Author’s Note: This is the 4th in a series of 12 articles meant to share my trials and my errors in starting up and building The Business of Good. They are intended to help anyone who pursues a noble cause.
The three greatest lies are:
1. I’m a people person. No, really, I am.
2. I’ll do anything it takes to start my own business, and
3. I’m dedicated to serving others.
The first time Lie #1 mattered was when I started to hire people. I learned to ask a follow up question to those who said they were a people person.
I learned to say, “Good, we need people-persons here. What’s the funniest thing that ever happened to you?” Of course, few applicants could think of anything funny to say and some didn’t say anything.
Why did I test for humor? Since most problems are people-related, I’ve seen humor come in pretty handy in solving them, especially during times of stress.
One time a woman said, “Well, my Mom still doesn’t think this is funny but one day she was giving me a hard time when we were riding in the car and when we stopped at a red light, I fell over into her lap and laid my hand on the horn. She pulled my hair, tried to pry my hand off the horn but couldn’t do a thing. Everyone at the intersection was mad since it appeared my Mom was honking at them for no reason.” [more]
Seventeen years later, that woman is still employed – in fact, runs operations – for my old business.
She verified to me that she was a real “people person.” And they are few and far between.
But these 3 lies don’t only surface in a corporate setting. They frequently pop up with entrepreneurs and non-profits, too.
I started hearing Lie #2 when my business succeeded and people started coming to me to learn how to become entrepreneurs. I learned that here too I could find out how serious they were by asking questions, the first of which is “Are you willing to write a plan?”
If they say yes, we give them an outline of how to do it and offer to help them in case they get stuck. What of course happens most often is that we never hear from them again. You see, most people really just want to not work where they’re working; they don’t really want to sacrifice as every entrepreneur must.
Three years ago, we were approached by an un-bankable entrepreneur who spent over six months learning how to do his plan and asking us questions frequently. Finally, he got the plan good enough to present for funding to the foundation board. He’s now one of the most successful restaurant entrepreneurs in our little town.
Lie #3, to me, is the most dangerous one because Liar #1 and Liar #2 are only hurting themselves.
Liar #3, on the other hand, is who keeps most non-profits from growing.
They’re the ones who may have started with the intention of dedicating their lives to serving others but are now just doing their job.
Don’t believe me? Contact a local non-profit today and offer help and you’ll most likely be put on hold, transferred to another person’s voice mail or be asked to look over their brochure or website to select something that might interest you.
Unless……..you say you have money. Then, you’ll have their insincere interest.
We get this a lot since The Business of Good asks anyone who serves the poor, “How can we help?” or “Tell us about your biggest challenges because we’d like to help you grow your mission.”
That’s where the insincerity really gets rolling.
They tell us everything is going well but they could sure use some help on a fund-raising event, their planned giving or a new program they’d like to fund. Rarely do we find the sincerity to step back and look deeply into their operations to consider how they might do things better.
Last year, we ran into a Director who challenged us back by saying “I’m not sure you can do what you say so here’s my financials and my business plan and you can have three days of my time before I ask you for a dollar.” Since then, we’ve invested a great deal in her mission and she has taken our work seriously and applied what made sense, and ignored what didn’t. And we see her at every workshop and event we sponsor.
So, if you’re going to go out and serve others, just remember to watch for this third great lie. When someone tells you “we here at the children’s center dedicate our lives to serving these underprivileged kids,” it’s usually no different than the applicants who couldn’t tell me something funny and the alleged entrepreneurs who couldn’t commit to writing a plan. They all mean well, but really they’re just trying to get by and get the work done that’s on their desk.
So if you want to do your part to change the world, make sure to trust but verify. After sifting through dozens of “dedicated servants,” we actually have about 5-6 that we serve right now.
And if I’d have trusted but verified early on, I’d have kissed a lot less frogs.
Peace,
