The Merrill Dubrow Blog

For some reason my mind started to wander the other day and I starting to think about all the amazing contacts I have and how cool it would be if I opened up a school and my friends, family and industry contacts were the teachers!

Maybe this will never happen but it was really cool to pretend and dream for a few minutes.

During my life I have met so many wonderful and talented people. Many of them teach during their day. So maybe they don’t have the current title of ‘teacher’ but they are leaders and managers who are constantly mentoring, teaching and developing talent.

Here are a few of my choices for teachers:

• Joel Dubrow – My dad. He is a financial wizard, great with numbers and needs to teach accounting.

• Steve Schlesinger – Great friend. He is competitive, energetic and is now the tennis coach. For those of you who don’t know, he is a GREAT tennis player.

• Andrew Bausk – He is one of the most creative people I know and a perfectionist when it comes to taking pictures. He is now the photography instructor

• Sheryl Cronin – My sister and the best salesperson I have ever met. She is in charge of our new business development course.

• Jeffrey Lorber – He is a friend of mine who gave up acting for the research industry. He has now come full circle and is now teaching acting.

Ok I started to put together the faculty.

• For the people I mentioned, what do you think of your teaching assignments?

• We have lots of openings, what would you like to teach?

• Can you handle more than one class?

Let’s all take a moment and dream today.

I look forward to hearing from you and what class you would like to lead.

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There is nothing like a board meeting at the University of Wisconsin A.C. Nielsen Center.  I must admit I really enjoy the passion around the program and always learn something new when I am there. My direct flight (thanks American Airlines) landed at 11:00 PM and if all went right, I would be at my hotel (thanks Marriott) around midnight.

I landed on time and after a short walk to the Hertz counter I arrived at 11:06 PM. I have been to this airport and counter many times before and have never had a problem – well this day was different. The counter was dark and locked up. Next to me was a person with the same problem – a reservation without an agent, so therefore without a car. I won’t bother to go into the Jerry Seinfeld skit which happens to be very funny – perhaps another day. At this point I couldn’t believe what was happening. I called the local number they said to call and left a message but that didn’t help. I then looked around and spoke to all of the other car rental companies. There were five – all open and two of them were actually laughing when I described my problem. One guy said, “Yes, they do that all the time.” He did have a car available for $125 day. I said that won’t be necessary since no matter what the time/situation is I will be fiscally responsible.

In many cities this wouldn’t be an issue but in Madison, Wisconsin it is. First of all, I picked a hotel (because I am brand loyal) 8 miles away from campus so I needed to take a minimum of 5 cabs over the next 36 hours and cabs are not easy to find. This wasn’t NY or Chicago where they pass by every 5 seconds.

As I said, I left a message for the Hertz office at the airport as did my assistant. Let me speed up to 36 hours later. After taking a cab to the airport I passed by the Hertz desk. Ok, that isn’t true, I went out of my way to pass by the Hertz desk and went and spoke to someone. The first person was Beth who I asked to pull up my reservation. After she did and I explained my situation basically said, “Here is the manager.” She couldn’t care less or had heard the issue many times before.

I spoke to Emily who was the manager and very nice. She pulled up my reservation and said that seems odd that we wouldn’t stay because we have your flight information in the reservation. She said they are supposed to stay and she was very sorry that they hadn’t. She then volunteered to say it wouldn’t have mattered since they ran out of cars. To me, she added fuel to the fire, giving even more reason to stay a few minutes (6 to be exact) and let a gold customer (brand loyal) know what was going on. When I asked her why no one returned my call or my assistant’s call she quickly said that they were having phone problems and once again apologized.

Emily was very nice, apologetic but I must admit it just seemed like one excuse after the other. She did give me a travel voucher for $75.00 towards my next rental

The question is, what should I do?

• Never use them again?

• Write a letter to the President of Hertz?

• Not sure I believe all of the excuses? Do you?

• To me it seems like horrible customer service – what do you think?

The most interesting part of the story for me was speaking with their competition who clearly said they do this all the time and we benefit from it. He was actually laughing as he was speaking with me. Don’t you want to feel important when you want to feel important? They couldn’t keep a car for a gold member?

• So the question is, what would you do?

I look forward to hearing from you.

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