10 Lessons from 10 Years
Today marks 10 years since the first official day of Krile Communications. It’s hard to believe it has been that long and yet it seems like just yesterday. My husband and I had two little babies at home – both of which are now pre-teenage boys, and for some reason we thought that starting a business would be a good idea in the midst of a national recession.
It turned out it wasn’t a good idea. It was an incredible idea!
And while I’m not going to pretend to be some big business expert (I mean quite honestly, I ran this company for nine years without actually having a working budget, so my “business” acumen is probably not something to aspire to), I have spent some time reflecting about how we managed to beat the odds and make it to 10 years. Here are my top 10 lessons…
10. When things at home aren’t working, work isn’t working. Look, I love my job. But the love of my life is my husband, and together we love our boys with all our hearts. We all get along pretty darn well and have a lot of fun together. But when I’m worried about something at home, it doesn’t matter how good things might be going at work, it really doesn’t matter. They are my #1 priority. Always have been. Always will be.
9. You never regret making a business decision based on preserving a genuine relationship, but almost always regret making a business decision based on fear of losing money. My very first three retainer clients are still retainer clients to this day. Our work with them has ebbed and flowed with their work, but they are still our clients. That is because we try to always make the choice of relationship over money. When something goes wrong, we are the first to offer to cover the cost – even if it’s not “our fault.” Perhaps never before in the history of our company have we been able to put this principal into action as right now during this pandemic. As clients have had to reduce or suspend their spending with us, we have made decisions based on their needs, not ours, and I have not regretted those decisions for a minute.
8. The line “It’s not personal. It’s just business.” from the movie The Godfather is bunk. (Okay, so I actually learned it from the movie You’ve Got Mail, as Tom Hanks quoted The Godfather, but whatever.) When you are the business owner, your clients are your friends/your friends are your clients, and your employees are like your family, EVERYTHING is personal. In fact, it’s more fun that way anyway – because even when you’re working, you’re spending time with people you like a lot, and in some cases, love like family.
7. You do you. Trying to “outdo” the other guy is almost always a waste of time. Trying to beat someone at their own game is fruitless. Instead, work to be the best version of you and your company that you can be. As my youngest son frequently says while waving his hand through the air, “You do you…follow your dreams.”
6. When you take care of your community, your community takes care of you. And I don’t mean just writing a check to little league to sponsor a team every once in a while (although as a baseball mom, that’s always welcome!),I mean REALLY taking care of your community. Listen to the people, find out what they need and, most of all, help them when they ask. God gave you skills and abilities to use to help your neighbor. Make sure serving the community is not just a “project” for your company, but actually woven into the very fabric of the work you do every day.
5. Roots and wings are equally important. Roots come in many forms – our hometown, our family and even our first internships and jobs. Fortunately, my hometown and my family still keep me grounded because I never left, but it’s also those people who found it in their hearts to help me, teach me and guide me whose voices I still hear guiding me today. From my professors (Sloan, Bugeja, Izard, and the late, great James Frank Henderson, among others) and my first mentor and boss when I was an intern at Bob Evans Farms, to my AMAZING podmates, coworkers and bosses at Cochran Group (you guys all know who you are), there is a list of people who absolutely helped me “grow up” to become a professional, but more importantly helped shape me as a person. As far as wings go – that’s about never settling and always striving to be better at what you do. Help more people, build more community. Both matter – and you need both to successfully run a business.
4. Attention is the currency of leadership. I didn’t coin this phrase. It’s often quoted by a client I have worked with for more than 20 years now. But I didn’t fully realize what this truly meant until I had employees of my own. Where you spend your energy and your time sends a strong signal to your team. Make sure it’s sending the RIGHT signal.
3. Joy and hope are choices. Some days it is hard – or darn near impossible – to choose them, but there is always a choice in how we react, how we perceive, how we accept situations. When you choose joy and hope, others around you do as well, which is all the more important when your name is on the door.
2. Gratitude. For everything. For the client you did get, for the client you didn’t get. For the employees you have now, for former employees. For the ability to keep paying the bills during a pandemic. For the spouse and parents and family and friends who are there to lift you up when everything seems down. Gratitude is always the right answer. Always.
1. God has the plan. You just need to follow it. I’ve never really had a business plan. We set goals, sure, and we make decisions based on that new budget thing that has come in pretty handy lately. But our real “business model” is to try to do the best work for the best clients with the best team and a whole lot of gratitude. So far, it’s worked out okay.
I looked back at the blog post I wrote on our fifth anniversary, and I’m going to borrow a line from that: I don’t know where we’ll be in another five years – that’s up to God, our clients and our team.
However, I do know that I am grateful for the past 10 years – and it is WITH GRATITUDE, JOY AND HOPE that I look forward to the next decade and whatever it brings our way.