Funny Business Stuff, #3

How stiff is your current attitude towards your business ownership?  Are you flat with the views of your future perspectives?  Does the 'job' of running your business seem worthless?  Are you tired of carrying all of the load?  Does the business own you more than you get paid to be owned?  Would you like for someone else to step in and save your day?  Is your daily business routine getting too old to appreciate anymore?  Are your thoughts running along side these kinds of questions?  If so, you need to take a break.

I have long prepared my mind and heart to be 'tough' so it can run a business model through any kind of terrible weather.  As owners, terrible weather is no excuse for permitting a weak mind and heart to surface when the going gets rough.  Hardness in attitude is a minimum requirement for business owners who plan to be owners for a long time.

There are a lot of useful benefits for a business owner to possess a healthy level of character hardness.  Unfortunately, some downfalls come with that type of personality package.  One of the downfalls to this effort for preparing some protective hardness in personality is that the business may miss opportunities to become fun.  Operating a good business should include some opportunities to have fun.  As economies drag along at an undesirable speed, small business becomes more difficult to do well.  The art of profiting during hard times is even missed by some of the greatest run businesses in the world.  Even Wal-Mart is producing losing numbers right now!  Some of the best brains in retail, worldwide, are sitting at the helm of that monster ship.  They are hitting icebergs everywhere.  I am not sure they are having fun either.

Try to remember some of the wild things you have experienced in your business career.  Some of those things are worth placing into a book.  I know you have had some very strange things occur that turned out to be some of the most funny experiences you can remember.  I have a few more to share with you.  Maybe it will help to ease the long dry spell this economy is trying to produce.

I have spent a good deal of my time making sure my relationships with my banks have always been a favorable experience.  I have adopted the reasoning that I always operate with at least two banks in every business model I lead.  I work to expand positive relationships with both banks in every business model.  I like to keep those units closely aware of the good relationships maintained with each.  It keeps them competitive where they can, even in a world where unit decisions are so centralized anymore.  For the new business owners, make sure you develop great relationships with three key players in your business environment.  One, your bankers.  Two, your accountant.  Three, your lawyer.  These are the absolute minimums in your walk to build a great business model.

Back to my bankers.  I always operated small businesses.  Therefore, I worked with small banking companies.  Similar challenges are faced by both.  It helped to dovetail my creative business work with a banker that had more closely related experiences as mine.  I also worked from the top down, not necessarily in that order, but I made sure my relationships with the branch manager was very healthy.  I would see the branch manager at community functions, key social events and bank customer appreciation days.  I made sure I accepted what they wanted to respect.  In some cases, I actually have become close friends with some of those lead bankers.  My relationships with those few bank managers stretched well beyond a friendly "hello" in the bank lobby.  I have traveled to other countries with one of my bank managers and our wives.  I have provided a lot of business trade to many of the bank managers to their personal home lives in my career.  Most of them have become very good customers of the wares I peddle.  I made it a special effort to make sure they were given the red carpet treatment whenever I had the opportunity to serve them.

I specialized in taking great care in making sure my banking leaders were treated as kings and queens.  They have always appreciated this level of treatment.  Leaving your bank manager with a great impression of your healthy business affairs is a very smart and appreciable method.  Even smarter than that, make extra sure that when they recommend your business to their employees you step up the quality of treatment.  This allows the bank manager to look very good in the eyes of his staff when the suggestion to use you rates well to the employees who followed his recommendation.  This kind of attention to detail is so difficult to maintain and understand.  Many business owners give little thought to these types of details.  I was different.  I worked extra hard on making this kind of connection work well.

I would actually chart who was connected to whom as the opportunities would flow into my range.  Special treatment such as this would easily circulate in the community and social events that would increase the opportunities to advance my business with others the bank employees would introduce to me, without much effort on my part.  Networking such as this is a vital process to create new growth.  I made sure my bankers were on my subject list.  That is why I purposely worked so hard on making sure the bank managers were at the top of my perfection list.  Bankers carry large levels of credibility.  This impression carries over to their employees as well.

When I was installing floors many years ago I had that perfect opportunity to impress my closest bank manager friend.  He and his wife liked the finer things in life and could afford to enjoy many of them.  She was a key leader in the administration of a local college.  I wanted to become a regular provider to them and especially in the circle of their associates.  When they gave me the opportunity to install new vinyl flooring in their personal walk-in, dual bathroom; I was excited.

I had been installing floors for some time and had developed this unique installation technique.  It was risky, but worth the wonderful consumer results when it was pulled off successfully.  Many customers who were replacing vinyl floors were doing so for one of two reasons, they no longer appreciated looking at the old style flooring or they hated how the old seams were curling up and failing to stick down anymore.  Most hated how the seams of vinyl flooring eventually failed.  It is a notorious vinyl floor occurrence.

I had a few contractors who employed my work on their job sites.  One of them had a grave dislike for failing seams.  On one of his projects, I tried to install a seamless installation, through doors and around corners.  I imagined what the floor could look like if it were installed without any seams.  This would require some very precise pre-cut measuring and some type of method to float the newly cut vinyl flooring above the surface just high enough to allow room enough to apply the adhesive.  The installer would need to learn how to crawl below the 'hovering' new vinyl floor as he scooted out and applied the adhesive as he worked from one part of the room to another.  Removing all moldings and door jam wood trims was critical.  On new construction projects, these items were not installed yet.  It was easier to perform this technique.  On older homes, extra work was needed to remove these trims, carefully.  They need to be returned in perfect shape.

