Working Together

I celebrated a birthday this past week; I’m now 36 years old.  I think the biggest thing I’ve learned in the past couple years is how little I know.  I know that I’m gaining knowledge faster than ever before, but part of what I’ve learned is how important it is to have great people around you to help when you need it and point out things you didn’t or wouldn’t see.

We’ve made an offer on a house in Georgia and have had the inspections done.  They came back with some work that needed to be done.  I feel great that I have an agent there who can help me decide what to ask for and how to negotiate this.  Like this weeks Acton Hero though said, it’s great to have people to do things for you, but you still have to know what they are doing and what it all means.  I’ve been trying to educate myself on real estate, negotiation, and home ownership all over again. 

My $100 challenge still isn’t going the way I wanted it to and at this point I’ll have nothing to donate to my cause at all.  In the end I’ll only have some books that I’ll be donating to schools, instead of selling them as I had hoped. (Although I guess that’s not the worst thing in the world.)

Business in Other Areas

Currently I live in the great Pacific Northwest, about 40 min. south of Seattle, WA and very fast pace.  I don’t think I ever realized how much so till I went on my house hunting trip to Georgia this past week.  My family and I are relocating there for business.  Everything just moves at a slower pace.

People are so nice in both places.  Traffic is bad in both places.  There are a ton of trees in both places.  Life though is much different.  From the airport personnel, to bankers, to real estate agents, restaurant staff and many other people it becomes very obvious that different things are important to different people. 

If I was to do business in one area vs. the other I would have to learn what is important and to whom.  The real issue comes though when you have a national business or even an international business.  How do you then make sure that you give each group of people what they, even subconsciously, desire?  It can’t be easy.  It’s where a balancing act of empathy, with speed comes into play.

On my $100 Challenge I feel like I’m getting behind.  It has been less than successful, but I also hope that I’m learning what not to do as well.

Life experiences

I’ve often been amazed at how much we really learn when we take what we read or study and try to place it in our own personal lives.  This past week we got an offer on our home in Washington and now I sit in a hotel room in Atlanta, GA getting set to go house hunting this week here.

In going through this process I’ve been able to look at a lot of service industry business.  I’ve watched the TSA, Delta, Hertz, Extended Stay America and many restaurant businesses as they try and serve my wife and me.  I’ve been very impressed with many of them.  Things that are so small such as Hertz programming my GPS to say, “Good Morning Greg Buchanan” when I get in the car.  These things really make such a big difference in my overall happiness with the company, even if I’m not thinking it.

Having taken this course makes me see that even large companies want to embrace that small company, personalized feel so that we have a good experience.  Often what falls through the crack is although the company wants that, does each and every employee?  If and when I ever run a company my people development will be my biggest focus.  I loved the example this week of Jet Blue.  There are many other companies that you come across that you know people just love working there.  It shows in everything they do.

My Recent Happenings

In this week’s blog I’m going to talk about what I’ve learned about business through preparing to sell my home, my status of the $100 Challenge, and the fun I’ve had reading E-Myth.

Preparing to sell and now listing my home has been quite the task.  My wife and I put a lot of work in over the past couple weeks to make sure everything was clean and ready to go.  On Tuesday we listed our home.  Despite us putting in the listing that we needed two hours’ notice for a showing, the first call we got from an Agent was at 4:22pm asking if we could do a 5PM show.  It was then I realized that I was going to have to be accommodating, but also put my foot down to set realistic expectations.  We agreed on 6PM.  We’ve had 11 other Agents come through the house with their clients.  Most have been wonderful to work with.  You can tell that they understand the importance of their brand.

Trying to move and continue with school work has proven very difficult and my $100 Challenge has suffered a bit.  I’ve been able to gather my product, but have yet to advertise or sell any of it.

The one thing I have been able to do is read E-Myth.  Actually I’ve been listening to it.  I knew in my situation that sitting down to read would be difficult so instead I bought the CD’s so that I can listen to them in my car.  I have a 45-60 minute drive to and from work so when I get to where I’m going I take a couple minutes to jot down some notes of that section I listened to.  It’s been working well and I’ll get through it in plenty of time to complete my report.  My favorite concept so far has been that if you don’t do it right, you won’t own a business, you’ll own a job.  I know many business owners who has fallen victim to this trap.  I’ve been trying to see it through their eyes.