In the case of landscaper, he said things like:

• I don’t know who this dream guy is that you think is going to be better than me.
• How can you do this, I’ve always taken care of you like a brother.
• I’m offended because I always give you a special price.

Oy vey, the guilt was piled on a think as cream cheese on a bagel at Sunday brunch with a bunch of Jews (my family). I suppose I should mention that we did not know each other before he started working for me, didn’t socialize or even speak other than to discuss the work on my properties.

Has this ever happened to you?

You call up your contractor to let them know you will no longer be needing their services and, instead of a professional conversation about why you’re making the choice, you feel like you’re having a breakup conversation with your girlfriend or a family argument with your brother?

I bring up this issue because you’re a service professional and I don’t want you to make the same mistake as my landscaper. Please consider the following two points.

One

Using the bonds of familial relations to guilt your client into feeling poorly about their decision to stop working with you while also creating a false argument to defend the real reason they are dissatisfied with your service, is not going to “save the sale.” Moreover, it’s an adolescent way of being.

Two

It’s OK to become friends with your clients, to have personal conversations and even socialize outside of your work together. However, when having conversations about projects, prices or the continuation or discontinuation of services, remember that you are not their friend, boyfriend or brother. You work for them. Pure and simple. If they are unhappy with your services, you have two choices. One, you can try to fix the problem or two, you graciously let them go. Either way, you’ll find ways to improve your services and will likely stay friends.

Here’s a third and bonus point: If you do work with friends or family, giving them special deals and perks and they decide to let you go, nonetheless, the same hold true. Never mention that you did special things for them. If you’re going to hold that over their head, you shouldn’t have done those “favors” in the first place.

I once heard my friend Ben say, “Don’t lend money to friends if it will be a financial hardship for you if they don’t pay you back.” His point was, the good deeds you do don’t always get repaid so do them because it pleases you to help, not because you require reciprocation. Otherwise the relationship will come undone. And, you might even end up with a milkshake covered car.

Now, since I’ve been treating you like a paying client, even though you’re not, and this post took me two hours to write, not to mention that I gave you that third and bonus point to boot, I expect you to share this post with everyone you know.  If you don’t, I’ll huff and I’ll puff and never write another post or book for you for as long as I live. So there!

I read through some of the interviews and they’re quite good; very good, in fact. Featured are Michael McLaughlin, Kevin Hogan, Bob Bly, and yours truly, among others.

Just goes to show you, that developing skills as an interviewer, and using those skills to produce information products based on interviews with experts in your field, can be a career making initiative.

Furthermore, the Kaufman Foundation says, that since 2007, this group of grannypreneurs (my word, not theirs) has created new businesses at a higher rate than any other age group. Sweet.

The data, writes Kauffman’s research director Dane Stangler, demonstrates that “The United States might be on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom—not in spite of an aging population but because of it.”

Hey, maybe this trend, in addition to speeding the economic recovery, will compel America’s youth to respect their elders.

When should you form a partnership with someone outside your business? When 1+1 = 3 or more.

You only want to create a profit-sharing relationship when you can build something bigger together than you can alone.

The partnership should end when the math no longer adds up, when 1+1 = 2 or less.

Resource: if you want to learn more about creating profitable partnerships, check Pam Slim’s, Partnership Playbook (affiliate link). I was interviewed for it along with Guy Kawasaki, John Jantsch, and others. It’s really an impressive product.

BMW has a simulated assembly line. Job candidates get 90 minutes to perform a variety of work-related tasks

If you’re hiring for contract work, you can do the same. Give a small assignment or project with very specific details, and watch your potential new hire work. See how they deal with the critical issues that make up your matrix.

In fact, you can even work in the kinds of obstacles and issues that come up in your business. If flexibility is a big part of your culture, start them on a project and call them the next day with changes or additions to the project. See how they handle it. If they are going to do customer service for you, ask some real customers to give them a hard time and see how they handle it.

Companies that hire smart often start their recruiting close to home—promoting their own employees and drawing from their pool of contractors. That way they already know how a person works and what personality traits are going to show up on the job. And, when going outside the organization is necessary, smart leaders look to their networks. Brian Scudamore, the CEO of  1800-GOT-JUNK?, emailed me recently asking for leads to fill the COO spot at his company — and they have 200 locations across three countries.

I once hired an assistant who had all the right skills—tech savvy, bright, experienced, and so on. But he didn’t like to reflect on his communication style, an outgrowth of what I found to be his somewhat blind and arrogant attitude.

When I would try to speak with him about problems that others were having with him, he would point out all the tasks he had accomplished. He wasn’t open to hearing about any ways in which he might change.

Sure, he was doing the tasks of the job, but he was bringing down the general morale with his prickly presence. Even though he got things done, it wasn’t worth it to keep him.

