Posted by: TAZ Networks on December 19, 2016 at 3:02 pm
Tavis Patterson, President & Owner of TAZ Networks
by Tavis Patterson
As the owner of a services-based company that exclusively supports other businesses, I get to see a lot of operations each day and talk to a lot of decision makers weekly. I have never claimed to be a business consultant but, after 13 years in this business, I sure can say that I’ve seen all types of businesses. And owners as well. I try to glean a little from each business I visit on how we can run TAZ Networks even better. And sometimes, as you can probably imagine, we stay away from certain businesses. However, one thing is clear: we see a certain type of business owner who make our best clients and, in turn, we see great growth in these clients.
What do these great owners have in common? Trust. They trust us, they trust their people, they trust the business they’ve built (while making sure to verify as well). It’s interesting that I see a direct correlation between those that fully trust us with their IT, including hardware recommendations we make, and the growth of their company. When a business owner fully trusts us and knows that he knows how to make great widgets but doesn’t know technology and relies on us to make IT recommendations, they also do trust their employees and their operations more. The result? They get tremendous growth because the business owner is spending his precious time on making better and more widgets than wondering if they should spend an extra $50 on a computer because we recommended it.
One such owner who trusts us has had a great relationship with us for the past 8 years. And their business has grown tremendously including being bought recently by a publicly-traded, billion (!) dollar company. (Yes, that’s “billion-with-a-b” billion!) They definitely regularly check in on us but they trust we know the solutions and how to get it done.
There are so many owners that view every little IT expense (and probably every expense for that matter) down to the dollar. The result? They spend their precious time getting caught up in a whirlwind of day-to-day items and never focus on growing their business.
Again, I’m not a business consultant but I’ve seen enough businesses to know when someone has trust or someone views everyone and everything as just a cost center. Ughh, time to move on!