Welcome to this week’s edition of The Company We Keep. A blog about great people doing fantastic things! It is my pleasure to shine the spotlight on none other than a dear friend of mine, Christine Kriz! Christine is not only a friend of mine, but she is also the Director of the Lord Fairfax Community College Small Business Development Center. There are a million reasons why Christine could make this blog series, but here is the story that landed her here.

I recently reached out to Christine to discuss a new service I wanted to offer clients through my business, 2nd Story Communications (cheap plug, I know). I had done some preliminary work on this new corporative initiative but wanted a professional I knew and trusted to lay another pair of eyes on my plan. I called Christine and she made time to meet with me immediately.

We met at a local coffee shop and spent the first twenty minutes simply catching up like old friends do. We shared stories about our families, our work, and the community. Then I gave her my sales pitch and she listened intently. When I was finished, she let me know what the strong points of my plan were, as well as other areas I may consider fortifying. It was a refreshing perspective to say the least. But wait…it gets better. Christine followed up with a robust email the next day. This email not only recapped everything we had discussed, but it also listed other avenues that we had never even considered, that may be beneficial to executing my plan.

Now at this point, some of my more cynical readers may be muttering to themselves, “Nice story, but kind of dull.” And that’s okay. Let me now share what really landed Christine in this week’s blog. Christine implemented two important skills into this meeting. First, she made me feel like I was the only client she had. As soon as I arrived at her table, she closed her laptop and never reopened it. She also turned her phone face down on the table. These are subtle practices, but greatly appreciated. Then we caught up. And she made it a point to ask me more questions about myself than she shared about herself. This is a servant leader mindset, putting others first. Then…get this…she listened. Not once did she ever interrupt me to share a thought. Not once did she stop me to tell me I was way off base. Not once did she laugh at any of my jokes (that one stung a little). She had carved this time out for me and proceeded to treat me like I was the most important person in her world for those sixty minutes.

Finally, she under promised and over delivered. She asked if she could send me an email recapping our meeting and she did. But included with her recap were contacts of others who she thought could help me in my journey, links to services that she thought would be a good fit for my career, attachment after attachment of industry-related articles that I needed to read, and an invitation to personally connect me to others from whom I could learn.

Christine is the consummate professional who makes you feel like you’ve known her your whole life. Her job is to help others succeed in business, but with her personality and willingness to go above and beyond, her clients succeed in life as well.

Thank you, Christine, for practicing these much-needed soft skills in addition to your much appreciated hard skills relating to business. You are making the world a better place one client and one business at a time!