I got a call from Al Maag yesterday morning at 11:21 am. Al is the Global Brand Manager for Avnet, His telephone call was a class act gesture and a total surprise. Especially because he called from his cell, he didn’t know my full name and somehow, he tracked me down. That’s going the extra mile, already. If you know him, you likely know this about him already. I was touched.

I stopped by the Avnet Tent on the 18th hole at the WM Phoenix Open Wednesday to meet members and learn about the Arizona Chapter of the Business Marketing Association (BMA). Al is National Board Chariman of BMA and founded the Arizona Chapter. Unfortunately, a morning seminar delayed me, so I arrived too late for the group festivities. Al was busy visiting with people in the tent. I didn’t want him to have to leave his conversation. It was after the time slated for event and Avnet invests good money to spend time with their customers among the 600,000 attendee PGA Tournament. It wasn’t my place to distract him, other than to say hello and thank you for the hospitality. I went on my way.

Al invested the next 12 minutes sharing what I missed at the BMA event, his role founding the local Chapter and counted off other prestigious companies whose CMO’s (Chief Marketing Officers) are members of BMA. In addition to Avnet. they include Motorola, IBM, GE, Siemens, Google and 5 top global marketing agencies.

I own a small business matchmaking agency. I am not Google. Yet Al Maag found and called me to share his knowledge and to encourage me to check out BMA. He made me feel my small business was important.

I hope you get an Al Maag moment. Thank you for mine, Al.

Sincerely,

Roseann Higgins

Founder & President, SPIES Single Professional Introductions for the Especially Selective