Good Person, Good Business

Let me introduce you to Brendan Cosso.  He's the owner of Crosscore, a second-generation suspension training tool, and the photo is from his booth at the IDEA World Fitness Convention 2011 in LA. 

I've taught with first-generation TRX for a long time, and this year I changed over all of my equipment to Crosscore War Machines (aka Crosscore 180s) because I think it's better equipment.  I talked to the Crosscore people a couple of times via phone and email while placing my order, and told them how much I like their system.  But this blog entry isn't to tell about how much I like the Crosscore (although I could go on and on and on), it's to tell how much I appreciate this man and the way he and his company treat his customers.  Customer service is critical to me.

Anyway, I've been posting a few youtube videos, of my members and a couple of myself, to help sell my small-group personal training. Nothing super-fancy, just showing the studio, a few of my gals, and our circuit-training.  I teach at a gym that has a regular membership that I draw from, but I started classes at a brand new private studio (Beyond Brawn, Hillsboro) and youtube was a small branch of my incredible (!), highly sophisticated (!) social media strategy.

When I saw that Crosscore was going to be at IDEA World, I was super-excited to meet the people behind to product.  To thank them, to talk shop, to get a few new ideas to take home.  I had Crosscore, ViPR, Zumba and Spri already circled on the exhibitor's map before I even got into the hall and had my route all planned out.

So I walk up to the Crosscore booth.  Everyone is ripped, cut, gorgeous, and super-fit. This makes total sense; the War Machine is designed to train athletes and first responders how to carry their body weight in all sorts of extreme situations.  Military.  Firefighters.  Police.  It's a tool perfect for people whose jobs and lives depend on strength, stability and mobility. 

I train a whole spectrum of people on the Crosscore, from beginners to triathletes, of all ages and fitness levels.  The Crosscore is perfect for that, too.  That's why I appreciate it because it allows me to work with small groups and have a challenging exercise for everyone no matter what their level.  With my heterogenous group of clients, it hadn't occurred to me that I was going to look out of place at their booth.

I was intimidated.  "Oh shit." I thought. "This middle-aged housewife from Oregon likes their product and they're soooo not going to care because now I see I'm not their sales demographic at all.   I'm healthy.  I'm strong.  But I'm also a size 10 and was devoid of make-up.

So I decide not to make the bold entrance I had intended, but stand on the carpet at the edge of the booth to watch, because I'm always trying to learn more ideas to bring home for my members. 
One of the men working the booth smiles and says hi to me.  He asks me if I've hung from a cable lately. I smile and tell him that yes I have and in fact I own 6 Crosscores and love to teach with them.   He pulls me into the booth and drags me over to another gentleman. "Hey, Brendan, I want you to meet Nancy. She's from Oregon and she teaches classes with our stuff." Brendan looks at me and says, "Nancy?  Nancy Korf?!?"  And then he gives me this huge hug and says, "I love you! I love your videos! You do such a good job at showing how our stuff works in a class setting with multi-level students! You're awesome!!!"
He introduced me to other members of his team. A couple of them also know me by first and last name and they both tell me how great my videos are, and that they're happy to help support me in my classes.  Brendan had even looked at my videos closely enough to notice that I was filming in a new studio.

Every time I came to the booth over the weekend, somebody hugged me.

Treating me like gold, regardless of whether I was young, old, fat, or thin, or had bought 1 or 100 units, that's good business. People I feel good about doing business with.  Even if a product is good, if people are jerky to me I don't go back.  Brendan and his team have got a customer for the rest of my fitness career.