By J. Clemonts Junior, Owner, Technificent Solutions LLC
A hit singer/songwriter once asked us, "What is love?" It seems like an easy question on the surface, but if you ask 3 different people to define love, you'd get 3 different definitions. Some may spout that, "love is patient, love is kind" while others may say it is simply caring for someone or something more than you care for yourself. Even Spongebob weighed in on the subject saying, "Love is giving someone a loaded gun and expecting them not to shoot." All of these sound great, but what is love to an entrepreneur with a business to run?
A hit singer/songwriter once asked us, "What is love?" It seems like an easy question on the surface, but if you ask 3 different people to define love, you'd get 3 different definitions. Some may spout that, "love is patient, love is kind" while others may say it is simply caring for someone or something more than you care for yourself. Even Spongebob weighed in on the subject saying, "Love is giving someone a loaded gun and expecting them not to shoot." All of these sound great, but what is love to an entrepreneur with a business to run?
The thing about love in the business world is that everyone expresses it differently. As a business owner, director, or senior management, we show our love for our business by putting its needs ahead of other needs we have to juggle. Rare is the story of an entrepreneur that did not work tirelessly to get over a hump, through a slump, or turn a vision into reality.
It's sometimes difficult to tell that employees love our business (my previous article focused on the things they do that can be taken as unloving), even though we can be assured that they do. Despite all the things they may say and do, the biggest way that employees show our business love is by continuing to show up day after day. Undoubtedly, there's someone else who wants them doing something else during the time they're working. By continuing to pay that opportunity cost in the form of helping us entrepreneurs realize our dreams each day they work, our employees are showing us that they not only believe in our vision, but love they work they do and the company they do it for. There's no greater love than giving over your time – our most precious, nonrenewable resource.
Even though it largely goes unnoticed, businesses show other businesses love, too. Their love comes in the form of continuing to do business with us. In today's “guilty by association” culture, many customers don't want to work with those wo do business with the businesses that they don't like. This means that customers are willing to abandon a brand simply because they're associated with the business they don't like.
Just because February is over, it doesn't mean that love is no longer in the air. What it probably is going to signify is that the red-hot love that we experienced this month is likely to become something that's more comfortable and familiar. That's ok too! Without the more comfortable periods of love, we'd never be able to appreciate the red-hot ones. And who knows, we all might just get a little lucky in March to keep it all going for a bit longer.
It's sometimes difficult to tell that employees love our business (my previous article focused on the things they do that can be taken as unloving), even though we can be assured that they do. Despite all the things they may say and do, the biggest way that employees show our business love is by continuing to show up day after day. Undoubtedly, there's someone else who wants them doing something else during the time they're working. By continuing to pay that opportunity cost in the form of helping us entrepreneurs realize our dreams each day they work, our employees are showing us that they not only believe in our vision, but love they work they do and the company they do it for. There's no greater love than giving over your time – our most precious, nonrenewable resource.
Even though it largely goes unnoticed, businesses show other businesses love, too. Their love comes in the form of continuing to do business with us. In today's “guilty by association” culture, many customers don't want to work with those wo do business with the businesses that they don't like. This means that customers are willing to abandon a brand simply because they're associated with the business they don't like.
Just because February is over, it doesn't mean that love is no longer in the air. What it probably is going to signify is that the red-hot love that we experienced this month is likely to become something that's more comfortable and familiar. That's ok too! Without the more comfortable periods of love, we'd never be able to appreciate the red-hot ones. And who knows, we all might just get a little lucky in March to keep it all going for a bit longer.
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