Be competent

Matt Henderson:

What’s up, everybody? It’s Matt from The Business Mind Podcast. Actually, this is my second episode today. I’m excited to talk to you guys about my second episode for today. I don’t think you’re going to listen to them on the same day, but that’s all right. If you do, that would be awesome. By all means, listen to as many as you want in a day.

…I wanted to talk to you guys because I had totally an experience that’s going on, and so I figured I had to let everybody know and I had to talk about it. So, if it seems like I’m ranting a little bit or just … I’m slightly annoyed, we’ll say. Let me explain to you what’s going on and then we’ll talk about how this relates.

I’m just going to preface it by saying just be competent at what you do. Be competent. Now, let me tell you why I’m saying this. Because today, well actually for the last two weeks for my business, I’ve been in negotiations with different shipping companies. It’s common for me, we go through this annually. It’s not always the same representatives that I want to be speaking with, but either way, I wind up having to deal with multiple companies and negotiations. It’s nonstop. I’m already used to how corporate life does business because although I am not in the corporate world because I do work for myself, I wind up a lot of times having to deal with corporate businesses for some products that I have and just some things that we do.

Sorry, I just had to pause for a second because I’m watching some woman just scream at some guy inside the road. Holy moly. Anyway, sorry. ADD kicking in. What was I saying?

So, I deal with these shipping companies all the time and I’m always negotiating with them for the next year, or the next six months or whatever it is. So … Oh, good. Well, they stopped yelling at each other. Squirrel.

So, I’m dealing with a new company right now and I’m kind of used to this as well. The new companies, they’re always questioning how much do you sell, how much do you actually ship, what are your numbers going to look like for the year? They want to have a gauge of what you are, of what size of business you are so that they can provide the correct shipping rates for you based on what your volume would be. Not that you guys need to know all of this, but I figured I’ll give you a little backstory.

That’s why the process does usually take north of a month. And depending on what company you’re dealing with, I’ve had ones that took up to six months to get hammered out. Not because I couldn’t get anything done for six months but because on their end they couldn’t make decisions in under six months. That’s corporate life for you, right? You have to have a meeting about a meeting to discuss what you’re going to do in the next meeting. God forbid, you just go in and do some work. Anyway, rant for a different day.

So, the new shipping company I’m dealing with. I contacted the representative and just asked the woman to go over some pricing for us, set us up an account. I even went as far as sending her the entire spreadsheet of every shipment that we have done at that size for the past 12 or 14 months so that they would know the volume, it’s not just me stating that this is the volume that we do. I didn’t do that. I actually sent her the sheet that says here’s the date, here’s the dimensions, here was the weight, here’s where it went, here’s how much we paid. I mean, we’re diligent about tracking all of this because we need the best pricing that we can get.

That being said, I give her all that information, I tell her it needs to be aggressive pricing because, as you can see, we are here to get some pretty aggressive pricing and I need to be at least comparable to the other companies.

Okay, so I said, “Go ahead, work up some numbers and let me know where you come to and what we’re looking at.” All right, so no big deal. This is pretty much how every negotiation goes. I’ve been doing them for about a decade now so I’m used to this.

A week goes by, no response from her. Okay. I mean, I’m trying to set up a fairly large account. Not the largest they have, but not the smallest either. Week two comes. All right, well, Monday, nothing; Tuesday, nothing; Wednesday, I got a response. All right, great. At least I’m hearing back from her at some point. I was right about sending that email, where are the numbers, but she got the response back to me.

She decided to send over an example of what our rates will now look like if we open up this account directly with them. She took four of my recent shipments that had actually shipped out with their company carrying them but through a third-party booking system.

Now, some of you are probably like, I don’t even know what he’s talking about. I booked to have a shipment picked up online through another company that’s like an independent third party and they select the closest carrier that can come and get it and handle it for you and give you some good pricing.

So, I had shipped these shipments with the same company, this is a freight company, and I’d shipped them with them already, so I had pricing of this is what I’ve already been charged to ship with your company. And now, she’s giving me the pricing of what the new pricing will be versus what I paid for the shipment so that I can have an idea of exactly what we’re talking about the discount being.

