Doug Isley and I met at the annual PHCC CONNECT conference last September.  L.E. Isley & Sons is a world-class plumbing company serving the Indianapolis region.

Since the PHCC conference, Doug has invited me to company twice for onsite technician and office staff training.

Monica Koehl and Dawn Schwarzkopf proudly display their acrostic during our phone skills seminar.

After serving Midwest clients, I headed south through Arkansas in heavy rain.

A rock thrown by an upfront 18 wheeler found and cracked my truck’s windshield.  The crack was growing at a fast enough pace to cause concern so I pulled into a rest stop and phoned the Safelite folks.  A windshield replacement was scheduled for the following Monday in McAllen, Texas.

Nydia Cadriel is the glue that holds this Safelite location together.  Tino and Abraham were the technicians.

While in McAllen, I shared a meal with my good friends, Maggie Rodriguez and Roland Perez from Global AC and Heating.

Insightful talk, lots of laughs and much good food made this a special evening.  Meeting with friends eases the burden of being away from home.

The Conn’s Home Plus employees in McAllen are outstanding. Their willingness to engage in collaborative learning is profound considering that English is not their first language. What a terrific company!

Marc Shapiro, VP Service & Repair, shared that customer satisfaction improved in the cities where I had trained Conn’s Home Plus employees last November.  Positive news from satisfied clients makes me smile.

After the Conn’s Home Plus McAllen seminar, I drove north to San Antonio to serve the Conn’s Home Plus call center.

The phone skills seminars were energetic and lively.  A few of the smiling CSRs posed for a photo.

A trek anecdote:

I walk into a Texas BBQ joint. “You want a BBQ plate?”, asks the woman at the counter. “Sure,” I reply. “Go take a seat,” she says, “we’ll bring it to you.” She puts down a slab of paper on my table. Then, she goes back and forth to the kitchen and assembles the BBQ plate. “Hmmmmm…” I think to myself, “where’s the plate?”.

Only in Texas.

If your company is between Pennsylvania and the southern states, contact me about onsite training and consulting.

The above events comprised only the first tens days of a four week trek.  There’s much more to post.  Stay tuned.