Be Your Own Boss

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL

By A.B. Dada
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I helped two friends this summer who run very large companies — companies that have been grossing 8 figures annually each. Both are companies that grew slowly over many years, doing what they did best: meeting the current needs of their customer base, but learning new efficiencies to bring their cost-per-output down for everyone over time. When your gross figures rise, you’ll see them rise higher if you continue to make yourself more efficient and cheaper. That’s a simple fact in any economy where supply of your item or service keeps going up. Others will find ways to do it cheaper: there is no reason why you can not find ways to make yourself cheaper and reach more customers.

I came across a bunch of suppliers that competed with my friends’ businesses with that reasoning: they were smaller, or newer, or had deeper pockets for whatever reason. The reason why I was able to win the deals wasn’t because of size or age or financial capability — it was because I sold the companies based on a realistic evaluation of what the companies were able to do right now.

Pie in the sky. Pipe dreams. Best intentions. These are common factors in businesses looking to grow: finding the answer to “what can we do if we only had XYZ.” XYZ could mean more money, or more employees, or more machinery, or more profit to take risks with. It is also a common way that businesses sell themselves: we’ll be even better tomorrow! To me, its almost fraudulent because it is never the truth.

When we came up against competitors with flashier bids, we sealed the deal by selling the current business exactly as it is: stable, more efficient today than yesterday, able to prioritize tasks quickly when problems arise, and a realistic ideal to focus on today’s needs so that tomorrow’s emergencies will either be avoided, or handled properly by preparing for them today.

I see so many companies hurting because they want to take jobs at a minimal profit just to keep the doors open and the lights on. I see many employees of stable companies go off on their own because they can do something cheaper or faster or higher quality. What people seem to refuse to see is that today is much more important than tomorrow: put away the pies in the skies, empty your mind of the pipe dreams, and stop having the best intentions when the only intention to have is “what can I do to finish my responsibilities and then do them just a little better than expected?” If a job is due in 6 weeks, don’t try to finish it in 4 weeks at a 10% savings along with a 10% over-run. Finish it in 6 weeks at a 5% savings, or finish it in 5 weeks with no savings, or finish it in 6 weeks at the right price but make a little over-run for the customer. They’ll be pleased at the goals met: not at the gains. The gains are only important if EVERYTHING ELSE is done right.

When I win bids, I do it in the final meetings. I’m often asked why someone else can do the job cheaper: I’ll always answer that we focus on doing the job for what we bid it for, without trying to find sneaky ways to tack on additional charges later. My bids always show a list of what we’re not expecting to do: customers are pleased to see that we’re thinking about what we need to do the job right from day one, and making a list of what we can’t do for our price is impressive to them because they can see that we want to do it right, at the price we promised. I’m often asked why we can’t do a job quicker: I’ll always answer that we consider how efficient we are today, not how efficient we hope to be now that we have a new job and can hire more staff or buy better machinery. Customers are impressed because we focus on getting today done right so that tomorrow is just a continuation of today.

I find that selling who we are today, rather than who we want to be, is the most honest and realistic way to win jobs. I’m never the cheapest (actually, I’ve been the most expensive a few times). I’m not the fastest (but I do get the job done on time or a little earlier). I’m not the highest quality (I sell exactly what I can do so that expectations are met, rather than try to push the envelope and end up with a mass of problems to overcome). Meet expectations by setting those expectations based on what you CAN do — not what you COULD do.

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