So, out of the four shipments she chose, which she could have chosen any of those, there were extensive amounts of them, she chose those four and she sent me back pricing that three of the prices were higher than what I already paid to ship those. The other one shipment was $3 less than what I paid.

Now, we’re talking shipments that cost anywhere between 150 and $300 per shipment, not low ticket shipments. So $3 in no way makes any difference whatsoever. I mean, sure, if it’s 160 versus 157, I will pick 157. But that’s not the point. Barely any difference. The others, the other three that were all higher weren’t just slightly higher. And then over time, with more shipments going out, they’ll adjust my rates. No, no, no. Not even in the ballpark. I have one shipment that I paid $150 to ship already from this freight company. Now, if I set up an account directly with that freight company, it will now cost me $304. More than double. More than double.

So, she sends over the pricing scheme and what it looks like, and I was so appalled that somebody would even send that to me. She wanted to have a phone conversation. I’ll be honest, everyone, I typically don’t get on the phone with anybody. I do all email all the time unless it’s a client that I need to talk to about something, and then we’ll sit on the phone and talk. But for something like this, it’s usually better to just do this via email because then everything is in writing and I don’t have to stress about, oh, maybe she misunderstood me when we were speaking on the phone. So, I love doing all these things in email.

Well, instead of that thing coming in and being comparable, they’re not even remotely close. She sends this thing to me and says, “Let me know what you think of the pricing.” That’s all her email said. “Here’s the four shipments that I chose the price out of, here’s what they were, and here’s what it would now cost you,” and she sends it over. She just says, “Let me know what you think.” We think that I’m going to think about this. You have to… It’s just math. If somebody’s paying double what they’ve already been charged, why would you even ask them what you think?

I’m sorry, I’m going to have to put you guys on hold. I actually have to go get gas in my car or I am not going to get home today. Before I have to have you guys listen to the gas station attendant, because here in New Jersey we’re not allowed to pump our own gas, I don’t want you guys to listen, so just hold on one second, I’m going to be right back. Hold on one second.

All right, sorry about that everybody. I am back. I don’t know what it is, people must know that I’m actually recording this episode right now because I just sat at the gas station … In New Jersey, if anybody’s not from New Jersey, sorry if I sound annoyed, if anybody’s not from New Jersey, for those of you don’t know, in this state it is illegal to pump your own gas. I know that sounds crazy, right? Illegal to pump your own gas. No, actually illegal. You cannot, by law, pump your own gas in this state. Which means you’re also not supposed to get out of your car and finish pumping your own gas, right?

So, I finished pumping, the gas finished, and there were three cars in the gas station with employees working, and guess what? I then sat there waiting for somebody to come back and take the nozzle out of my car for another eight to 10 minutes. I don’t know why. But, here we go, back to being competent at your job, right? Unbelievable.

So, the freight company person sends me those numbers back and says, “Let me know what you think.” Because I thought, wow, this is terrible, these numbers are just awful and in no way what I had asked for or even in the vicinity of what I would consider acceptable, I didn’t even reply to her. Because I thought she had to know that this is not acceptable. This is not even a decent number. I just blew it off because I thought, this person is treating me this way, I don’t know why they would be expecting the time of day back from me. So, I didn’t respond to her. This was last week.

Most of the week goes by. I get an email from her on Friday, of course at the end of the day so you can’t even get back to them, but that’s neither here nor there. I got an email back from her saying, “Hey, I emailed you early in the week. I hope you got a chance to look over the numbers. Please let me know what you think. We’d love to talk with you and figure out business.” She’s as though either they must think I’m a moron or she’s terrible at math and doesn’t know which way good numbers and bad numbers are supposed to go, or I thought she must be messing with me. She can’t possibly be asking me what I think and feeling that I would be satisfied with any of this. Right?

