You’re in the People Business and better serve accordingly.
“If you sell a product or service to consumers, you’re not in the product or service industry.
You’re in the people business.
And to succeed in the people business, for every hour you allocate to your product or service, 2 hours need to be spent better understanding people.”
-Ray Zingler on X
My father is a former college football coach.
When I was 4 and my sister was 2, he got out of the coaching profession, which was was his passion.
He hung up the (collegiate) coaching headset in Spartanburg, South Carolina and moved our family to metro Atlanta, to get into the, get ready for it..
Floor mat business.
A business he’d never been in, selling a product he didn’t know, in a town with no family connections.
He went from coordinating 3rd down stops to learning, selling, and installing logo mats.
For the longest time, I thought, “how and the hell can a guy with such gifts of coaching, teaching, and leading others go from making a huge impact coaching, to selling mats?”
Come to find out, the reason he got out of the coaching profession was for as selfless of a reason as I’ve ever heard.
Dad was coaching other people’s kids more than he was raising his own.
He would leave the house before Hannah and I would wake up, and get he’d get home after we’d already gone to sleep.
And dad wasn’t going to be an absent father.
So, he took a leap of faith and coordinated with a friend from years past and got into the mat business.
Still to this day, I’m not sure dad has much passion for floor mats, despite being the most successful logo matting small business outfit in Metro Atlanta, a business that he learned, soup to nuts and then eventually bought from his “partner”..
But I’ll tell you what dad is passionate about:
Service.
I believe dad’s success would be the same in the roofing, septic system, or fine dining business, just the same.
It’s because while he “knows the business”, (you can learn any business) where he’s dynamic and a true Pro is in the people department.
He has the ability to establish and solve problems, but more importantly make you feel like a million fuckin’ bucks in the process.
And that’s why he’s successful.
The idea isn’t to “not to focus” on what you do..
The message is to learn and understand the importance of relating to and inspiring the people who buy whatever product or service you provide.
