You may not know them by name but I am sure you have seen their work. Here’s what you probably didn’t know. Albert and Albrecht Durer were brothers of sixteen other siblings in Germany near Nuremburg during the fifteenth century. Their father was a goldsmith by trade and worked with gold from a local goldmine. They both had a passion and talent for art but with sixteen other siblings they knew their family couldn’t afford to send them both to school. The story goes, one Sunday after church the family gathered around and a coin was tossed, the winner would go on to school to pursue his passion for art.

Albrecht won the toss that day and in fact went on to Nuremburg to attend school and his brother Albert labored in the local goldmine mine, up to 18 hours each day to help put his beloved brother through school. The deal was when Albrecht was finished with school, he would work in the mine or as an artist to return the love of his brother and put Albert through school.

Working in the mine was very difficult and took a heavy toll on Albert’s hands but he kept up the work to put his brother through school.

The day came when Albrecht finished school and returned home. With great joy Albrecht told Albert, “now brother, I’ll work and you may go to school.” But Albert said that his time has passed for you see over the years of working in the mine his hands had become callused, arthritic and scared. He could no longer hold a brush with such hands.

Albrecht asked one last favor of Albert and that was that he pose for a painting. Albert did in fact pose and together their work became known world-wide by millions of people. First as a still life painting and later a sculpture of the praying hands. Those crippled damaged hands that are folded in prayer to be for all the world to see a symbol of prayer. As the late Paul Harvey used to say, now you know the rest of the story that those hands also represent sacrifice from one brother to help another with the passion they both shared.

The lesson… You need not always be the artist or the star to be famous!

I really like sharing customer service stories both on the good side and the bad. This one though is all good… very good! This past week I traveled to Dallas Texas with my good friend Patric Welch, Mr Noobie along with about 28 other folks from Indianapolis to attend the Glazier Kennedy Super Conference. More on the Super Conference at a later time.

In the hotel where we stayed, the Hyatt Regency downtown, like most any hotel you would find across the united States had a restaurant. Most of the internal hotel restaurant’s I have encountered have below average food and crappy service. The Hyatt Regency had a secret weapon named Dana! Patric and I met Dana on day one, last Thursday morning and she made the week. We didn’t plan on sitting in her section of the restaurant but boy did we get lucky when we did. Now, something you need to know is that Patric and I neither one, like coffee so we usually have a soda of some type with our meals. For both of us that preferred soda is a Diet Mountain Dew. The challenge most restaurants let alone hotel restaurants don’t have, don’t offer and don’t care if you get a Diet Dew or not. Well… Not the Hyatt Regency in Dallas and Dana!

She asked do you want coffee and we said that we would prefer a Diet Mountain Dew would that be possible. She smiled and said, let me see what I can do. A short minute or two later… here came Dana’s (assistant George) helper with two tall glasses filled and chilled with Diet Dew. Dana told us George had gone to the banquets department and secured a couple just for Patric and I.

From then on, when we went into the Centennial Cafe, two Diet Dews came immediately. Dana called each of us by name and became a local hero to both Pat and I. We told everyone we knew or met, Facebook and Twitter too about Dana!

The lesson for your business… How are you exceeding your customers expectations? What specifically do you do that is above and beyond like Dana did? What do your customers, patients or clients experience? I want to make sure you do realize that when your clients, customers or patients have an experience anywhere in the world like Patric and I did in Dallas… and they do all the time, when they receive service from you… they compare and assess it against that WOW experience. Then, when they leave you for another vendor, you’ll hear it was the price. But it wasn’t the cost of your product or service as most think, it was the experience. They paid more than they received in experience overtime.