So, I immediately just, again, did not respond because I thought, what’s the point of responding? There is no resolution to be had from this, so I just didn’t respond again and I just let it sit. Sure enough, on Monday I come in and I get … It was Tuesday. It doesn’t matter. Either way, I get an additional email from her. “Hey, Matt, listen, I never heard back from you. I really wanted to figure this out. I thought we were on track to do some business together. Let me know if those numbers don’t seem to work for you, and I’m sure we can figure out some better pricing. I just need to see more figures and numbers from your company so that we can see how we could service you.”

I just sent her 14 months of every single bill totaling up to I don’t even know, tens of thousands of dollars, and she needs to see more. And then she actually asked again, well, just tell me what you thought of the numbers so that I can get an understanding of where we’re at.

So, I took the time now and I wrote an email back. I thought, well, I got to get back to this person because I need a new company, and if there’s even a remote chance of pulling this all together there, I got to try. So, I responded and I said, “Well, I did get a chance to look over the numbers which is exactly why I did not respond.” I wrote it out in the email exactly how I said it on the podcast. I said, “You have to know that this was not a good number for my company, that this would not in any way benefit me or help my company move forward.” Then I stated, “I had contacted you so that we could get some better pricing and instead of working with third-party companies, we’re going to work directly with the people that we should be working with.” The actual company just works directly.

So, I said, “No, none of these numbers are good, none of these will work for me. I don’t understand what you thought would be okay and what would work out better. That doesn’t make any sense to me because there’s no way I’m going to pay hundreds of dollars more to ship the same product and items.”

From that email, honestly my expectation was low. I expected no response because if that were me on the other side of that email, one, I would’ve already known this guy is not going to get back to me because the numbers I just sent him are god awful. And two, I would have felt bad even sending that over. I may have actually just sent an email that said, “Hey, listen, my company is not allowing me to provide you with competitive rates.” Just own it. It’s not her fault. She doesn’t own the company, it’s a massive shipping company. I get it. But just say, “I’m not even able to provide you good numbers, so I’d rather send you none.” Keep the window open. Keep a client, a potential client even there to talk. Because from what she sent over, you’re not even looking at me as a potential client, you’re looking at me as someone you don’t even want to discuss anything with.

So, she comes back to me and says, “Contact me again,” whatever. I just said, “Here’s the deal.” Like I said, I didn’t expect any response from her at all. To my surprise, I got a response within five minutes and it said, “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry to hear that you weren’t happy about the pricing or it wasn’t working out for you. Can we get on the phone again and talk it over some more?”

I don’t even understand. I wasted 15 minutes of my time. Now, I’ve told you guys in the past, track my day by minutes. Minutes. This person got 15 of those minutes. I covet my time. I hold it so close. You better have a reason why you need to talk to me, and it has to be something that isn’t just benefiting you. It has to benefit me.

Now, the first conversation I had with her, I reluctantly said I would get on the phone. And when I got on the phone, I was very clear with her, “Listen, I’m very busy. I have no more than five minutes to be on this phone call to discuss everything we need to discuss and then I need to move on and get back to the other stuff I’m working on.” I gave her five minutes. Now, whether she didn’t pay attention during those five minutes or she didn’t take correct notes, because this is why I do everything in email, she comes back to me with some terrible numbers and then is shocked that I’m not willing to pay hundreds of dollars more to do the exact same thing.

This is like going to a car dealership getting told that the car you want is $30,000 and on your way home you see another dealership. You stopped in and you told them about the deal you were just about to get but you walked out for $30,000 and they say, “Oh, man, we’ve got that same car here. I’ll sell it to you for 40.” That’s what she told me. That’s basically what I got told.

So, once you said can we talk again because I still feel like I can assist you, my initial reaction was immediately no. No, we’re not wasting any more of Matt’s time. Absolutely not. My secondary reaction was, what would there be to even have a conversation about because I can’t even fathom what we’d be talking about. I mean, I have no idea. Does she want to know my birthday or something? What are we talking about? I don’t even know. I don’t know what couldn’t be explained in an email, first of all. But if it can’t be explained in an email, okay, then why are we even talking about it anymore at all? Because my opinion is if you couldn’t solve the problem initially, then you most likely won’t be able to solve the problem at all. Because I was really giving you every opportunity that I could to just get me a decent number.

