Sean shares the things he learned in September 2019. As an active business owner he learns something new and shares these things in this podcast. This month covers second chances, when to say no to taking on a client and when a call may be better than a text.
I’ve always said if I didn’t own a business I would stop writing, because my books I believe within five years, would pretty much become obsolete.
And why do I say that? Because every week I learn something in business. Every single week, there’s something I have to deal with, and I decided that I’m going to start writing them down and sharing them with you.
These aren’t huge, but you’re going to experience these in business and I want you to see how I handle it and whether I made the right decision or the wrong decision.
I’m just going to take you through five decisions I’ve had to make in the month of September.
Second Chances
I get a text of a photo of one of my employees works for one of my service companies sitting at a restaurant bar at lunch, drinking a beer. II get this photo and obviously it’s in the middle of the day.
Now I have a choice here. Do I need to fire this person?
One of my partners who oversees that company says obviously, “Sean, it’s completely your call, this is what happened. I’ll do whatever you want to do.”
I think about it for 15 minutes. I genuinly like the person who was doing it, and they weren’t completely new, so they had a little bit of credibility built up with me, but I’m a second chance guy. So I say to my partner, “Listen, we’re going to use this as a win. I want you to go back to him and tell him that you saved his job. Sean probably would have let you go, but you use this as a chip that you can use later so you’re going to look great. Tell him that he’s no longer allowed to eat at any restaurant during the work day that even has alcohol, so he needs to go to Wendy’s McDonalds or whatever, but that’s never to happen again.”
When we did this, this employee actually started tearing up because he thought he was absolutely fired and was going to go home that day and have to tell his wife that he was dismissed and then tell her why. Second chances! I only had to think about it for about a half hour and I try never to respond immediately. I try to find what is the best decision I can make by the end of the day. I knew I had to like 4 o’clock to make the decision. And the first thing that crosses your mind is to fire the person.
I mean, that’s easy. Firing the person requires no creativity. I thought about it. Well, hey, my partner can look really good here, because he’s going to look like he’s saved his job. This person’s probably going to really be grateful for their job and work harder for us.
It was a win.
Saying No to Clients
We were analyzing a contract with a potential client, and I kept looking at the numbers, and I just did not see the profit margin that was going to be there. This was a good contract but it wasn’t a great contract and the more I reviewed the client’s behavior previously, it was not a client that was worth the aggravation for what we were going to make. And I would tell you nine out of ten companies would have taken this client but we passed on it.
I said no. I said this client is not worth this aggravation. I’ve never regretted the client and/or the job I’ve walked away from -only the ones I’ve taken. This client was very unhappy and couldn’t believe that we were not going to take them on as a client.
But again, previous experience told us: number one, they’re hard to work with, scheduling-wise, and number two, their expectations are very hard to meet, and number three is they got what I call “alligator arms”. They don’t pay real well at the end and you gotta chase that check. They’re the three qualifiers, for me.
So we walked away from that job
Not Texting Conversation, Arguments, Disagreements
They don’t reflect the tone in your voice and I’m fairly sarcastic in general, so I have learned this past month, because of a few misunderstandings, that if we disagree on something, let’s agree to just pause, even if we have to wait four or five hours. I have this conversation, let’s assume the best, and just talk on the phone. Because I think we try to text everything or email. And I found myself, even emailing my clients and saying, to them, if at any point you don’t understand what I’m saying in a text or an email and a phone conversation is necessary or can provide clarity, please call me and let’s schedule a phone-call again.
I love technology, but it does in email. Endor, ate. does not reflect on in your voice does it reflect? Sarcasm doesn’t reflect comedy, necessarily. So you might want to just have face-to-face meetings and some phone calls.
These are what I learned this month. I didn’t say any of these were ground breakers, but I learned sometimes second chances is a better idea. I’ve learned, you know what, there’s some jobs, some clients, that you need to walk away from. And I realize it’s better to communicate in person or at least over the phone than it is to have a discussion, an argument, a disagreement via text or via email. I hope these stories on what I learned this month in business was helpful to you.
