Yes it IS Your Problem

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.