Know Your Game

Sometimes you just know it’s going to go wrong.

A little over a year ago, I decided to hire a cleaning crew to come to my home once every other week to do some general cleaning.  I hate to clean and I recognized that I could earn more per hour by working during that time than it would cost me to have them to do the cleaning for me.  By not having to clean in the evenings and on weekends, I would gain more time to spend with friends and family doing activities I loved.  Brilliant idea – or so I thought.

After researching some local companies, I decided to call one.   The owner made an appointment to come to my home and do a short interview to find out what we needed cleaned, how often, and to check out the size of our rooms, etc.  The interview was very pleasant and I was impressed overall with her business manner.  As we were casually discussing the arrangement, she mentioned that my home was already very clean and organized.   I confessed that I hate to clean but being an obsessive neat-freak found me reading several books by top cleaning professionals.  In those books I discovered ways to clean efficiently and effectively so that cleaning wasn’t such a chore, but that didn’t make me hate it any less.  I only needed the cleaning crew to handle general maintenance so I could use the extra time for more quality activities.

As I rattled off the names of these top industry professionals (mind you these were very popular books), she looked a little lost and finally admitted she did not know any of these authors and hadn’t seen any of the books.  This is where a big red flag should have gone up, but I paid no attention to it and signed on to let them clean my house.  Big mistake.

Six weeks later I fired them.  There was a laundry list of reasons…the biggest one being that they “deep” cleaned the same room every week – and all it had in it was a dining room table and chairs.  Even after the “deep clean” there was dust on the table and cobwebs behind the vertical blinds.  Hmmm…better off not doing it myself than paying someone else not to do it.  Sheesh!

Anyway – my point is this:  Know Your Game!  Know everything about your game that you possibly can!  Know your competition!  Know your peers!  Know how to make what you do even better!  This company obviously did not and they lost my business because of it.  Don’t make the same mistake.

What are you doing right now that will help you or your business get better, faster, smarter?