Learning To Do It Right

I like to think my entrepreneurial aspirations developed when I was pretty young. I remember as early as eight or nine years-old I was holding garage sales, bake sales, and any other type of sale in my front yard. Unfortunately it’s hard for me to remember exactly what my motivations were, but I think it was mainly for money at the time (hey, I was nine). Either way, I spent an inordinate amount of time on my entrepreneurial endeavors in comparison to the neighborhood kids I recruited to be my business partners. Each sale was a shot in the arm of pure adrenaline, and I was hooked.

If I had to think of one seminal moment that changed the way I conducted business for the rest of my life, it was when I was ten. By this point I was proactive in my search for clientele, going door-to-door (really just asking people that were standing in their yards) asking homeowners if their cars needed a cleaning. The one car wash I remember vividly was also the last car I ever washed, but I learned an important lesson.

On this day in particular I had a friend going around with me so we could be more efficient and ultimately hit up more places. One of our neighbors, a fit man in his thirties or forties, had a large Dodge pickup truck that we decided would be suitable. Neither of us had known this guy particularly well, but you could definitely get the impression that he was a macho-man that took care of his vehicles. What we didn’t consider was what would happen while we were “cleaning” the car.

I put cleaning in quotes because the truth is that we didn’t know the first thing about cleaning cars. If you’ve ever cleaned a car you’ll know that if you don’t do it correctly you’ll be left with things like water streaking and dirt, which sort of defeats the purpose. Although we had already “cleaned” many cars, the reality is that most people that took us up on our offer didn’t want to crush our young, innocent souls with dissatisfaction. This customer didn’t see things the same way. No, not only did he crush our souls, but he made us see the job through afterwards, and I hated him for it. He grabbed me by the hand and went through every step, every arm motion in the process of properly washing a car, until he knew it was in my head.

It took me awhile to realize it, but what that man did for me was really important. I don’t think I ever again tried to sell a customer short of what they deserved for their money. I even went out of my way to make sure they were happy before I took any money, by doing things like being thorough on the details of what I was selling and even throwing in free extras. It doesn’t feel good to trick people into giving you their money for something other than advertised, which is why I will forever try and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. I’m glad that someone did the right, but difficult thing, of tearing me down to help me build myself back up better than ever. These kind of lessons shape who we ultimately become, so each one is just as important as those that came before.

If enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Twitter