Truths My Father Told Me
If not, customers will tell their friends you aren’t to be trusted. Suppliers will cut off your credit if they think you’re lying. Family won’t trust you. (At least my father told me because he cared about me.)
Don’t think everyone cares for you as a father does. People in general avoid confrontation, and it’s far easier for them to just do business with someone else then to confront a liar and end being lied to again and again.
I have a poor memory at best (which why I wrote all of this down, so I won’t forget). I can’t afford to lie because I have trouble remembering the details of last week, let alone a year ago. Unless you have a photographic memory, don’t lie.
And even if you did have a memory like a steel trap – why would you want to lie? It hurts yourself and others in the long run.
So until next time, I hope my father’s words ring true and help you along with the famous words of my hockey coach so many years ago – “Keep your stick on the ice!”
Tom McNall is founder and owner of Great Northern Stone Care, a Huron Park, Ontario-based stone-cleaning and -restoration company servicing all of southern Ontario. Tom also offers corporate and private consultations, and will present “Walking the Fine Line Between Maintenance and Restoration” with David Bonasera on Jan. 26 at StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas. McNall can be reached at stone_rx@earthlink.net.
You can find From Mops to Tops and other books by Tom McNall here.
This article appeared in the December 2010 print edition of Stone Business Magazine. ©2010 Western Business Media Inc.
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