Show the decisions behind your work.

I'm an MBA running a pest control company. My competitors charge 30% less than I do. I tell my techs that's fine. It's fine because the math doesn't work at 30% under. New pest control companies open in my market every year. They come in cheap. They run aggressive ads. They underprice the route work to grab volume. But not if you're paying your techs real money. Not if you're funding 401Ks and healthcare. Not if you're investing in training and equipment and the kind of careful work that actually solves the problem. There are only two ways the cheaper guy stays cheaper. He cuts the quality of his service. Or he cuts what he pays the person doing it. Either way, the customer pays for it eventually. I never look at what my competitors are charging. I look at what Eastline costs to run. I look at what my team is worth. I price from there. When a tech tells me we lost a bid to someone 30% lower, I tell him the same thing every time: "Tell the customer to call us when they have an issue. That price won't last three years." A race to the bottom only ends one way. I'm not running it.

For years I had breakfast once a month with a donor who had played a major role in founding our local community foundation. We talked about her family, her work, the organization, the community. She was a loyal supporter of ours, and I valued her deeply. Because of her history with the foundation, I always assumed, and I want to be honest that assumption was a mistake, that her estate would eventually go there. I never asked. I never pushed. I just showed up, month after month, because I genuinely cared about her. Then one morning, over what I expected to be our usual breakfast, she looked at me and said: "I'd like to meet with your planned giving director. I'm not happy with the direction the Foundation is heading, and I've decided to leave my estate to your organization instead." Several years later, when she passed, our nonprofit received a transformational gift of $4 million. I didn't earn that gift by making a brilliant ask. I earned it by being present, without an agenda, long enough that she trusted me with something that mattered. The most important work in fundraising often doesn't look like fundraising at all. It looks like breakfast. #fundraising #legacygiving #donorelations #nonprofitleadership

Start up story.... 1992 was the late Queen's annus horribilius, mine was 2012.....a full 20 years later than hers. I was three years post starting Breckland Orchard and it was BRUTAL. I had to do not one, but two product recalls that summer....dispose of thousands of bottles, the cost of doing this was astonomical [more than my entire year's turnover...yes you read that right turnover, not profit] and the stress levels were off the scale. The cause of the nightmare was one of my suppliers, and it was pretty clear cut. I genuinely didn't know what to do.....so I did what I tend to do in these situations and just talked to lots of people and get advice. The best advice I got was from Mary Currie-Smith, who'd I'd only met once at a networking event....and she said there were two routes I could go: Route One - would be to engage a solicitor, who would tell me I had a case and I could spend the next seven years looking backwards, spending lots of money but probably ultimately getting legal settlement. Route Two - would be to put the same energy into looking forwards, to growing the business, taking the hard knock and moving on. Why spend the next seven years living in the past? ....and of course I took Route two...what a wise wise fantastic person she is to have told me to do that. And my learnings? 🌍 Starting a business is blooming hard work - don't let anyone tell you it isn't, but if you are going to have a knock, its a bit like rock climbing...better to do it nearer the bottom of the climb. I look back now and think thank goodness that happened only 3 years after starting. 🌍 I emailed and phoned every single stockist I had, and was absolutely open about what had happened. Many of them said the email was so deeply personal they could feel my pain through the computer. Honesty and transparency definitely is what its all about in these situations 🌍 I have never forgotten the kindness that some people showed at that time. One of my biggest customers told me they were going to pay my invoice, despite me uplifting the stock. 'We think you need that money' is what they said - 'send the replacement stock in when you can free of charge'. To be so kind was unbelievable, and I have never forgotten to do the same for others. 🌍 Breckland Orchard is stronger, better, and more robust for that 2012 experience. There is little chance of the same thing happening again. Every entrepreneur will have had the same hard knocks.....and most of us come out of them stronger...just remember to fall early! Cheers! [and thank you Mary x] PS - Me in 2012- Yeak! #hardknocks #lessonslearned #learning #advice