I do not know about you
or your story but I have a wild guess that you have your own narration of hurt
and despair coming from the direction where you invested your all.
On 15thOctober
a year ago I met my fate: got dumped by someone I spent two years running after.
I lived and worked in Entebbe, very close to where she studied and worked.
After that
heart-wrecking announcement she stayed in-touch; often asking for favours,
telling me about her ex-boyfriend trying to win her back, liking and sharing
nearly every Facebook post of mine and taking every opportunity to show workmates
and our mutual friends that we were (still) an item.
After realizing
something was weird about our (friendship), I initiated a meeting, reiterated
my disquiet about the impact of the (fake) public displays of love on our
public image. The following day I deleted all the text messages between us,
blocked her on Facebook and started working till late so as to erase the
memories of our after-work routines.
This came at a very
hard time in my life; our company was bleeding, faced with a cash-flow crisis
that required an equivalent of two months revenue to put back to normal. As
founder and head of four other staff at Dreamstar Graphics I thought I had no
choice but to keep moving forward.
Two weeks later our
problems had only increased with another month ending without clients meeting
their obligations, I was hurt; my workmates were in pain over delayed salaries,
we were losing it. I took a Saturday afternoon off, went to the lakeside alone
and returned to start life over again. What followed were major staffing
changes and a doubling of revenue in the 30 days that followed.
But as has already been
said by many; lesson is what you get when you miss what you wanted. Here below
are the eight lessons a heart break taught me to be a better 25 year old at
business.
1. Finding & retaining customers
take time and consistency
Most people that fail
in business give up too soon. They expect that since they have the capital, all
the skills and all the resources, everyone shall give them money. Getting and
keeping a true customer will always take a good deal of time; creating a
relationship and feeding it. Patience is key when it comes to building clientele.
When I first met this
girl at her workplace over a year before I asked her out, she declined to give
neither her name nor number to strangers. I kept talking nicely whenever we met
and twelve months later, we were friends on Facebook, making late night phone
calls, walking home every
evening,
sacrificing time to be with her, the rest is history.
It took me all this to
get a partner who wasn’t, I now know getting and keeping the true one will
require even more effort, never give up too soon.
2. Being better is no guarantee of
success in business and life
Many times
entrepreneurs make the mistake of assuming that being the most talented,
qualified or gifted in a particular industry or category is what it takes to
win all the juicy contracts and earn the most money. Some of the organisations
that have contracted us in the past year said they chose us because our prices
were lower and our system was simpler than for bigger service providers. In
cases like that, the clients turn down offers from the very entities we look up
to, leaving us wondering how business will be for us when we really get there.
The very first time I
asked this girl out she said, “I honestly like you but see, I look up to you
for inspiration, you are like my boss (a 60 year old pensioner), I just can’t
imagine myself being your girlfriend”. Her (other) boyfriend was a lazy young
man who never liked to work. Much as he was older than I, I was both
self-employed and employing some of their former classmates; sadly I’m the one
that got kicked in the ass (first).
3. There are friends and there are
customers
In brief: entrepreneurs
are the kings and queens of relationship problems; they easily get taken away
by emotional favours. They are used to the “something for something” concept
that when a person seems to have gone out of their way to show them sympathy or
care they get overwhelmed.
One very confusing
thing in this industry is to separate a customer from a friend. Some people
call you friend to get discounts and have a chance to delay payments; others
call you friend when they have decided to slap you in the face: sorry my FRIEND,
we will do that later.
But friends I have come
to learn are the people who genuinely share with you in the matters on table.
If a customer tries so hard to make prompt payments always, to make orders
whenever you have delivered samples then maybe they are a friend, if they just
call you say so, may be they are just a customer, not friend.
In the build up to the
relationship my girl did so many silly things I ignored partly because of
ignorance. She at times called to ask me to lend her money (what!). I later
found out most of the time she had asked to borrow, she wanted to help her
broke-lazy-class-mate-boyfriend.
After sealing my fate,
she asked that we stay friends but continued trying so hard to give the
impression that I was taken (by her).She was preventing me from seeking
happiness anywhere else. When the veil on my face fell off I realized I
couldn’t effectively date any time sooner so I took a 12 month time off; no
expectation of hugs, kisses, surprise visits or ‘somethings’.
