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“We restrict our thinking for no good reason,” said
Koether. “We do things simply because that’s the way
we always did them. I want you to know that our com-
mitment in serving your company is to always look out-
side the box for the most innovative solutions possible
to our problems. We’ll never do something just because
that’s the way we have always done it”
To many business leaders pitching a lucrative ac-
count, this kind of puzzle-solving exercise would sim-
ply be considered a clever presentation. But to Bob
Koether, it was a symbolic expression of his whole life
in business.
Once, on a Xerox-sponsored trip in Cancun, Mexico,
Bob and Mike spent the day out in treacherous waters
on a fishing boat. After coming ashore, they retired to
Carlos O’Brien’s restaurant for tequila and beer and a
period of reflection on their lives in sales thus far.
“We knew that as well as we had done, we would
never own boats like the one we were just in if we re-
mained at Xerox,” said Bob. “We talked about possibili-
ties in the bar, and it wasn’t long before we noticed some
black T-shirts on the wall with the word infinityon them.
Then, for more than two hours, Mike and I discussed
just what the word infinitymeant. Out of that discus-
sion, a dream was born, a dream that took shape in the
form of Infinity Communications.”
Bob Koether and his brother believed that there was
one vital area in which Xerox was underperforming—
and that was customer service. What if, they asked, a
company’s commitment to the customer was infinite?
Not boxed-in, but unlimited in its possibilities for cre-
ative service?
With that concept as motivation, the two brothers
formed “Infincom” (short for Infinity Communications)