Our garden looks like the Amazon rainforest at the moment.
You can barely walk down the steps from the garage due to a rapidly flowering bush.
You need a machete to get down the path and the route to my office involves walking through the odd brand new spider web.
Last night Gonzalo came around to hack and slash it back into submission.
Waiheke has a rotating cast of young South Americans who arrive every summer. Every single one I’ve met is hard working and honest.
(yet they regularly get screwed over by locals who don’t pay them or rip them off. Another story for another day)
Gonzalo the Argentine came highly recommended from a friend.
He rocked up at 5.30. After working a full day on a building site he was ready to work.
I showed him the embarrassing situation we call a garden; what needed doing and then went to hand him the money.
He didn’t want to take it.
‘After ok’
No, I said.
I trust you to get the job done.
I didn’t care if Gonzalo got it done quickly and earned a ‘free’ hour.
I’m paying to get the job done, not the time he spent on it.
There’s a less obvious reason I pay most people upfront.
I ask my clients to do the same.
It’s the mirror.
The way we buy is the way people buy off us.
Unless our behaviour is consistent and congruent things get out of sync.
Every time I see someone frustrated with slow paying clients they are a slow payer themselves.
Every time I see someone who attracts ‘cheap’ clients they are cheap themselves.
You attract what you project.
Project trust, attract trust.
Project speed, attract speed.
Project quality, attract quality.
You are in control of what you project.
You are in control of what you attract.
