I have been a stranger to my blog for the better part of a year now and to the people who continue to stop by and check in on things I both thank you and apologize.

I have made a commitment to finish the year strong and tell you a bit about the journey I and my business has been on over the last year. This could almost be seen as a bit of a state of the union address filled with a few lessons and some great stories.

So for Part 1, Lets start with a lesson: If something feels wrong and dirty then it most likely is! Towards the end of last year I started to look for a sales person to start to help me take my business to the next level and take some of the day to day pressure off myself. I ended up meeting with a guy that contacted me out of the blue so I figured I would give the meeting a shot. After the first meeting it never did feel quite right but I  choose to ignore the signs and continued on against my better judgement. BAD DECISION!!

One of the things that you don’t always think about when you get into these arrangements is what it could do to your personal and business reputation. I was smart when it came to protecting and keep my current clients at arms length from the sales guy. A decision that I thank my lucky stars for every day. If I hadn’t I think I could have lost my entire business in the matter of a couple months.

In the end I lost piles of my personal time, resources of my team, and revenue that I would have been able to have made if I had just been doing it on my own. I still have projects that are left unfinished that I feel I have a moral obligation to do the work even though I am going to continue to take a loss. It is really the only way I can begin to possibly keep a relationship with these clients and attempt to repair the reputation loss that my company may have faced.

So take the time to really research and interview before you get into these types of arrangements and don’t go all in right from the start. Their are a lot of Snake Oil Salesmen out there and if you feel the least bit funny about the person just do a small test project to make sure. You should be able to get an indication to see where the “all talk” ends and the work begins.

So that was Part 1 of my year in review. In Part 2 I will share the flip side of the coin with you and talk about the Calgary Homes and the Calgary Weddings project and what happens when it all comes together.