We all strive to exceed expectations in both our professional and personal lives. However, there are times when it’s crucial to check our egos and consider taking a pass.
For the past six months, I’ve been intensely training for a bucket-list opportunity: the Maah Daah Hey 100, a challenging 106-mile backcountry mountain bike race. Every day was dedicated to honing my physical fitness, mental toughness, nutrition, equipment, and all the necessary supplies for such an adventure. Then, a family member encountered an issue, and I made a difficult decision: I’d take a pass on the MDH this year.
My support system—my wife and partner of 37 years, along with my sons—wanted me to go. But sometimes, you truly should take a pass. It allows the situation to resolve, gives you time to regroup, and lets you work towards the next opportunity with a clearer mind.
Know Your Lane—And Prepare to Expand It Carefully
I share this because I receive numerous calls, texts, and emails daily from incredible people. Often, their goal is to satisfy customer needs or impress a prospective client by doing something they haven’t done before. Sometimes, you can jump in with both feet and get the job done with little effort or forethought. However, there are other times when you need to proceed with caution or, indeed, take a pass.
Consider this: if you’re a professional floor care provider specializing in carpet, expanding into upholstery isn’t a huge leap. As long as you educate your team on fiber type identification and the differences in subsurface materials (foams, panel backings, etc.), the transition should be relatively smooth.
However, if you primarily do carpet care and an opportunity arises to resurface serpentine tile, that should be a hard pass. I’m not saying you can never do it, but as you expand your services, you need to prioritize education, practice, practice again, and then practice some more.
Where Projects Go Off Track
Too often, we believe we’ve got a project covered from every angle, only to receive an 11 PM call saying, “We’re struggling,” or “This or that has happened.” More often than not, these issues stem from something being “devalued” along the way.
It could be:
- Initial Identification: Misidentifying the material you’ve been asked to work on.
- Facility Access: “Locked out”, having to work around occupants, slowing you to a crawl.
- Logistics: Not knowing the location of essential resources like electricity, water, wastewater, or the loading area.
- Emergency Contacts: Not having emergency phone numbers, leading to situations like being locked out after stepping out to the van.
- Equipment Failure: Equipment not being tested before leaving the shop and failing to work (or work properly) on site.
- Chemistry Issues: Not sending enough chemistry, or the tested area not accurately representing the entire scope.
- Productivity Miscalculation: The crew only completing a quarter of the expected work per hour.
- Unsatisfactory Results: The final results not matching the demo area.
Preparedness Over Pride
These are many possibilities for an unsuccessful outcome. Yet, almost all of them can be overcome by being thoroughly prepared and, perhaps, by simply taking a pass on the first opportunity that comes along.
