Business 101: Amateur vs. Professional vs. Traitor

When it comes to the different types of intersections you will have In business, there are 3 types of people and companies that you will deal with. Some of the best types of people and businesses you will encounter and work with will be professionals, who take pride in their work. There will be some who play like they are professionals, but really they are not experienced, driven or skilled enough to compete with the real professionals. Finally, there are those who are not looking to support or build your brand at all, they just want to scam you of time and money. Read more below to learn about these different types of people and businesses, as well as how to sniff them out. 

Professionals 

Professionals are the people who are experts at what they do and can fix your problem without hassle. They work efficiently, and productively to resolve your problem, and generate solutions. Their work is done on time and on budget, meeting or exceeding expectations. These are the people you will want to keep using for future work because they're reliable and deliver what they say they will or better. These types of professionals are worth their price because the work they do is of high quality. These people need to be cherished because they're hard to come by, and if you do come across them, they usually have a waiting list or higher price of entry to work with them. Retaining talent is always the best option when that talent is highly skilled, as such you will want to hold on to your relationships with these types of people and nurture them. 

Amateurs 

Amateurs of the types of people you hire create more problems for you and your business in the end. In their endeavours to fix a problem, they often fix it incorrectly and they cause other issues in the process. They usually do not practice the basics first or have the discipline and ethics to do the job properly, on time and on budget as indicated. They charge professional rates,  whilst thinking they are at a  professional level, but provide only mediocre results. They have the mentality of "doing just enough" but they do not have the drive to be the best in their field. They are fine operating at a mediocre level, but posing as professionals and charging people even if they don't get the expected results. 

Traitors 

Finally, there are those who are out there to steal your time, and money and take advantage of you. They disguise themselves as professionals as many are not even aware of how they come across and tend to think that they are professionals. However, often when things start to fall apart, these types of people do not take responsibility or learn from their mistakes. Instead, they will move on to the next client causing the same problems and wasting businesses’ time and money in their path. These people are often led by greed and the only way for them to get something is by stealing from others. A real-life example of some traitors we were faced with while trying to build our business was when we hired a company to do our marketing for us, but over time nothing changed as it should have. We asked the company why things were not improving or had even declined in quality to which they responded with the suggestion to pay more money. We did, and again not much difference was made to the marketing material, except a continued decrease. We asked again, what was going on,  and they said to pay more money for more services. We did it again until eventually the marketing was so off-brand and terrible we fired the marketing firm. 

Dealing with these types of companies is never pleasant, and there are some quick questions you can ask to find out what a person's real intentions are. Look below to see some questions to ask to find out if someone is an amateur, professional or traitor. 

1. "What is your goal in working with me?" 

2. What set you willing to do to achieve this goal? 

Well, these questions cannot conclusively provide an answer to whether someone is a scammer or not, you can use these to help build your opinion based on other interactions you have had with them. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes and learning from them, but no one wants to make an expensive mistake if they do not have to. 

Follow Build and Grow Business for more helpful business tips and tricks to keep you on your toes. 

Credit to Money, People, Deal by Stefan Aarnio for source information.