The random stranger encounter and how it should have gone!

I was in Starbucks collecting my coffee and this guy said “hi boss, how are you?”.

I said “hi, how are you?”.

I didn’t know who the hell he was! No idea!

He said “good”… and as he was thinking, he asked: “You don’t recognise me, do you?”

I hadn’t a clue as to who he was. He didn’t even look familiar.

He told me his name and that he used to work for me.

Aha! Now I remembered. He used to work in that very Starbucks, maybe 15 years ago? He was a really nice guy and I used to chat to him and one day I asked if he wanted to work for me.

I can’t remember all the details as I have had a lot of staff but he came and was a good worker. I also had another business next door, which I sold to a friend of mine.

I think he started to sneak off to my mate’s business to work for him while he was working for me. Something like that but at the time, seeing him next door made me see red and I fired him. Maybe it was all innocent! Who knows! (Don’t be reactive, kids!).

Anyway, this was him in front of me in Starbucks. He said he now has his own window cleaning business in my neighbourhood. Clever guy! If you are going to do it, you may as well come to an affluent neighbourhood!

I liked him. Asked him how much and he said around £50 for a house.

Fair enough. I asked him to come round and maybe he can do my house. More as a favour to him as my windows were not that dirty!

A few hours later he showed up and had a look and we had a chat and he said it will be £250 to do my house! £250??! WTF! He’s not installing new windows, just cleaning them! He said my house was very big.

I said no. I can pay one of the builders I know £200 a day and they will do a ton of work AND clean my windows!

As we were chatting on the way out, he said he got into business because of me. Not the first time I have heard this - being modest! He wanted to study and apparently I told him he was too old and may as well start a business.

In that conversation, and not knowing anything about his business, I gave him a few bits of advice. He said he was married to a Japanese girl, so I told him why don’t you put her and yourself on your website and talk about being a family business and the fact that you are a religious person (I remembered he was a Jehovah’s Witness) and make it sound really trustworthy.

Told him a few more bits. Honestly, what I told him is probably 50x the £250 he wanted to charge me - in terms of value.

Later I looked at his website and it is not great. The usual bog standard “About Us” with stock photos. Nothing interesting, no USP, no familiarity, very cold and standard, nothing that would get ME to want to go to him for sure. He probably loses a lot of clients who visit that website.

The things I told him would serve him well. What would have served him well would have also been for him to do my house and put it on his website, as it is not every day you get to clean the windows of a house like mine! But hey, I understand he needs to make money.

People often don’t see the bigger picture. They look down, rather than up. They think small, rather than big. This is the biggest thing I do for people who I work with. I broaden their horizons. If he had done my house for free, he would have had at least another 30-60 minutes of my time as I was in the garden anyway and I liked chatting to him. How much is my time worth? A lot more than £250 for sure!

He left, £250 shorter in cash. Right?

I would say he left £10k shorter in overall potential revenue - at least! Let's hope he will put the few things I told him into practice as I am sure they will serve him well.