As someone who is interested in side businesses, I have a pet peeve in the form of certain businesspeople wannabes.
There is a guy, whom we’ll call N. We have been in contact for few months. N wants to develop a line of specialty products (exact details are confidential information). He asked for my help with some things, such as looking for people to work with him.
I know someone, who manufactures special soaps, and who could help N. I told N to contact the specialty soap manufacturer.
Yesterday evening I met N and we reviewed progress since our last meeting. I told him that I talked with two people who need extra income. However they are not salespeople types, so they prefer not to work with him. I asked him if he contacted the special soap manufacturer.
A mistake.
N told me that he did not progress because of the holidays. After the holidays ended, he needed a week to recover from the pressures of the holidays. Besides, his computer is now out of order (as typical of MS-Windows XP driven computers nowadays). All kinds of excuses.
Then he asked, nagged and begged me to recall if I know other people who could work with him.
I saw that he is the type who is very fast and efficient when the ball is entrusted upon someone else. But once he has the ball and depends upon no one else to make a progress in realizing his plans, he does not run with the ball. On the other hand, he has all kinds of excuses to stall and wait and waste time – INSTEAD OF RUNNING LIKE HELL WITH THE BALL!
I know more people like N. They run circles around other people when not burdened with the ball. But once you do your part and pass the ball to them to continue to work on your joint business idea, they stall and delay and procrastinate.
Now, I have to write off, as irrecoverable loss, the time spent discussing ideas and operations with him.