So, long story short with her and that freight company, now that you’ve listened to me rant for a few minutes, I had to push it off. I had to push it off. I don’t have the time this week. I may or may not send her an email tomorrow stating anything that I need to say, but I was extremely annoyed. That was just about … I just wanted her to be competent at her job. Just competent. I’m not even looking for her to be the best at her job. I’m just looking for competency.

Can you come in, speak with a potential client, you don’t even have my business, potential client, understand what their needs are and then provide that service? And if you can’t, it’s okay if the answer is no. That’s where I’m at. It’s alright if the answer is no. It doesn’t have to be yes, but I didn’t even get that. This was, let me just give him these numbers even though they’re terrible.

So, I pushed her off because I just felt like this person is trying to monopolize my time now again, and she wants more time to talk about something that I’m not even sure, with what she sent me, there is a resolution to. That got me started on the whole being competent thing at your job. And then I just … I got it.

I had another shipping company that I’ve been working with to try and negotiate with them taking our freight, which they’ve offered to, once again, didn’t provide comparable numbers. But I came back to them because the representative showed up at my office two weeks ago and he walked in with his boss. I just happened to be downstairs at the front at the time when he walked in.

So, he walks in, and you know what this is now, if you listened to any of my other podcasts. OPA, right? Other people’s agenda. He comes in Tuesday to bring his boss around to all of his accounts without asking me if it’s okay he stops and uses up my time. He stops in with his boss to go over how things are going with my account. Well, I thought, oh, okay, so now you want to monopolize my time because you have your own agenda. Okay.

So, when he’s there, I said, “You know what, everything’s fine with the small package stuff you’re doing for me, but I need you to get freight numbers together for me. I spoke with your freight person.” Totally separate company from the other one. This person did the same exact thing that the recent freight person did and gave me garbage numbers and then just said, “Let me know if you want us to start handling it,” which I said, “No. None of these numbers are even in the ballpark of what I currently pay.” No response to that email.

So, when I had my representative, who handles these small packages for us, he’s in there and I said to him, “Listen, I need warehousing on the West Coast. Can you provide some warehousing and do some drop shipping for me for our company? I’ll have staff on the West Coast.” He said, “Oh, actually, yes. We have those services. I’ve been speaking with one of my other clients, but as soon as I get back to the office, I’m going to send you all that information so that you can see if it financially works out for you, and then we can figure out how the whole thing would work.”

I said, “Great. That’s awesome. Send me that information as soon as you get back. That’s something I need to get on right now. While you’re at it, have the freight person get in touch with me again. I’m disappointed in the numbers they got. I talked to his boss. Listen, the freight end of this is holding things back, they’re not getting to me,” yada, yada. Then I said, “But definitely when you get back, I’m all about that warehousing and pick and pack. If you can do all that stuff, that would be terrific. Let me know how the numbers look.”

How do you think that went? Not a response. I haven’t heard from the guy since. It had to be three weeks ago now. Can I follow up? Absolutely. Should I have to? Should I have to hunt you down to give you money? No way. No way. You know what that is? It’s incompetent, just like the woman in the last two weeks of doing this freight negotiation. Incompetent. Couldn’t take the time to actually review the numbers I sent her and then say, oh, wait a second, none of these numbers match up.

The guy, the rep who shows up in my office, monopolizes my time and then sits there and says, “Oh, absolutely, I’m going to send you all that information as soon as I get back to my office. I’ll have it for you today or tomorrow.” “Terrific. No problem. If it gets to me tomorrow, that’d be great.” No response.

Be competent. You want my business, you come in and take 15 minutes of my time with your boss, and you want me to sit there and basically say in front of your boss how great of a job you’re doing. And then on the back end, you dog me and don’t even send me the information. Incompetent.

