My mama always told me that “the road to h___ was paved with
good intentions”. When anyone starts a business or joins a new company as an
employee at any level, they always have the best intentions of bringing their
best each and every day to the situation. What happens?
They may start a business with the goal of providing a great
product or service at the best, most reasonable price. They may intend to
provide great customer service, doing all that they can to keep the customer
satisfied. They may want the best employees, better trained, better paid, and
happier in their jobs than anyone else. They may even have dreams of a great
company name, logo, and image.
What happens? They get caught up in business. Right from the
start they get going without a business plan; they spend money, maybe on a franchise,
or on furniture or an office, that they should not spend. They don’t research
their business name or logo; they make up a business name that no one can
pronounce or spell. They lose their vision of customer service, and they lose
sight of how to train or treat their employees.
They may even stray away from the product or service that
they know so well for something that they think will be easy to sell. They lose
their “why”, the driving motivation for why they wanted to start a business in
the first place. They forget that, no matter what your business, it must be
easy for your customers to do business with you, and you must have an offering for
which people will happily pay you a reasonable price.
As an employee, you should be able to work in a business
that provides self-satisfaction, making you glad that you go to work every day.
You should “be a part of the business”, helping build something in return for
the salary, and knowledge, that you gain. If you do not grow and contribute, you
are another piece of furniture, to be replaced by a more efficient one. As you
grow, both personally and as a contributor, you should be nurtured as a
valuable asset of the business.
Maybe the business person vowed to learn to market, but didn’t
realize that marketing is also about learning. Their vision is clouded by their
pre-conceived notions about their product or service, how it is perceived by
the public, how it should be priced, or even how it should be marketed. Maybe
they are misled as to how to deal with others, selling first instead of
building relationships. Perhaps staying alive through sales becomes more
important than building a business reputation and network.
Does any of this sound familiar? Have you fallen into any,
or all, of these traps? It is not hard to look back and discover that we may
have strayed away from our good intentions, from our dreams, no matter how
strong they were, no matter how we vowed that we would not make those mistakes
that we have seen in others. Is it impossible to change, or do we just keep on
trying to shift efforts from one area to another, trying to bail out the
sinking boat, trying to hold off the flood?
I believe that it is never too late to fix anything. We must
reach out for help. Would you do brain surgery on yourself, by yourself? Of
course not; you would try to locate a specialist who knows what they are doing.
The same can be said for saving a business. It may be simple fixes, and the
longest journey starts with a single step. That first step might just be
finding a networking partner who can give you some free advice or refer you to
someone who could be a professional resource.
Please leave me your comments, or email me at Jim@JimTeasley.com,
or call me at 360-314-8691. When you find the road that was
paved with good intentions to be a series of potholes and you are on the way to
ruin, try asking one of your networking partners for help. They may be able to
guide you back towards the light of success. Remember that they also may have
been where you are.
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