by Jay Abraham

Going the extra mile is what famed success expert Napoleon Hill called possibly the single most important trait he identified that existed in virtually every one of the world's top 500 super-achievers. He wrote a great little book highlighting the importance of exceeding expectations.

When Hill analyzed what made people like Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller and Firestone such forces in the world of business, he realized that they always did far more than was expected. They always worked harder, tried more things, bounced back higher after reverses and stretched themselves and their people farther than any of their close competitors dared do.

Charles Schwab, the president of U.S. Steel in the early 1900's, got his job by always doing 10 times more than he was paid to do--or was even expected to do.

In your business, I want to challenge you to start exceeding your customers' expectations in everything you do. And please remember: Your customers are all three groups of people--your vendors, your team members as well as the people and businesses who pay you for your goods or services. Exceeding your customers' or clients' or patients' expectations can and does mean an abundance of things.

It means changing the way you think about, deal with and speak to your customers. Greet them on the phone and in person with the same joy, sincerity and enthusiasm that you'd show any other valued friend.

Respect the importance of their time, their sense of security and their comfort. Don't make them wait to long on "hold" or in your waiting room or at their home. Provide for their comfort. That may mean coffee and beverages, a comfortable, clean setting complete with fresh, interesting reading material. It may mean a pleasing shopping environment and enough consultative help on hand for a customer or client to get the most out of it.

* It means pitching in when a client's in trouble--like the FedEx driver who came back after his other pick-ups to help one customer get his unexpectedly large quantity of pick-ups packed up and ready.

* On another occasion, a FedEx dispatcher got a frantic call from a tearful bride-to-be whose gown had been misrouted the day before her wedding. The alert dispatcher located the gown in a distant city and had it flown to the distraught customer's city by private plane. The gown arrived in time for the young woman to wear it at her wedding.

The rescue effort was expensive, but it became the talk of the wedding reception--and caused many executives attending the ceremony to start using FedEx.

* It means following up after the sale--not just to patronize but to contribute, acknowledge and assure that customer or client or patient that you care about them.

* It means thinking about the customers as more than just a cheque book. It means seeing him or her as a valued business partner of sorts, someone whose well-being and success is directly tied to your own.

Let me give you two, quick, personal examples of what I'm talking about:

Recently, one of my joint-venture partners flew into Los Angeles from Hawaii just to spend the day with my general manager and express her commitment to our business venture. Then, when she discovered that I'd allowed my filing system to get fouled up, she canceled her flight home that night, changed her ticket to the next evening, went out and --using her own money--bought hundreds of dollars' worth of filing and organizational materials and came to my home at 9:00 a.m. the next day with her husband (who's also one of my joint-venture partners) dressed in work clothes. For six hours straight they cleaned out, cleaned up and totally reorganized my entire office.

Needless to say, that super-impressed me.

But she was smart. She knew that if she exceeded my expectations of her as a partner, and extended herself at a level I could have never dreamed possible, that I'd be forced to reciprocate by giving more of my attention and effort to her product than to the 12 other ventures I'm currently working on. She also knew that if she got me super-organized, and opened up two extra hours a day for me, that I would most likely use it to work on her projects.

Here's another example: I bought a dress for my wife at a local boutique. It had to be altered, so they sent it out. It was supposed to be back by 2:00 on Thursday, so my wife could wear it to a 6:00 cocktail party. The seamstress got behind, and it wasn't done when I came for it. The boutique owner herself came out, apologized and told me they had screwed up.

But not to worry! The owner paid an expensive delivery service to pick up the dress at five and bring it to our house. With the dress was a beautiful silk scarf wrapped around a note of handwritten, heartfelt apology from the owner. My wife really appreciated that gesture. She appreciated it so much, in fact, that she went back three days later and spent $2,000 on clothes!

The moral? Exceed your customer's expectations--on all counts. Respect them more than anyone else does, serve them better, give them more, follow up more and above all do what no one else thinks to do, and you'll stand out so favorably that you will keep customers and clients for life.

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This resource is (c) Jay Abraham, a renowned marketing expert, and is taken from the "Jay Abraham's Business Breakthroughs" newsletter.