Rolling to the gas station, all I need the guy to do is put the nozzle in the car, turn it on, then when it clicks they get out of the car, hand me back my credit card with the receipt. That was it. That was it. Fifteen minutes later, I almost got out of the car, I started to open my door, here comes some random other guy from the gas station and he finally just walks over looking confused as to why I’m still sitting there. It’s a simple system, you put it in, you pull the trigger and it gives you gas, you take it back out, you hand the credit card back with the receipt. That’s it.

I know I’m ranting a little bit, but I’m looking for people who are competent in their job. Everybody’s got to be competent in your job. I’m not looking for experts right now. At certain levels of a career and at certain jobs, I’m not looking for expertise, I’m looking for competency. I get it when you start a job, I’m not expecting you to be an expert, I’m just expecting you to be trying to be competent.

I think that’s step one, right? Work from being new at a position to just making yourself competent at doing that job. And then step two would be to get good at that job. I mean good at it. Own it. Be good at your job. Step three would be to become an expert at whatever you do, then the sky’s the limit, right? You have something worth offering people, or selling people, or showing people. Ways to get a promotion at your job. Something. Something.

But these, I guarantee you, all three of these people, actually I know one of them already, the small package person that walked in with his boss already, those three people, I guarantee you, will be the ones that complain about what they make at their job, how long they work and how they’re underappreciated. Almost guarantee you.

And I know, for the one person, the guy who showed up with his boss to my shop, he sat in my shop and complained to me that he’s not getting paid enough, he needs to get paid more, he should already be making a lot more, this is ridiculous. This is somebody showing up pitching their business to me, giving me the woes of how he’s not paid enough. This person is, ballpark, I’m going to say 26 to 30. Somewhere in that range.

Now, he did tell me, in his industry where he works, he’s at a higher pay scale than other people in the industry. However, he complains about not getting paid enough because he feels that he is smarter than most of his colleagues. One, I don’t care what’s going on at your job because you’re pitching me as to why I should use your service. You’re going to complain to me about your company and then want me to use your company. That’s pretty backwards. I mean, just not a good way of doing business in general. Not a great sales routine at all.

Two, at 26 and working for a corporation, I don’t know why you’re complaining about not being paid enough. Because, to be honest with you, I don’t know one person at 26 who worked for a corporation that told me they got paid what they felt they deserve to get paid. Nobody. I’ve never met somebody who said that. Typically, because everyone at that age feels like, again, something I mentioned in another episode, they went to college, they got their quote-unquote education, which I think is honestly BS because their education was how to do a keg stand, how many parties they can get to in a week, how many classes they can miss before they fail the class. That’s the education, how can I do the least amount and still walk out of here with a degree that cost me north of 100 grand and then I’m going to go and work for some other person who honestly doesn’t know … You know, they’re just going to work for somebody else.

I’m not saying you would have gotten the job if you didn’t have the degree, but just because you went to college doesn’t mean you get paid a lot of money. Same thing, if you have a master’s degree, it doesn’t mean you’re going to make more money. Hypothetically, should you get paid more? Sure. I guess if you have a higher level education, you should be able to get yourself a better job. But you know what, try being an entrepreneur. Nobody cares what your level of education is. Nobody cares. You could be a savant, be the smartest person in the world, but if you’re not generating income, nobody cares.

I’m just so tired of people not being competent at their jobs, not doing their jobs competently. They’re not even covering the bare bones of what it takes to get the job done, and then they’ll complain. They’ll leave companies and go to the next company and have that whole grass is always greener on the other side of things going on. I find it obnoxious and annoying. Honestly, that’s how I feel about it.

I find it obnoxious and annoying because I have worked for myself almost my whole life and I’ve never had somebody else that I can rely on to get me a salary or get me a paycheck or pay my bills. I’ve got to go out and make it for myself. So when I see these other people actually complaining that fact that… Sorry, I was just walking, actually, into my house right now. When I see these other people and hear these other people complaining about their jobs, complaining about their paycheck, complaining, complaining, complaining, complaining, complaining, and then I see the level of service that they don’t provide, it’s always falling on deaf ears with me. I literally can’t listen to it anymore.

