Service with a Smile Everything I learned about selling I learned in one afternoon from my father, Walt, at his furniture store in New Era, Michigan. I was 12 years old.

I was sweeping the floor when an elderly woman entered the store. I asked Dad if I could wait on her.
"Sure," he replied.

"May I help you?"

"Yes, young man, I bought a sofa from your store and the leg fell off. I want to know when you're going to fix it."

"When did you purchase it, ma'am?"

"About 10 years ago."

I told my father that she thought we were going to fix her old sofa for free. He said to tell her we'd be there that afternoon.
After screwing on the new leg, we left, and on the ride back Pop asked, "What's bothering you son?"

"You know that I want to go to college. If we drive around fixing old sofas for free, we'll go broke"

"You had to learn how to do that repair job anyway. Besides, you missed the most important part. You didn't notice the store tag when we flipped the couch over. She bought it from Sears."

"You mean we did that job for nothing and she's not even our customer?"

Dad looked me in the eye and said, "She is now."

Two days later she returned to our store and bought several thousand dollars worth of new furniture from me. When we delivered it, she put a gallon jar filled with change, singles, fives, tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds on the kitchen table. "Take what you need," she said and left the room.

I've been selling for 30 years since that day. I have had the highest closing average in every organization I have represented because I treat customers with respect.

By Michael T. Burcon

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired.

Several years later his company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine fixed, but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.

The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day he marked a small x in chalk on a particular component of the machine and proudly stated, "This is where your problem is". The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again.

The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service.

They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:

One chalk mark .. ..... ..... $1

Knowing where to put it ..... $49,999

It was paid in full and the engineer retired in peace.

As Michael Chang was here recently for the Heineken Open, he gave us a surprise visit last Saturday nite at Faith Community Baptist Church when he joined us for service...... after worship, he gave a short interview by Pastor Khong of how he came to know the Lord and some words of encouragement too..... very humble and cheerful guy..... and below is more of his testimony.... :)

Michael's testimony for Jesus Christ both on and off the court is quite evident. "I thank the Lord Jesus Christ," he proclaimed in 1989 after becoming the youngest male to ever win the French Open, "because without Him, I am nothing." Whether win or lose, he readily gives glory to the Lord, for it is the Lord who gave Michael the talent to play tennis.

In this section, Michael responds to the reader's questions and comments about Christianity.

How did you become a Christian?

I became a Christian in 1988. At 15 years of age, I was doing a lot of searching. I think at that particular age, at least for me, you're wondering about things like the meaning of life and you're really trying to find yourself.

I just had a lot of questions. My grandparents had given me a Bible and they wanted me to read it everyday. On this one particular evening I didn't have anything else to do so I decided to take a good look at my Bible and see what it had to say. I looked at the index in the back and found that it covered all these different subjects. So I looked up subjects like friendship and love and found the Bible to be very true, very pure, in a way in which I wanted to live my life. From then on I began reading about the Lord's life and His love for all people. Eventually, I accepted Him as my Lord and Savior.

How does God help you on the Tour?

I think there's a confidence knowing that everything is in God's hands. I see so many things happening in my life and I know that they aren't just mere coincidences. I know that the Lord loves me, that He looks out for me and that He will always be with me and walk with me. It just brings me a great deal of satisfaction and comfort to know that no matter what happens, He will always take care of me.

I've also learned that the Lord only asks that you go and you give your best for Him. I think it's very easy to get very frustrated sometimes. There are times when you go out, you try your best and for some people, it's just not good enough. Yet, I feel that God has given me this wonderful talent of playing tennis. I realize that I would not be where I am in tennis without the Lord, without Him giving me the strength to be able to do what I do.

What's nice is that, as long as my priorities are set and my priorities are straight, I'm able to go out with the mentality to really leave the winning and losing up to the Lord. You know, when you give your best, it's all He asks of you, it's all you can ask of yourself and it's really all people can ask of you. I think that life is really too short to be so caught up in the things of the world. Just go out and give your best. To me that's pretty simple.

How do you pray on the Tour? Do you pray to win?

I usually pray with whoever is with me on the Tour, whether that be Carl and Diana, my parents, or my trainer, Ken. We say a prayer before every match. We don't pray to win. We pray that our priorities are straight and that the Lord will shine through us and give us the strength and the peace to do His work and to do His will. We also pray that our actions and our words would be used to glorify Him.

What are your prayer requests?

I've been so blessed to have so many people praying for me. The power of prayer is something that is very underestimated. It is just incredibly powerful.
Hopefully, I'll pray and the people who are praying for me will pray that I will keep Him close to my heart and that I will walk closely with Him so that I won't stray. It's important for me to be able to go out and be focused, to keep my eyes upon the Lord and not get caught up in the money or the fame or the rankings or for winning particular tournaments. I mean, granted, those things are important to some degree, but they really don't compare to touching people's lives in a Christ-like way. They really don't compare to being able to encourage someone in the Lord, because that is really what lasts a lifetime and even beyond. So for me, I think it's important to stay close to the Lord
.

A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked,
"Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.
He then asked, "Who still wants it?"
Still the hands were up in the air.

"Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.
He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty.
"Now who still wants it?"
Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value.
It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless.

But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value......

THOUGHT: The worth of our lives come not in what we do or who we are...

INSPIRING STORIES

_____________________

�

In 1962, four nervous young musicians played their first record audition for the executives of the Decca recording Company. The executives were not impressed. While turning down this group of musicians, one executives said, "We don?t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." The group was called The Beatles.

In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modelling Agency, told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, "You?d better learn secretarial work or else get married. " She went on and became Marilyn Monroe.

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, Fired a singer after one performance. He told him, "You ain?t goin? nowhere....son. You ought to go back to drivin? a truck." He went on to become the most popular singer in America named Elvis Presley.

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it did not ring off the hook with calls from potential backers. After making a demonstration call, President Rutherford Hayes said, "That?s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?"

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2000 experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times. He said, "I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process."

In the 1940s, another young inventor named Chester Carlson took his idea to 20 corporations, including some of the biggest in the country. they all turned him down. In 1947 - after seven long years of rejections!

• he finally got a tiny company in Rochester, New York, the Haloid Company, to purchase the rights to his invention - an electrostatic paper-copying process. Haloid became Xerox Corporation we know today.

�

Wilma Rudolph was the 20^th of 22 children. She was born prematurely and her survival was doubtful. When she was 4 years old, she contacted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, which left her with a paralysed left leg. At age 9, she removed the metal leg brace she had been dependent on and began to walk without it. By 13 she had developed a rhythmic walk, which doctors said was a miracle. that same year she decided to become a runner. She entered a race and came in last. For the next few years every race she entered, she came in last. Everyone told her to quit, but she kept on running. One day she actually won a race. And then another. From then on she won every race she entered. Eventually this little girl, who was told she would never walk again, went on to win three Olympic gold medals.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. You gain strength, experience and confidence by every experience where you really stop to look fear in the face....

You must do the thing you cannot do. And remember, the finest steel gets sent through the hottest furnace.

Champion is not one who never fails, but one who never quits

• It?s Nice to be Important, but it?s more Important to be Nice *
• So of all things you wear, your smile is most important *