Backseat Business Tips: Smart Sacrifices, Never Hiding Your Value, and Keeping Secrets

Monday, August 27, 2007 at 12:27pm by David Askaripour in Start-Ups

I was in the backseat of the car yesterday while on a trip with my Dad and Uncle. My Dad was speaking to my Uncle about his position as an Executive at a major stationary company and his experiences from the job. Little did my Dad know that I was getting a very valuable business lesson as I sat back and chimed in on their conversation. The premise of my Dad’s conversation was: “In business you have to be willing to work with people and wait things out. You give a little and get a little; over time, that ‘little’ will turn into a lot.”

Here are a few points that he brought up:

The Smart Sacrifice

In business you have to be willing to take a “smart sacrifice” sometimes. Say, for instance, you get a new client who only wants to pay you $25 per hour and you usually charge $50 per hour. The project is extremely interesting and you know that if you take the job that it’ll lay the foundation for plenty of work to come. If you are smart, you’ll take a small cut in pay, and do the job. Once your prove yourself to the client and show him that your skills are absolutely valuable to their organization, you’ll have them locked in. Once someone is locked in, you can bump up your price. Be smart and know when to strategically cut the price in your service.

Never Hide Your Value

If you know that the things that only “YOU” do produce certain awesome results then don’t — never — hide that. Never. Being humble is great and we should practice that, but there comes a time when you have to let your organization know (whether you’re an employee, partner, or founder) just how great of a job you’re doing. My Dad says: “if you don’t stand out, then you’re replaceable.” When my Dad crashed his car a few years back, he had no problem asking the founder of his company to purchase him a new car — on the company’s dollar — because he knew his value at the company. If “YOU” don’t know your own value at your company, then don’t expect anyone else to.

It’s Okay to Keep Secrets

As a Shipping Executive, it’s my Dad’s job to ship roughly $300,000 in products per day, everyday. For years he’s been able to do what other Shipping Executives have tried to do and failed. My Dad has perfected the method — mathematically and strategically — on how to accomplish this feat day after day. His founder always jokes and says “I’m going to hire a detective to find out how you’re doing this.” The point is, don’t feel that you always have to share every breakthrough with everyone else. Many people feel that if they’ve perfected a business technique, then they should write a blog post on it and give it away to the world. I say: ah… uhmm… no! Why do that? By sharing such a technique, you’ll be rendering it obsolete. You’ll no longer have an advantage. It’s no mystery that companies keep secrets — it’s a must. A great way to share company secrets across the entire organization is to create a Knowledge Base (KB).

Thanks for the tips, Pops!

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