I am not your buddy

Here is an email update I just sent to my brother-in-law.


Some context:


In October, I  received a very positive and eager phone call from my brother in law, who has a ton of successful experience in business and marketing. He said my agency has a ton of potential and I should seek investment. With his guidance, I did. But then, this happened....

Hi there

I wanted to keep you in the loop. It's been a very interesting few weeks. 

Essentially, as I mentioned to you when we were last together, our sales cycles have been dragging out and the same with collections. So, it's probably no surprise that I've been spending more and more time focusing on sales to pump our revenue back up. 

As a result I'm putting recruiting investors on the back burner. Honestly, I dont know if I'm going to have a business next year. Things are so up in the air right now. My pipeline is stronger than ever, but I learned that my new biz guy had basically been misleading me in his reports and updates. The problem wasn't that prospects were pushing back too hard, he just wasn't driving the process the way he said he was. 

My big lesson is that I realize that my leadership is too soft. I'm too... nice. In looking into why/how we got here, I can see that people basically took advantage of me, because I come across as their buddy and not their boss. I can see that in other areas of my life and in past work experiences, too. Coming across strong but then not backing it up in any meaningful way, or just being kind of collegial and not holding people (or myself) to important agreements. It surprises me how this has been a blind spot for me for so long, since I've allowed it to become so pervasive.

Like I said, this is a lesson and I am acting on it, but instead of capitalizing on the business opportunity. I have to strengthen the foundations of my leadership and a new team, if we are going to survive and thrive in the ways I've planned. 

Anyway, thanks again for all your input and guidance, always much appreciated!

Eric

Hopefully, I can develop more of a relationship with him as this note implies and hopefully I can embrace better leadership qualities. More on that later ....