Making an Impact

Many of you know that I work for the Finish Line. We have an employee newsletter that included the letter below to our home office from a customer. For me, it is really exciting to see that something we did as a company had a much broader impact that perhaps increasing sales or profit margins. It isn't often that a company can say we changed or improved someone's life, but apparently in this one we and more specifically the manager at this store did so. A little background is needed here. We recently launched a Finish Line Brand campaign called Be Heard. (Check out the link as it shows some of the marketing materials that fill in the blanks a little bit). It included tv advertising, in-store marketing displays and employee t-shirts that were all black with the block letters BE HEARD across the chest. The idea here is that your shoes, clothes and attitude tell alot about you and your personality as well as what you stand for without speaking. So on to the letter. I don't know if this is open game or not, so I changed the names that were in it.

Sir or Madam

My name is Samantha, and I was in your store about two weeks ago. I need to tell you what an impact you made on my son's life. My son is 12 years old and a deaf child who cannot speak very well. He has always been a quiet type, never wanting to be noticed. He always wore grays and blacks.

We were in your store looking for school shoes, and I think the young lady's name who helped us was Melissa. While she was getting our shoes, a young gentleman who introduced himself as George asked how we were doing and I told him we were being helped. He told me that was fine and explained about a backpack sale you had going on and socks that were on sale. Before he walked away, my son asked him what "BE HEARD" meant. He told my son that it was an advertisement campaign by the Finish Line that meant through you are, what you wear, and the attitude you have, you could be heard without saying anything. He said like Forest Gump said, you can tell a lot about a person from their shoes.

We ended up purchasing some shoes, a backpack and a few sale shirts they had and left. We had a lot more shopping to do that day, and for the first time, my son was looking at shirts that I never thought he would ever pick out. He was going for the bright colors, and he even picked out a dress shirt that was blue, orange and white. When we got home, and we were putting away his clothes, he turned to me and said, "Mom, I'm ready to be heard." I cried that night for a long time because of the impact that young man had on my son. He is ready to start the school year and is not afraid of what others will think of him.

Thank you very much.

In appreciation,
Samantha

Wow...That is all I can say...I almost cried the first time I read it, the first time I told Jennifer and now again typing it for cyber space.