I know part of it is my age. I’m getting old. I’m not in my 20s anymore. I’m 41 years old and I guess at this point I’ve gotten tired of hearing people complain, knowing how hard I’ve had to work for everything. Nothing came easy. Not one single thing has come easy for me, and that’s all right. I’m not even complaining about it. I expected it. I expected things to go exactly how they have been going. I hoped for better outcomes, I pushed for better outcomes but, hey, this is what it is, right? This is how it goes.

I know it sounds like I’m just ranting and complaining but, people, just take it to heart. And if you’re this person, if I’m offending you, I’d like to say I’m sorry but I’m not. I’m not sorry. I want you to look inward, and if this is who you are, if that’s who you are, if you’re the complainer, if you’re the person talking that you don’t get paid enough and that it’s not right and all of that, if that’s you, then take a moment and reflect and figure out exactly what you need to do to turn things around. Because if this is what you’re going to keep doing and this is how you’re going to try and run your life, it’s going nowhere good. You’re not going to get anywhere. In 20 years, you’re still going to be the guy or girl that’s complaining about what you’re getting paid at your job.

If you’re not going to try and be competent at your job, then why go at all? Let me guess, you need a paycheck, right? You need to make something. Well, we all do. We have all worked jobs that we don’t like. I have had so many jobs that I don’t even know if I can go back and remember all of them at this point. That’s a lie, I probably could. I mean, I’ve had some miserable jobs. Miserable.

I remember doing yard clean outs behind houses and businesses and shops and all that kind of stuff. I was probably in high school. Yeah, grammar school, high school, something like that. I was doing cleanouts behind businesses. Things were all overgrown and there’s weeds everywhere and they could barely open the backdoor of their business to get out and stuff like that. They paid me to come in with a friend and I cleared it all out and hauled it out of there. It paid well, but do you know the sacrifice that I made for it? Let me tell you, I’m allergic to Poison Ivy, Poison Oak and Poison Sumac and I’ve gotten all of those, all of those, from those types of jobs.

Knowing that I’m allergic to those things, I still took the jobs, I still walked in with a smile on my face, I still told the owners that I was so happy to be there and thank you so much for the work and I really appreciate it. I would go and do these jobs and you’re ready for this? About three days later I would be covered, covered with Poison Ivy or Poison Sumac or Poison Oak to the point that a few times … Ah, no, only one time, it was so bad I actually had to go and get steroid shots directly into it just to get it to go away. I had a serious reaction.

So, I get it. I understand what it’s like to have a job you don’t love. I understand what it’s like to have a job you don’t enjoy every day or all day. I get that. But you got to do your job competently. Try to be the best person at your job. If this is what you’re doing all day, be the best person at it.

Here’s the last thing that I’ll comment on. I stopped going to Dunkin Donuts a few times, I guess it’s only … Oh, finally it’s been like a year. It’s about a year ago. I stopped going to Dunkin Donuts, and let me tell you why. I had the same experience. I would walk into a Dunkin Donuts, the person working there would either not speak to me when I walked up to the counter as my turn to order. They wouldn’t even say, hi, what can I get for you? They wouldn’t even say that sometimes. The ones that did would, I’m not saying this to sound offensive, I would walk up, they would talk in another language to the person standing next to them, a language I didn’t understand, they would look at me and then I would just order. I kid you not. I kid you not.

Now, offensive, once again, offensive is an understatement. You’re speaking a language that other people in front of you don’t understand and then you’re not even asking me how I can help you. They would then slide a cup of coffee to me and tell me to put my card in or give them cash. And when I gave them cash, I actually had them sit there and drag it out, counting out change, because they wanted me to just give it to them as a tip. One person even said, “Do you want me to just put this in the tip jar?” I looked at him and I said, “No, I want my change.” Right? Because tips are for exceptional service, not because you got me a cup of coffee. That’s your job. You work at Dunkin Donuts. It’s the whole job.

