Recently I had the good fortune of having lunch with John Vartanian, president at Medical Imaging Resources. I have known John a long time and I have watched his business grow to be one of the most successful in the industry.

We were in a fancy Wall Street restaurant and we noticed a couple of young brokers at a nearby table giving a waiter a hard time.

John turned to me and said, "You can tell a lot about a person from the way they treat waiters. I love to do business with people who treat everyone with respect. I am always nervous about doing business with someone who is disrespectful to their subordinates."

I thought about that for a minute and remembered something that my colleague Kirsten said about John Vartanian: "John is such a pleasure to work with. He always makes you feel important."

Maybe that is one of the reasons that John has built such a successful business.

Is it too simple to say it is because he is polite?

I visited Medical Imaging Resources and everybody is in a good mood and most of the time smiling. I am sure in part that is because of John's example.

I cannot help thinking about that old expression, "Be nice to the people that you meet on your way up the ladder because you are going run into them again on the way down."


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