“Earn millions using my secret Internet shortcuts” sounded very promising from the blaring TV pitchman at 2:30 a.m. I was awake at this horrible hour nursing a terribly swollen knee that I earned falling down while running on a wooded trail. More on this later.
What sounded even more appealing was that no prior experience or knowledge of computers or the Internet would be required in order to earn these shortcut millions.
I have a pitch of my own: There is no shortcut to success.
Let’s relate this to a business. You can become more efficient at servicing or producing something and, yes, this efficiency allows you to increase your margins. There’s no shortcut to these gains. The hard work had to be put in somewhere in order to realize the gains. This could be in the form of extensive research, paying someone for expertise, or the costs of time and money when trial and error experimentation is employed. Have you noticed that UPS trucks only make right-hand turns? The routing software intentionally routes them to only make right-hand turns. It’s faster, so they can make more deliveries in the same day, since you can make a right on red. It’s safer, meaning less chance of injury or downtime for accidents, since you are not crossing traffic. It’s a shortcut earned through intensive research at UPS to gain efficiency.
I know all sorts of shortcuts to handle Northern Virginia traffic. But all of these came by spending time reading a map, investing in a GPS and getting lost. All of the shortcuts came at a price of time or money and therefore an earned investment.
I read with dismay several weeks ago about a couple moving to the Fredericksburg area who had been “ripped off” by a moving company. Who’s really at fault? The company may not have acted in the client’s best interest and is certainly paying a price in terms of negative publicity. What happens the next time someone Googles that moving company?
But more responsibility or fault really lies with the family. They stated that they flipped through the phone book, called several movers and went with the lowest bid. It did strike them as odd that this was the only company that did not do a site visit before giving a verbal quotation. Two big red flags. They took a shortcut and went with the cheapest without spending the time to check references or get a written estimate, and they paid for their mistake. No doubt an expensive lesson.
By doing the hard work you gain the appreciation, experience and knowledge. By making a plan you develop a roadmap for success. Simple things avoid big costs later: Read the instructions, take written notes, ask questions when something is unclear, check your homework, seek advice. When a solid foundation is in place and earned, to others it seems so effortless, but really it’s that they cannot discern between your earned effectiveness and shortcuts.
As I sat sulking about my knee and the several days off of training, I thought about what lessons could be learned. Pay now or pay later. Either way, you’re going to pay. I thought I was putting in the time now for a better race performance. What I didn’t do was follow my coach’s instructions. I’m training for a half Ironman triathlon this fall, and by any measure it’s pretty intense. For my second workout of the day, my coach told me to run an easy five miles. The first half was on a wooded trail, and as I came up to the roadway I would be able to run faster to achieve a better time. I accelerated, and 10 meters from the pavement I went down hard, striking my knee on a root. An easy fiver meant that I was just keeping my muscles loose and focusing on my breathing. The workout goal was toward building endurance, not speed. By not carefully following instructions, I paid the price with a two-and-a-half mile walk back with a swelling knee. What was meant to be a 45-minute workout turned out to be an hour and fifteen minutes. Some shortcut.
Jason Cohen is president of ILM Corp, a Fredericksburg based business that provides document conversion and management services. The goal of his column is to address the social and emotional aspects of running a business and how it relates to everyone’s lives. He can be reached at jcinfburg@gmail.com