What Sets Your Business Apart?

Back in the 90s I took a trip west with my husband. At each stop, we observed the customer service going on around us.

One place in particular, Wall Drug Store, stood out: the atmosphere was warm and friendly. The service was beyond compare.

When we left I picked up some information on the history of Wall Drug – I was excited to learn that this store also practices giving to the community. You see, business was slow for the new owner of the Wall Drug Store in the early 1930s. Ted Hustead and his wife, Dorothy, had moved to Wall, South Dakota, in search of a place to run a drugstore. They wanted a small town with a Catholic Church. They found what they were looking for in Wall.

At the time, Wall only had 326 people. 326 poor people. Most of them were farmers who had been wiped out either by the Depression or drought. Business was bad. Their faith and dedication to helping their neighbors helped them through the first vie years. Filing prescriptions for a sick child or an ailing farmer made Ted and Dorothy feel that they were doing something good. They had hopes that traffic in their small town would increase once the monument was finished at Mt. Rushmore.

Once the monument was completed, traffic did increase; stil no one stopped at their store. One very hot day in July, Dorothy had the idea of giving ice water away to all the travelers – at no charge.

They started giving the water away and were surprised at how many people stopped. For hours each day, people would pour in and for hours Ted and Dorthy poured them ice water. People asked for directions while they were there, stocked up on needed supplies, bought a soda or an ice cream cone. Dorothy’s idea of giving resulted ina  very successful business, one that’s still going strong 63 years later.

What sets your business apart?