A lesson in Loyalty

Loyalty is one of my greatest strengths which is also my greatest weakness.  I had lunch with a friend today and we talked about how we had both been taken advantage of because we were too loyal.  I don't think I'll get to the end of my life and regret being loyal.  I think I'll have learned that being loyal to the right people and organizations benefited me greatly.  I'll be glad I learned how to stop and observe behavior and actions before pledging my loyalty.

When I split ways with my previous business partner I had no idea what was in store. I had been loyal.  I had put my house up to fund the company when he had nothing to offer.  I had put all my selling skills to work and brought all of my personal network to bear to build the business from 12k in revenue the first year to 1.2 million the year I sold it to him.  For that he forced me out of the business and told all the employees I did not work there anymore, but thats another story. Was that the result of loyalty?  is that what I deserved?  no.  I did learn a lot from that experience.  I learned that I have to be very careful who I am loyal to.  I realized that I had not really known my partner before we started the business together.  That was my mistake.  I had not compared the opportunity with him to any others that were around at the time.  That was my mistake too.  Now I'm very careful who I am loyal to.  Now I take my time to get to know someone before I make a big commitment to them.

I see a lot of small and medium businesses take this approach to their technology.  They find someone who can fix a few things and they figure that person knows everything about technology.  I see companies pay big prices for that loyalty.  Many times I end up being the one to go in afterwards and clean up the mess from ill advised technology decisions.  I can't say much.  Lord knows I've made my own mistakes by being loyal to the wrong person.  I really enjoy it when we get to go in and work with the existing person and help them make improvements that allow them to learn and the customer to prosper.  That's what I call a win win.

So now I watch everything when evaluating a new vendor relationship or customer relationship.  I pay close attention to the cues along the way.  How do they treat others?  Are they respectful of me and my time?  Do they search for ways to have a win win?

I can honestly say that I don't have any customers right now that I feel don't deserve my loyalty.  I also work with vendors who are excellent as well.  I'm thankful for the lesson I learned about loyalty.

Strengths and weaknesses

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my strengths and weaknesses.  As a business owner I had to try and be good at everything initially....well.....because there was no one else to do it.  As my business grew I realized there were things I was simply no good at.  I tried to have the business make enough money so I could pay someone who was good at those things.  The challenge is that a lot of people think they are good at most things. So even our first few book keepers did not work out so well.  When we asked them to do more elaborate financial calculations they said, "no problem".  We found out later that they were not really very good at those things.  Unfortunately it cost us money and time to fix the problems those people created.  We really had no one to blame but ourselves because we had not taken the time to figure this out up front.  We eventually got a system in place that helped us evaluate our employees for their strengths and put them in the places where they could make the most difference.

I find that knowing my own strengths and weaknesses is a life long endeavor.  I'm constantly rediscovering things that I'm no good at and things that I'm great at.  This week I met with a good friend of mine and he gave me some advice.  He said to look at those who I work with and notice the areas where they are strong an where they are weak.  Don't ask them to do things that are in their areas of weakness.......that makes sense.  I guess it just took me till 41 to figure that out.  This has been very helpful.

I think this applies when it comes to finding technical support as well.  There a lot of people out there who will tell you they can handle just about anything. My experience has been that there are very few who can pull this off effectively.  The best engineers know where they are great and when to ask for help.  They continue to learn and grow to expand their expertise but they also know when to call in a specialist.  I guess thats where I can really help my customers out.  By helping them get the right team in place to address their business technology needs.  By making sure we have the right people working on the right issues.  I hope these thoughts are helpful to you in whatever challenges your facing right now.

Thanks for Reading  ~pz

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