“Lee Tomlinson and the Anti-Waymish Movement"

For the past 35 years Lee has been a senior executive in sales, marketing, acquisitions, and new business development. But his true passion and key to his success lies in his commitment and ability to provide “exceptional customer service” to clients worldwide. Not pretty good, not good, not even great. But exceptional. Lee’s first customer service “ah ha” was born scooping up neighborhood horse poop, when he discovered that despite his excellent work on their behalf, his customers still regularly bit and kicked him. He advanced to scooping ice cream for Baskin Robbins, where he learned, thank goodness, that not all customers wanted to bite or kick him.

After college he ran an import/export business in China supplying consumer products to retailers like Neiman Marcus, Saks, and Bloomingdales where despite his best efforts, alas, he was often again bitten and kicked by their buyers. Returning to the U.S. Lee clients included major corporations like GM, Blockbuster, Warner Brothers Studios, The U.S. Olympic Committee, The American Film Institute, The Producers Guild of America, and The Irvine Company to name but a few.

While working with Farallon Real Estate Services, he was instrumental in the development and use of a computer software program which allowed a mall’s retailers to precisely identify where potential customers lived, cost effectively market to them, then track sales to help retain them.

Hoping that his days of being bitten and kicked were over, Lee and his partners acquired the famed Culver Studios in LA, home to legendary movies like Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane and E.T and Raging Bull. As the head of Sales and Marketing, Lee was responsible for the often hair-raising task of serving the world’s MOST difficult customers, Hollywood’s producers, directors and actors----who, yes indeed, regularly bit and kicked, and otherwise abused him.

Lastly, Lee was mentored by the famed speaker and author, Ray Considine, customer service master extraordinaire, who coined the term WAYMISH, and who taught him that the customers who at first bite and kick you, can, with proper care and feeding, become one’s most profitable clients. It is to Ray that this meeting is dedicated.”