Network Marketing Journey

Quit bad situations.

Knowing when to throw in the towel and move on is just as important as identifying opportunities for success.

In the late 90’s I worked for a start up Macintosh consulting/website design group. I say group because they were a start up out of Oakland, California.

We had a deal. I would work for them, helping them design websites and eventually I would have a much larger role as things grew. So, I took a risk. Yes, a gigantic risk … I had no guarantee things would work out.

Looking back at that time I see many red flags in the first few months but I wanted things to work so badly I ignored them. Big mistake.

Several months passed and it was painfully clear they weren’t equipped to teach nor did they intend to deliver on their promises. I invested every penny I could into books that would teach me the things I needed, I went for long walks to get away from the stress but none of it mattered. The damage was done.

Then the proverbial substance hit the fan.

One of their biggest clients was increasingly becoming more and more agitated.

They didn’t get along because she was very demanding (Then again, if you paid $5000 for a website that was months past being due, you probably would be a little irate too). We were having trouble with the javascript, they didn’t work on resolving things and quickly they began to sidestep the customer… and assign blame to me. Every excuse in the book was used.

The client was furious and was determined to sue them. She called the office and and declared she would be arriving tomorrow to claim the completed work.

As expected, they ran off to ‘work on other things’ when they found out an irate customer would be arriving to confront them. They told me I was to refuse her demands and not give her the items she wanted.

As a result, I did the only thing which made sense to me. I handled it.

When she arrived I told her that I was only an employee and refused to get involved in the matter. I told her she would have to deal with them and trying to intimidate me wouldn’t do her any good.

Right there, in that moment as I spoke those words I realized something. I didn’t have an exit plan. Everything was going horribly wrong and I didn’t have a way out. My money was spent for trying to stay in an ever decaying situation and my emotional state was deteriorating as well.

In order to go places and succeed its often said you need to take risks but they forget to mention an equally important part of that equation. An exit strategy. What if things go bad? What if you fail? One the other side of the spectrum… what if I’m wildly successful? What are my goals for this buisness? When is it time for me to begin again?

Always know your options inside and out before you jump in head first. This will allow you to prepare for these possibilities and begin damage control.

There is nothing wrong with failing or making mistakes but for goodness sake, drop the ego and fail FAST, learn and move on. Failing is good but don’t endanger who you are personally or financially for lack of planning.

In the end I lost a dear friend, a lot of money and a sense of self. A pretty high cost for not acknowledging it was time to try something different, don’t you think?

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