Last week, a friend’s son passed his driver’s test. He now thinks that he is the best driver on the road. His argument is that because of his preparation for the test, he is more knowledgeable of the rules of the road. He also believes that he has been focused on how to drive rather than just getting in the car and relying on instincts. A more experienced driver would argue that you can’t beat good old fashioned experience. Learning the real rules of the road and how to avoid getting into dangerous situations.
The real answer to being the better driver is to have a mix of experience and knowledge of current trends and rules of the road. The real world does not function any differently than the people driving those cars. The best business owners have a combination of experience and the willingness to keep abreast of new trends in their business. Is it really that hard to keep up with current lessons? We do it at work to maximize our business, so why not in other aspects of our lives?
The truth is that not all people do it in their work lives. They achieve a certain level of success and they are content with how the business is operating. Their business is apparently successful so they don’t see any reason to change. This approach works for a certain amount of time, but the longer you wait, the more you are falling behind your competitors who are not taking the same approach. Once you have fallen behind, it becomes harder to catch up with the current advances happening around you.
We recently completed an interesting engagement. Normally, we are involved in some type of perpetuation event. We either assist an agency to internally perpetuate or will orchestrate the sale to a third party. Our most recent client asked us to assess their foundation. They were planning on buying several additional agencies. They wanted to make sure that their existing agency was up to speed on current trends and rules of the road. They realized that it would be very difficult to be successful in their growth strategy if their existing operation was not operating effectively and efficiently.
Our report was very detailed and began with this quote, “All agencies are different, but all agencies are alike.” We wanted to stress that every agency had unique characteristics, but that there were certain traits that needed to exist to be successful. Although they were someone confident that their foundation was strong, they were a bit surprised that we were able to produce a sixty page report that included over twenty recommendations for improvement.
Although our recommendations were extensive, can you imagine how many recommendations we could make with an agency that had a weak foundation? The reality is that any business has the ability to improve. If you aren’t changing, you are falling behind. You simply have to decide which driver you want to be. Do you want to be the experienced driver who doesn’t stay current or do you want to be the young driver full of unrealistic confidence? Most likely you don’t want to be either. In order to accomplish that goal, you need to be constantly assessing the strength of your foundation.
