Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Any business owners still doing what they hate to do, rather than what they love, what they’re really good at, and delegating the rest, please consider this cautionary tale about Eric.
I hired Eric’s company to repair my chimney in December. He arrived early one cold morning, and I greeted him cheerfully: “How are you doing?” “Well, I was doing fine until I saw your house,” he said. “The chimney’s so high, and the roof’s so steep.”
I was puzzled. Aren’t most chimneys high, and attached to steep roofs? But I smiled politely.
He asked to see the fireplace, and I showed him in. He peered into the black hole. “Geez, it’s really dark in there,” he said. “I’m going to need a flashlight.” And he sent his colleague to the pickup to get one.How odd, I thought. Do other people have lighting in their fireplaces? I’d never heard of a well-lit fireplace before. But I went on with my day.
When I returned several hours later, Eric was sitting in front of the fireplace, on a tarp, and he was installing some equipment. “How’s it going now?” I asked, again obviously much too cheerfully.
He held up his gloved hands, which were full of soot. “Well,” he said with a rueful expression, gesturing toward the dirty gloves. “This is not the fun part.”
So here you had a person working for a chimney repair company who disliked heights, steep roofs, dark fireplaces and soot. If ever someone needed to read “What Color is Your Parachute?,” that book about finding the right career, it was Eric.
How many business owners are like him? How many people insist on doing budgeting, for example, when what they’re really good at is sales? How many people struggle with Web site design, when they’re actually fantastic public speakers?
How many people won’t hire a person who loves to do what they loathe, or contract the work to a firm that wants that business desperately? And why not? Because for every person who hates one thing, there’s someone else who’s really good at it and loves to do it every day.
I know an accountant whose dentist thinks that doing taxes is gross — she says so while cleaning the teeth of her accountant client.I know that some people think calling up strangers and asking them what they’re up to — what I do for a living, and what I think is a gas — is really odd and certainly undesirable.
I know a person who thinks fixing chimneys is kind of fun: you’re outdoors, you’re seeing tangible results, you’re in a bit of danger. That person is Mark, and he came to do more work that was needed after Eric did his job.
There’s somebody good at everything, who would love to do it for you. Meanwhile, there’s something you are uniquely good at, and if you do more of it your business will thrive.
So why not make those connections? Otherwise, every work day will seem steep, sooty, dark and high — and unless you’re into that kind of thing, where’s the fun in that?
— Beth Ewen
editor and co-founder
Upsize Minnesota
be***@*******ag.com
