Customers For Life, by Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown -- review by Gill E. Wagner
Prologue
Have you ever heard about a person who bought a $2 painting at a garage sale only to discover it's a long-lost Rembrandt worth about $30 million?
Well Cindy, my wife, didn't exactly find a Rembrandt at a local garage sale, but she did pay only $.50 for a book that, in the right hands, could very well be worth the same $30 million.
I honestly have no idea how Customers For Life slipped past my radar when it came out in 1990, but I'm sorry I didn't read it then, because if I had, I can guarantee you that I'd have doubled my income during the last decade.
Read the many reviews I have on this site, and you'll quickly find that I always disagree with at least one or two key concepts each author is trying to convey. Not so with Sewell's masterpiece – I can honestly and literally say I agreed with every single word.
If you have customers, put Customers For Life at the top of your must-read list.
Enjoy,
Gill
Philosophy
In an industry that is notorious not only for its sleazeball sales tactics, but for its blatant disregard for anything but opening the customer's pocketbook, Carl Sewell took his automobile sales and service dealerships to the top of the sales charts. Then, year after year he set never-before-imagined goals and led his team to success at achieving and surpassing them.
And he accomplished this feat by applying the simplest of concepts: If you'd do it for a friend, do it for a customer, and if you wouldn't charge the friend, don't charge the customer either.
From instilling pride in your employees to creating customers for life, Sewell has words of wisdom that every business executive should hear.
Opinion: I'm sure that some people will disagree with what Sewell has to say, and that a few will undoubtedly think he's nuts, but those willing to look beyond their egos and throw away their preconceived notions will quickly learn from what this astounding businessman has to say.
Afterword
Instead of giving you more of my thoughts on Customers For Life, I figured I'd share with you the short afterword contained in the book itself.
It was written for Sewell by Stanley Marcus. (Yes, that Marcus.)
What you've just finished reading is something you don't find in too many books – common sense, plainly stated.
The author, Carl Sewell, has the ability to define problems and reduce them into simple components which can then be solved. Above all, he has the capacity to think straight. He writes as he talks and he talks as he thinks.
In this book, he explains how he engaged me as a consultant, but he doesn't relate the whole story. My reply to his invitation was that I knew so little about automobiles that I doubted if I could be of much help to him. His reply was that he didn't need to learn about cars, but more about running a business selling luxury products.
Carl realized that the only exclusivity he could ever possess in the automobile business was a superior quality of service, and he set out to build it with zeal and imagination and common sense.
Recently I addressed a group of European industrialists who had come to the United States to study how some American firms have achieved such high service standards. I told them that first of all they had to respect their customers; second, they had to learn to love them; eventually they would adore them.
All of this is what Carl Sewell knows so well and has put to work with such sincerity. It's so simple that it might appear miraculous that so few have copied his techniques. Carl really cares, and that is the hardest thing of all to copy. From reading Customers For Life, it's evident that Carl's mother "raised him right."
Not only is this the definitive textbook for anyone in automobile manufacturing or selling, but it is equally valid for everyone engaged in the process of selling to the ultimate customer.
If you don't learn from this book, it's your fault.
Opinion: Marcus' last statement is the ultimate way to summarize how I too feel about Customers For Life.
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Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association
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