Where Is Your Business Mentor?

We Dislike It When Someone Tries To Change Our Direction

Moving targets can be frustrating when you don't know where they are headed.  When a goal gets set in our minds we like for it to be reachable and realistic.  We also do not want that goal to move away from us as we get closer to reaching the mark.  We will get frustrated if someone moves the mark of that goal further out away from us as we get closer to it.  Humans do not handle being frustrated very well, especially if we are mistreated for doing well.  We will show our frustration in creative but evident ways.  We may look cool and calm on the outside but inside we are cunning and creatively dynamic about how we treat being mistreated.  Our built in wiring for tolerance is usually completed with wires too short to do an adequate job of performing long lines of deep tolerance.  Most of us are very impatient.  Our tolerance factors are in short supply.  When someone cheats us once, we can quickly react in a negative way.  We do not have a great deal of tolerance for that kind of treatment.  We show that intolerance in many creative ways.

One of my best business mentors met me while we were actually doing business.  He was a new customer of mine.  I was preparing a bid on some large remodeling efforts he and his wife were planning to do in their home.  It was the early nineties and his business models were screaming in success.  I was asked to be included in the bidding process for a lot of improvement work they planned to do in their home.  I won that bid.  I was given the work to complete.  It was a significant project for my little business.  I was able to get to know this couple closer because I spent a lot of time in their home doing this remodeling project for a few weeks.  They actually shocked me by paying me up front!  They were going away for two weeks on an African Safari.  We sat down before they left and discussed in great detail how they wanted the work to be completed.  They gave me a check and the keys to their home.  However, I told them this project would take about a month to complete.  I wanted them to be aware of the fact that this project would not be completed while they were away on their trip.  They understood.  The project went well.  They loved the work when they returned and I finished it in about three more weeks.  It was an excellent experience.

This business project introduced this couple into my life.  They eventually became part of an important chapter in our life travels.  My wife and I became very good associates with this couple through this simple business introduction.  He became my business mentor for nearly ten years.  We have both moved on to other parts of the country and are doing our business work in separate worlds now.  However, those ten years were filled with many great lessons and a ton of wonderful business experiences.  I am a different business operator today than I could ever imagine I might be.  His influence on how I changed the ways I managed what I owned is forever respected.  My views, my disciplines and my tolerance has improved tremendously thanks to his persistence to help me change.  Looking back, I was a big project.  I am sure I wore them both out.

Head strong, self taught business owners are a dime a dozen.  I was one of those cheap commodities.  I had some good values going for me but my main stream of activities was to practice volume producing, equivocal selling.  You know the type.  I was a master of that art.  I could easily sell products I did not own.  It never occurred to me that I had to own the inventory to sell it.  All I had to do is find it at a price I could live with when they took possession of what I bought and sold them.  It was simple math to me.  I became an artist at this process.  I owned a furniture store retail operation that commonly ran a product turnover ratio above nine points all day long.  I was always selling stuff to customers that I did not have in stock or own.  Customers of mine would describe to me other items that they truly wanted to own and I would go find them and place them in their homes.  I ran a very good special order program.  My banker would point out my turnover ratio every time we did a financial review.  He was always amazed at the high product turnover my stores ran.  My volumes of sales well exceeded the inventory I carried.  I would easily turn my inventory nine times per year.  Special orders are instant turnover.  That helps your overall numbers greatly.

This new business mentor liked some of the things I did in my business model.  He also discovered some of the things I did not do very well.  Looking back, he was a master at getting me to change where I would otherwise refuse to change.  His leadership art was painted over my stubborn ways.  He helped me to become a much better business operator.  End of seminar.  I learned how to function better in the models I owned.  Many of the most important changes I have made happened only because of his artful patience and creative leadership.  He helped me to improve tremendously.

We Are Not Shy About Our Stubbornness 

No man is an island.  That is the absolute truth.  Every man who becomes an island is a man headed for self destruction.  It is a very good idea to learn how to bounce ideas and thoughts off the minds of trusted associates.  I have a whole dump sight filled with some of my most terrible ideas and thoughts.  They could have used a second opinion.  We live our lives believing that we are the reason why so many good things happen.  We are quick to take credit when the good things appear.  We are slow take take credit when the roof falls in.  It is the wind and rain's fault.  That is what partially makes us human.

Our lives are filled with crossing paths.  People come and go.  Sometimes they stay awhile and other times they pass by us in a flash.  Life is much like taking a journey through time with people moving about like a passing parade.  We spend time with each one of them on a plane that decides what the length and value of that time will reveal.  Most of the acquaintances in our life travels are discovered by chance and happen in a short time frame of flashing moments.  We only have so much time, so much family and so few friends to devote enough time to call worthwhile in the relationships we manage.  We pick and choose our friendships in a self serving way.  We make sure our tolerances are tightly woven concepts so we can avoid falling into some bad relationships.  We nickel and dime who we like and who we do not like.  This 'hidden' defense system helps us to protect who we are and how we move about in our lives of relationships.  It helps us to screen out the ones that are rough on us.  We hate the feeling the rough ones give us.  We much prefer someone who learns how to tickle our ears.  We want to hear about how good we are.  We tend to like those people best.  In the end, many of them become our partners in crime.  We listen to the ones who compliment our bad doings.  We feel safer about the ways we operate the businesses we own when we meet other people who compliment what we already believe.  A good and effective mentor refuses to act in this fashion.  A good business mentor may not actually be very much fun to visit with.

I remember going home one night after spending some personal time with my new business friend.  I had finished the project in their home and by chance, I made the mistake of asking him what he does for a living.  He said he was a business consultant.  I asked him if he was any good.  Here was his answer, "I don't know.  I gave you a five figure check to front your expenses on my remodeling job weeks before you finished it, handed you the keys to my home and spent two weeks traveling on a guided African safari tour with my family of five...and next week we go to Hawaii for ten days.  What do you think?"  I was silent.  I did not immediately like him.  I thought, "How arrogant!"

I worked up the courage to meet him a few more times.  We had coffee in some coffee shops here and there.  One evening he decided it was time to move in and 'hit' my ego hard.  We talked turkey about my business.  We discussed the hard matters all of use usually try to avoid.  He was pointed in the conversation and delivered some very deep blows.  It was not a fun conversation that night.  I felt threatened.  It pissed me off.  That was the night I came home and my wife asked me, "How did your meeting go with your new friend?"  I walked by her and responded, "He's a jerk!"  I think she smiled.  That was the beginning of a great ten year relationship between two business guys that had one goal in mind...improve, Terry.

The first book he handed me to read was an old classic.  He said, "Read the chapter on tolerance, first.  It will help you tremendously."

Where is your business mentor?  Did you know that mentor cannot be your friend?  Did you know they might actually be someone who knows how to constructively hurt your feelings, without abusing your welfare?  Good ones are hard to find.  No man is an island.  When a man operates like an island he is living in a dangerous place to be, especially if he believes he does not need a good mentor.

Where is your business mentor?

Until next time...