… and the 15 ¢ Newspaper
It was 1978. I had used part of the payout from my weekly newspaper route to purchase Meat Loaf’s hot new album ‘Bat out of Hell’ (vinyl that is). Every day after school I would hop on my purple Puch moped, stuff my papers in my blue newspaper satchel and hit the route. Life was good.
Then one sunny day in late May, devastation. There was a downturn in the local economy and a half dozen of my customers cancelled their papers mid-week. They told me they no longer wanted the paper and they could not pay. I had pre-purchased my inventory for the week and was sure to suffer a loss. When I look back on it, it was such a small amount but at the time, I felt devastated. I tossed and turned the entire night.
On my way to school the next morning I had an idea. Each day I rode past the local hospital and thought to myself, ‘I wonder if I could sell my excess daily inventory there’? So, after school I hit the back entrance of the hospital to avoid the visitor’s reception desk. I went from room to room on the first floor and in no time, had sold all of my excess papers. But here is the thing. At the time, the daily cost of the paper was 15 cents – but 
people did not pay me 15 cents. They all insisted on paying a quarter and sometimes 35 cents. My gross profit margin jumped to 60% – 70%! This was a gold mine… and I did not even get off the first floor of a three floor hospital. Others wanted papers even after I had ran out. I promptly hopped back on my moped, rode the half mile to the local drug store and purchased an additional short stack of newspapers to take back to the hospital.
I then had the idea of increasing my weekly inventory on speculation that I could sell even more at the hospital. I kept doing this to the point where my hospital deliveries were greater than my regular route. Life was good again.
After a number of months of doing this, I no longer had to take the back entrance. The nursing staff all knew me and I could cruise right past reception without checking in during visiting hours. Then, one day as I trotted in with my bag full of papers, devastation again. As I approached the reception desk I saw a steel newspaper rack, stacked full of the daily I delivered. You see, the newspaper company got wise to what I was doing and decided they should put a stack on each floor of the hospital. I am not sure what an anxiety attack feels like but if it is anything like how I felt at that moment – it is a bad bad feeling.
Then, something strange happened. The head nurse at the reception desk called me over with a smile. I had no words. She said ‘do you see that’? I nodded. She walked around the counter, put her arm around me and walked me over to the seating area and began to tell me what had happened that morning. After the newspapers had arrived, she went down to one of the rooms and told one of the elderly ladies that she no longer had to wait until the end of the day to receive her newspaper from me. She could pay for it then and get it in the morning rather than at 4 PM.
That is when I learned a lesson that has stayed with me to this very day. The nurse told me that she was surprised by the elderly patient’s comment. She told me that she said ‘thank you dear, but I want to buy my paper from the little blonde haired boy’. She got a similar response from many of the other patients. You see, what the nurses did not know is that in addition to bringing newspapers, a number of the patients would ask if I cold pick things up for them periodically at the local drug store… a hair brush, chocolate, gum, a magazine, etc. I had not thought much about it. I would also spend a few extra minutes with many of them talking about their children or grandchildren who were in my school – talking about what happened that day (it was a small community). I just thought it was the nice thing to do and I loved it. But at that moment, I understood that doing all of the little things, the right things, that don’t seem to mean much on the surface add up and when it comes to your (paper) business, it means everything.
So what does this have to do with education and learning? Everything.
As a former educator and administrator, it was crystal clear that the teachers who were successful were those who went the extra mile for their students. The ones who painstakingly focused on preparing their lessons every single day based on the learning styles of their students, testing and retesting cooperative learning strategies and differentiated assessment, developed out of class programs for students to be successful, etc. You might say it was the original RTI. In the online environment it is the exact same thing. It is the educator that makes just one more call, sends one more email, does one more IM, and does one more WebEx / Elluminate session. ‘One more’, just when he/she feels the day has ended. ‘One more’, after dinner, ‘one more’ before going to bed. Oh, they don’t call it ‘customer service’ but that is exactly what it is – the student is the customer.
Whether you are a service provider like the business I am in or an educator (my former life), you have to realize that we are all in the same business – the customer service business. It is not easy. In fact it is very hard.
I was energized this past week being at the annual USDLA Conference in St. Louis. The event was packed with innovative leaders and educators who were all focused on how to better serve their faculties, teachers, and students. Online programs are changing the face of education in the US and it is the customer service that they offer that is fueling the change.
PS I still have that newspaper bag.
