Patrick Galvin - The Connector’s Way: A Story About Building Business One Relationship at a Time

I m very sorry, sir, but your charge was declined, said the perky young woman working at the back of the crowded auditorium.

Robert Hanson felt his face flush and sweat trickle down his forehead as dozens of people anxiously jostled behind him.

He took back his business credit card and handed her his personal card. Try this one.

She swiped it through the handheld readerand smiled. Perfect! It went through without a hitch. Enjoy your purchase and the rest of the event.

Later, as Robert walked the mile from the auditorium to his motel through cold driving rain, he wondered whether it had been a wise decision to spend $1,495 for three workbooks and a USB flash drive with training videos.

He had chosen to stay in a budget motel in a rundown part of town, since it offered much cheaper lodging than the four-star conference hotel where the Mega Business Builder Retreat was being held. Even minding his budget carefully, he had maxed out his business credit card on expenses for the two-day event: registration fee, round-trip airfare halfway across the country, lodging, ground transportation, and meals.

While famous speakers had energized him during the conference for business owners seeking mega growth, he still had no concrete plan for getting Hanson Insurance Agency, the ninety-three-year-old company that his great-grandfather had started, into the black. He desperately hoped that the kit he had just purchased would provide him with practical tactics that went beyond the inspirational you-can-achieve-it-if-you-can-dream-it messages that he had heard throughout the event.

As he sidestepped puddles, Robert felt sorry for himself. He was fifty years old, and he felt like his chance to succeed in life was slipping away. He remembered how optimistic he had been ten years ago, when he took over the family business after his fathers death. At the time, the agency had a dozen loyal employees, with longtime clients fueling growth through their referrals to friends, relatives, and professional colleagues.

But over the past decade, competition had proved to be far more intense than Robert had anticipated. Large insurance carriers were spending billions of dollars on advertising campaigns to convince people to buy insurance directly from them rather than through small independent insurance agencies like his. Robert felt helpless as he watched policy renewals and referrals dry up.

Sitting in a rickety dining chair at a small desk, in a room that reeked of mold and cigarette smoke, Robert looked through his briefcase for a stack of bills so he could see why his business credit card had been declined. He found the credit card bill and gulped at the balance: more than $50,000. It included a large cash advance that he had recently taken out to cover payroll expenses. He had no idea how he was going to pay that balance off. It had been more than six months since he had written a check for more than the minimum payment on any of his credit cards. If the agencys revenue didnt experience a dramatic turnaround, he might need to lay off employees or confront the stark reality of having to go out of business.

Robert had another reason for that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach: his adjustable rate home mortgage loan payment had just jumped upward. The decision to buy a dream home ten years ago now seemed like a colossal mistake. He dreaded having to tell his wife, Marion, that they might need to sell the home that they both loved and move into a small apartment to keep the agency going.

Robert removed the USB flash drive from the Mega Business Builder Kit he had purchased and plugged it into his laptop computer. He launched the first video in a twenty-part series for business owners looking to achieve mega growth. But after watching just five minutes, he slammed his laptop shut in disgust. Rather than specific recommendations, the video offered inspirational platitudes similar to those he had heard throughout the conference. The only specific ideas were pitches for website redesign, search engine optimization, and other expensive marketing services that he could ill afford.

Feeling the shooting pains of a stress-induced migraine headache, Robert lay down on the lumpy mattress, its coils digging into his spine. He closed his eyes, trying to come up with something positive to say to his wife and daughter when they asked him what he learned at the conference. But his concentration only increased the intensity of his headache.