![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/failure-teacher.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This is a quick trip down memory lane, but eventually it will morph into a blog post about business.<\/p>\n
When I was a sophomore baseball player, I was battling a friend for a starting position at shortstop. The coach kept bouncing back and forth between us. Finally, one day I made a snarky comment in front of the team about who should be starting. The coach had had enough. He flung the bag of bats he was carrying and loudly gave me an attitude adjustment.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, I didn’t play again that year. I also knew I’d gone too far and didn’t quit. I accepted my fate and came to every practice and game.<\/p>\n
A few years later, I needed to raise some money for college expenses, and I remembered that old coach\u00a0was an avid baseball card collector. I had a bunch of really good ones from the 1960s – back before the baseball card market collapsed. I gave him a call. He came over, we caught up and worked a fair deal. I now see him several times a year at sporting events and we’re good friends.<\/p>\n
What does this have to do with business? Business relationships are similar to personal relationships.<\/p>\n
Recently, Thinker was asked to build a new website for a company. When we launched, we notified the old vendor of the switch. Typically, when website vendors change, it is a courtesy to allow the new vendor access to the website analytics to see if the changes you made are actually working. In this case, instead of just transferring access to the data, the old vendor went through the time-consuming process of deleting the analytics. Despite previous requests to gain access from both us and our client, those numbers were gone. When the previous vendor shot back with a snarky remark about not having to give it over if the client wasn’t working with them anymore the whole discussion turned into legal threats.<\/p>\n
Business is more competitive than a personal life. When you gain a client, it many cases it’s because they are dissatisfied with the work of another company. If you stay in business long enough, you are going to lose clients or customers as well. It may seem strange to say, but how you handle that situation can help you grow your business.<\/p>\n