I read an interesting article by Seth Godin earlier which asked the very same question and it went on to explain the importance of building relationships of relevence with people who already see you as a Rock Star rather than battling with those who see you as the warm up act.

Even if those 'Rock Star' relationships are few and far between, we all have them; people who trust what we are saying, agree with our stand on things and simply enjoy our company enough to support our cause or buy our products over somebody else's when the time comes for them to act. If you're not too sure if you have the influence to be a Rock Star and believe you'll always be seen as the warm up act maybe you should read the story of Nick MacDougal...

Nick was a guy I grew up with in a small town on the outskirts of Manchester. He was a heavy set kind of fella with sweaty hands and bad breath and yet he was without doubt a Rock Star (possibly the least likely rock star you're ever likely to meet).

When Nick was sixteen years old he left school to take a job in a small, well established suit hire shop in the centre of the town. The two brothers who owned the shop, Mr and Mr Flannigan of Flannigans' Emporium, and had done so for the best part of thirty years were looking for a little extra help around the place, lifting boxes of shoes, rearranging suit displays, handling the manikins from time to time and generally lifting, shifting and shuffling anything that needed to be moved around a little. Nick was good at that and had proved his value by taking a Saturday job in the local fishmongers which the Flannigan brother's visited every Saturday evening on their way home from the emporium. Handling Cod to handling Armani couldn't be that different they had decided and in a short time Nick MacDougal had began to reward their faith by doing exactly what they wanted him to do every time they wanted him to do it; as simple as that. Nick was a doer and whatever they wanted him to do he did.

A year or so into his job, Nick's mother and father were killed in a car accident late one evening in the middle of winter and it hit him hard. He was seventeen and although he had never been one of those kids who drank he took to the drink, spending his evenings at home or out on the town getting himself into a fairly bad state. It lasted around six months or so and the Flannigan brother's never said a word, even though he was late for work on more than one occasion. He went through whatever he went through when someone close to you passes on from this world, and then it passed and in weeks his work life became the focus of his attention. He turned a corner and dedicated himself to learning the business and understanding everything he could about running a successful suit hire shop.

The Flannigan brothers rewarded him with knowledge and time, never pressing him to reach unreachable targets but always encouraging him to learn and understand more about the business. They taught him the trade but also taught him how to meet and greet people, how to develop relationships with potential customers both in the shop and away from it so that when the time came for some guy to get married the first and only place he would look would be to Nick MacDougal. And believe me they did. Every guy in the town from the mid 80's into the early 90's had bought, borrowed or bragged about a suit he had found through Nick MacDougal.

Nick had become a Rock Star.

By the time he was twenty one, he not only had his name across the door of the shop ' Mr and Mr Flannigan & Mr MacDougal of Flannigan & MacDougals' Emporium' but he had taken over the reigns. The brother's had both decided to retire from active involvement in the business and had opted to take a tour of the Far East for a couple of years to catch up on a few youthful ambitions before they were unable to make the most of their acquired wealth.

A month ago, I returned to my home town to attend the opening of MacDougals Menswear, a fine, gentlemen's clothing establishment catering to the elite of Manchester. Why was I there? Watching the Rock Star of course.