Seven Lessons for Building a Resilient Business

Some business lessons have no expiration date. Markets change, technology changes, and industries evolve, but the fundamentals remain consistent. I’ve learned the following seven important lessons through more than 20 years of business ownership. They may seem like common sense. The challenge is that common sense is often much easier to recognize in hindsight. 

1. Get comfortable with public speaking 

I must confess that I was a terrible public speaker early in my career. This common problem is one that everyone should fix. Good executives, especially those who get promoted into leadership roles, are good communicators. 

Public speaking is a trainable skill like any other. Start by enrolling in your local Toastmasters chapter. Toastmasters is a wonderful organization with a time-tested process to help anyone become a more confident public speaker. It is affordable and has chapters all over the country. Going beyond Toastmasters requires an investment, since the most useful courses can be expensive. These courses provide personalized coaching and record your presentations, enabling you to fine-tune your public speaking skills.  

2. Handle toxic “high performers” early 

Having a high-performing but toxic employee is a tough challenge, especially if they are in a revenue-generating role. The employee is valuable to your bottom line but also sows discontent among the team. Over time, their behavior can outweigh their contributions, and the employee becomes a net loss for the company. 

Experience has taught me to address this issue early, before it becomes a serious problem. Speak to the employee and give them the opportunity to improve. Document everything, just in case the situation does not improve. If there is no improvement, work with human resources to transition the employee out of the company.  

3. Know when to part ways with difficult clients 

We’ve all had clients who are “difficult” to deal with. It’s a fact of business life. However, some clients go far beyond normal business friction. They have incessant demands, complain all the time, and are never satisfied. Usually, your company is better off serving clients who are a better fit.  

Parting with clients, even when they are “difficult,” is challenging. The immediate revenue loss can be painful and difficult to justify to upper management. However, the long-term benefits often outweigh the short-term pain. Remember to check your contract termination provisions and handle the issue gently and professionally.  

We had to take on some difficult clients when I started my company 23 years ago. These were the clients that no competitor would take. We knew they were hard to manage, but I wanted to grow the business.  

This approach became a costly mistake. I learned a valuable lesson: some clients are not worth it. Spend your resources looking for good clients. 

4. Always keep a generous cash reserve 

As a general rule, advisors recommend that companies should keep at least three to six months’ worth of anticipated expenses as a cash reserve. That rule may be a useful baseline. However, experience has made me more conservative. 

The last two major financial downturns were the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic. These two events share a few things in common. They were unexpected, lasted more than six months, and rippled through the economy quickly.  

Both downturns severely impacted the construction industry. I saw dozens of companies go out of business. 

I’ve taken an important lesson from these events. Always have a large and comfortable safety net. Consider optimizing your company for long-term resilience, rather than fast growth.  

5. Cultivate a good reputation 

Professional relationships rarely end when the job does. Former colleagues can become future clients, bosses, or employees as they move through different roles and companies. 

Few career mistakes can be more costly than having a bad reputation. People may forget individual projects, but they rarely forget whether you were reliable and professional. A bad reputation follows you as you change jobs and can affect your career in ways that aren’t obvious. 

The best approach is to cultivate a reputation for professional behavior and reliability. These are the two cornerstones of a good reputation that can support a leadership career. Lastly, remember the adage: it takes a lifetime to build a good reputation but a minute to destroy it.  

6. Evaluate decisions, not outcomes 

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as an executive is to evaluate decisions purely by their outcomes. Unfortunately, many executives do just that by focusing primarily on results. This behavior has unintended consequences. Bad decisions that succeed by luck are rewarded, while sound decisions that fail due to external factors are treated as mistakes. 

The right approach is to evaluate the decision process, the execution, and the results separately. This perspective helps you determine whether the results came from judgment, execution, timing, or just luck. 

7. Beware of the sunk cost fallacy 

Have you ever stayed with a failing project because walking away felt like wasting prior effort? This tendency, called the “sunk cost fallacy,” is a common cognitive bias that affects people and organizations. It is insidious because it disguises bad decisions as perseverance. 

The resources you have invested in a project are a sunk cost. They are in the past and cannot be recovered. The best way to evaluate a project is to determine whether investing additional resources is worth it, regardless of prior investments. If it’s not, terminate the project and invest resources elsewhere.  

Thank you and goodbye! 

This is my final article. My schedule has become tighter in recent years, and it is increasingly difficult to find the time needed to write regularly. 

I would like to thank the readers and the NGA for giving me the wonderful opportunity to write for them over the years. During my 11 years writing for the NGA, I have had the pleasure of working with Jenni Chase, Katy Devlin, and Tara Lukasik. They are great editors and valuable resources for the glass industry.