Putting the customer first is the obvious way to success, but some people never get it. A 1909 incident with the Great Northern  Express Co. in Butte, Montana, demonstrates this.

A huge produce firm in Butte  asked the Great Northern to ship bananas to nearby Anaconda, Montana . Ten bunches, weighing perhaps 100 pounds each, came encased in upright carriers. However, the expressman laid them on their sides, which bruised the fruit.

When the consignee objected, the Anaconda agent told him he did not have enough wagons to handle the bananas differently, the express company’s profit from the banana shipment was miniscule anyway, and if the consignee did not like they way Great Northern did it, he could take his business elsewhere.

The manager in Butte of the growers, packers, jobbers, fruits, and produce firm "certainly spit fire today," the Great Northern agent reported to his supervisor. He "stated that we would never get a pound of business that he could keep from us."

A month after the incident, the Great Northern supervisor replied — unrepentant. He declared that if the shipper "feels that some other Company can handle his Anaconda business to better advantage, then he had better give them a trial." This was a customer who had a very heavy oyster business and controlled a wholesale grocery company, a produce company, a fruit company, and several smaller groceries. All perishable, all shipped at premium rates. In short, a great client.

Appropriately, a new express arrived in Anaconda and Butte in 1909: Wells Fargo & Company Express!