I was visiting my friend Mitch the other day – he is one of the owners of Vision Tech Computers here in Fort Wayne – and we had a little chat. Mitch told me sometimes his customers (sometimes friends and relatives) would call him even after 11pm to ask him about a computer challenge and now, he has to turn off the phone after 11pm on most days. Unfortunately he does not get paid for advice that he provides.
My grandfather, a successful entrepreneur, used to say “The people who regularly provide or receive advice without getting compensated are both fools.”
I believe he was not against helping people or sharing information when necessary, because all his life he was involved in charity work pretty much every day. I believe he was talking about the “I would like to pick your brain for free” people and folks who do not value others’ time because their own time is not worth that much.
Not just Mitch but even I fall into this trap because most of us like the high we get from helping someone or sharing something we just discovered – especially in technology. In other cases we just don’t like to say “NO” to someone we know well.
What we don’t realize is the missed billable time not serving paying customers or the advice we give is not valued besides all the received compliments. Something that I also notice is in most cases the people who would receive free business advice don’t do anything with it because they know “what they paid” for it.
The bottom line is “what is not measured is not treasured.”
InfoGuru2K6 © 2006