Russ Hill could tell by the line of folks waiting to take leftovers, he’d done his job.

The River Cities Dragon Boat Festival — one of Datamax Arkansas’ biggest charitable events— was drawing to a close. As he does every year, Russ, the PrintView Manager in Little Rock, had sweated through hours of non-stop cooking (breakfast, lunch and dinner) in the sun, and he’d cooked too much. But not by accident. There they stacked up near his cooking station, employees, their families, and new friends made over the weekend, waiting to take their share of Jerk Chicken, Gyro sandwiches, sausage balls, or hand-crafted burgers. No food left behind.

The third secret revealed in Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles’ book “Raving Fans” is DELIVER WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS – PLUS ONE. For employees and their families attending the Dragon Boat Festival, chef Hill embodies that sentiment fervently. Traveling miles past the standard fare of burgers and dogs, Hill observes closely who his hungry patrons are, what they’re craving, and then he throws in a few specialties for the “Wow factor.”

“We’re out there trying to build relationships, get a team effort going. Why feed them junk?” Hill says. “I always include the tried and true recipes – I’ll get make something for the “spicy” crowd, something lighter, and then something for the kids. And I’ll always include something different, something new to try.”

At age 17, Russ knew he had a choice. Eat out every meal of his life, or learn to cook.

So he chose the latter. Simple meals turned into progressive ones. A practical chore turned to a passion. And today, Russ cooks 99 percent of the meals at home for his family.

“It’s the creativity for me,” Russ says. “I consider myself a concept cook: I’ll look at a recipe, or I’ll eat something at a restaurant, and say ‘I like that.’ And then I’ll adapt it, add ingredients, begin to make it my own.”

His most requested dish? The aforementioned Jerk Chicken. Though he says it’s “extremely easy,” his method includes a ton of prep work: Deboning/skinning the chicken, preparing marinade and seasoning, and then several hours of marinating, grilling the chicken with precision, and then adding that “PLUS ONE” element – homemade mango habanero salsa.

As a chef, revered both at home and in his workplace, Russ understands the importance of process –both in the kitchen and inside the office.

Russ’s Raving Fan Recipes For the PrintView Program:

1. Poor measurements produce poor results.

What keeps so many otherwise fine chefs from jumping into baking? Cooking is an art, but baking, as they say, is a science. Precise measurements are an absolute must.

The same applies to meters.

“Our #1 goal in life here is to gather the current, and the correct, meters,” Russ says. “It’s a real pain for customers when we get meters wrong, they get billed wrong – admin doesn’t like it and sales doesn’t either.”

The first initiative is to ensure that FM Audit is installed on all networked machines out in the field.

Sometimes, particularly with school districts with equipment not on the network, it means walking the campus to collect them one by one.

2. Keep the pantry full of necessary ingredients.

Monitoring toner is a balancing act. Ensuring customers are stocked, while keeping supply costs to a minimum, means studying volumes, monitoring toner alerts, and catching anything that might fall through the cracks.

“We might ship toner when they’re at 10 percent, but considering their volume, it could be three months before they run that next 10 percent,” Russ said. “I communicate often with our sales people, that roughly 80 percent of our accounts fall into a ’10-day’ window, and that works great. But for the other 20 percent, we’ll set up different alerts because it’s a specific model, or we simply don’t want that customer to ever run out.”

3. It takes everyone in the kitchen … or the office.

“To ensure Raving Fans, we’ve got to work as a team. I know the sales team, as an example, is out there selling equipment, but they’re willing to help us when it comes to communicating needs for the customer regarding toner and meters.”

“It’s all one big team to me.”

'Holy' Guacamole: How Kristen Finkbeiner Creates Raving Fans with a Familiar, Yet Coveted Dish

Whether it’s her Datamax family or the one back home, Kristen Finkbeiner is commonly called on to create her guacamole.

The Administration Manager in Little Rock shared a few (not all!) of the secrets to her version of this festive south-of-the-border staple:

1. Avocadoes at the perfect ripeness (but choose one that’s over ripe. This adds a deeper flavor)

2. Copious amounts of lime juice and garlic, with sea salt and red onion. “Garlic and limes are blessings on this earth.”

3. Mash with a fork and taste as you go – you’ll probably need more lime.

“We usually have a Cinco de Mayo pot luck every year, and that’s when the guacamole started coming around the office,” Kristen says. “Honestly, I started cooking more once I came to Datamax. And I’ve put some work into some guacamole (for family gathering’s Kristen’s been known to incorporate 20 to 30 avocadoes into one bowl … holy guacamole!).

Unlike Kristen’s guacamole, there’s no secret to how her team Creates Raving Fans.

Kristen’s Administrative Raving Fan Recipes:

1. Copious Amounts of Courtesy

Lindsey Russett in Collections, Kristen says, knows this recipe well.

“It’s a lot more than just calling and demanding money – especially in the environment we’re in. It’s a harder subject today. We’ve got to be communicating with customers and saying we’re here to help them.”

2. Perfectly-executed personalization.

A perfect example is Kym McGee, who works in supplies for the Little Rock Admin team. She knows her customers like the back of her hands.

“If she has a call that goes to voicemail, we’ll hear the voicemail and it will say ‘Hey, Kym, we’ll get the usual!” Customers are so taken care of by her, and I’m so impressed by how much she cares about the people we’re taking care of.”

3. Timing (or rather, timeliness) goes with EVERYTHING.

It’s true in every department, every office. But certainly administration.

“We get phone calls, email requests, people have questions about their bills their contracts, bottom line – they need something done,” Kristen said. “The faster we respond, the happier they are. I take so much pride when I see someone on my team complimented by a customer who says ‘Wow, thank you so much for getting back to us so quickly.’”

Hill-acious Cooking.