I have always believed that the secret to a successful business is do it like a baby would. By that I mean the old saying, "you have to crawl before you can run". I think it's one of the most important things to remember when making business decisions. Yes, you should take risk, but take risk that's in line with your next step. One foot in front of the other. I think we've done a good job of crawling and we've really started to master walking. We try to give advice to our agents and guide them along the successful path, but people don't always listen to us. Which is one of the reasons we have a fairly interesting attrition rate.
One of the interesting attrition stories I have is one about Sara Gene*. Sara was brought into our little family through the back door, so she didn't really get the full interview process until after she was already involved in bonding. She decided she wanted to cut the middle man out and go direct, but she didn't anticipate that if she changed the rules midway we would change the game. I mean it's only fair to change the game if the "employee" wants to change the rules. Personally, I think it takes a real bold person to think they can run the show if they don't even have the money to buy the tickets, but hey, what do I know?
So, we get the new contract together and make an appointment to meet. She missed it, no phone call, email, text. So we make another appointment- she missed it. And then we make a third appointment- she makes it at the last possible minute. We go through everything and she decided that she wants her lawyer to look over it. OK, fine, no problem, but she could have had me fax it on Wednesday when we scheduled the first meeting. I knew it was bull shit, even though I didn't know exactly why she was trying to buy time. She tells me that she's going to call me first thing in the morning.
The morning comes. The afternoon passes by and at 2pm I send her a text message asking her what's going on with the contract. Her husband calls me and starts with "now listen here..."
Now I don't know about you, but I think it takes balls to call up the person backing you with $800k investment and start a conversation with "Now look here..." But, you know, more power to you if you think you can.
Long story short, I don't intimidate easily and he was apologizing profusely within 2 minutes of my "countdown". (Btw, if you ever get the countdown, don't let me get past 3. This guy get to 6.) Those of you who know me understand that I don't really like people who apologize too much because it makes me distrust them and an apology looses meaning when it's given too freely. So, this is a red flag for me.
But, still wanting this work out, I overlook this phone call and make a mental note to talk to Sara Gene about it next time we meet. (A piece of advice for women in business- don't have "your man" fight your battle for you because it seriously undermines you.)
So, she dicks me around a couple more days to eventually say that "her lawyer" didn't see how she would make enough money to cover what she's already spending in business advertising, etc. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know many lawyers who will advise on contract rates unless they are negotiating for you. And not to mention, her contract rate was going up from 2 points to 6 points...um, hello, raise. So, again, the bull shit flag goes up. Well, we end up pulling her backing to find out that she had already gotten someone else to back her. Wow, so now she's violated her original contract because we had never released her from the original contract. Hrm, what are we to do? (We're still working on that one.)
To get back to my original thought about crawling before you run. My point here is that Sara Gene is cutting her nose off to spite her face because she is jumping sureties/investors too often (4 months in the business and on her second surety). She's spent thousands of dollars wrapping her Lexus and big pimping truck, she's probably spent thousands on Yellowbook advertising and she has the big pimping bondsman mentality going strong.
Yeah, these people come out here, attempt to play with the big dogs and get hurt. The problem I see with these wanna-be business people is that they are a big nuisance for a short period of time and leave the rest of us to clean up their bull shit. It annoys the hell out of me, but gives me a good story to train our "play by the rules" agents.
We're all going to make the money and we're all going to be successful as long as we learn to master each step...crawl, walk, run, sprint, fly. Simple concept to some, impossible to understand for others.
*Names have been changed.
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