As an entrepreneur you will find, as I mentioned in a previous blog entry, that you are operating within a flawed world. This means that people and organizations that you deal with- vendors, customers, partners, employees, investors- often do not do what they say they will do or achieve the goals that you expect them to achieve.
Of course there are many reasons that others do not perform. Very often it is because the issue lacks sufficient importance to them. They therefore do not go to the considerable effort to figure out exactly what is wrong, then develop a plan, acquire the resources, and carry out the activities to fix it, then finally monitor the situation to be sure no backsliding occurs.
If you are dealing with a well-established organization, such as a vendor company or strategic partner, you should realize that their priorities are probably not the same as yours. Their personnel have many other issues to deal with in their day regarding their own key suppliers, customers, employees, etc.
As a start-up, you simply may not be that important to them, no matter what they tell you. This can cause a lack of commitment to and effort in solving problems that they are creating for you. In short, they do not have that much to lose, although you may have everything to lose.
Other times they do not have the ability to solve the problem for one reason or another, one key reason being that they are average or below-average performers in general.
You must not let the mediocrity of others stand in the way of your excellence!
This means that you must solve problems for others. Problem solving is the number one defining activity of an entrepreneur.
If they won't figure it out, then you figure it out. Define exactly what the problem is, what is causing the problem, what resources are necessary to solve it, how to acquire the resources, how best to deploy those resources, and then bird-dog it to make it happen.
Again, realize that if the problem affecting you goes unsolved, you may go out of business, but that is a very unlikely consequence to your well-established vendor, customer, strategic partner, etc..
Who has the most to lose? That's the key question here.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
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2 comments:
What you are saying is SO true. If you are use to taking people at their word (I love it, we'll get back to you, etc.)your expecting people to respond immediatley to your needs and it's just not going to happen. YOU have to make it happen. Like you said people have their own priorities so you'd better make YOUR business your priority.
Good topics on your blog here. The USPO is a major issue and we are really mismanaging our civilizations intellectual capital on so many points. Your first blog seems to indicate the ODDA Loop theory in the second paragraph - are you a fan of Colonel Boyd?
You seem to be spot-on in that first post, obviously you too have been there for real. It's hard for vendors to get excited about what you are doing without knowing you will succeed and they will become the Simplot Potato Guy for McDonalds some day.
Worse, once you show them the money, they chock up the sale and move to the next and all those promises become less important in their minds almost to the point they think you are an aggravation rather than their best future customer.
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