TIP

17Protect the Business, Protect the Brand

It was a Saturday night, and Brian spotted trouble from the start. The tall man with the slicked-back hair at the back of the crowd was not going to wait his turn to get up to the bar, and Brian could see the other patrons becoming visibly annoyed as the man pushed his way to the middle of the crowd. The music was loud. The crowd was loud. Brian was moving as quickly as possible to get to everyone who wanted a drink. He prided himself on being more aware of not just the customer in front of him, but the entire crowd. He liked to think of it as his customer vision shifting from tunnel to panoramic. He smiled to himself as he thought about how he would tell Jack to use that as a topic for one of his TIPs.

Brian’s smile quickly faded when he saw the troublemaker trying to plow his way through a group of women politely waiting their turn to order a drink. The tall man didn’t realize that one of the women was standing next to her boyfriend. That boyfriend was big and didn’t take kindly to the pushing of his girl, nor did he appreciate the words that the troublemaker used to describe her, when she told the man to stop pushing.

Loud words were exchanged, and Brian could see a fight was about to happen. Sure enough, the boyfriend pushed the troublemaker, which moved the entire crowd a few feet backward. The tall man was about to lunge back at the boyfriend, with his arm cocked back, ready to throw a punch. But he never got the chance.

Brian, ...