Just like you shouldn’t marry someone because they’re good on paper but impossible to live with, you shouldn’t hire someone just because their resume suggests they have the requisite skills but are a pain in the ass to work with.

No surprise that one of the hallmarks of great leaders is that they are “in touch” with themselves and with the people who work with them. It’s the best way to be a good role model.

What’s necessary? Clarity, honesty, integrity, openness, self-respect, and treating every individual with dignity—not once in a while to get something done or get something from someone—but all the time.

Great leaders rarely, if ever, deviate from these principles of behavior. If and when they do, they take full responsibility through openness and self-awareness, and they make it right. By doing this, they generate the same kind of behavior from their employees, business partners, and customers.

The old saying,“Do as I say and not as I do,” never worked in parenting, and it sure doesn’t work in leadership. Lead by example.

Every successful entrepreneur, indeed every successful person, is an innovator.

You might be saying to yourself, “Not me, I’ll never invent the light bulb. Don’t confuse the idea of innovation with the idea of invention.

An innovator can change perspective and adopt new habits. Innovation is changing the way you do and see things. It is asking yourself, “How will I view my business differently today than I did yesterday?”

Continue reading at the Huffington Post.

The same thing is true in your business. If I know what you spend your time on, I know what’s important to you (and whether you’re likely to reach your goals).

The key to success, in almost any endeavor, is spending time doing the right next thing.

When you spend your time on unimportant items or seemingly important items but at the wrong time, you spin your wheels or, worse yet, back peddle.

There is so much to do and everything seems so important. But spending a day discussing whether or not the help desk program is going to send an email to a customer to confirm that a ticket has been closed when there are no revenues and about 150 other things to do to get to the first sale is not a good use of time.

So, ask yourself, “Am I spending my time on the right things (and with the right people) or am I doing trivial, busy work to avoid the difficult of putting yourself on the line?”

You must be vigilant. Others are often unaware of (and don’t care about) your priorities. They’ll send you a hysterical email (not the funny kind) screaming about 10 things that must be done immediately! But, if you look closely, the items aren’t important—now. Instead, they belong on a to do later list.

If you’re working with a team, this kind of hysterical behavior takes them off of higher priority items.

If you’re working by yourself, and work yourself up into this same kind of frenzy, you’ll accomplish little. You don’t want that. You want to play big.

You know what they say… time is money.

A successful business is made up of the completion of one successful project after another. If you don’t know how to do projects you won’t be successful. Project progress (or any kind of professional progress, for that matter) depends on the successful fulfillment of promises.

Promises bring people together.

When working on projects, create a routine that is appropriate for the project, which requires the team to come together to undertake promises to one another. The work that I promise to complete today allows you to start your task tomorrow.

The downfall of not fulfilling my obligation is one breakdown after another. In fact, our reputations are built on our ability, or lack thereof, to make commitments and fulfill them, as is the future of our business. There are people who are great at making commitments but not great at fulfilling them. When that happens, not much gets done and they aren’t chosen to participate on a project team again.

Diminished expectations; I can’t but I’ll try.

Others don’t make commitments fearing the accountability, preferring to hide under a cloak of diminished expectations. How often have you heard (or said) the words, “I can’t promise you that I’ll do it, but I’ll try.” Certainly, that’s ok on small things that are not important to your plans, goals and dreams. If someone asks me to promote something that I’m not highly invested in I might say, “I’ll try, but I can’t promise.” But, for the big stuff that is important to you, why would you want to live in the half-light of such a soft engagement with others and the world? Yet, without commitments in the first place not much gets done. Moreover, the non-committer doesn’t get picked again.

Develop habits of commitment making and fulfilling.

The good news is that projects are a perfect venue to develop and improve habits of commitment making and fulfilling.

I should note that commitments can, and sometimes should, be renegotiated. That’s perfectly natural. Things change. But if renegotiating promises becomes the norm, then not much gets done, at least not in a timely fashion. And, you guessed it, we don’t get asked to participate again.

Coordinating commitments.

When working with others, nothing works better than a ten to fifteen minute daily coordination and commitment management conversation; each team member assesses how they are doing fulfilling promises. They report “complete” when done or make revised promises when needed. They also make new promises at the appropriate time. They finish the meeting by asking for help or offering help to others. A four- to seven-person team can have this conversation in less than fifteen minutes—and should.

Be the doer of deeds rather than the critic.

To promise and fulfill is to be the doer of deeds, not the critic. Of course, destroy, blow up, tear town what is mean, exploitative, abusive, and criminal. But, when it comes to doing big things, be fully engaged in the world, not standing apart or hovering above. Get in the ring, on the stage, make things that matter, build stuff that lasts.