Happy Clients Newsletter

Home > About

Have you ever wondered why it’s so easy to get along with some people (your clients, for instance) and so hard to get along with others?

Me too. There is a paradox in human relationships that has always intrigued me. On one hand, people engage in relationships to get their needs met. On the other hand, conflict is a constant in all relationships. The more meaningful the relationship, the more likely there will be conflict.

So, how can conflict be a catalyst for one relationship to flourish and another to disintegrate?

This is a question that has driven much of my life’s work. When I have questions, I want answers! Even when the question is someone else’s. As such, I am a voracious consumer of education, particularly about human behavior. It’s not uncommon for me to have bookmarks in 6 to 12 books at any given time. Typically, I will move from book to book. I’ll finish one or two books and begin to read another.

Add to my book list, the numerous newsletters, blogs, and the seminars and workshops I attend, not to mention just observing people, and I spend a full third of my life consuming and processing insights into human behavior.

At first glance, my resume looks like the transcript of a phone conversation with my sister—many unrelated tangents. I grew up in family businesses: my grandpa, Elias Simon, was a pottery wholesaler; and my parents owned a bankruptcy law practice. In addition to working my way through school in the family law practice, I have worked in academia, financial services, transportation, and aerospace.

Seemingly unrelated, right? But, each change in my career was made with two things constantly in mind.

  • My unrelenting curiosity about human relationships, and more specifically,
  • How businesses relate to their customers.

My questioning nature, I’m told, came to me early in life. My first sentences usually started with “How . . .” or “Why . . . “ My parents were good enough to encourage and indulge my curiosity. So, I kept asking questions.

I can remember a family gathering where a great uncle of mine admonished, “Curiosity killed the cat.” I was five years old at the time. My precocious response . . . “I’m not a cat.” (Yea, I’ve always been a bit of a wise guy.) I’ve been asking questions ever since.

My curiosity about how businesses relate to their customers?

It all started at the tender age of 5!

I’m not kidding! I can still vividly recall the time that I was traveling with grandpa making Holiday time visits to his customers. He was handing out Christmas gifts to his customer’s employees, an annual tradition of his.

In one store, he walked up to an older man pushing the mop, handed him a bottle of expensive scotch and said with a wink and a smile, “keep this between you and me.” You should have seen the quiet look of gratitude on the older man’s face. Grandpa told me later, “Always treat the man pushing the mop as well as you treat the president, and always treat them well.”

Grandpa was in the pottery wholesale business, but he didn't sell pottery. He sold himself: his humor and humanity, his generosity, and his friendship. At my young age, there was no way I could have understood how remarkable this was. It took me years to put this into perspective. But, the lessons about how to treat your clients and customers, about protection, care, and guidance have stayed with me throughout my life.

Child development research tells us how formative the first five years of life are. There I was, five years old, witnessing a master at customer service. When I grew up to be a consumer, I was astonished to find that businesses did not match up to grandpa’s standard of care.

Why don’t more businesses work harder to care for their customers?

As my perspective has changed from grandson to son to father and from consumer to student to teacher to manager to owner, I have kept coming back to the premise of a lack of care. Throughout my career, as a

  • Consultant and business owner,
  • Non-profit board member,
  • Trainer, Teacher, and Facilitator,
  • Project Manager for one of the world’s largest companies,
  • Operations Manager for a 20 employee, 24 hour transportation and logistics company,
  • Project Manager for a financial services consulting firm that worked with many of the world’s largest financial institutions,
  • Paralegal in my parent’s law firm,
  • Bankruptcy adjuster,
  • Graduate student,
  • Florist shop delivery driver,
  • Retail store clerk,

I have experienced my fair share of good clients and bad clients, good companies and bad companies. I have worked with Fortune 500 Companies, closely held business, and government entities. Through it all, I have come to find one immutable truth.

Everybody is just trying to get his or her needs met

Every one of them. They are all just asking for a little help. Some just happen to be a lot better at asking than others; they are either clearer or more polite in their request.

When clients get their needs met, a great transformation occurs in relationship. Not only in your relationship with your clients, but also their relationship with their customers, family and friends.

Frustrated by the low standard of service in the marketplace, clients generally resign themselves to having to tolerate bad service.

This has a domino effect. Bad service begets bad service. Everyone suffers from having his or her needs go unmet. I started the Happy Clients Newsletter to reverse this trend. See what is being asked of you by your clients clearly enough and you can do one of two things. You can fulfill your client’s request or facilitate the meeting of his or her needs by someone else.

The result for you is a large collection of clients whose needs you meet. If one client having his or her needs met is a transformation, a whole collection of need-fulfilled clients amounts to a perfect storm.

I envision businesses that have a portfolio of clients with their needs met, and I can’t help but think of my grandpa and the look of gratitude on the face of the man pushing that mop. I watched my grandpa take great joy in making a meaningful difference in the lives of his customers, not just their work lives, but their personal lives as well.


Giving out volunteer awards for one of my non-profit gigs. It's not handing out scotch, but it's still a lot of fun!

I can think of no finer way to honor his legacy than by helping you do the same.

To you and your client’s mutual success,


Jeff Simon

If you want to better understand the needs of your clients, and how to meet those needs, subscribe to the Happy Clients Newsletter.

P.S. If you want to see more pictures, click here.
If you want to see a few recipes (I’m a bit of a foodie), click here.