Promise Street

If you've been following this blog, I'm sure you're aware of my efforts over the last two years to go from a nice desk job making a comfortable little salary to not really knowing from where the money is coming.
We've tried pitching venture capitalists, we've gone to the banks, we've tried self-financing and we've hit some pretty rough patches there wondering how we were going to make it.
In addition to the fact that we're in a tough place with the economy- and this has a real impact on how much money commercial property owners and managers can spend on the type of products we're trying to bring to market. I just found out yesterday that some of the biggest contractors in our area have gone from 30-40 service trucks down to less than half their size. We're not just talking about small mom-and-pop operations either.
We've also had some hiccups with broken promises and hand-shake alliances with people who promised to either hire us on, send work our way, or help finance our projects. I've been in more merger/acquisition/planning/sales meetings than I care to mention. It's not that I haven't been trying.
I have been "hired" by three different companies in the last two years that never materialized. I've had people stand in front of me and tell me that they were going to give me more work than I can handle. I've had more requests for proposals than you would imagine. I've done more free consulting than you'd imagine. Someone's going to buy a building and they want me to make it "green." Someone else bought a heating and air conditioning company and they want me to run it. Someone else has a pile of shopping centers and they want me to start doing "all of the maintenance." Just this one last piece, just this one last task, just one more free service- and I was going to hit the big time. The jackpot. The Big Enchilada.
Years ago, a very good friend of mine told me about a concept he called "Promise Street." Promise Street is an imaginary place where someone takes you when they are trying to lead you in a financial arrangement where if you help them out now (give them price breaks, provide a short-term loan, help them out financially) they will in turn reciprocate at some point in the future and return the favor.
It happens to contractors all the time. A General Contractor will ask a subcontractor for a special price on a job "just on this one" and says they will pay full price "on the next one." Or Harry Homeowner will tell you that they'll sign the service contract next time if you'll just stop the leak right now. A banker will tell you to use their credit card with the promise of letting you take out a line of credit later...
Promise Street. It is an imaginary location where you will finally get to the Tuesday when J. Wellington Wimpy will pay you for all those hamburgers. It's "the next job" where your customer will gladly pay full price. It's that promotion you get after helping the boss with "just one more project deadline." It's that vacation you're going to get "right after we finish this one last product pitch." Promise Street is the magical place where you get that loan you've been promised, or that final payment for the work you did as a consultant. That place where the GSA administrator isn't asking you to cut your rate just this one last time (yes, contrary to popular opinion government purchasing agents do haggle.)
Years ago, I did some contracting work for a small property management company in Northern Virginia. I had a partner named Gary who would always point out when we were being led down promise street by a vendor, customer, or financial institution. Years later, my buddy Richard would help me add a bank "They don't cash checks on promise street" our next job "it must be down there on promise street" and a storage place "they must have left it down there on promise street."
So, the next time you have someone promising to "hook you up" after you do just one little thing- remember that the check is in the mail, the loan is in processing, and that dream house you always wanted is right around the corner, just over the next hill, around the bend- right there on Promise Street.