(Time to read this Blog is about 3 1/2 minutes)
Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:
- My Biz Quote of the week:
“Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, generic holiday celebration, or non-event of your choice! As long as it includes joy, kindness and gratitude, I’m all for it.”
…Donald Cooper.
- Quick Biz Tip:
On what will you focus your time in 2024? Here’s a quick insight that could make you a much more effective manager and leader in 2025. First, make a list of 3 or 4 activities that currently take up a lot of your time and could be delegated to someone else in your organization. What coaching and encouragement might they need to take on this new responsibly and deliver great outcomes?
Next, make a list of 3 or 4 key activities that you will spend more time on in 2025. Activities that will create greater clarity, improve accountability, grow the business, strengthen your Team and improve your bottom line.
To help you with this important exercise, click here to download my insightful Biz Tool #B-26 on ‘How to delegate, get more done and grow your people…without losing control.’ It’s my gift to you.
77% of Christmas Trees sold in the North America last year were ‘fake’. That’s down from 84% a few years ago. Canada is the world’s largest exporter of natural trees.
Venturing out as a family to find the ‘perfect’ tree to bring home and decorate was a wonderful and exciting tradition for many of us growing up. Now, your ‘Christmas’ tree lives with you all year round, in a box, in the basement.
The new fake trees look so real and come with LED lights permanently installed. The needles don’t dry out and fall. I get it …but it makes me a bit sad.
- How can I be helpful in 2025? If your company, Industry Association or local Business Group has a Conference coming up in 2025, and you need an insightful, entertaining, bottom-line Management Speaker who will inform, focus, challenge and inspire, perhaps we should chat about possibilities. I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.
Now, to this week’s important topic:
The Christmas Tree Man:
Note: When I first wrote this article a few years ago, we had such a wonderful response that it has become a December Blog tradition. Enjoy it for the first time…or enjoy it again. It’s a wonderful and important message for this, or any, time of year.
I often caution clients about the danger of ‘judging’ customers by how they’re dressed, or by who they appear to be. Back in my days as an ‘almost famous’ retailer of ladies’ fashions and gifts, I learned this powerful and moving lesson from ’The Christmas Tree Man’.
Our staff came to me one December day to express concern about an unshaven, disheveled and generally unwashed gentleman who kept coming into our store. As he shuffled through our ladies clothing and gift departments, he would glance out the window every few minutes and then, sometimes, he would rush out the door and disappear…empty-handed. This process was repeated several times each day; sometimes resulting in a purchase and sometimes in yet another mysterious disappearance.
When he did buy, he always paid cash from a huge roll of bills with an old, knotted elastic band wound twice around it. But mostly he would look out the window, then rush out the door and disappear.
This strange behavior was spooking our staff and when they started making some unflattering assumptions about this unusual gentleman, I assured them that there was probably a logical explanation and I promised to chat with him on his next visit.
Sure enough, a few hours later, he reappeared. I approached him, explaining that our staff were quite intrigued by his mysterious comings and goings. “Oh”, he said, “I’m the Christmas tree man. That’s my Christmas tree lot just down the road with the little house trailer. I grow the trees on my farm up north, you know, and then I come down here for three weeks each year to sell them to you city folks.”
“I work all alone so I have no time off to buy gifts and I don’t get back home until well after midnight on Christmas Eve. So, whenever I have a few minutes, I rush up here to shop. I really love your store. You have wonderful things, and every day I choose a few gifts for the ladies on my list.”
“But you keep looking out the window.” I said. “Oh,” he replied, “I’m just checking to see if anyone has pulled into my lot to buy a tree. And if they have, I have to rush back before they leave, or I won’t get the business. You can’t take those trees back to the forest and replant them, you know. Once they’re cut, they’re cut.”
“By the way” he added, “I know I don’t look like your usual customer. In fact, I probably look a bit scary to some folks and I guess I don’t smell too good either. I don’t have much more than a bed and a stove in my little trailer. No place to wash up. There’s not a lot of money in real Christmas trees anymore, you know. It’s kind of sad, really. But your staff, they’re so wonderful. They treat me with respect and I really appreciate that!”
The Christmas tree man spent almost $3,000 in our store over a three-week period. He came and he went, he came and he went, day after day, always looking out the window, sometimes rushing to serve a customer. And at the end, on Christmas Eve, before he left for home, he stopped by one more time and gave each of us a real Christmas tree! But the real gift that he gave us was the reminder that we should treat everyone with dignity, respect, understanding and joy. That was his most beautiful and lasting gift.
That’s it for this week…
Stay safe…live brilliantly!
Donald Cooper
Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability. He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.