I don’t need to keep ranting, but I had to get it off my chest. It drives me … I get myself all worked up. It drives me insane watching it and it’s because I’m a worker. I’ve always been a worker. I would work until I fell over and I still do. I will work until it’s so late that I try and make a decision whether I’m going to even go to bed or whether I should turn the computer off. Sometimes I’m just like, “Oh, forget it. I’ll just keep going.” But I can’t miss a whole day out at the shop because I’ve got stuff I have to handle there. People who expect, they expect me to be able to handle some stuff for them over there, so I have to get in.

But this is what I’m saying, that you have to be competent at your job. Just be competent. Show people that you care, care about your job. Think about what’s the best case scenario? How can I give back to my job? How can I provide the best level of service?

Even if you’re a bust person at a restaurant, you’re just clearing tables, that’s great. You’re doing something. Now, do it to the best of your ability. I started out with jobs like that. My first paying jobs were at restaurants. Well, my first legally paying jobs. I always got paid off the books prior to that. If anyone works for the IRS, please do not reach out to me because that actually never happened. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

But that’s the problem, people just … They’re upset with their life, they’re upset where they’re at, they don’t like the job they have, they don’t like where they’re at in their career, their life, their situations, whatever is going on. I get it. There’s a lot of times I haven’t been happy with where I’m at. But you know what the solution is? Look inside. Look internally and figure out that solution. Don’t blame the boss that’s providing you work. It’s not their fault that you’re getting paid, whatever, minimum wage to do your job. That’s not their fault, that’s just what the job pays. It’s your thing to go and make something more of your life and your day and your situation so that you get paid more, not your boss’s job to just pay you more.

You know, I’ve had people come in that have worked for me in the past and I knew that they expected a raise, and I get that. There is a cost of living increase that helps as you work at a place, and I do agree with that. Just the cost of living increases in a paycheck. It’s the right thing to do. It’s difficult to make life happen if your money isn’t keeping up with where you are. But that’s about it, a raise at a job.

Typically, in the past, like back in the day, when you got a raise at your job it was because, once again, it’s like a tip for good service. You were doing an exceptional job and your boss wanted to reward you for the hard work you were doing, so you would get a raise. It’s an incentive program.

Nowadays, people just think, because I showed up every day or most days or some days, depending on who you are, I deserve a raise at the end of the year. No. Not true, actually. If you work for an entrepreneur, that’s not true at all because if you only show up … Yes, I’m having a beer, everybody. It’s life. I’m going to calm down. If you’re just showing up to your job and you’re just a body there and you’re doing the bare minimum, if you work for an entrepreneur, if you work for me, you’re never going to get a raise.

Actually, I’ll be honest, if you show up and you just do the bare minimum to get by, you’re not going to be there very long. I have a very strict policy and it is one that’s to be followed by every entrepreneur, in my opinion. It’s hired slowly and fires quickly. If someone’s a problem, get rid of him. We’ve talked about that in another episode too. If you’ve listened to them, you’ll know that that’s exactly how I run things and I don’t mess around with that at all. I’ve learned my lesson over the past.

It seems crazy in today’s world that people are just still incompetent at their job. I’m not talking to young people, I’m not talking to older people, and I’m not just talking about the guy pumping some gas. I run into this at least, at least once a day. Once a day. I go into, like say, get a cup of coffee and the person can’t be bothered to just be polite. That’s crazy. I’m paying you, I’m keeping your business open. But that’s how people are. I can’t change them. I can’t make them swim towards me so I can help them.

The helicopter’s here, if you listened to that episode, the helicopter’s here to save the people from the boat. Who are we going to save? There’s more people on the boat than I’ve got room for in the helicopter right now. Who am I going to save? Be competent.

I got an issue we’re dealing with work right now, somebody who’s just was incompetent and wants more from me and my company right now. They’re not getting it because they were incompetent and they felt that they deserve more than they deserve. They’re not getting it, and now they’re acting like a baby. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but that’s reality. If you work as an entrepreneur, you understand what I’m talking about.

