An elderly couple once went to see the President of Harvard College, who begrudgingly gave them a few minutes of his time. They told him they wanted to erect a memorial to their son. He told them that Harvard didn’t erect statues. They replied that they were actually thinking of a building. He rolled his eyes and told them they had no idea what college buildings cost, pointing out that Harvard had seven and a half million dollars invested in its buildings. They looked surprised and said ‘If that’s all it costs we’ll start our own.’ And they did. The President of Harvard had just turned away Mr and Mrs Leland Stanford, who went on to found Stanford University.
The moral of the story is never discount people just because you think they are not the sort of people who can do anything for you.