I had learned how to measure the floors so closely that I could place them into the rooms and the edges would be just wide enough to rub against the cabinets and walls, helping to hold them up before they fell to the floor.  The type of flooring would determine if this technique was feasible or not.  Stiff flooring was necessary.  Inexpensive and softer vinyl flooring would not work well using this technique.  As a result, using this technique was very risky business, since most stiff flooring is of higher and thicker, more dense materials.  It was always more expensive.

I also developed some floor placed stands to place strategically on the floor to also help hold the new vinyl floor in a suspended position, above the floor.  After cutting the floor precisely in another area of the home, I had to learn how to soften that vinyl floor enough to 'flop fold' it just enough to have someone help me to carefully carry into place.  Vinyl flooring does not fold without producing tears at the corners.  So I also developed a heated 'flop folding' technique that was designed to respect the prevention of producing corner tears.  It was the most scary part of the installation process.  It took many mistakes, and a lot of money lost, to perfect this little installation technique.

Now I had my chance to impress my banker!  They had a unique dual walk-in bathroom which did not have a lot of floor space.  A perfect set up for doing this technique.  The weight of the material is critical for producing good success.  This bathroom had two doors and two turns to manage, but the floor space was narrow and small.  The material weight would be light enough to attempt this type of installation.  I agreed to provide them a new vinyl floor without placing seams in the whole installation.  They were impressed at the offer.

As could be expected, they selected a very high cost quality piece of vinyl flooring.  One that required increased attention on my part, due to the potential for some large losses if my unique installation went wrong.  The day came to install the floor.  I prepped the area very well.  I was taking special care with every step.  My mental work was at its best.  My measurements were some of the most precise I had ever performed.  My cuts and trims were excellently executed.  The floor 'stays' were in all of the right places.  I even carefully removed the cabinet doors to allow my 'drop' a smooth flow to the floor when that part of the installation was performed.  It was perfect.  I had dual tools ready at the entry of both doors that entered this double bathroom.  I had it all set for the perfect installation.  All that remained was the dangerous part of 'flop folding' I had learned how to perform.  I was alone on this installation so getting the cut 'flop folded' vinyl piece into place would be the largest challenge I would face.  I made this entry path support system to help me make that move.  I worked slowly and carefully on the move.  It seemed to take a long time getting the vinyl placed into its spot.  It was done.  The vinyl was placed successfully into its 'hovering' spot, ready for installation.  The folds were 'flopped' over and no tears were visible.  The most difficult parts of the installation was over.  I took a much needed break.  The floor was holding in its suspended place just fine.  I was proud of the process so far.  I would certainly be able to impress this bank manager and his wife very well.  They had expressed their concern for this technique I described to them.  They had enough common sense to recognize the enormous risk.  I was ready to apply the adhesive and begin scooting back away, underneath the suspended flooring and begin dropping it into its final place.

I crawled to the middle of the first side.  I finished the first side all the way around the corner of the first door.  It went well.  So I decided to come out to see how the first portion looked as it lay almost completed.  When I stood up, I saw the floor for the first time from the top side.  It was three quarters installed from around the corner, through the doorway and partially installed past the doorway towards where I was standing.  It was a perfect installation to this point.  It had one exception.  It appeared to have a slight skew in the pattern of the design according to the walls and cabinets it touched.  The pattern was running very slightly off key.  From where I was standing I had shifted the vinyl at the door just slightly enough to cause the pattern to run off a tiny bit.  I gave some time and serious thought to this tiny predicament.  I measured the time so far spent on the installation and determined I had time to crawl back under the floor and try to carefully lift the vinyl floor up, glue and all, to attempt to shift it back into proper alignment with the original cut.  I examined many thoughts, ideas and covered every area of what could go wrong scenarios.  I was now ready to crawl under the floor to make the adjustment.

Two hours later I was still under the floor; sweating profusely, with slimy adhesive all over my clothing, arms, legs, body, and hair.  Even my eye-wear was covered with adhesive.  My smooth and impressive installation had gone terribly wrong.  I was at risk for losing my normal, calm demeanor and coming close to losing my cool.  I was not happy.  It was now beginning to get dark and the banker and his administrative wife would be coming home soon.  The pressure was on.  Remember, these people expressed to me what concerns they had for the technique I promised for the results they would enjoy.  My thoughts began to drift about what I should be completing instead of the potential loss I was flirting to endure.

After another tense hour of slight movements and adjustments of the vinyl flooring I was trying to install, crawling out of this mess was a feeling of exhaustion.  As I came out of the underneath for a final inspection to see if all of my tiny adjustments were successfully applied, I stood up to find the wife standing near the second doorway watching me in shock!  My appearance was less than attractive.  I had adhesive all over my clothing, my body and parts of the elements in their bathroom.  My lenses to my glasses were covered and my vision was impaired slightly.  I had to tilt my head to one side to see her face.  She looked extremely shocked!  I was making the great impression I had planned to make.  She did not look like a person who was confident that she had hired the right person for the job.  I was struggling to encourage and comfort her with some wonderful words of confidence.  The silence between us was deafening.  After a long stare at each other, I turned to see how the pattern was lining up.  I said, "Perfect!"  I moved around her standing there in shock and said, "Excuse me, I need to do the other side now!"

That floor was the last time I decided to do these crazy and unique flooring techniques.  It ended up looking very nice, no seams and no tears.  The pattern lined up beautifully.  It was almost midnight when I arrived home.  I was more than impressive to my bankers.  I became a great story to all of their high-brow friends.

We all have great stories to share.  Sometimes, we are the stories they share.  Learn how to have fun building your business, especially during the difficult moments.  My wife and I have laughed many times at that bankers installation experience.  There have been many more even though at the time they happened, nobody was laughing.

Until next time...