Yesterday I was talking to a friend about the cost of business success and he shared with me his story.
He has a friend who makes furniture, so one day he decided to contract him to do for him some work and he went ahead to give him the money to do the work.
“I’ll be done in four days,” the furniture friend told him adding “actually it will be three days but let’s give ourselves an extra day just incase.”
My friend told him all he wanted was a good job and even if the work came within a week it would still be fine.
After a week, he began calling this carpenter friend of his who started avoiding his calls.
After two weeks, he decided to go to his workshop where he found the friend hadn’t done even 20% of work.
He was so disappointed and decided not to argue with him.
He gave the job to someone else who ended up doing a great job at almost half the price. He realised his friend had inflated prices heavily.
Since then, he decided to terminate any business ties or relations with him and retained mere friendship.
A few years later this carpenter friend complains that he no longer gives him work or recommends him.
“How would I recommend such a guy?” he asked me.
There’s no way I said, it would come back to haunt you. Just like that the carpenter lost a client but also a person with a great network he would have benefited a lot from in terms of referrals. Many small businesses die or fail because of lack of integrity and professionalism.
Like my mechanic once said, there’s a lot of money in this town. You just have to be truthful and honest and all the customers will come to you.
Put the spares you say you are going instal, don’t over price because some how the clients will always get to know and feel cheated hence never coming back to you.
Many mechanics are good but they lack those things, he said.
Its actually funny that these things that make the difference between failure and success don’t even need money to have. They are not things you have to buy with money.
Jaluum Herberts Luwizza is a Speaker,Writer and Business Columnist with the Nile Post.He is also a Business Consultant at YOUNG TREP East Africa’s No.1 Business Management and Consultancy firm that helps people start and grow profitable businesses.
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