Treat 'Em Like A Mugger And They'll Love You!

by Vince Villegas

Julio’s approach to dealing with his mugger actually is very much my approach to dealing with everyone — and especially my approach to dealing with my clients (and potential clients).
I am going to go on record right now: I treat EVERY one of my clients and potential clients like I would treat a mugger.

How I would treat a mugger if I were Julio Diaz, that is . . .

I just saw a story about Julio Diaz’s experience getting mugged in New York, and as the title of the story put it so perfectly, Julio “treat[ed] his mugger right.”

So how exactly do you treat a mugger “right,” why would anyone care about how a mugger is treated, and what does this have to do with how you interact with clients (and potential clients)?

Good questions…

Well Julio’s approach to dealing with his mugger actually is very much my approach to dealing with everyone — and especially my approach to dealing with my clients (and potential clients).

A teenage mugger held Julio up at knife point. After Julio handed over his wallet, he offered the mugger his jacket (suspecting he was cold). Then he offered to buy the mugger a meal (suspecting he was also hungry).

As they were eating, the mugger noticed something interesting…

“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'” “No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.'”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”

“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.

So how did Julio treat his mugger? With respect, and with a spirit of wanting to help. What did Julio teach the mugger? That you ALWAYS get the best response from people when you treat everyone this way.

While I am not necessarily prescribing that you should do what Julio did should you ever have the unfortunate experience of being mugged, I am telling you that having the “pay it forward” philosophy in life — will pay off for you in more ways than one.