Giving Just For The Sale Of Giving

I have observed over the years that there are two ways to view your customers.  One is as a money machine from which with a minimal amount of effort you can extract dollars.  The other is as human beings who have feelings and emotions and are just like us,susceptible to acts of kindness.  We do business via an agent with whom I work closely with a company called The Color Run  http://thecolorrun.com/ . They organize 5 K races with a very unique theme as you can see on their web site. I mentioned this to a co-worker who told me that she would love to run in their races in DC and Philly but they were booked up.  Long story short, our agent was able to put her in touch with his contact there and she was able to not only book herself but two friends into the races. The contact was able to add three customers for his company, the agent got props for the referral, and both Trinity and The Color Run benefited.  You want referrals from your customers?  Think about the many creative, not so obvious, ways you can provide referrals for them.  Do you think they just might reciprocate?  Even if they don't, won't it make you feel good to know you helped someone and that they might "pay it forward"?