4. Be prepared for the worst because
it will come
“Always
plan for the fact that nothing ever goes according to plan”,
this quote from my leadership mentor Simon Sinek keeps bouncing in my head
whenever I’m planning and executing. Every business plan we make as business
people misses this particular detail. We make success strategies and great
projections but say barely if anything about failure yet the risk of not
hitting our targets is equal to the chance of succeeding.
All the times I have
gone out in marketing routines before I spend lots of money in travels and
samples but because I have never planned for what would happen in case the
client or prospect didn’t make an order
within the next 30 days. Some have taken forever to order and by the time my
eyes finally open, I am the fool in the deal already.
Throughout this time,
campus girl showed she was trying to give an impression that she was studying
me and as soon as she would be done, a relationship would be turned on. I
sacrificed, I invested, I slept, I waited like she would come and settle. I was
too confident to think about the possibility of failure; I was naive and got to
pay the price when the worst finally came.
5. Value
your time, because customers may not
Some people say
business is a gamble and it is true but what is not any way. The 1950 book the death of a salesman is my constant
reminder of waiting too long for fate to come, to be appreciated and rewarded
by the people you work so hard to impress.
In my own quest for
business success, I’ve met my own “death of a businessman” when my futile
attempt to make business gets me bashed. Some clients will simply say, don’t
think so much about the money, let us just work. At the end of the day it’s obvious
who of us fails to pay bills and who doesn’t, the fool.
I have learned my
lesson, if you do not value your time, if you do not have limits of what you
can and cannot do to a customer in your little time, others might not and your
business will die, theirs will stay alive. It sounds harsh but it’s the
reality.
From the onset of our
friendship, my partner knew she was yet to move on from someone, when we were
together and he called she would lie, be rude at him or decline to take the
call altogether. When she had got enough from me she could do the same. Nobody
tells you they want to waste your time; it is up to you to figure it out.
6. Pay attention to little signals:
non-commitment
Call me tomorrow, come
back on Wednesday, I will call you; - endless promises and excuses are just
that, do not hope too much. One other mistake we make as young people in
business is we take people’s statements too seriously and ignore the signals in
their actions.
A client who never commits
is not your client, be there at your own peril. Even just a weak hand-shake,
no-looking you in the eye, failure to call-back, return texts, emails or make
correspondence on any communication is evidence enough that there is no serious
business to hold on to.
Some people will
undress for you and still say we’re just
friends. Do you expect anyone to tell you they are a player or detoother?
Lesson; in business like in relationships you ought see things for yourself or
wait for your burial.
7. Business can kill your other
relationships
People will tell you not
to mix business with friendship but won’t tell you not to borrow for business
from friends, why? It always fools business people into listening to their
business friends much more than they hear from their childhood friends.
Our childhood friends
have us at heart; our business friends have our mutual interests in mind,
sometimes their own interests and not a bit of ours.
Black beauty found time
to go out with one of my subordinates. For fear of being discovered he rushed
to report: she made a move on me yet I really respect you, she said. Not once,
not twice did the two tempt me to be the judge over who’s more loyal and who
wasn’t. Each party presented their evidence and as you might suspect, none gave
a complete account of their affair.
Had it not been for the
confidence I had in myself I would have broken a man or even the woman. Later I
discovered the guy liked the girl and indeed made a move but just as she played
me, she gave him the impression of, “let me think about it” and played on.
8. You will be cheated
Honestly it is very
hard to plan for the amount of monies you might lose to cheats in business,
they just happen. Being cheated by 10 people in 8 months helped me confirm that
just as it is in relationships, there is infidelity happens quite often in
business but also aided me in confirming that it is never the end.
Some clients will avoid
buying from you for as long as they owe you money because at such times you are
a liability in their lives. Some will just get the concepts from you, game
around until you get tired and give up then they sell it to someone else and do
business behind your back.
The dating experience
was no different: when at my place her phone would be ‘out of battery power’
and when she was away to a place I didn’t know, her phone would be ‘out of
battery power’. At one time I asked to charge the battery but she said, "no,
don’t mind, if my phone is on people will disturb me".
After everything happened
though, life went on, I’m looking forward, still looking forward.
Thank you for sticking
with me to the very end of this article.
How do you feel about
this piece?
Stephen
Obeli Someday
Twitter:
@StephenObeli
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