembered the time when you could not get a Cabbage Patch Doll because they were in such short supply. There was a news story that a Kmart store had gotten 2 of the dolls and auctioned them off to a crowd of hundreds of shoppers. People would pay almost any price to buy one but there were none available.
That year a T.V. camera crew was in a shopping center near Kevin’s store doing a short story about the children sitting on Santa’s lap and telling Santa what they wanted for Christmas.
As Kevin watched this at home, a cute little girl sat on Santa’s lap and when Santa asked, “What would you like for Christmas?” She said, “I’d like a Cabbage Patch Doll Santa”.
The camera panned from Santa’s face to the face of the little girl’s mother who was frantically trying to signal Santa not to say that this wish would come true. You just could not get those dolls, it was impossible.
Santa smiled at the little girl and said, “Well honey, those dolls are really hard to get this year, how about if Santa brings it for you next year?”
Without missing a beat, the little girl replied, “I have cancer Santa and I won’t be here next year.”
As Kevin told his story, soon everyone in the meeting, me included, was reliving it with him.
Kevin told us about how the employees at his store started working to fund-raise enough money to help make this little girl’s wish come true and they did it! They raised over a $1,000 and after searching all over the country, they found a doll and had it shipped to the little girl’s house.
Kevin said he’ll never forget the moment that he watched as the little girl opened the box, looked inside, smiled and said, “Thanks, thanks so much, but this doll has red hair and freckles and I really wanted a doll with blond hair and blue eyes.”
Kevin said he had never been so angry; how could this little girl be so ungrateful? Didn’t she know how hard they had worked to get her this doll? Then he stopped and remembered that she was just a little girl, just an extremely sick little girl.
So he and his Associates started their search again, raised more money and in the nick of time, they found a doll matching the little girl’s request and had it shipped to their store just in time for Christmas Eve.
By this time, Kevin said the story had become a huge media event and everyone wanted to see how the story would end so they decided to have the little girl receive her doll from Santa back where the story had begun in the mall.
As the T.V. cameras watched, Santa handed the package to the little girl. Everyone held their breath as she opened it, looked inside, smiled, and said, “This is perfect, now my Mommy won’t be alone next Christmas.”
I promise you to this day every person who was in that meeting, and every person who Kevin ever told that story to has never forgotten that little blond haired, blue eyed girl who wasn’t thinking about herself, she was thinking about her Mother.
The Essential Lesson: It really is more blessed to give than to receive and if you understand this, then you will enjoy every single day you spend serving your customers, no matter what your business.
