Learning Social Business From a Greasy Auto Mechanic

When I was a kid, my dad would often take our family cars clunkers to a guy named Gerry Purdy for run-of-the-mill service: Oil changes, state inspections and the like.

I was immature then and didn’t like the guy much. His son was in my Boy Scout troop and their family was the family everybody made fun of. They lived right next to the train tracks and had a yard teeming with junk vehicles, spare parts, stray cats, and other trappings that, in my juvenile mind, marked the Purdy family as inferior. It was shameful.

But my father didn’t see class. He chatted with Mr. Purdy without judgment. And he always brought a little business — albeit small — to Purdy’s family.

See, Gerry Purdy did something that was uncommon then and maybe more so now: He gave my dad the straight dope. He didn’t try to sell him any BS undercoating or tell him the flux capacitor on our ‘86 Chevy wagon needed replaced. He was fair and honest. Always.

That’s what social business is about. It’s not about Facebook or Twitter or the other gadgets. It’s about respecting people.

My dad got social business, too, long before I did — before social media as a technology even existed. Dad understood the importance of people, relationships, and loyalty. He knew driving the car 20 minutes to Purdy’s was the right choice, even though there was an auto repair chain down the block from us. It wasn’t about convenience or price — though we usually got the “friends and family” rate for our loyalty — it was about something bigger.

See, dad and Gerry Purdy saw themselves as part of a community. Not a niche community,but an all-inclusive community where everyone who passed by was welcome. They shared a set of values defined not by their professions, but by their humanity, not by their business objectives, but by their co-participation in something more important than themselves.

Gerry Purdy, the grease-under-his-nails and Foxworthy-esque automechanic, and my father the elevator repairman were better at social business 15 years ago than most companies are today.

Including mine.

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