All right, I’m driving home tonight after what I felt was a pretty awesome day at work with my team members. Everyone just did a great job all around on the production end, the advertising end, and sometimes you cannot help but reflect where you are and where you have been. I just got off the phone with a vendor that I had a relationship with early on in my career, and I cannot help but think about how much I have grown, and I am not talking business-wise, but just maturity-wise. Let’s label this podcast business maturity.
On the subject of business maturity, I can now have a better conversation with a vendor or owner of a company than I could when I was younger and just beginning my career in advertising. Some would say I was filled with piss and vinegar. When I first opened my agency, I thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Among my undesirable attributes at the time I was not humble, I was impatient and ill-informed on how business works. Today, I look at every vendor as a friend, a potential client, and an evangelist for our advertising agency, VIP Marketing and video production company Craft Creative. Mature business owners understand that relationships and strategic partnerships that can help grow your business.
I’ve learned many valuable lessons in business, and at the forefront of it all is to remain humble. I do not care about how successful you become. The good or the bad, you should remain humble. Continue to build long lasting relationships and partnerships with people.
If you are in the agency space and you are just doing wrong by people and use more vinegar than you do, honey, then you will not last long in this industry or any industry. Just when you think that you’re the new hot stuff, there is someone hotter than you. When you think your company is big, there is always another company bigger than yours. Many of us are familiar with how wealthy Shaquille O’Neal is, but imagine the person who signs his checks and who pays them. It does not matter how big an advertising agency is. Whether there are ten people, 100 people, 200 people, 300 people, there is always another agency that could be larger than your agency.
I believe the bigger your agency, the more vulnerable your can be. Looking back on my career, we will be in business for ten years this year. One should reflect on how they speak to people; how they treat them. In retrospect, I realize now that I made a complete 360 in terms of my attitude and outlook on people. I believe when you gain business maturity, not only do you benefit personally, but your business will benefit as well.