Life is difficult, work is difficult and you’re hustling every day. I want everybody to be successful, but when you have people around you that are incompetent, you’re only as strong as your weakest link. Isn’t that to say? So, inside your business, if you have one of those weak links, that’s going to be your failure spot. If you’re dealing with negotiations and you have a weak link on the other side, it’s a failure spot. It’s going to fail. It’s failing for me right now, and I’m trying to find a new solution to that which I will have by tomorrow. It’s Friday here and I needed to get this handled.

But that’s why I wanted to get into this today. I needed to get it off my chest and just let everybody know, start with just being competent at your job and then shoot for being good at your job. At the end of the day, your ultimate goal is to be exceptional. Be an expert at your job whatever your job is. If you work for yourself and you’re doing your own thing, you’re probably more driven than anybody else listening and you’re going to do it and you’re going to drive to be the best person because it’s your life and your livelihood on the line so you’re most likely going to work harder than the next guy.

But if you work for somebody else and if you’re not happy there and it’s causing you to not give the position you’re all, then my suggestion is start looking for something new. Because it’s probably not just you feeling that way, I’m sure it’s everybody else around you that feels that way. If you’re not putting 100% into any job, then everybody else around you is making up what you’re not putting in and they’re most likely getting annoyed with you. You should start looking for something else because you’re not doing anybody service just hanging around.

If you’ve been somebody who’s just been there a long time, you’ve been in a place a long time, that’s not a reason to stay. If you’re happy where you are at, then great. If you’re not, you should go and then work at being competent at your next job, and then work at being good at your next job and, then exceptional at your job. And then you’re going to have something worth selling to people. You’re going to have a way to sell yourself. You’re going to get yourself into a better job, a better career, a better life. You’re going to be happier, wealthier and wiser for it all. Okay?

You were probably wondering how I was going to wrap that whole thing up, right? It seemed like I was far away. All right, so this is kind of a long episode, I apologize. I got into a lot of rants, but it just had to be said. People need to understand. Be competent. Do your job to the best of your ability. Excel. Excel at things. Be the best person at your job you can be. Own it. Own what you do every day. These are the conversations I’m having at work, so you should be happy you don’t work for me. Own your job. Be confident in what you do. Become competent in what you do, then good, then great. Okay?

This is Matt from The Business Mind Podcast. I really am thankful that you guys are listening. I appreciate it. Any feedback that you want to give me, I’d love to hear it, [email protected]. If you have any business questions, you want me to discuss something on the show, by all means, reach out to me anytime. Don’t hesitate. I’d love to speak with you about it.

If you need assistance with your business, reach out to me as well, [email protected] and we’ll set up a call, Skype, FaceTime, whatever you want to do, and we’ll discuss your business opportunities and what’s going on with them and how I might be able to assist you with those. But if you just need a fact finding call to get some help, I’m willing to help anybody who needs it. So, reach out to me. I’m not going to charge you money. I’d like to just give you a hand and get you on the right track and get you set up for success. Okay?

That being said, wherever you listen to this podcast today, if you have a minute, I’d love it if you could go and leave a review, maybe like it. Maybe jump on social media and chat with your friends, tell them how awesome this podcast is, The Business Mind Podcast, how cool it is to listen to Matt every day tell you the next little thing or a tidbit about business; maybe just rant about how people don’t do their job well, I don’t know. Right?

I’m sorry if you guys had to listen to that today, but I hope it resonates with someone out there. You just go in and crush your job. If you’re the one who has people around you that aren’t crushing their job, maybe think about my other solutions of hiring slowly, fire quickly if people are dragging down. All right?

Leave me a review wherever you can. If you want to hear anything about an episode or you want to dive further into anything, I would love to. Just let me know what you’re looking to hear about and I will dive as deeply into it as I can.

I am going to head out and stop rambling. I will talk to everyone soon. This was an awesome podcast. It was a lot of fun. I’m sorry I got into rants. Have a great rest of your day and maybe the rest of my night, and I will talk to you guys again soon.

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